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Garret Hardin uses a “lifeboat” metaphor that argues against helping other countries. Garret not only discourages providing food and relief to other countries, he even says that it is erroneous to do so. Hardin said all wealthy nations and their people are in a lifeboat; these lifeboats can only carry and provide for a limited number of people. All the other people of the world, immigrants, the starving, they are all in the water trying not to drown. If we let too many of these people into our lifeboat, the boat will sink and we will all drown.
Hardin suggests is that we provide aid to a few people, and simply ignore the rest. Just forgetting an important fact that there are thousands of people starving to death each day. According to Hinman,
In this paper I will examine both Peter Singer’s and Onora O 'Neill 's positions on famine relief. I will argue that O’Neill’s position is more suitable than Singer’s extreme standpoint. First I will, present O’Neill’s argument. I will then present a possible counter-argument to one of my premises. Finally I will show how this counter-argument is fallacious and how O’Neill’s argument in fact goes through.
Later in the essay, Hardin writes about the differences in the population growth between rich and poor nations. Poor nations multiply much more quickly than richer nations. The essay then goes on to explain what the consequences would be of setting of a national food bank. It explains that only the rich nations would be able to contribute to the food bank and the poor nations would only draw. This would only add to the problem of the poor nations as they would have no desire to save of food for themselves since they know they will be taken care of anyways. Giving poor nations food would be bad a...
The only thing I had left was my laptop; it was to too old to be sold. I started looking for jobs in newspapers and magazines. As I was looking throught the magazine I passed by an article titled "Lifeboat Ethics: The Case against Helping the Poor" by Garret Hardin, the title really grabbed me. In his article "Lifeboat Ethics: The Case Against Helping the Poor" Hardin describes the difference between the spaceship ethic, which is sharing resources because all needs and shares are equivalent, and the lifeboat ethic, where should not share our resources and applying this ethic we should not help the poor. Hardin argues that because of limited resources, we should guide our actions by the belief of the lifeboat. In the beginning I thought it was a joke but as I read deeply I recorded that article was full of reasons on why we shouldn't help the poor. As an induvial who passed through both phases; being rich and poor I wanted to clarify and correct some of the points that I found illogical this essay explores the network between poverty and population growth,in contrast to the background of Garret Hardin’s Lifeboat Ethics. It intents to disclose the inherited flaws of his argument against helping the
"The measure of a country's greatness is its ability to retain compassion in times of crisis."
The Australian philosopher Peter Singer, believes that when we refuse to help end world hunger, we become murders. He believes that it is are moral obligation as Americans who live comfortable lives, to help “the worlds poor” (Singer 1). It is wrong to continue to live a luxuries life, when we know that others are fighting for the mere chance to survive. In Peter Singer’s “The Singer Solution to World Poverty,” he compares us Americans to two fictitious characters Dora and Bob, due to the fact that we as Dora and Bob chose luxuries over the chance to help people suffering from life-threatening poverty.
In my opinion, Hardin’s story intends to depict humans as creatures who prefer to acquire temporary rewards yet suffer in the long run than encounter a few nuisances and in the end gain more. Through Hardin’s work, people’s self-centeredness and their perspective of being the most supreme being in the universe or anthropocentrism were solidified and their role in destroying the planet was put into perspective. Based on the article, we can infer that humans have an innate behavior of acquiring more items than they need, simply put, individuals tend to be greedy. A person has a tendency to hoard supplies and goods without considering the possible consequences of her action. Moreover, the short narrative revealed that humans are more focused on obtaining their own desires than of considering the well-being and the needs of the society. In some individuals, their greediness influences the number of children they desire, thus they over breed to “secure its own aggrandizement.” As a result of this selfishness and greediness, there is now an imbalance in our resources, community, and
How much money is one morally obligated to give to relief overseas? Many In people would say that although it is a good thing to do, one is not obligated to give anything. Other people would say that if a person has more than he needs, then he should donate a portion of what he has. Peter Singer, however, proposes a radically different view. His essay, “Famine, Affluence, and Morality,” focuses on the Bengal crisis in 1971 and claims that one is morally obligated to give as much as possible. His thesis supports the idea that “We ought to give until we reach the level of marginal utility – that is, the level at which, by giving more, I would cause as much suffering to myself or my dependents as I would relieve by my gift” (399). He says that one's obligation to give to people in need half-way around the world is just as strong as the obligation to give to one's neighbor in need. Even more than that, he says that one should keep giving until, by giving more, you would be in a worse position than the people one means to help. Singer's claim is so different than people's typical idea of morality that is it is easy to quickly dismiss it as being absurd. Saying that one should provide monetary relief to the point that you are in as bad a position as those receiving your aid seems to go against common sense. However, when the evidence he presents is considered, it is impossible not to wonder if he might be right.
Before extending aid to other countries, we should focus on our more prevalent domestic problems. Patrick Buchanan said, "The idea that we should send endless streams of tax dollars all over the world, while our own country sinks slowly in an ocean of debt is, well, ludicrous. Almost every American knows it, feels it, believes it." The topic of United States foreign policy is greatly debated, and a decision on how to handle is very hard to come by. It seems as if we are finally leaning towards less aid to foreign countries, as we try to cut wasteful spending. The American government is finally opening its eyes to the realization that all of the aid we are giving out may not be worth it. Our priority should be to help our homeless, instead of other countries' poor.
Now this may not be true in all cases, but how would we ever know if we decided to not help them? The United States feels a sense of duty as a nation to help those in need, and although we cannot help everyone, we can make a difference in these people’s lives. Our effort to help the small one percent of people fleeing from war, mafias and hunger can strengthen our nation’s backbone and ideal of “life, liberty and pursuit of
In response to the recent failure of the international community to prevent the famine crisis in the Horn of Africa since July 2011, Suzanne Dvorak the chief executive of Save the Children wrote that, “We need to provide help now. But we cannot forget that these children are wasting away in a disaster that we could - and should - have prevented” she added, “The UN estimates that every $1 spent in prevention saves $7 in emergency spending.” (Dvorak, 2011).
Pogge, Thomas Winfried Menko, and Keith Horton. "Famine, Affluence and Poverty." In Global ethics: seminal essays. St. Paul, MN: Paragon House, 2008. 1-14.
Population control is a practice of altering the growth rate of a human population. In the excerpt, Hardin explains that only the rich have food reserved because they can afford it, and that the poor are the ones who eat it all. Because of the world food bank, where anyone can take from, the poor countries’ populations will continue to grow, going unchecked. This is harmful because there are overpopulated countries that cannot sustain themselves. Hardin says, “Without some system of worldwide food sharing, the proportion of people in the rich and poor nations might eventually stabilize. The overpopulated poor countries would decrease in numbers” (Hardin 588). The poor countries have no way of adding any food to the food bank and are just taking from it. This makes it hard for other countries to rationalize why they should support any poor country that is over populated and that is using up unnecessary resources because it does not benefit them in any economic or agricultural way.
For example, the United States gives less than one percent of its annual budget to other nations, leaving at least 99 percent of it for domestic concerns (Michel). Nonetheless, that one percent is a major contribution to countries drowning in poverty. Wealthier nations, such as the United States, provide for “wiggle room” in the lifeboat while also giving up a few extra seats. Hardin creates a metaphorical scenario in which 50 rich people are crowding a lifeboat with only 10 extra seats (290). A more realistic and rational scenario would suggest that there are 50 rich people in a lifeboat with 500 extra seats, plenty to spare. Although Hardin’s story seems reasonable, statistics show that his point is
No matter how you look at the nature of human beings, if you are in a lifeboat and there are other people in the water that could drown, you are going to try to save them. What if it was you in the water, gasping for air, swallowing water every few seconds, slowly sinking more and more into the dark blue cold water. Using a lifeboat as a metaphor for an example of trying to save poor people is a horrible way to describe it in my opinion. It's different from going to another country and seeing villages of poor people. Usually they can help themselves somewhat or they wouldn't be alive.
If these developed countries continue to prejudge underdeveloped countries by wealth or other conditions, when people are faced with serious problems in society, these problems become global. By helping each other, all countries offer hope and compassion, and share new knowledge with each other. Therefore, people all over the world suffer less, because they know they are not alone.