English 131 is designed to help you learn to read perceptively, write convincingly, and think critically, and this blog helps to meet these goals.
Entries should run about 150 words each, using appropriate tone and Standard Written English. Posts are due by class time on the dates indicated.
Saturday, September 13, 2008
8. Lifeboat Ethics?
Garrett Hardin makes a very complex, rather controversial argument in "Lifeboat Ethics." Identify one of the ethical principles that informs his argument and explain whether you think the principle is or is not ethical. Due Monday, 15 September.
One of Hardin's ethical arguments was about leaving room on the life boat for a safety factor. Should the fifty people on the life boat take ten more people even though they knew they would all be at risk. Hardin compared the life boat situation with the American people or government. Should we help the needy people or keep to ourselves. U.S. put food into the food bank but there are always others countries that will withdraw that food supply. What will we do when it is our turn? I think Hardin have a good argument based on this ethical view of the life boat. He questioned the consequences of saving more people and putting them onto the life boat. Hardin's one ethical argument allow him to ask questions repeatedly about the ten people they should save and what will they do without a safety factor.
I chose one of his arguments, Population control the crude way, which was about poor and rich. World Food Bank has tried to stay with poor and rich countries while their population increased but see this, poor population is fast reproducing while rich's is slow reproducing. The question is can it keep up sharing with these two populations if still increasing? Well, as Hardin explained that the growth differential between the rich and the poor countries will not only persist, it will increase. And he also said that any system of "sharing" that amounts to foreign aid from the rich nations to the poor nations will carry the taint of charity which will contribute little to the world peace so devoutly desired by those who support the idea of world food bank. He tried to show the percent of poor and rich population to show how much this can be increased each year. Like what I was saying... the fast-reproducing poor outnumber the slow-reproducing rich. However, it seemed it got out of the control as it needs more than before. I guess it's not really ethic because of higher rate of population growth in the poor countries of the world.
Garrett Hardin proposes a variety of issues dealing with the ethical ramifications in his essay "Lifeboat Ethics." One of these issues was on the creation of a world food bank. Hardin proposes the idea of “moving billions of dollars’ worth of U.S. surplus grain of food…” which is under Public Law 480 or “Food for Peace program.” Most of society finds world hunger mankind’s abomination, and morally wrong to condone. Usually people would agree that supporting the end of world hunger is generally for the greater good. Yet when it comes to their moral rights this is when society can differ. Many people agree with the idea that world hunger is wrong, yet some of those same people do not make an effort to help the process of ending world hunger. To those few, helping the cause seems to impede their moral rights, as in the right to save their money for their own hunger (though their hunger is usually not nearly as bad as the others). Some would say that the greater good overrules the opposing people’s moral rights. Yet there can never be an unbiased observer on this subject. People are either affected by hunger or they are not. However, if an unbiased person could be found, they would agree with the need to end world hunger.
An ethical argument that Hardin addresses was the one about the lifeboat. Saying that if we had fifty people in a lifeboat, and had room for ten more, should we fill it with ten more. And there is 100 people out in the water but, they only have room for ten. Should this ten more spce of capacity be used for safety? Or put people in it. I think the argument is somewhat ethical in a way. It is stating the issues that would occur if they were to allow those ten more people, but I also see it as the Christian ideal of being too, Hardin says, "Our brother's keeper". I think the more wealthy society should give out to the less fortunate. It's only right. Even though they can't help all the hundred people out to sea but at least a few. A few would make a difference in their society.
In the essay Lifeboat ethics: The Case against Helping the Poor, by Garrett Hardin, several ethical arguements are made on some global issues still faced today. One arguement he made was one using the metaphor of a lifeboat. He explained that some people view the world as a spaceship, but thought it should really be seen as a lifeboat with limited capacity. Here's the situation: there's fifty people in the boat. There's one hundred people swimming outside the boat wanting to get in. There's only room for ten more. The obvious question: What should you do? You can't save them all because you'd all drown, and if you let ten in, how should those ten be chosen? Not to mention the fact that at full capacity everyone's saftey could be in danger with even the minor outside factors. I think Hardin hit the nail on the head with his arguement. He continued by saying if anyone fuilt guilty for being on the lifeboat, "Get out and yield your place to others." Personally, I think that is the best solution. None of us were guaranteed anything when we were born into the world, so if you feel bad and think something needs to be done for the less fortunate just because you're a part of the more fortunant, then you do something about it instead of calling for everyone else to pick up the slack for you.
Immigration vs. Food Supply: There are many ethical arguments to be made just from this portion of the essay let alone the essay as a whole. One of the ethical appeals made in this portion of the essay is "You say that immigrants should be kept out. But aren't we all immigrants, or the descendants of immigrants? If we insist upon staying, must we not admit all others?" Yes, we do struggle to support the illegal immigrants that make their way into our country but what if the government had prevented your ancestors from coming here? What would have happened to your ancestors in that case? Would you even be alive right now? Another strong side to this argument is that the people coming to this country now are taking our jobs or taking our land but didn't the pilgrims do the same thing to the Indians? Hardin says, "We Americans of non-Indian ancestry can look upon ourselves as the descendants of thieves who are guilty morally, if not legally, of stealing this land from its Indian owners. Should we then give back the land to the now living American descendants of those Indians?"
Garrett Hardin presents many complex arguments in "Lifeboat Ethics." One of his arguments presented the possiblity of a World Food Bank. While it "appeals powerfully to humanitarian impulses" Hardin claims we need to "recognize where the political push is coming from." Hardin is correct. While the idea is good there are many things to consider. Yes, helping end world hunger is a good idea; however, we need to do it in a way that is more helpful then just giving food away. By giving food away we are creating a co-dependency with these poor countries. They need to learn how to cultivate and harvest on their own or else they will never learn. It would come to the point where, as Hardin states, "people will have more motivation to draw from it than to add." This would become a huge problem because the ratio of "poor" countries is about seven times that of the "rich." So the food supply would diminish quickly. So, yes, while the world food bank sounds ethical in reality it isn't. It would delomish the world food supply and eventually hurt everyone. It's kind of like Hardin's first example. If you put more people in the lifeboat than you should, "complete justice, complete catastrophe."
Garrett Hardin is an author who takes two steps back from a situation and expresses his views from that standpoint. In his article he discusses, “Lifeboat Ethics” and, “The Case against Helping the Poor”. The majority of his words can easily be transformed into a question that the reader can ask themselves and make their own point of view on that given topic. One section is titled, “Learning the Hard Way” and this a piece written and asking how much should a rich country aid to a poor one. Hardin gives two possible actions a poor country may take; they one could grow from their difficult living situations and learn how to budget their money correctly, or two they could stay in the position they are in and just lean on the aid given to them by the rich companies. His ethical question here is should rich countries help the less fortunate? Hardin feels that by obtaining help the poor countries will do nothing but suffer as time goes on and their population grows. He thinks by getting this help they will never learn and never come out of the slump they are in. In many different ways Hardin does have a strong point but I feel as if he is too cruel about this topic. Certain countries may never become rich but that does not mean it is because they are lazy and just do not want to. If you were walking down the road and you saw an adult drowning would just look at them and say, “well they should have learned how to swim when they were a child” Most likely not, so therefore not helping a country out in desperate times because you may feel they won’t learn their lesson is unethical.
I am choosing to identify an ethic from the "Adrift In A Moral Sea" because it was easiest for me to understand. I think the ethical argument was whether or not we should try to save the lives of others, even if it meant putting ourselves at risk also. Should the fifty people in the lifeboat allow ten more people: the lifeboat was designed to hold the maximum of sixty people after all. Or should they consider themselves lucky and not allow them on due to fact they also put themselves at risk? It all boils down to safety. I think this is an ethical situation and a hard one to decide in which way to go. Who wouldn’t want to survive to continue living and who would want to live with knowing that they could have saved a life but instead let them die? Either way you go you will have bad memories but life goes on. I think they should allow the ten more people and take a small chance. The ten people they choose should be healthy to lower the risk of disease and they should also take children first because they have more life ahead of them then anyone. I’m not sure if this is what you wanted because I was a little confused by this assignment but I did try to fully answer the questions.
One ethical issue that Garrett Hardin addresses in his essay "Life Boat Ethics: The Case Against Helping The Poor" is the problem of food shortage in under developed countries. Hardin titled this section "Learning the Hard Way" and poses the question should countries learn and grow from their mistakes or should prosperous countries come to their rescue every time there is an issue such as food shortage? In this essay Hardin uses the argument that the food shortage is not neccesarily the people who live in such countries fault which may give prosperous countries incentive to help the people who have no control over the situation. As a counter to this argument Hardin uses the example of a world food bank where some countries will always put food in and others will always take food out and the countries that always take food out will suffer more in the long run as their country grows and has more people to feed. Most people would agree that helping the country in need would be the right thing to do but that we should not just simply give them everything they need. Maybe the best thing to do when a situation such as food shortage arises is to help the country in need to develop a system to avoid this problem in the future.
Hardin posses an argument about immigration. This argument I think has a huge affect on the world right now and I think what he states in his argument really makes you think about immigration. He says "You say that immigrants should be kept out. But aren't we all immigrants, or the descendants of immigrants? If we insist upon staying, must we not admit all others?" Thinking about this, Hardin hits it right on the head. If our descendants weren't aloud to come over from foreign country's, where would we be right now? Would we be living somewhere else other than this great country? But I also don't agree with some of these illegal immigrants coming over the boarder. I understand there country doesn't run the same way as the U.S. but I think you ought to be welcomed in the U.S. Yes, I think you should have a certain way to get into this country, other than crossing the boarder risking your life. I poss an argument myself with immigrants learning English. Yes, it is hard to talk to an immigrant without them knowing what your talking about, but other country's in the world take 2 or 3 or maybe even 4 foreign languages. We are behind in the world when it comes to this, and I think if we were more worried about learning others languages we wouldn't worry about them trying to learn English.
Garrett Hardin writes an ethical arugment about "The Tragedy of the Commons." He says that "in a crowded world of less than perfect human beings, mutual ruin is inevitable if there are no controls. This is the tragedy of the commons." (Barnet and Bedau 405) In other words, if there is no control in a certain place and everyone simply uses what they want without any respect to the amount they have, distruction is highly likely. Hardin uses the example about a farmer and his land. The farmer knows that he only has so much land and it can only hold so many cattle. If the farmer allows more cattle to be put into the land than the land will hold, "erosion sets in, weeds take over," (Hardin, 405) and the farmer no longer has that land. Hardin compares all of these examples to pollution and how the water and air that we live and breathe in has been taken advantage of and treated as if humans feel that nothing bad will ever happen to it. I think that the principle stating, people should not take advantage of the natural, common things that we have in the world, is an ethical principle. We allow the air and water to continue to suffer from pollution and although most people would agree that something should be done about it, we still sit back and continue to do nothing about it. The unbiased person would probably feel like something should be done to help the situation but would not have the compassion to help out.
Garrett Hardin writes of many situations which are decently backed up by his arguments. But, I chose one of his arguments that I disagree with, Adrift in a Moral Sea. He proceeds to explain that we all have our lifeboat in which we live with a certain capacity. He argues that when you have a safety factor, which is not allowing the full capacity to be filled, you should use this metaphor to work out solutions. So, he is saying that we should have our 'lifeboat' with the people around us, as water, just swimming along and hoping for help and we are to 'play it safe' and not allow anyone else on the boat. I feel that the safety factor Hardin uses is unethical and selfish. Yes, we should yield to our own safety, but no, we should not be selfish when doing so. We should find a way to get more people onto our boat to make things happen, instead of being complacent.
One of the ethical principles that Garret Hardin informs in his argument is that "We are all descendants of thieves, and the world's resources are inequitably distributed" in Pure Justice vs. Reality. It means that we are scared of thieves because they are a bad source in our life. Thieves can break into cars, houses, steal anything valuable. And the things that thief's steal that we own is unfair to us and the people because the thieves did not pay for that stuff that they have. The moral principle is to watch out for thieves. I would not argue for the general adoption of the rule. I think it is for the greatest good. It does consider others moral rights for someone's feelings. I would think the unbiased observer agree with this argument. He talks about that we can't divide the rich people's money to everybody in the world so that everybody has equal amount of money. I agree that it is not a good idea to do that because this world would be a disaster and it would be ruined. I think this the principle is ethical because it is for the greatest good that we should not divide the money to everybody from wealthy people.
One of Hardins situations that describes lifeboat ethics is The Tragedy of the Commons. This essay you have to think about a little. The Commons are the people that share the same resource. The Tragedy talked about in the title describe the destruction of the one resources that everyone is using. For example,oil: if everyone uses the same oil field than you will eventually run out. Another example is if you plant the same crops in the same plot of land will not grow very well because all the nutrient are already used up. One of the ethical principles are logos because it is very reasonable and makes a lot of sense.
15 comments:
One of Hardin's ethical arguments was about leaving room on the life boat for a safety factor. Should the fifty people on the life boat take ten more people even though they knew they would all be at risk. Hardin compared the life boat situation with the American people or government. Should we help the needy people or keep to ourselves. U.S. put food into the food bank but there are always others countries that will withdraw that food supply. What will we do when it is our turn? I think Hardin have a good argument based on this ethical view of the life boat. He questioned the consequences of saving more people and putting them onto the life boat. Hardin's one ethical argument allow him to ask questions repeatedly about the ten people they should save and what will they do without a safety factor.
I chose one of his arguments, Population control the crude way, which was about poor and rich. World Food Bank has tried to stay with poor and rich countries while their population increased but see this, poor population is fast reproducing while rich's is slow reproducing. The question is can it keep up sharing with these two populations if still increasing? Well, as Hardin explained that the growth differential between the rich and the poor countries will not only persist, it will increase. And he also said that any system of "sharing" that amounts to foreign aid from the rich nations to the poor nations will carry the taint of charity which will contribute little to the world peace so devoutly desired by those who support the idea of world food bank. He tried to show the percent of poor and rich population to show how much this can be increased each year. Like what I was saying... the fast-reproducing poor outnumber the slow-reproducing rich. However, it seemed it got out of the control as it needs more than before. I guess it's not really ethic because of higher rate of population growth in the poor countries of the world.
Garrett Hardin proposes a variety of issues dealing with the ethical ramifications in his essay "Lifeboat Ethics." One of these issues was on the creation of a world food bank. Hardin proposes the idea of “moving billions of dollars’ worth of U.S. surplus grain of food…” which is under Public Law 480 or “Food for Peace program.” Most of society finds world hunger mankind’s abomination, and morally wrong to condone. Usually people would agree that supporting the end of world hunger is generally for the greater good. Yet when it comes to their moral rights this is when society can differ. Many people agree with the idea that world hunger is wrong, yet some of those same people do not make an effort to help the process of ending world hunger. To those few, helping the cause seems to impede their moral rights, as in the right to save their money for their own hunger (though their hunger is usually not nearly as bad as the others). Some would say that the greater good overrules the opposing people’s moral rights. Yet there can never be an unbiased observer on this subject. People are either affected by hunger or they are not. However, if an unbiased person could be found, they would agree with the need to end world hunger.
An ethical argument that Hardin addresses was the one about the lifeboat. Saying that if we had fifty people in a lifeboat, and had room for ten more, should we fill it with ten more. And there is 100 people out in the water but, they only have room for ten. Should this ten more spce of capacity be used for safety? Or put people in it. I think the argument is somewhat ethical in a way. It is stating the issues that would occur if they were to allow those ten more people, but I also see it as the Christian ideal of being too, Hardin says, "Our brother's keeper". I think the more wealthy society should give out to the less fortunate. It's only right. Even though they can't help all the hundred people out to sea but at least a few. A few would make a difference in their society.
In the essay Lifeboat ethics: The Case against Helping the Poor, by Garrett Hardin, several ethical arguements are made on some global issues still faced today. One arguement he made was one using the metaphor of a lifeboat. He explained that some people view the world as a spaceship, but thought it should really be seen as a lifeboat with limited capacity. Here's the situation: there's fifty people in the boat. There's one hundred people swimming outside the boat wanting to get in. There's only room for ten more. The obvious question: What should you do? You can't save them all because you'd all drown, and if you let ten in, how should those ten be chosen? Not to mention the fact that at full capacity everyone's saftey could be in danger with even the minor outside factors. I think Hardin hit the nail on the head with his arguement. He continued by saying if anyone fuilt guilty for being on the lifeboat, "Get out and yield your place to others." Personally, I think that is the best solution. None of us were guaranteed anything when we were born into the world, so if you feel bad and think something needs to be done for the less fortunate just because you're a part of the more fortunant, then you do something about it instead of calling for everyone else to pick up the slack for you.
Immigration vs. Food Supply: There are many ethical arguments to be made just from this portion of the essay let alone the essay as a whole. One of the ethical appeals made in this portion of the essay is "You say that immigrants should be kept out. But aren't we all immigrants, or the descendants of immigrants? If we insist upon staying, must we not admit all others?" Yes, we do struggle to support the illegal immigrants that make their way into our country but what if the government had prevented your ancestors from coming here? What would have happened to your ancestors in that case? Would you even be alive right now? Another strong side to this argument is that the people coming to this country now are taking our jobs or taking our land but didn't the pilgrims do the same thing to the Indians? Hardin says, "We Americans of non-Indian ancestry can look upon ourselves as the descendants of thieves who are guilty morally, if not legally, of stealing this land from its Indian owners. Should we then give back the land to the now living American descendants of those Indians?"
Garrett Hardin presents many complex arguments in "Lifeboat Ethics." One of his arguments presented the possiblity of a World Food Bank. While it "appeals powerfully to humanitarian impulses" Hardin claims we need to "recognize where the political push is coming from." Hardin is correct. While the idea is good there are many things to consider. Yes, helping end world hunger is a good idea; however, we need to do it in a way that is more helpful then just giving food away. By giving food away we are creating a co-dependency with these poor countries. They need to learn how to cultivate and harvest on their own or else they will never learn. It would come to the point where, as Hardin states, "people will have more motivation to draw from it than to add." This would become a huge problem because the ratio of "poor" countries is about seven times that of the "rich." So the food supply would diminish quickly. So, yes, while the world food bank sounds ethical in reality it isn't. It would delomish the world food supply and eventually hurt everyone. It's kind of like Hardin's first example. If you put more people in the lifeboat than you should, "complete justice, complete catastrophe."
Garrett Hardin is an author who takes two steps back from a situation and expresses his views from that standpoint. In his article he discusses, “Lifeboat Ethics” and, “The Case against Helping the Poor”. The majority of his words can easily be transformed into a question that the reader can ask themselves and make their own point of view on that given topic. One section is titled, “Learning the Hard Way” and this a piece written and asking how much should a rich country aid to a poor one. Hardin gives two possible actions a poor country may take; they one could grow from their difficult living situations and learn how to budget their money correctly, or two they could stay in the position they are in and just lean on the aid given to them by the rich companies. His ethical question here is should rich countries help the less fortunate? Hardin feels that by obtaining help the poor countries will do nothing but suffer as time goes on and their population grows. He thinks by getting this help they will never learn and never come out of the slump they are in. In many different ways Hardin does have a strong point but I feel as if he is too cruel about this topic. Certain countries may never become rich but that does not mean it is because they are lazy and just do not want to. If you were walking down the road and you saw an adult drowning would just look at them and say, “well they should have learned how to swim when they were a child” Most likely not, so therefore not helping a country out in desperate times because you may feel they won’t learn their lesson is unethical.
I am choosing to identify an ethic from the "Adrift In A Moral Sea" because it was easiest for me to understand. I think the ethical argument was whether or not we should try to save the lives of others, even if it meant putting ourselves at risk also. Should the fifty people in the lifeboat allow ten more people: the lifeboat was designed to hold the maximum of sixty people after all. Or should they consider themselves lucky and not allow them on due to fact they also put themselves at risk? It all boils down to safety. I think this is an ethical situation and a hard one to decide in which way to go. Who wouldn’t want to survive to continue living and who would want to live with knowing that they could have saved a life but instead let them die? Either way you go you will have bad memories but life goes on. I think they should allow the ten more people and take a small chance. The ten people they choose should be healthy to lower the risk of disease and they should also take children first because they have more life ahead of them then anyone. I’m not sure if this is what you wanted because I was a little confused by this assignment but I did try to fully answer the questions.
One ethical issue that Garrett Hardin addresses in his essay "Life Boat Ethics: The Case Against Helping The Poor" is the problem of food shortage in under developed countries. Hardin titled this section "Learning the Hard Way" and poses the question should countries learn and grow from their mistakes or should prosperous countries come to their rescue every time there is an issue such as food shortage? In this essay Hardin uses the argument that the food shortage is not neccesarily the people who live in such countries fault which may give prosperous countries incentive to help the people who have no control over the situation. As a counter to this argument Hardin uses the example of a world food bank where some countries will always put food in and others will always take food out and the countries that always take food out will suffer more in the long run as their country grows and has more people to feed. Most people would agree that helping the country in need would be the right thing to do but that we should not just simply give them everything they need. Maybe the best thing to do when a situation such as food shortage arises is to help the country in need to develop a system to avoid this problem in the future.
Hardin posses an argument about immigration. This argument I think has a huge affect on the world right now and I think what he states in his argument really makes you think about immigration. He says "You say that immigrants should be kept out. But aren't we all immigrants, or the descendants of immigrants? If we insist upon staying, must we not admit all others?" Thinking about this, Hardin hits it right on the head. If our descendants weren't aloud to come over from foreign country's, where would we be right now? Would we be living somewhere else other than this great country? But I also don't agree with some of these illegal immigrants coming over the boarder. I understand there country doesn't run the same way as the U.S. but I think you ought to be welcomed in the U.S. Yes, I think you should have a certain way to get into this country, other than crossing the boarder risking your life. I poss an argument myself with immigrants learning English. Yes, it is hard to talk to an immigrant without them knowing what your talking about, but other country's in the world take 2 or 3 or maybe even 4 foreign languages. We are behind in the world when it comes to this, and I think if we were more worried about learning others languages we wouldn't worry about them trying to learn English.
Garrett Hardin writes an ethical arugment about "The Tragedy of the Commons." He says that "in a crowded world of less than perfect human beings, mutual ruin is inevitable if there are no controls. This is the tragedy of the commons." (Barnet and Bedau 405) In other words, if there is no control in a certain place and everyone simply uses what they want without any respect to the amount they have, distruction is highly likely. Hardin uses the example about a farmer and his land. The farmer knows that he only has so much land and it can only hold so many cattle. If the farmer allows more cattle to be put into the land than the land will hold, "erosion sets in, weeds take over," (Hardin, 405) and the farmer no longer has that land. Hardin compares all of these examples to pollution and how the water and air that we live and breathe in has been taken advantage of and treated as if humans feel that nothing bad will ever happen to it. I think that the principle stating, people should not take advantage of the natural, common things that we have in the world, is an ethical principle. We allow the air and water to continue to suffer from pollution and although most people would agree that something should be done about it, we still sit back and continue to do nothing about it. The unbiased person would probably feel like something should be done to help the situation but would not have the compassion to help out.
Garrett Hardin writes of many situations which are decently backed up by his arguments. But, I chose one of his arguments that I disagree with, Adrift in a Moral Sea. He proceeds to explain that we all have our lifeboat in which we live with a certain capacity. He argues that when you have a safety factor, which is not allowing the full capacity to be filled, you should use this metaphor to work out solutions. So, he is saying that we should have our 'lifeboat' with the people around us, as water, just swimming along and hoping for help and we are to 'play it safe' and not allow anyone else on the boat. I feel that the safety factor Hardin uses is unethical and selfish. Yes, we should yield to our own safety, but no, we should not be selfish when doing so. We should find a way to get more people onto our boat to make things happen, instead of being complacent.
One of the ethical principles that Garret Hardin informs in his argument is that "We are all descendants of thieves, and the world's resources are inequitably distributed" in Pure Justice vs. Reality. It means that we are scared of thieves because they are a bad source in our life. Thieves can break into cars, houses, steal anything valuable. And the things that thief's steal that we own is unfair to us and the people because the thieves did not pay for that stuff that they have. The moral principle is to watch out for thieves. I would not argue for the general adoption of the rule. I think it is for the greatest good. It does consider others moral rights for someone's feelings. I would think the unbiased observer agree with this argument. He talks about that we can't divide the rich people's money to everybody in the world so that everybody has equal amount of money. I agree that it is not a good idea to do that because this world would be a disaster and it would be ruined. I think this the principle is ethical because it is for the greatest good that we should not divide the money to everybody from wealthy people.
One of Hardins situations that describes lifeboat ethics is The Tragedy of the Commons. This essay you have to think about a little. The Commons are the people that share the same resource. The Tragedy talked about in the title describe the destruction of the one resources that everyone is using. For example,oil: if everyone uses the same oil field than you will eventually run out. Another example is if you plant the same crops in the same plot of land will not grow very well because all the nutrient are already used up. One of the ethical principles are logos because it is very reasonable and makes a lot of sense.
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