Lifeboat ethics is a metaphor for resource distribution proposed by the ecologist

Ecology

Ecology is the scientific study of the relations that living organisms have with respect to each other and their natural environment. Variables of interest to ecologists include the composition, distribution, amount , number, and changing states of organisms within and among ecosystems...

 Garrett Hardin

Garrett Hardin

Garrett James Hardin was an American ecologist who warned of the dangers of overpopulation and whose concept of the tragedy of the commons brought attention to "the damage that innocent actions by individuals can inflict on the environment"...

 in 1974.

Hardin's metaphor

Metaphor

A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...

 describes a lifeboat

Lifeboat (shipboard)

A lifeboat is a small, rigid or inflatable watercraft carried for emergency evacuation in the event of a disaster aboard ship. In the military, a lifeboat may be referred to as a whaleboat, dinghy, or gig. The ship's tenders of cruise ships often double as lifeboats. Recreational sailors sometimes...

 bearing 50 people, with room for ten more. The lifeboat is in an ocean surrounded by a hundred swimmers. The "ethics

Ethics

Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality—that is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime, etc.Major branches of ethics include:...

" of the situation stem from the dilemma

Dilemma

A dilemma |proposition]]") is a problem offering two possibilities, neither of which is practically acceptable. One in this position has been traditionally described as "being on the horns of a dilemma", neither horn being comfortable...

 of whether (and under what circumstances) swimmers should be taken aboard the lifeboat.

Hardin compares the lifeboat metaphor to the Spaceship Earth

Spaceship Earth

Spaceship Earth is a world view term usually expressing concern over the use of limited resources available on Earth and the behavior of everyone on it to act as a harmonious crew working toward the greater good....

 model of resource distribution, which he criticizes by asserting that a spaceship would be directed by a single leader — a captain — which the Earth lacks. Hardin asserts that the spaceship model leads to the tragedy of the commons

Tragedy of the commons

The tragedy of the commons is a dilemma arising from the situation in which multiple individuals, acting independently and rationally consulting their own self-interest, will ultimately deplete a shared limited resource, even when it is clear that it is not in anyone's long-term interest for this...

. In contrast, the lifeboat metaphor presents individual lifeboats as rich

Wealth

Wealth is the abundance of valuable resources or material possessions. The word wealth is derived from the old English wela, which is from an Indo-European word stem...

 nations and the swimmers as poor nations.

Lifeboat ethics is closely related to environmental ethics

Environmental ethics

Environmental ethics is the part of environmental philosophy which considers extending the traditional boundaries of ethics from solely including humans to including the non-human world...

, utilitarianism

Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism is an ethical theory holding that the proper course of action is the one that maximizes the overall "happiness", by whatever means necessary. It is thus a form of consequentialism, meaning that the moral worth of an action is determined only by its resulting outcome, and that one can...

, and issues of resource depletion

Resource depletion

Resource depletion is an economic term referring to the exhaustion of raw materials within a region. Resources are commonly divided between renewable resources and non-renewable resources...

. Hardin uses lifeboat ethics to question policies such as foreign aid, immigration

Immigration

Immigration is the act of foreigners passing or coming into a country for the purpose of permanent residence...

, and food bank

Food bank

A food bank or foodbank is a non-profit, charitable organization that distributes mostly donated food to a wide variety of agencies that in turn feed the hungry. The largest sources of food are for-profit growers, manufacturers, distributors and retailers who in the normal course of business have...

s.

See also

• Balloon debate
  Balloon debate
  A balloon debate is a debate in which a number of speakers attempt to win the approval of an audience. The audience is invited to imagine that the speakers are flying in a hot-air balloon which is sinking and that someone must be thrown out if everyone is not to die.Each speaker has to make the...
  
  
• Norman Borlaug
  Norman Borlaug
  Norman Ernest Borlaug was an American agronomist, humanitarian, and Nobel laureate who has been called "the father of the Green Revolution". Borlaug was one of only six people to have won the Nobel Peace Prize, the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal...
  
   - advocated a 'World Food Bank'
• Carrying capacity
  Carrying capacity
  The carrying capacity of a biological species in an environment is the maximum population size of the species that the environment can sustain indefinitely, given the food, habitat, water and other necessities available in the environment...
  
  
• Food for Peace
  Food for Peace
  Public Law 480 also known as Food for Peace is a funding avenue by which U.S. food can be used for overseas aid....
  
  
• Intergenerational ethics
• Population control
  Population control
  Human population control is the practice of artificially altering the rate of growth of a human population.Historically, human population control has been implemented by limiting the population's birth rate, usually by government mandate, and has been undertaken as a response to factors including...
  
  
• Ratchet effect
  Ratchet effect
  A metaphorical ratchet effect is an instance of the restrained ability of human processes to be reversed once a specific thing has happened, analogous with the mechanical ratchet that holds the spring tight as a clock is wound up...
  
  
• Repugnant conclusion
• Triage
  Triage
  Triage or ) is the process of determining the priority of patients' treatments based on the severity of their condition. This rations patient treatment efficiently when resources are insufficient for all to be treated immediately. The term comes from the French verb trier, meaning to separate,...
  
  
• Zero Population Growth
  Zero population growth
  Zero population growth, sometimes abbreviated ZPG , is a condition of demographic balance where the number of people in a specified population neither grows nor declines, considered as a social aim....
  
  

External links

• Lifeboat ethics - a case against helping the poor (Garrett Hardin Society)
• Hardin, G. 1974. "Living on a lifeboat" Bioscience 24 (10), 561-568.