I discuss biologist Garrett Hardin's view of human nature, with examples from the background to his seminal 1968 essay "The Tragedy of the Commons" and his testimony before the US House of Representatives in the 1970s. Hardin saw the human species as being governed by deterministic laws of the same kind that controlled all other forms of life. Humans, as much as cattle and microbes, were in inevitable competition for space and resources. Equal parts Malthusian political economy and Cold War systems science, his view was the survival of the human race depended on obeying these iron laws. Human freedom was the recognition of-and obedience to-its nature. This determination for humanity to act within the strictures placed on itself by its own nature was what he called "lifeboat ethics." In order for the citizens of the rich countries to survive, many in the Third World would have to die. In this sense I characterize Hardin's sense of life as tragic, both as a play on the title of his famous essay, and to emphasize his view that the problem of human population growth had no 'win-win' solutions.
Download full-text PDF |
Source |
|---|---|
| http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.endeavour.2016.10.007 | DOI Listing |
Publication Analysis
Top Keywords
Similar Publications
The Lifeboat at World's End: Moving Beyond Crisis Standards of Care.
Perspect Biol Med
December 2022
It may be too late to avoid the climate crisis, likely to be humanity's most expensive, widespread, and enduring catastrophe. This is a qualitatively different kind of catastrophe, in which increased costs, decreased revenue, and no possibility of bailout force communities to harshly cut budgets, especially in health care. Little is known about making such brutal cuts fair or efficient, nor how to help the public accept them.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSocial dimensions of fertility behavior and consumption patterns in the Anthropocene.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A
March 2020
Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of California, Davis, CA 95616.
We consider two aspects of the human enterprise that profoundly affect the global environment: population and consumption. We show that fertility and consumption behavior harbor a class of externalities that have not been much noted in the literature. Both are driven in part by attitudes and preferences that are not egoistic but socially embedded; that is, each household's decisions are influenced by the decisions made by others.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGarrett Hardin's Tragic Sense of Life.
Endeavour
December 2016
Department of Philosophy, and Program in Science and Technology Studies, University of California, Davis, United States. Electronic address:
I discuss biologist Garrett Hardin's view of human nature, with examples from the background to his seminal 1968 essay "The Tragedy of the Commons" and his testimony before the US House of Representatives in the 1970s. Hardin saw the human species as being governed by deterministic laws of the same kind that controlled all other forms of life. Humans, as much as cattle and microbes, were in inevitable competition for space and resources.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHow a network of conservationists and population control activists created the contemporary US anti-immigration movement.
Endeavour
June 2015
Lyman Briggs College and Department of Philosophy, Michigan State University, 919 E. Shaw Lane, Holmes Hall Room E-35, East Lansing, MI 48825, United States. Electronic address:
Continuing historical narratives of the early twentieth century nexus of conservationism, eugenics, and nativism (exemplified by Madison Grant), this paper traces the history of the contemporary US anti-immigration movement's roots in environmentalism and global population control activism, through an exploration of the thoughts and activities of the activist, John Tanton, who has been called "the most influential unknown man in America." We explore the "neo-Malthusian" ideas that sparked a seminal moment for population control advocacy in the late 1960s and early 1970s, leading to the creation of Zero Population Growth (ZPG). After rising to the presidency of ZPG, Tanton, and ZPG spun off the Federation for American Immigration Reform.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPublic goods in relation to competition, cooperation, and spite.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A
July 2014
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, and Princeton Environmental Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544-1003; Resources for the Future, Washington, DC 20036; and The Beijer Institute for Ecological Economics, The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, SE-104 05 Stockholm, Sweden
Public goods and common-pool resources are fundamental features of biological and social systems, and pose core challenges in achieving sustainability; for such situations, the immediate interests of individuals and the societies in which they are embedded are in potential conflict, involving game-theoretic considerations whose resolution need not serve the collective good. Evolution has often confronted such dilemmas--e.g.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWant AI Summaries of new PubMed Abstracts delivered to your In-box?
Enter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!