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II

World Hunger& Poverty

World Hunger& Poverty

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Hardin’s Central ArgumentGarrett Hardin: “Lifeboat Ethics”

• Hardin argues that the “Marxist/Christian” or “sharing” approaches to global ethical problems often embodied by the “Spaceship Earth” metaphor are the wrong stance to take.

• Hardin argues that unless we drop the Spaceship outlook and adopt something more like a “Lifeboat Ethics,” we risk dooming ourselves.- Hardin’s argument is that our choice in ethical approach to

global issues depends on the way the world is, not simply the way the world should be.

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“Spaceship Earth”We’re all in this

together!• Usually adopted as an environmental metaphor:

- We need to replace our wasteful “cowboy economy” with a frugal “spaceship economy”.

• “The ‘generous’ attitude of too many people results in asserting inalienable rights while ignoring or denying matching responsibilities.” (447)

• A true ship always has a captain and crew, but our Spaceship Earth has no captain, nor any real executive committee.

• Ultimately, the spaceship metaphor does not reflect the complex balance of rights and responsibilities on Earth.

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Lifeboat Ethics• The people in poor countries have an average per capita

GNP of about $200 per year.• The people in rich countries have an average per capita GNP

of about $3000 per year (in the US, it’s more like $5000).

- (Today’s per capita GNP in the US is closer to $30,000; compare this with about $450 in India or $370 in Haiti.)

• Consider the alternative metaphor of a lifeboat. - Each rich nation amounts to a lifeboat full of comparatively

rich people.- Each poor nation amounts to a much more crowded

lifeboat.- Continuously, the poor fall out of their lifeboats, and hope to

be admitted to one of the rich lifeboats.- Each lifeboat is effectively limited in capacity.

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Lifeboat Ethics (cont’d)• Consider our lifeboat, filled with 50 people.

- Assume our boat has a capacity of 60, but the room for another 10 is a “safety factor” in the event of a disaster.

- The 50 of us see another 100 others swimming about in the water, asking for admission. How do we respond?

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Lifeboat Ethics (cont’d) -- Option #1

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Lifeboat Ethics (cont’d) -- Option #2

Goodbye, safety factor!

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• Let us grant that the third option is abhorrent and unjust.

Lifeboat Ethics (cont’d) -- Option #3

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Reproduction• The numbers inside the “wealthy” lifeboats are doubling every

87 years; those outside are doubling every 35 years. - (Today, the US population is doubling every 79 years;

compare this with every 45 years in India and every 30 years in Haiti. The population in Liberia is doubling every 16 years.)

• “Every nation regards its rate of reproduction as a sovereign right.” (449)

• If the US lifeboat were to allow as many non-Americans in as Americans already inside, the American portion of the population would increase to 420 million in 87 years; the non-American portion to 3.5 billion.- Sharing is suicide.

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Ruin in the Commons• The “tragedy of the commons” arises from “sharing ethics”:

- An intelligent farmer will allow no more cattle in a pasture than its carrying capacity justifies.

- If he overloads, the cattle eradicate the land, and the farmer loses.

- If a pasture is open to all (a “commons”), each herdsman feels no responsibility to take care of it—he dare not!

- One herdsman who chooses not to overload the commons only leaves room for another to do so.

- “In a crowded world of less than perfect human beings—and we will never know any other—mutual ruin is inevitable in the commons. This is the core of the tragedy of the commons.” (449-450)

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World Food Banks• The idea behind world food banks is that of a new commons:

an international depository of food reserves:

- Nations contribute according to their means, and draw on according to their needs.

• If each nation is responsible for its own well-being, poorly-managed ones will suffer.

- But they will be able to learn from experience.- They will learn to budget for infrequent but certain

emergencies.

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World Food Banks (cont’d)• “But it isn’t their fault! How can we blame the poor people who

are caught in an emergency? Why must we punish them?”

- Concepts of blame and punishment are irrelevant.- If irresponsible governments can draw on a world food

bank every time the need develops, they have no motivation to plan ahead.

- There will be little-to-no overlap between those who deposit to the bank, and those who withdraw from it.

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“Emergency”

The Ratchet Effect

P1

At “carrying capacity”:with safety factor( )

P2

“Overpopulation”:safety factor exhausted( )

• An “international food bank” is not so much a bank as a one-way transfer device for moving wealth from rich countries to poor.

• Absent such a bank, the population of each nation would go through a repeated cycle:

• “A demographic cycle of this sort obviously involves great suffering in the restrictive phase, but such a cycle is normal to any independent country with inadequate population control.” (451)

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“Emergency”

The Ratchet Effect (cont’d)

P1

P2

P3

Input from worldfood bank( )

“Emergency”

P4

Input from worldfood bank( )

• “Emergencies” serve to “prune away the luxuriant growth of the human race.” (451)

• If such countries can draw on a world food bank in times of emergency, the population will not cycle, butescalate:

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The Ratchet Effect (cont’d)• “The process is brought to an end only by the total collapse of

the whole system, producing a catastrophe of scarcely imaginable proportions.” (451)

• Without a world government controlling reproduction, Spaceship ethics are the wrong approach.

• Instead, survival depends that we govern our actions by Lifeboat ethics.