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Garrett Hardin Lifeboat Ethics Summary

558 Words3 Pages

In the following selection “Lifeboat Ethics: The Case Against Helping The Poor” Garrett Hardin acknowledges a problem that doesn’t have a correct solution. He continuously agrees about exceeding carrying capacity when in a life or death situation. In contrast he believes that you should give your spot up for someone so that your conscious want feel guilty, even though it doesn’t change the fact that you can’t save everyone. Hardin argument uses a lifeboat metaphor to allude to the real problem, which is some nations are wealthy and stable were as some nations are poor and barely making it. But you can’t save everyone who needs to be saved, we have limit on resources. Hardin alludes to that no matter what you do to save lives, there always will be someone you can’t save. …show more content…

In the first paragraph, Hardin refers to each nation as a lifeboat full of just the rich, “outside each lifeboat swim the poor of the world, who would like to get in, or at least to share some of the wealth” (Hardin 291) which creates an unbalanced image of our society today for his readers. Hardin is very detailed and uses many examples so that all readers can understand. Hardin points out that land has a limited capacity just like a lifeboat, but what he fails to acknowledge is that everyday science is improving. We the people are coming with new ways to make living easier for everyone, which can keep all nations. New living improvements will allow the troubled area to be equal to the other

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