3.1 Lifeboat Ethics

   When compared to a lifeboat, as author Garret Hardin describes it, the world functions on a nearly identical system. People will always need rescuing. People will always need help. People will always be asked to sacrifice themselves or their necessities in order to help another. The only problem with doing so is blatant: sacrificing one person for another gets the same result. One person makes it, one does not. The numbers never change. So why must we spend all of this effort to unproductively "save" people?
Morally, people are raised to always help their neighbors, to help those who are less fortunate than they are.While this is a good thing to do in order to maintain a small scale balance, it is a system that cannot be applied to a large scale society. In a small community, if a family has no money and the town all pitches in to get their meals and shelter, that's one thing. that is a situation that can be successfully achieved. However, the amount of people in poverty throughout the world is so high that for everyone to be considered well-off and no longer in need is impossible. There are simply too many people and not enough money. There is not enough to be shared. If one who is well-off was to completely provide for someone in a third world country, that impoverished person would "be saved," yet the wealthier man would have lost all of his money to the other, and the roles would have simply switched. The world would be in a constant state of passing off the needs to another.
In part with the lifeboat metaphor comes the issue of providing government handouts and financial aid. Yet there is only so much money in a country. (In the case of the United States, there is negative money). So who determines where that money goes? There is not enough to help everyone who needs it. Would it be better to stretch that money as thinly as possible between the maximum amount of people, or give it to the few that are already in that country and give them more? Giving a little to everyone may temporarily help more people, but in the long run, saves no one. Giving a lot to a few does not affect as many but saves those few. No matter how you approach it, a few is always greater than none.
Essentially, though our largely Christian-based moralities have been engrained in us to help as many as we can, we must realize that there comes a time when our own survival comes first. If we are not taken care of, we cannot possibly help someone else. If someone donates all of their money to someone less fortunate than they are, all that has happened was a role switch. One man is still wealthy while another is still in poverty. The numbers never change. Helping the poor with government aid and such sounds like a good idea in theory, and even works successfully in a small scale environment, but will never be successful in a large society.