Jean-Paul Sartre once wrote hell is other people in his masterpiece No Exit to which Professor Hardin seems to share the same idea with this respectable philosopher. With such philosophy, Professor Hardin introduces a new idea to the solution of world hunger and poverty – the lifeboat ethics. This theory sounds crude but logical at the first sight; however, some points have been misestimated or even deliberately ignored by the author in his reasoning.
In order to justify his presentation of lifeboat ethics, two assumptions are placed in the spotlight: a. the world is divided into rich nations and poor nations among which rich ones sit in a lifeboat while poor ones have to struggle in the water, and b. the lifeboat can only afford limited number of passengers while many people are begging for admission to the lifeboat. Extending this theory into the real world, the author contends that total source of the world is limited and therefore the rich nations shall not share their valuable source to feed the poor nations’ unlimited grow of population.
Even as learned and respectable as Professor Hardin, he still has committed at least three mistakes throughout this essay. To get to the heart of the myth of lifeboat ethics, we shall go back to where it starts.
This famous theory, of course, starts from its creative metaphor of lifeboat. However, such a division between poor and rich nations has denied the undeniable connection among all nations. All countries standing on this planet, rich or poor, are hand in hand in terms of both economy and common development, which has been proved by the increasing contacts and intensive cooperation among countries and even among regions in the process of globalization. To this point, Hardin’s theory fails to explain this connection between people inside and outside the lifeboat, and doubts may even rise whether only rich nations are entitled to share the source of this planet. In fact, rather than the crude picture described by the author, the whole world is a village where people from different countries cooperate together and lend a hand to those in need if necessary.
Although it is true that many poor nations have high reproductive rate and may continuously need more food to feed their people, overpopulation is far from the core of the world hunger problem. To be stressed firstly, going back to the history, we will find that it is the developed countries that sowed the seed of poverty and hunger across the developing countries. Bloody scenes can be seen all along the poor nations’ journey to this new era — the trade of black slaves in Africa, colonial ruling in South America, continuous plunder in Asia and frequent wars in East Europe. Those people are crying for not only the miserable past but also their clumsy hands. However, benefiting from the technology reform and international trade, these unfortunate countries finally saw the light of development. Nevertheless, their overall productivity is still much lower than the rich and the products they mainly manufacture are of less technology value and less profit on the whole. These countries shall be armed with advanced technology to break the prison of poverty and hunger, and in this sense the developed nations are responsible for correcting their mistakes by lending a hand.
The tragedy of commons is restated and further interpreted when the author is introducing the World Food Bank and Green Revolution. As he argued, the export of food and technology is no more than feeding the cancer with nutrition. The more help the poor nations received, the more quickly their population will grow and therefore the more they will demand next time. It is indeed the heart of the myth of lifeboat ethics. It may be quite convincing that to feed the desire is the worst way to diminish the desire, but the absence of a critical thing in this theory shall be noted. Ah, where is the responsible system of control in the process of exporting food and technology? What if there is a set of rules regulating the liabilities and obligations borne by the poor nation which receives the foreign aid? Apparently, the author did not take the foregoing questions into consideration or had tried avoiding them. He deliberately ignores the effect of regulation and appropriate system of control. Both the danger of commons and cancerously increase of demand on food are directly linked with the lack of effective overall regulation. The troubles we face in this chaotic world are associated with the absence of resultful control mechanism in one way or another, and even the lifeboat ethics cannot save us if we do attach importance to regulation making.
There must be another way out. There must be a brighter future behind the grey vein of lifeboat ethics. One of those feasible solutions may be an intergovernmental institution concerning foreign aid of all kinds. In the spirit of equality as well mutual benefit, each member state shall make a schedule of commitments to set forth its specific promises and obligations and abide to it. To be specific, developed countries shall commit to export food, technology and other kinds of aid to less fortunate countries while developing countries shall devote to improve their condition and create a favorable environment for other countries. Moreover, the effective supervision mechanism shall be in full force to monitor the whole execution of member states and an annual conference shall be held in order to assess the overall performance and discuss the crucial issues as to all the relevant matters.
Only dictators would enjoy seeing the people struggling in the cold water. Our planet is a global village where people stipulate rules to guarantee the cooperation and deal with the troubles, which Professor Hardin falls short to see. Having unveiled the delicate disguise of lifeboat ethics, we find the author has no confidence in the common development, which is the biggest mistake he commits in this theory.
