Tragedy Of Commons Essay

As the creators of their economy, human beings must fix where it is broken for those who are poor. Nelson Mandela described this when he said, “Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings” (Mandela). The writers of “Life Boat Ethics” and “A Modest Proposal”, Johnathan Swift and Garrett Hardin, take on the task of forming a solution to helping improve impoverished countries. Swift has an overly optimistic view, whereas Hardin has an unrealistic but applicable approach; however, both writers agree that we simply cannot help everyone and choices must be made concerning the risk of depleted resources, the threat of famine and over population.

“Life is nasty, brutish, and short... a condition of war of everyone against everyone” said Hobbes. He professes the goal of government is to prevent a return to the state of nature and protect the citizenry from their own nature. Locke takes a more moderate path, he claims man had unlimited freedom in the state of nature, however the advantages and limitations of society far outweighed that initial freedom. He shows great distrust in the government and believes its purpose lies in persevering man's natural rights.

In the case of a world ruled by Chaos, evil is a non-existent word or value, rather. The system upon which a person’s actions are judged also disappears leaving nothing but an instinct for natural survival as basic and primary as the life within the forests which we tear down to build our houses. Ethics is a wide field of philosophical study to which the core of every question within falls to one side of a blurred line. On the right, is good; the value which is popularly believed to be the correct alignment for which a person should live their life according to. On the left, is evil; that which is the cause of most human misery, and prevents peace on earth.

Finally, commitment to justice is the only way to restore a situation to the way it should be. Shakespeare’s King Lear clearly portrays the fundamental societal truth that justice brings about proper resolution, whereas mercy is just a luxury that mankind can rarely afford; justice therefore is society’s highest value. Justice is integral to society and only justice is a true deterrent to evil as it is required to punish people properly. In King Lear, Albany clearly points out the importance of justice when he is arguing with his rotten wife Goneril in Act IV. He says, “If that the heavens do not their visible spirits / Send quickly down to tame these vile offenses, / It will come, / Humanity must perforce prey on itself, / Like monsters of the deep” (IV ii 46-49).

The treatment of lobsters and whether or not it is right to prepare them as food is a highly debated matter that is continuously being brought up in our society. Lobsters are one of the most majestic and interesting creatures that our waters have to offer. These poor animals are becoming the victims of widespread cruelty due to over-harvesting and by the very inhumane methods of preparation that are used to cook these lobsters. The effects of these bad behaviors create much debate in the world, which extend to countless individuals. The overall cruelty that is demonstrated towards lobsters is damaging to both the lobster population and society’s reputation and these acts of brutality must be stopped.

This once again falls under the “market-in-the-gaps” – death and destruction of humans as by-products of the neoliberal market is just the way everything operates. Under neoliberal governance, the “the best practice” is one that effectively delivers one to capital and positional improvement (Brown). Governance is concerned with the environment, constraints, and tools that are created or used in order to achieve neoliberal goals. As a result of neoliberal governance, as Brown states, the political and ethical – i.e. equality or justice – are eliminated from discussion in favour of only what is deemed to be practical to achieve one’s goal.

However, in his musings, Rousseau fails to consider the indisputable, adverse results of potential abandonment of property. David Schmidtz argues that property institutions are a “positive-sum game” that minimize the external costs of society. An alternative to property law is the commons, which as Schmidtz argues, is not a time capsule, but a scarce resource that requires appropriation. The result of unregulated commons, as popularly known in the parable of The Tragedy of the Commons written by Garrett Hardin in 1968, would be the depletion of its resources, creating an even larger disparity between generations than what is seen in the present (179). Furthermore, the abandonment of property in favor of a communal initiative may lead to a fate similar to that of the Jamestown colony under its original charter.

He argues how humanity has a system of denying the consequences of acting as kings of the planet. This paper will evaluate two main types of denial: the refusal to believe in extinction and the idea of change blindness, where humans deny to see how we are negatively changing our planet over time. This paper will make a connection between McKinnon’s forms of denial, and specific reasons given by Leopold to explain why the concept of land ethic is so far from our society’s reach. The first one is how the lack of ecological conscience is a clear cause of change blindness, causing people not to care for land and choosing to act only towards the profitability of the land. The second connection would be how the human misunderstanding of the planet’s basic operating system and our position within it can explain the reasons behind the human refusal to believe in extinction and its consequences.

Voltaire includes Pangloss, Candid... ... middle of paper ... ... get sick in modern society is because of their lavish and greedy lifestyles. Ultimately, Voltaire’s explanation for the existence of human misery proves to be more valid because it is based on instances that he observed in his own life. It is his belief that through reason and education, man can separate himself from the savage whereas Rousseau argues that man is naturally good and becomes corrupted by the institutions that he himself created. Rousseau’s fault lies in the fact that he bases his entire argument off of a theoretical state of nature that he tailors to suit his argument throughout his discourse. Rousseau’s argument is also invalid because what he is proposing is impossible.

Smith has become labeled by many as “the father of modern economics,” however his policy is quite simple, there should be a hands off policy by the government. This means no government interference so that the marketplace will involve only private businesses and consumers. In this way the businesses will be dependent upon the consumers and will be forced to appeal to them by offering incentive in the form of competitive prices or a better product to beat their competition. In this type of economy consumers contain all the power, businesses pass or fail by their own merit and quality. Since businesses are now completely dependent upon the customers, these businesses now have incentive to offer high quality products at the lower prices.