Reseach About Lifeboat Ethics
Article: Lifeboat Ethics: The Case Against Helping the Poor
Garret Hardin was Professor Emeritus of Biology at the University of California – Santa Barbara, and considered himself to be a human ecologist who wrote, lectured, and taught about this subject. His most famous essay is “The Tragedy of the Commons,” published in 1968; the ideas in this essay resurface in “Lifeboat Ethics.” In the article “Lifeboat Ethics: The Case Against Helping the Poor,” Garrett Hardin argues that wealthy nations should not help poor nations by using the combinations of logos and pathos. He uses three writing tactics: lifeboat metaphor, population statistics, and critiques of other potential solutions.
At the beginning, Hardin introduces the metaphor of a lifeboat to describe the main argument – The Case Against Helping the Poor. “If we divide the world crudely into rich nations and poor nations, two thirds of them are desperately poor, and only one third comparatively rich, with the United States the wealthiest of all. Metaphorically each rich nation can be seen as a lifeboat full of comparatively rich people. In the ocean outside each lifeboat swim the poor of the world, who would like to get in, or at least to share some of the wealth. What should the lifeboat passengers do?” (Hardin 377). He starts with a simple comparison between the proportions of rich nations and poor nations. The metaphor – a lifeboat full of rich people – conveys clear image and message to help the readers visualize the first object in the scene, lifeboat. Every lifeboat has a limited capacity and resources which are only enough for small number of people; however, the surrounding swimmers, poor people, who want to get onto the lifeboat, are uncountable. Garrett Hardin totally makes the introduction appeal to logos and pathos. He positions the readers in the lifeboat as well as his argument. He makes the readers be safe on the lifeboat but he also makes them be nervous about the people under the water with
Garret Hardin was Professor Emeritus of Biology at the University of California – Santa Barbara, and considered himself to be a human ecologist who wrote, lectured, and taught about this subject. His most famous essay is “The Tragedy of the Commons,” published in 1968; the ideas in this essay resurface in “Lifeboat Ethics.” In the article “Lifeboat Ethics: The Case Against Helping the Poor,” Garrett Hardin argues that wealthy nations should not help poor nations by using the combinations of logos and pathos. He uses three writing tactics: lifeboat metaphor, population statistics, and critiques of other potential solutions.
At the beginning, Hardin introduces the metaphor of a lifeboat to describe the main argument – The Case Against Helping the Poor. “If we divide the world crudely into rich nations and poor nations, two thirds of them are desperately poor, and only one third comparatively rich, with the United States the wealthiest of all. Metaphorically each rich nation can be seen as a lifeboat full of comparatively rich people. In the ocean outside each lifeboat swim the poor of the world, who would like to get in, or at least to share some of the wealth. What should the lifeboat passengers do?” (Hardin 377). He starts with a simple comparison between the proportions of rich nations and poor nations. The metaphor – a lifeboat full of rich people – conveys clear image and message to help the readers visualize the first object in the scene, lifeboat. Every lifeboat has a limited capacity and resources which are only enough for small number of people; however, the surrounding swimmers, poor people, who want to get onto the lifeboat, are uncountable. Garrett Hardin totally makes the introduction appeal to logos and pathos. He positions the readers in the lifeboat as well as his argument. He makes the readers be safe on the lifeboat but he also makes them be nervous about the people under the water with