Lifeboar Ethics Essays - Population, Demographic Economics

Lifeboar Ethics Essays - Population, Demographic Economics Lifeboar Ethics Garrett Hardins argument for the preservation of well-to-do societies is embodied by his extended metaphor of each society as a lifeboat with its members the lifeboats occupants. His presentation of this metaphor is key in his assertions that the creation of an international food bank, efforts to improve agriculture in foreign nations (the Green Revolution), and lax immigration laws will all result in universal tragedy. Hardins initial complaint is against humanitarian efforts to establish an international food bank, to which rich nations will contribute and from which poor nations will draw. Theoretically, accidents (famine, crop failure, etc.) should teach nations to plan ahead and budget for future tragedies; the existence of an international food bank would inhibit this process from occurring by spoiling the benefiting nations. In addition, a food bank would allow population to constantly balloon regardless of immediate food availability. For example, a famine should reduce a societys population back to its carrying capacity, but an international food bank would prevent this regression. A popularly proposed alternative is the Green Revolution, where agriculture is improved within a nation rather than food delivered directly to it. Despite the superior logic inherent in this idea as compared to that of a food bank, both have the exact same result: overpopulation. Hardin proceeds to point out that immigration itself represents a significant portion of this problem. Ethnic groups maintain paranoia of the label ethnocentricity, and Hardin insists that this prevents wealthy nations from creating more selective immigration laws. The consequence is the same as that of the food bank: a drain on the wealthy nations. Essentially Hardin asserts that food banks would prevent poor countries from learning their lesson and ultimately destroy the benefiting nation due to uncontrolled population growth. Likewise, the Green Revolution also spurs on this disastrous uncontrolled population growth. Finally, uncontrolled immigration allows foreigners to go to the food rather than vice-versa, thus destroying the wealthy nations in the same manner that food banks would destroy the poor. Quite simply, I disagree with Garrett Hardins theories regarding the self-preservation of wealthy nations in his paper Lifeboat Ethics. His assertions regarding the nations limited carrying capacities adheres the idea of self-preservation idea to firm logic, but logic cannot overpower the humanitarian impulse of mankind. World food banks and the Green Revolution are used to demonstrate the ratchet effect; a firm yet ineffectual point asserting that the efforts of wealthy nations to aid the poor are inhibiting to the welfare of the environment. Obviously this effect makes an excellent graphic for a thesis page and is alarming in many respects, but essentially it is encouragement for the wealthy populace to abandon the poor to the consequences of famine. Hardins initial analysis maintains that each nation can be viewed as a lifeboat in an ocean, each with a limited amount of space. As symptoms of overpopulation develop within a nation, members of that nation begin to fall overboard and seek refuge on other lifeboats. Similarly, overcrowded or poor nations who cannot support their population turn to the wealthier nations for food, money, and immigration opportunities; very similar to those adrift seeking passage on another lifeboat. This abstract view is actually well thought-out and consistent with parallels in the real world today, but simultaneously uncomfortable for most people. For example, this analogy may be extended to say that people arent willing to watch others die in the ocean while they are safe in a lifeboat, nor will they willingly watch others die on the planet while they possess the capability of saving them. This logical yet flawed model continues as Hardin reflects on the effects of taking on additional passengers, just as modern nations help those in need. According to Hardin, several problems arise when deciding to help those less fortunate: too many people will swamp the lifeboat (a.k.a.- the nation), no method exists to fairly choose which people to save, and if no saving actions are made, modern ethics will result in the guilt of the survivors. Again, this analysis is very consistent with the real world, as every day we (as individuals and as a nation) are confronted with opportunities to help those less fortunate. It is inconsistent, however, in that these daily confrontations do not

The Slave Boy Experiment in Platos Meno

The Slave Boy Experiment in Plato's 'Meno' One of the most famous passages in all of Platos works- indeed, in all of philosophy- occurs in the middle of the  Meno. Meno asks Socrates if he can prove the truth of his strange claim that all learning is recollection (a claim that Socrates connects to the idea of reincarnation). Socrates responds by calling over a slave boy and, after establishing that he has had no mathematical training, setting him a geometry problem. The Geometry Problem The boy is asked how to double the area of a square. His confident first answer is that you achieve this by doubling the length of the sides. Socrates shows him that this, in fact, creates a square four times larger than the original. The boy then suggests extending the sides by half their length. Socrates points out that this would turn a 2x2 square (area 4) into a 3x3 square (area 9). At this point, the boy gives up and declares himself at a loss. Socrates then guides him by means of simple step-by-step questions to the correct answer, which is to use the diagonal of the original square as the base for the new square. The Soul Immortal According to Socrates, the boys ability to reach the truth and recognize it as such proves that he already had this knowledge within him; the questions he was asked simply stirred it up, making it easier for him to recollect it. He argues, further, that since the boy didnt acquire such knowledge in this life, he must have acquired it at some earlier time; in fact, Socrates says, he must have always known it, which indicates that the soul is immortal. Moreover, what has been shown for geometry also holds for every other branch of knowledge: the soul, in some sense, already possesses the truth about all things. Some of Socrates inferences here are clearly a bit of a stretch. Why should we believe that an innate ability to reason mathematically implies that the soul is immortal? Or that we already possess within us empirical knowledge about such things as the theory of evolution, or the history of Greece? Socrates himself, in fact, acknowledges that he cant be certain about some of his conclusions. Nevertheless, he evidently believes that the demonstration with the slave boy proves something. But does it? And if so, what? One view is that the passage proves that we have innate ideas- a kind of knowledge we are quite literally born with. This doctrine is one of the most disputed in the history of philosophy. Descartes, who was clearly influenced by Plato, defended it. He argues, for instance, that God imprints an idea of Himself on each mind that he creates. Since every human being possesses this idea, faith in God is available to all. And because the idea of God is the idea of an infinitely perfect being, it makes possible other knowledge which depends on the notions of infinity and perfection, notions that we could never arrive at from experience. The doctrine of innate ideas is closely associated with the rationalist philosophies of thinkers like Descartes and Leibniz. It was fiercely attacked by John Locke, the first of the major British empiricists. Book One of Lockes  Essay on Human Understanding  is a famous polemic against the whole doctrine. According to Locke, the mind at birth is a tabula rasa, a blank slate. Everything we eventually know is learned from experience. Since the 17th century (when Descartes and Locke produced their works), the empiricist skepticism regarding innate ideas has generally had the upper hand. Nevertheless, a version of the doctrine was revived by the linguist Noam Chomsky. Chomsky was struck by the remarkable achievement of every child in learning language. Within three years, most children have mastered their native language to such an extent that they can produce an unlimited number of original sentences. This ability goes far beyond what they can have learned simply by listening to what others say: the output exceeds the input. Chomsky argues that what makes this possible is an innate capacity for learning language, a capacity that involves intuitively recognizing what he calls the universal grammar- the deep structure- that all human languages share. A Priori Although the specific doctrine of innate knowledge presented in the  Meno  finds few takers today, the more general view that we know some things a priori- i.e. prior to experience- is still widely held. Mathematics, in particular, is thought to exemplify this sort of knowledge. We dont arrive at theorems in geometry or arithmetic by conducting empirical research; we establish truths of this sort simply by reasoning. Socrates may prove his theorem using a diagram drawn with a stick in the dirt but we understand immediately that the theorem is necessarily and universally true. It applies to all squares, regardless of how big they are, what they are made of, when they exist, or where they exist. Many readers complain that the boy does not really discover how to double the area of a square himself: Socrates guides him to the answer with leading questions. This is true. The boy would probably not have arrived at the answer by himself. But this objection misses the deeper point of the demonstration: the boy is not simply learning a formula that he then repeats without real understanding (the way most of us are doing when we say something like, e mc squared). When he agrees that a certain proposition is true or an inference is valid, he does so because he grasps the truth of the matter for himself. In principle, therefore, he could discover the theorem in question, and many others, just by thinking very hard. And so could we all!