ipl-logo

Lifeboat Ethics: The Case Against Helping The Poor Analysis

1244 Words5 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Causes of overpopulation

Some of the main issues facing the world today are the issues of poverty, the poor, and overpopulation. As each year goes by, it becomes awfully clear that these issues are problems that must be dealt with. While many want to address and solve these issues, there tends to be a divide on how to do so. A great example of this division is how the issue is presented in these two essays – Peter Singer’s “Famine, Affluence, and Morality,” and Garrett Hardin’s “Lifeboat Ethics: The Case Against Helping The Poor.” While both essays are well written and make their points, they support differing sides of the issue; Stinger’s essay states that we have a moral obligation to aid the poor opposed to Hardin’s essay arguing for the case against helping the poor. Even though both writers made very good points, I think that we do indeed have a moral obligation to help the poor. While reading through Hardin’s essay he failed to convince me otherwise. His essay starts by describing two different metaphors. First, he talks about the spaceship ethic, which is where we should share resources, and then the lifeboat ethic, which is where we should not …show more content…

I do not believe it is right to turn your back to someone that could use your help. An example supporting my view on this is Stinger’s shallow pond” analogy, an I illustration involving a small child drowning in a shallow pond, you should wade in and save them, even if it sacrifices something small like your clothing getting wet and muddy. As Singer states, “If it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing something of comparable moral importance, we ought, morally, to do it” (392). While your clothes getting muddy is a down fall, the child losing his or her life would be ethically outrageous, so for that reason, the clothing should be sacrificed in order to save the life of the

Show More
Related

Summary Of The Singer Solution To World Poverty

676 Words | 3 Pages

In Singer’s essay, “The Singer Solution to World Poverty,” the author begins by presenting the reader with the heartfelt scenario of the cost of a child vs. the cost of a new TV. Singer discusses how child trafficking with the intent of organ harvesting is the equivalent of purchasing a brand-new TV because in both cases one can improve conditions for children around the world, either by saving their life or by donating money to help them. Next, Singer goes into the narrative of a man named Bob. Bob has his entire life savings put into a precious Bugatti. However, Bob must make the choice to save his car or to flip the lever and save a child stuck on the railroad tracks.

Read More

Social Inequality In Tracy Kidder's Mountains Beyond Mountains

1683 Words | 7 Pages

Farmer asserts that the people who died in Haiti without any form of effective therapy were exclusively “people who lived and died in poverty” (115). The author gives an example of Joseph who was an AIDS victim who narrates about his father’s attempt to get medication. The poor peasant sells all his belonging to pay the healer in a bid to save Joseph’s life (146). Paul Farmer seeks to enhance the living standards of the Haitian people with particular attention to making healthcare services available to the oppressed and vulnerable population of Haiti. He works in a diligent manner to fight for the needs of the poor people of Haiti by arguing against the huge gap between “this world” and the world of Haiti where there is an “accumulation of wealth in one part of the world and abject misery in another” (Kidder

Read More

Analysis: The Singer Solution To World Poverty

794 Words | 4 Pages

According to the United Nations, a child dies of hunger every ten seconds. Likewise, millions of people live in poverty and do not know when they will eat again. While the typical American throws away leftover food, children are dying across the world from starvation. To put this into perspective: By the time you have started reading, a child has died of hunger. But who is to blame?

Read More

Ruby Payne's A Framework For Understanding Poverty

263 Words | 2 Pages

In A Framework for Understanding Poverty, Ruby Payne try’s to explain the behaviors and barriers of three social classes: poverty, middle class, and wealth. Beyond the social class of poverty, it’s a breakdown of the elements of the classes and the ‘hidden rules’ each one has. She stresses that these hidden rules aren’t taught in businesses or schools, these of which function as the hidden rules of middle class. Payne states these hidden rules aren’t exactly natural, they’re learned, and as one grows up in a particular class those rules are set in place. She lists all the rules in each class, and the differences are striking.

Read More

Similarities Between Hardin And Walter Benjamin's Lifeboat Ethics

384 Words | 2 Pages

Benjamin thinks that just because people are born in a poor country does not mean they are still not human beings and should be aided by the US. He said the “United States has always been a humanitarian people’. (350) Both of these writer’s are not in agreement when it comes to population control either. Walter says Garret did not consider some possible solutions to the overpopulation like family planning, and ZPG (Zero Population Growth) (347-348). Hardin writes that poor country’s have higher population growth than rich countries and that if we send them food they’re population will grow even higher but if we don’t there population will be “checked by crop failures and famines” (423).

Read More

Michael Harington's How I Discovered The Truth About Poverty

570 Words | 3 Pages

In the article “How I Discovered the Truth about Poverty” Barbara Ehrenreich gives her view in poverty and explains why she think Michael Harington’s book “The Other American” gives a wrong view on poverty. She explained that Harrington believes that the poor thought and felt differently and what divides the poor was their different “culture of poverty.” Ehrenreich goes on to explain on how the book that became a best seller caused so many bad stereotypes on the poor that by the Reagan era poverty was seen as “bad attitudes” and “faulty lifestyles” and not by the lack of jobs or low paying jobs. And they also viewed the poor as “Dissolute, promiscuous, prone to addiction and crime, unable to “defer gratification,” or possibly even set an alarm clock.”

Read More

Singer Solution To World Poverty Argument

1292 Words | 6 Pages

Singer is no stranger to writing moral arguments, having written many different books and articles in the past on a wide range of ethical debates. “The Singer Solution to World Poverty,” originally printed in the New York Times in the fall of 1999 just before Singer began to work at Princeton University, is intended for the common man, a middle-class citizen who makes average wages and reads popular newspapers. As Singer is a professor of ethics, the article is structured around the

Read More

Analysis Of Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal

1163 Words | 5 Pages

Ever thought about consuming a one-year-old baby with nice plump features? Most people will not consider such an immoral act; however, desperate times may force people to make difficult choices. This is the case in Dublin, Ireland in the late 1720’s. The attainment of human rights in the fullest sense cannot be achieved so long as hundreds of millions of poverty-stricken people lack the necessities of life. As a call to reform, Jonathan Swift wrote “A Modest Proposal.”

Read More

Peter Singer Solution To World Poverty Analysis

976 Words | 4 Pages

Singer’s Solution Good or Not? Who wouldn’t want to find a solution to end or reduce poverty in the world? A utilitarian philosopher, Peter Singer stated his own solution in his essay called “The Singer Solution to World Poverty”. Singer’s solution is simple: people shouldn’t be spend their money on luxuries, instead they should donate their money to overseas aid organizations. Peter uses two characters in his essay in hope to get to the hearts and minds of the people, and encourage them to donate.

Read More

The Singer Solution To World Poverty Analysis

1805 Words | 8 Pages

In this paper I will be arguing against Peter Singer’s views on poverty, which he expresses in his paper “The Singer Solution to World Poverty”. Singer argues that all people with wealth surplus to their essential needs are morally obligated to prevent the suffering of those in dire situations. I will argue that you can not hold people morally obligated to prevent the suffering of others, and that people can only be held morally obligated to prevent suffering that they themselves caused. To begin, we will look at Singers beliefs and arguments regarding poverty and the responsibility of people to help those in need. Singer’s first arguments revolves around a girl named Dora, who is a retired schoolteacher, who is barely making a living writing

Read More

Peter Singer's Argument In Famine, Affluence And Morality

3128 Words | 13 Pages

(Singer, 1972, p. 235) This could end up with humanity missing out on revolutionary improvements in human knowledge and impede the betterment of civilisation. However, this does not imply that people are morally permitted not to contribute to famine relief, and does not imply that people are only obligated to

Read More

Injustice In John Steinbeck's The Grapes Of Wrath

550 Words | 3 Pages

Injustices, tragedies, and unfortunate circumstances have plagued humankind for all of existence. Many of these problems have arisen from the society of man, and could not be found in nature. The hatred, selfishness, prejudice, and maliciousness seen in so many injustices man created unnecessarily, as well as all the suffering it causes does not need to exist. If an individual witnesses a crime or injustice occurring, it is their responsibility to defend the weak and fight for whatever is morally right, even at the cost of themselves.

Read More

Lifeboat Ethics Rhetorical Analysis

1211 Words | 5 Pages

In “Lifeboat Ethics: the Case Against Helping the poor” authored by Garrett Hardin, he had successfully used the three rhetorical tools in the

Read More

Bell Hooks Seeing And Making Culture Representing The Poor Summary

1171 Words | 5 Pages

People in poverty are generally portrayed as worthless and this is because culture today illustrates a man’s worth from how materially successful they are. Hooks explains how this kind of representation of the poor can mentally and emotionally handicap and entire society of people in poverty. She goes into an example of how a

Read More

It Is Expensive To Be Poor By Barbara Ehrenreich Essay

1170 Words | 5 Pages

The Truth About Poverty “Poverty is like punishment for a crime you didn't commit” this quote was said by Mahatma Gandhi and it relates so well with this article “It is Expensive To Be Poor”, answer the question yourself, Is it expensive to be poor? This article is titled like that to get the audience's attention early and have them thinking ahead of reading. The author Barbara Ehrenreich is building a pre thought when she does this which helps support her claim. “It is Expensive To Be Poor” by Barbara Ehrenreich is an article posted on “The atlantic” “which is where you can find your current news and analysis on politics, business, culture, and technology”. Knowing what “The Atlantic” offers for readers this gives Ehrenreich a detailed look at who she is writing to.

Read More

More about Lifeboat Ethics: The Case Against Helping The Poor Analysis

Related Topics

Open Document