THE TRAGEDY OF THE COMMONS AND LIFEBOAT ETHICS: A REVIEW

Garrett James Hardin, an American ecologist was born on 21st April, 1915. He is well known for Hardin's First Law of Human Ecology: "You cannot do only one thing", which "modestly implies that there is at least one unwanted consequence". Hardin used the term ‘tragedy of the commons’ to describe a situation where individuals think of their own needs and interests without paying any attention to the fact that the others in the world may also have similar interests and needs. Individuals, driven by their self interest exploit the finite resources blindly leading ultimately to the collapse of the system, thereby bringing tragedy to the entire population. In this concept “commons” actually means all the natural and manmade resources that have to be shared between all the people of the planet earth. He believed that if individual or societies continuously use more and more resources, then whatever may be the reasons for this, at the end this will bring ‘tragedy’ to the ‘commons’. Another metaphor that Hardin used in 1974 was ‘Lifeboat Ethics’ for resource distribution. Hardin's metaphor describes a lifeboat in which 50 persons are present. There is possibility of 10 more persons getting on the boat. The lifeboat is in an ocean surrounded by a hundred swimmers. The "ethics" of the situation arises out from the dilemma whether (and under what circumstances) “swimmers” should be allowed to come onto the lifeboat. The lifeboat metaphor presents rich nations as individual lifeboats and the poor nations as the ‘swimmers’.