Garrett Hardin's The Cause Against Helping The Poor

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In The Cause Against Helping the Poor, Garrett Hardin argues that each nation must protect their own resources and leave others to fend for themselves. Perhaps the strongest argument that Hardin gives for this claim relies on the belief that helping the poor will only ruin our environment and hurt the future generation. Furthermore, we are justified in protecting ourselves, which makes no moral difference in protecting those who are closer to us. In this paper, I will argue that we have a general obligation to help those in need, but the obligation is stronger for those closest to us. I will begin by stating that we have a stronger moral obligation to aid those who we share allegiance with such as fellow citizens, residents of our city, neighbors, …show more content…

For example generosity, loyalty, and kindness and other virtues that involve obligations and duties to people nearest to us. Since we have practiced and developed these virtues as a community then he or she is committed in doing the right thing and act according to values and principles, which attacks Garrett Hardin argument based on the tragedy of the commons. Hardin states “if people don’t take responsibility for shared resources then environment will result in pollution and decay (Hardin, pg. 15).” However, by having developed these virtuous in our community it allows us to recognize our potential, and live a more purposeful, better life; by taking responsibility of our shared resources. In contrast, people who live in an underdeveloped countries lack resources and the absence of economic justice might make it hard for them to practice their virtues, because they are constantly competing against resources. Not only should we practice such virtues and have a permissible obligations of aiding those nearest to us, but in doing so being virtuous will make a person happy. In fact aiding those who are close to us may require some inconvenience or sacrifice but we ought to do the right thing no matter what the personal cost is. On the other hand ignoring what’s happening in front of us and having no virtue to aid our …show more content…

There is no moral reason to prefer people who are closer to us. Singer’s argument says, “if it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance then we ought, morally to do it (Singer, pg. 231). Singer then presents a case in where a child is drowning in a pod and we should sacrifice a small portion of our luxury life. However, I disagree with Singer’s argument, because there is a moral obligation as to why we should prefer people who are closer to us. For example, there are thousands of children near us dying of starvation and there can be thousands more starving in another country. However, the children who are nearest to us have priority due to being a fellow citizen or a member of the community in where one can aid much faster. There should be no guilt in accepting the fact that it is of more urgent importance to help those in close proximity than those whom we may never be aware of. Secondly, in helping the children who are nearer to us we may be assured that out efforts will be efficiently used, rather than the children who are far away in which we might not be sure that we are aiding correctly or that our efforts will pay off. Our way of helping, whether it is financially or ideologically, may not be enough to help, and this may actually harm, the situation. For this reason our moral obligation to the children

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