Global Economic Justice

1. Global Economic Justice Garrett Hardin: “Living on a Lifeboat” • The affluent should not aid the poor and starving people of the world because doing so will only lead to disaster for everyone, rich and poor. • The problems of poverty and starvation are due to uncontrolled population growth. • Giving the hungry food will make the situation worse by artificially enlarging the population still more, causing it to outstrip the carrying capacity even further.

2. Global Economic Justice William W. Murdoch and Allan Oaten: “A Critique of Lifeboat Ethics” • Hardin’s analysis is simplistic: The lifeboat metaphor implies that the rich lifeboats barely interact with the poor, but in the real world the rich countries have greatly affected the poor ones, and often for the worse. • “Rich nations have arranged an exchange of goods that has maintained and even increased the economic imbalance between rich and poor nations.”

3. Global Economic Justice Peter Singer: “Famine Affluence, and Morality” • Suffering and death from lack of food and other necessities are bad. • If it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening without excessive sacrifice, we have a moral duty to do it. • Therefore, we have a moral duty to help the poor and starving of the world.

4. Global Economic Justice Louis P. Pojman: “World Hunger and Population” 4 responses to world hunger: (1) Neo-Malthusianism (2) Liberalism (3) Conservativism (4) Pojman’s Moderate Alternative. We may have a duty to give our surplus to “help save drowning children in a distant land,” but we also have “special responsibilities to family, friends, and neighbors.”