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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
This 4 page paper answers several questions about the essay "Tragedy of the Commons" by Garrett Hardin. Bibliography lists 2 sources.
Page Count:
4 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_HVHardin.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
societal issues. This brief paper answers several questions about the essay. Discussion The commons, as indicated above, is common land. One formal definition of the word is:
"... a common is a piece of land over which other people ... could exercise one of a number of traditional rights, such as allowing their cattle to graze
upon it. The older texts use the word common to denote any such right, but more modern usage is to refer to particular rights of common, and to reserve
the word "common" for the land..." (Commons, 2005). Examples of these "rights of common" include grazing animals on the common; fishing on the common; and taking turf and wood
from the common (Commons, 2005). Today, the word usually refers to "any sets of resources that a community recognizes as being accessible to any member of that community" (Commons,
2005). The "tragedy of the commons" that Hardin describes is that, in his opinion, people who have access to a common adopt a mode of thinking that encourages them to
behave as though resources were infinite when in fact they are finite. They follow Adam Smiths "Invisible Hand" theory, which leads people to believe that whats good for them
individually must be good for society as a whole (Hardin, 1968). Once this philosophy is adopted, its literally "every man for himself" and disaster follows. The most important points
in Hardins paper, I believe, are his assertions that we must achieve zero population growth worldwide; that we must reduce pollution; and that "natural selection favors the forces of psychological
denial" (Hardin, 1968). This last is particularly important; what hes saying is that as individuals, we can fool ourselves into thinking that whatever helps us indivdually also benefits our
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