Garrett Hardin

Garrett James Hardin (born April 21, 1915 - September 14, 2003 ) was an eminent American microbiologist and ecologist . He was best known for his interdisciplinary studies on the tragedy of the commons .

life and work

1936 graduated Hardin in Zoology ( University of Chicago ); In 1941 he received his PhD in microbiology from Stanford University . From 1946 he conducted research at the University of California, Santa Barbara , where he held a chair in ecology from 1963 to 1978.

His - often controversial - studies touched on topics such as environmental protection , overpopulation , abortion , creationism and sociobiology .

He became known in 1968 with an essay for the journal Science entitled The Tragedy of the Commons . The German translation is derived from the common economic form known since the Middle Ages . According to Hardin, the tragedy of the commons would be an inevitable fate of mankind if only one were to look for a technological solution. In order to avoid this fate, one must rather change one's perspective and no longer regard and approach the problem as individual individuals, but also as a community. Hardin, who places himself in the Robert Malthus tradition , saw the term as a metaphor for, among other things, overpopulation and called for global birth control. Joachim Radkau put Hardin's use of the term in a historical context. Instead of wanting to abolish traditional peasant common property like the agricultural reformers of the 18th and 19th centuries, Hardin used the image of the commons to demand state intervention on a global level up to, so Radkau literally, an 'eco-dictatorship'. In his 1968 essay, however, Hardin did not call for an 'eco-dictatorship. On the contrary, he shows understanding for individual interests and writes “Who enjoys taxes? We all grumble about them. ”After the change of perspective, however, you will realize that taxes or tariffs are necessary for the maintenance of public goods. It should be noted that although Hardin writes of “extension in morality” as a solution to the tragedy of the commons , he means the change of perspective. Hardin had no training in ethics and is accordingly imprecise in his choice of words. In addition, in his essay he is expressly against common moral instruments such as speaking into conscience.

In 1973 Hardin was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and 1974 to the American Philosophical Society .

Hardin is among the 52 co-signers of Mainstream Science on Intelligence , written by Linda Gottfredson and published in December 1994 by the Wall Street Journal .

In September 2003, Hardin and his wife committed suicide.

Publications

Essays

• The Cybernetics of Competition. A Biologist's View of Society. In: Perspectives in Biology and Medicine. 7, 1963, pp. 58-84.
• The Tragedy of the Commons. In: Science. 162, 1968, pp. 1243-1248. (German translation in: Michael Lohmann (Ed.): Endangered Future. Munich 1970, pp. 30–48)
• Population, biology and law. In: Journal of Urban Law. 48, 1971, pp. 563-578.
• Lifeboat Ethics: The Case Against Helping the Poor. In: Psychology Today . 8, 1974, pp. 38, 40-43, 123-124, 126.
• Living with Faustian Bargain. In: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. 32, 1976, pp. 25-29.
• Ecology and the death of Providence. In: Zygon. 15, 1980, pp. 57-68.
• Discriminating altruisms. In: Zygon. 17, 1982, pp. 163-186.
• Is violence natural? In: Zygon. 18, 1983, pp. 405-413.
• Human-ecology - the subversive, conservative science. In: American Zoologist. 25, 1985, pp. 469-476.
• Cultural carrying capacity - a biological approach to human problems. In: Bioscience. 36, 1986, pp. 599-606.
• The Tragedy of the Unmanaged Commons. In: Trends in Ecology & Evolution. 9, 1994, pp. 199-199.
• Extensions of "The Tragedy of the Commons". In: Science. 280, 1998, pp. 682-683.

Books

• Nature and Man's Fate. New American Library, 1965, ISBN 0-451-61170-5 .
• Exploring new ethics for survival: the voyage of the spaceship Beagle. Viking Press, 1972, ISBN 0-670-30268-6 .
• Promethean Ethics: Living With Death, Competition, and Triage. University of Washington Press, 1980, ISBN 0-295-95717-4 .
• Naked Emperors: Essays of a Taboo-Stalker. William Kaufmann, 1982, ISBN 0-86576-032-2 .
• Filters Against Folly, How to Survive Despite Economists, Ecologists, and the Merely Eloquent. Viking Penguin, 1985, ISBN 0-670-80410-X .
• Living Within Limits: Ecology, Economics, and Population Taboos. Oxford University Press, 1993, ISBN 0-19-509385-2 .
• The Ostrich Factor: Our Population Myopia. Oxford University Press, 1999, ISBN 0-19-512274-7 .

See also

• Commons
• Tragedy of the commons

Individual evidence

1. ^ Garrett Hardin: The Tragedy of the Commons . In: Science . tape 162 , no. 3859 , December 13, 1968, ISSN  0036-8075 , p. 1243–1248 , doi : 10.1126 / science.162.3859.1243 , PMID 5699198 ( sciencemag.org [accessed May 3, 2018]).
2. ↑ Yanling Guo: Hardin and his "The Tragedy of the Commons" . In: LinkedIn . April 30, 2018 ( linkedin.com [accessed May 3, 2018]).
3. ^ Garrett Hardin: The Feast of Malthus. Living within limits. In: The Social Contract. Spring 1998, pp. 181-187.
4. ↑ Joachim Radkau: Nature and Power, A World History of the Environment. CH Beck, 2002, ISBN 3-406-48655-X .
5. ^ Garrett Hardin: The Tragedy of the Commons . In: Science . tape 162 , no. 3859 , December 13, 1968, ISSN  0036-8075 , p. 1243–1248 , doi : 10.1126 / science.162.3859.1243 , PMID 5699198 ( sciencemag.org [accessed May 3, 2018]).
6. ↑ Yanling Guo: Hardin and his "The Tragedy of the Commons" . In: LinkedIn . April 30, 2018 ( linkedin.com [accessed May 3, 2018]).
7. ^ Member History: Garrett Hardin. American Philosophical Society, accessed September 21, 2018 . 
8. ↑ Linda Gottfredson: Mainstream Science on Intelligence. In: Wall Street Journal. December 13, 1994, p. A18.

Web links

• The Garrett Hardin Society
• The Tragedy of the Commons
• Obituary at American Scientist
• Tributes at the Garrett Hardin Society