‘Right,’ said Roger, the self-appointed captain of the lifeboat. ‘There are twelve of us on this vessel, which is great, because it can hold up to twenty. And we have plenty of rations to last until someone comes to get us, which won’t be longer than twenty-four hours. So, I think that means we can safely allow ourselves an extra chocolate biscuit and a shot of rum each. Any objections?’
‘Much as I’d doubtless enjoy the extra biscuit,’ said Mr Mates, ‘shouldn’t our main priority right now be to get the boat over there and pick up the poor drowning woman who has been shouting at us for the last half hour?’ A few people looked down into the hull of the boat, embarrassed, while others shook their heads in disbelief.
‘I thought we had agreed,’ said Roger. ‘It’s not our fault she’s drowning, and if we pick her up, we won’t be able to enjoy our extra rations. Why should we disrupt our cosy set-up here?’ There were grunts of agreement.
‘Because we could save her, and if we don’t she’ll die. Isn’t that reason enough?’
‘Life’s a bitch,’ replied Roger. ‘If she dies, it’s not because we killed her. Anyone for a digestive?’
Source: ‘Lifeboat Earth’ by Onora O’Neill, republished in World Hunger and Moral Obligation, edited by W. Aiken and H. La Follette (Prentice-Hall, 1977)
The lifeboat metaphor is pretty easy to translate. The boat is the affluent West and the drowning woman those dying of malnutrition and preventable disease in the developing world. And the attitude of the developed world is, on this view, as callous as Roger’s. We have enough food and medicine for everyone, but we would rather enjoy luxuries and let others die than forfeit our ‘extra biscuit’ and save them. If the people on the lifeboat are grossly immoral, then so are we.
The immorality is even more striking in another version of the analogy, in which the lifeboat represents the whole of the planet Earth and some people refuse to distribute the food to others already on board. If it seems cruel not to make the effort to get another person on to the boat, it seems even crueller to deny supplies to those already plucked from the water.
The image is powerful and the message shocking. But does the analogy stand up? Some might say the lifeboat scenario neglects the importance of property rights. Goods are placed on a lifeboat for those who need them, and nobody has a greater claim to them than anyone else. So we start from the assumption that anything other than an equal distribution according to need is unfair unless proven otherwise.
In the real world, however, food and other goods are not just sitting there waiting to be distributed. Wealth is created and earned. So if I refuse to give some of my surplus to someone else, I am not unfairly appropriating what is due to him, I am simply keeping what is rightfully mine.
However, even if the analogy is altered to reflect this fact, the apparent immorality does not disappear. Let us imagine that all the food and supplies on the boat belong to the individuals in it. Nevertheless, once in the boat, and once the need of the drowning woman is recognised, wouldn’t it still be wrong to say, ‘Let her die. These biscuits are mine!’? As long as there is enough surplus to provide for her too, the fact that she is dying should make us give up some of our privately owned provisions for her.
The UN has set a target for developed countries to give 0.7 per cent of their GDP to overseas aid. Few have met it. For the vast majority of people, to give even 1 per cent of their income to help the impoverished would have a negligible effect on their quality of life. The lifeboat analogy suggests that it is not so much that we would be good people if we did so, but that we are terribly wrong not to.
See also
| 10. | The veil of ignorance |
| 55. | Sustainable development |
| 87. | Fair inequality |
| 100. | The Nest café |