In This Article Hardin Argues That the Affluent Should Not

question 87

True/False

In this article Hardin argues that the affluent should not aid the poor and starving people of the world because doing so will lead only to disaster for everyone, rich and poor. Helping desperately needy, overpopulated countries is morally wrong. He makes his case using several metaphors, the "lifeboat" being the most memorable.
Imagine, he says, that the affluent nations are lifeboats carrying rich people in a sea dotted with the desperately poor, many of them trying to clamber aboard or seize some of the passengers' supplies. Each lifeboat has a limited carrying capacity, just as each rich nation does. For safety's sake, a lifeboat should carry fewer passengers than it can actually accommodate, just as a country should have a population small enough to guarantee excess carrying capacity to offset emergencies such as droughts or crop failures. No lifeboat can take on more passengers or give handouts without risking disaster for everyone. If all those trying to climb aboard are taken into a boat, it will capsize and everyone will drown. If only some of the poor people are let on board-enough to fill the craft to maximum capacity-the safety factor is eliminated, and the boat will sink sooner or later. The third option, unthinkable to some, is to turn away all the poor. Many will perish, but the lucky few already on board will survive. Given these cruel realities, the morally right course for affluent nations is clear: Do not aid the people of desperately poor, overpopulated countries.
Hardin bolsters his argument with another metaphor, "the tragedy of the commons." The commons is any land or resource that is open to all to exploit. In any arrangement based on a commons system-such as public field where all shepherds can freely graze their sheep or a social system in which all goods are shared alike-it is in each member's self-interest to use the system's resources to the maximum. It is in each shepherd's interest, for example, to graze as many sheep as possible to support his family. There is no incentive for him to think about the common good, to act responsibly so the field is not overgrazed and ruined for everyone. The result is disaster; the field is destroyed. This is the tragedy of the commons: "mutual ruin" from a well-meaning system of sharing.
Hardin claims that in a world where all resources are shared and reproduction in the impoverished countries is uncontrolled, the tragedy of the commons is inevitable. The catastrophe will come when rich countries let the poor inundate their lifeboats or when a world food bank becomes an international commons that shares the Earth's food reserves.
-Hardin asserts that there is no prosperous population in the world today that has a growth rate of zero.

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