ABSTRACT
Dilemmas 1 and 2 The lifeboat and Sinking further
To what extent should an individual risk their own well-being for the well-being of
others (and in this case a responsible captain risks the lives of others under his
command)? This is a slightly glorified version of the biologist Garrett Hardin’s so-
called ‘lifeboat’ scenario. In a bit of applied utilitarianism, it is designed to show
that rich countries do not have any obligations to poor countries, as they would
endanger the well-being of their own populations were they to attempt to admit the
world’s poor in the rich world’s ‘lifeboat’. If the world’s wealth was shared out
equally, it might only mean that everyone had too little. Hardin argues that ‘altruism’
can only apply on a small scale.
