Lifeboat Ethics Deflated

Hardin argues that we are morally obligated to refrain from aiding the poor, and I believe his arguments to be unsuccessful. He states that the more idealistic view grants people inalienable rights, while failing to bring matching responsibilities into consideration. I do not believe that taking an approach more idealistic than his necessarily means that rights are to be given without responsibilities, and I do not see that he thoroughly develops this argument. It could be that all individuals are born with certain rights; however, when one’s basic needs, for instance, enough food to survive and function at a reasonable level, are not met, one’s primary responsibility is to satisfy that basic need and ensure survival. Only once one’s basic needs are met do other responsibilities emerge, and if these basic needs are met, those responsibilities may be fulfilled. Only once the poor receive proper aid will they be able to take on higher-order responsibilities. Hardin also asserts that in the lifeboat, those with consciences would give up their seats to others, and that kind of conscience would be eliminated from the lifeboat—it would purify itself, and the lifeboat ethic would live on. This logic is overly simplified; the human conscience is persistent, and there would always be someone, or a part of someone on the lifeboat in favor of aiding the others in some way. The lifeboat ethic could never survive the conscience of the average person, not to mention that Hardin’s ethic, to survive or to be effective, must also consider it a moral duty to throw anyone helping the others off of the lifeboat. Hardin believes that the poor reproduce too frequently for the lifeboat to support them; if however, they were to be properly helped, and given more than simply food, for example, better education and health care, then their social condition would improve and reproduction rates would become comparable to those of Americans. The better off people are, the lower their birth rates become. According to Hardin, each organization ought to be responsible only for itself; if one suffers, it is because it is poorly managed, and it ought to learn from experience how to manage itself. This callous opinion does not take into account that some people or nations are downtrodden because richer ones have made them that way. In addition, some circumstances are beyond a person’s control, and once met with an unfavorable conditions, a helping hand may be required if that person is to live at an adequate level, let alone conduct proper management. How could one possibly plan to provide for the future if supplies are so scarce that people cannot be provided for in the present? Countries, I believe, would not be satisfied to just take the charity given by the food bank whenever it became necessary, and to take no proactive measures to better their unfortunate situations. Unless countries would be content to live near, or at the level of destitution, the food bank would not generally be in danger of misuse. Hardin’s idea of the population escalator also seems to me to ignore alternatives. If aid were to be given in such a way that reproduction rates decreased, the population escalator would not run in the way that Hardin suggests. Given that the improvement of social conditions reduces birth rates, if the aid improved social conditions, the population would be better controlled. Hardin also argues that “Every life saved this year in a poor country diminishes the quality of life for subsequent generations” (449). If, however, real aid is to be given to those in need, it should encompass a number of areas of need, not just one. If food is given to the hungry, that just touches the tip of the iceberg. Why are they hungry? That is the real question that needs to be addressed. If the social conditions of the needy improve, they can begin to look past the present and into the future, and plan for their subsequent generations, while if they do not, such planning is unlikely, and subsequent generations will suffer. It would be better to give people the means to plan for their own future, and to employ better solutions to overpopulation and resource depletion than death. In addition, Hardin needs to provide arguments as to why the future generations deserve more consideration than those presently alive.