Garrett Hardin Quotes & Sayings

Freedom to breed will bring ruin to all. — Garrett Hardin

In a competitive world of limited resources, total freedom of individual action is intolerable — Garrett Hardin

Society does not need more children; but it does need more loved children. Quite literally, we cannot afford unloved children - but we pay heavily for them every day. There should not be the slightest communal concern when a woman elects to destroy the life of her thousandth-of-an-ounce embryo. But all society should rise up in alarm when it hears that a baby that is not wanted is about to be born. — Garrett Hardin

Fundamentalists are panicked by the apparent disintegration of the family, the disappearance of certainty and the decay of morality. Fear leads them to ask, if we cannot trust the Bible, what can we trust? — Garrett Hardin

The social arrangements that produce responsibility are arrangements that create coercion, of some sort. — Garrett Hardin

Moreover, the practical recommendations deduced from ecological principles threaten the vested interests of commerce; it is hardly surprising that the financial and political power created by these investments should be used sometimes to suppress environmental impact studies. — Garrett Hardin

Why are ecologists and environmentalists so feared and hated? This is because in part what they have to say is new to the general public, and the new is always alarming. — Garrett Hardin

You can never do merely one thing. The law applies to any action that changes something in a complex system. The point is that an action taken to alleviate a problem will trigger several effects, some of which may offset or even negate the one intended. — Garrett Hardin

We see only what we have names for. — Garrett Hardin

Of course, a positive growth rate might be taken as evidence that a population is below its optimum. — Garrett Hardin

No one should be able to enter a wilderness by mechanical means. — Garrett Hardin

Religious reasons, which is no reason. I notice Skeptic had a review of Dennett's book, Darwin's Dangerous Idea. Religious reasons amount to what Dennett terms "skyhooks." Do you believe in skyhooks? I don't. — Garrett Hardin

Indeed, our particular concept of private property, which deters us from exhausting the positive resources of the earth, favors pollution. — Garrett Hardin

Thou shalt not transgress the carrying capacity — Garrett Hardin

To say that we mutually agree to coercion is not to say that we are required to enjoy it, or even to pretend we enjoy it. — Garrett Hardin

Numeracy: 1. The art of putting numbers to things, that is, assigning amounts to variables in order that practical decisions may be reach. 2. That aspect of education (beyond mere literacy) which takes account of quantitative aspects of reality. — Garrett Hardin

Economists (and others) who are satisfied with nature-free equations develop a dangerous hubris about the potency of our species — Garrett Hardin

Throughout history, human exploitation of the earth has produced this progression: colonize-destroy-move on. — Garrett Hardin

But as population became denser, the natural chemical and biological recycling processes became overloaded, calling for a redefinition of property rights. — Garrett Hardin

Using the commons as a cesspool does not harm the general public under frontier conditions, because there is no public, the same behavior in a metropolis is unbearable. — Garrett Hardin

The morality of an act is a function of the state of the system at the time it is performed. — Garrett Hardin

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights describes the family as the natural and fundamental unit of society. It follows that any choice and decision with regard to the size of the family must irrevocably rest with the family itself, and cannot be made by anyone else. — Garrett Hardin

It takes five years for a willing person's mind to change. Have patience with yourself and others when treading in an area protected by a taboo. — Garrett Hardin

A coldly rationalist individualist can deny that he has any obligation to make sacrifices for the future. — Garrett Hardin

In a finite world this means that the per capita share of the world's goods must steadily decrease. — Garrett Hardin

But it is no good using the tongs of reason to pull the Fundamentalists' chestnuts out of the fire of contradiction. Their real troubles lie elsewhere. — Garrett Hardin

The individual benefits as an individual from his ability to deny the truth even though society as a whole, of which he is a part, suffers. — Garrett Hardin

It is now widely believed (and, I think, correctly believed) that the survival of a nation under modern competitive conditions depends on broadening the electorate's competency in numerate matters. Numeracy — Garrett Hardin

In the specific case of abortion, the matter is particularly easy in that no woman wants a late abortion. Once abortion was made legal, the age of the aborted fetus went down. The slope slipped in the other direction. If we legalize RU-486 and other similar new drugs, the age will fall to one week or less and start approaching zero. The slippery slope will slide in the other direction. The only reason we have late abortions is because we make early abortion difficult. — Garrett Hardin

The rational man finds that his share of the cost of the wastes he discharges into the commons is less than the cost of purifying his wastes before releasing them. — Garrett Hardin

In an approximate way, the logic of commons has been understood for a long time, perhaps since the discovery of agriculture or the invention of private property in real estate. — Garrett Hardin

The only kind of coercion I recommend is mutual coercion, mutually agreed upon by the majority of the people affected. — Garrett Hardin

An attack on values is inevitably seen as an act of subversion. — Garrett Hardin

Consider the problem, "How can I win the game of tick-tack-toe?" It is well known that I cannot, if I assume (in keeping with the conventions of game theory) that my opponent understands the game perfectly. Put another way, there is no "technical solution" to the problem. I can win only by giving a radical meaning to the word "win." I can hit my opponent over the head; or I can drug him; or I can falsify the records. Every way in which I "win" involves, in some sense, an abandonment of the game, as we intuitively understand it. (I can also, of course, openly abandon the game--refuse to play it. This is what most adults do.) — Garrett Hardin

People are the quintessential element in all technology ... Once we recognize the inescapable human nexus of all technology our attitude toward the reliability problem is fundamentally changed. — Garrett Hardin

The mathematics of biological reproduction is logically identical with the mathematics of usury. Money earns interest, animals have babies. In — Garrett Hardin

Continuity is at the heart of conservatism: ecology serves that heart. — Garrett Hardin

Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the commons. — Garrett Hardin

The optimum population is, then, less than the maximum. — Garrett Hardin

Education can counteract the natural tendency to do the wrong thing, but the inexorable succession of generations requires that the basis for this knowledge be constantly refreshed. — Garrett Hardin

It is a mistake to think that we can control the breeding of mankind in the long run by an appeal to conscience. — Garrett Hardin

A finite world can support only a finite population; therefore, population growth must eventually equal zero. — Garrett Hardin

A technical solution may be defined as one that requires a change only in the techniques of the natural sciences, demanding little or nothing in the way of change in human values or ideas of morality. — Garrett Hardin

You cannot do only one thing. — Garrett Hardin

The only thing we can really count on in this uncertain world is human unreliability itself. — Garrett Hardin

Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all. — Garrett Hardin

However, I think the major opposition to ecology has deeper roots than mere economics; ecology threatens widely held values so fundamental that they must be called religious. — Garrett Hardin