Revision Of The Critique Of Hardin’S “Lifeboat Ethics”

Revision of the Critique of Hardin’s â€Å"Lifeboat Ethics†: The Case against Helping the Poor Garrett Hardin was a controversial ecologist who believed that overpopulation was going to bring a downfall to a world of limited resources. Each nation was compared to a lifeboat with the rich being inside the boat and the poor in the water, drowning (Hardin, 561). He wrote the â€Å"Lifeboat Ethics† in 1974 when Ethiopia was having a starvation problem. Hardin’s opinion about the situation was that sending aid to Ethiopia was only making the problem worse and by feeding the people would aid overpopulation; the root to the problem. Hardin’s thesis developed from the notion that the rich should do nothing to help the poor. He believed that one†¦show more content†¦He believed this led to ratchet system. In other words, the food aid sent to poor countries would prevent the famine from decreasing the numbers in the population and preventing the famine from making the population more manageable. In nature, over-population is self-correcting through famine and disease; therefore a lot of suffering in the process. Our efforts to stop the suffering is what breaks the natural cycle (Hardin). This was the most controversial point made by Hardin. Hardin’s third point was clearly made, â€Å"shutting the door† on allowing immigrants to come to other nations is another way to solve overpopulation. He believed the resources in a nation belonged to the natives of the nation and therefore should not go to those that immigrate into the nation. Hardin’s thoughts on this point was that allowing immigrants to come into America would cause America to go deeper into poverty. Finally, Hardin’s last point was to draw the line that would prevent other immigrants from coming into our nation at this point. Hardin’s thought is that we can’t remove the immigrants that are already here, but an imag inary line can be drawn to prevent more immigrants from coming into the nation and this will continue to create more overpopulating. With considering all the points made by Hardin, it is clear that his purpose for writing â€Å"Lifeboat of Ethics† was to inform and educate society on the detrimental effects