Nazi-like lifeboat ethics

                                                                          -----challenge against Garrett Hardin

In his Lifeboat Ethics---The Case Against Helping the Poor, Lifeboat Ethics first brought forward by Garrett Hardin. He used the metaphor and made an analogy to compare lifeboat to the earth, just trying to dissuade the rich to offer material assistance to the poor. His argument seems persuasive and seemingly right if one does not get down to deep thinking. However, after contemplation over and over again, you will find his reasoning and argument weak and sloppy, as his vision is centered on America only while pretending to be on the whole world.

No matter how hard Garrett Hardin intends to prove, the real world is quite intricate in comparison to a lifeboat. The oversimplifying analogy would instill the unprepared readers to the noose that is being laid by the author. Nevertheless, a well-balanced person would detect some errors the author made in misleading readers.

Firstly, the lifeboat and the earth aren’t analogous. Discrepancies exist between the real world and the earth. The quantity and resource of the lifeboat is fixed; no way of creating new energies can be obtained as the resources of the lifeboat cannot offer materials for creation of materials for daily necessity of humans. People on the lifeboat have to rely on the fixed resource and consume them in a prescribed way. While, the supplies and resources in reality are not fixed, the rich nations have other consumption and diet options. For example, human in the different countries or regions take varied stuffs as their main daily food. In America, people depend on bread, butter and beef, etc as their staple food, while in China we take rice as our daily necessity for living. Thus, different people have different desires and choices for food.

Secondly, no one would deny that the few affluent nations have consumed most resources of the earth. Since the author is an American, let’s take America for example: data has it that Americans, with only five percent of the world’s total population, consume one fourth of the world resources and be responsible for 25.8% the world’s emission of carbon dioxide. All data presented here aims to point out that the so-called rich countries’ prosperity and affluence are greatly dependent on the poor countries through disguised exploitation, through the price gap between the primary products and intellectual products, through monopoly. In a word, the prosperity and affluence of America is at the expense of poor countries’ sacrifice. Since now America is a rich country based on their sacrifice, it shall certainly bear the obligation and responsibility to offer assistance to the poor countries. Or else, America will pave the way leading to their destruction and extinction.

Thirdly, we do not expect America to share its resources equally with the poor countries; we just expect them to spare out some that may be redundant to them. In this regard, the author drastically misunderstands the matter. The people of the poor countries are not the citizens; they don’t have the obligation to treat them as equally as their own citizens. They just spare out their redundant resources to the poor countries for charity, out of humanitarian nature. Moreover, the living standard of the poor countries is much lower than those of the rich countries. They need less to satisfy their daily needs in comparison to the rich people. All in all, we need charity, but not communion.

Fourthly, in the matter of establishing a World Food Bank, the author held that a well-run family, company, organization or country prepares for the likelihood of accidents and emergencies. But how could an impoverished family manage to spare something from nothing? They may encounter natural disasters, exploitation of labor by rich countries, or illnesses. A World Food Bank would solve the problem by offering assistance to them temporarily, but not for long. The author was in fear that poor countries might depend on the assistance for ever, even causing sloth. And in face of the contention of some kind-hearted liberals’ arguments, the author adopted an evading attitude. Actually, every country is striving for economic growth and social development, which will be the only way out of poverty. They are not as imbecile and lazy as the author perceives. They are not fool enough to rely on relief; they just take relief as a media to live through the emergencies.

The whole world calls for charity and humanity. A superpower should take up the burden of bring benefit to the world; any attempt to evade its burden will be reviled by the international community. The readers, if accepting the lifeboat metaphor without evaluating its rhetorical components, might make a costly mistake and lead to his selfishness and cruelty.