Garrett Hardin's Lifeboat Ethics: The Case Against Helping The Poor?

One of the most pressing matters the world is facing today is the problem of poverty. There are many things that should be done about poverty, yet much of the world is split, on one side people wanting to help and on the other side people not knowing how to go about it. In Garrett Hardin’s “Lifeboat Ethics: The Case Against Helping the Poor,” Hardin present this case to us using the lifeboat as an analogy for nations on earth. Hardin asserts that all nations on earth are viewed as a series of lifeboats adrift at sea. Each lifeboat has a Foreign limited carrying capacity and limited resources. The richer lifeboats have more capacity, more resources, are better managed, and are self-sufficient. Whereas the poorer lifeboats are overcrowded, and their resources are overburdened, so much so that passengers are abandoning poor lifeboats in hopes of being rescued by the richer lifeboats or at least to be aided threw handouts. With limited resources, and very little capacity, what are the passengers on the rich lifeboats to do? Morally, the just thing to do would come to the aid of the passengers in the water and allow them to board the

Thus, Hardin successfully uses the lifeboat metaphor to illustrate the problem of aiding the poor. In doing so Hardin asserts that helping the poor and the underdeveloped countries would put immense pressure on our natural resources and weaken the security of wealthy nations. Although harsh, I agree with Hardin that aiding the poor and underdeveloped countries is bad policy that will inevitably lead to further despair, overpopulation, environmental degradation, and mass immigration. In fact I believe we should stop all aid and close our borders lest we be overburdened and our “lifeboat”