Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Issues concerning global population growth have been among the most vigorously argued of contemporary conflicts. On the one side, population theorists beginning with Malthus have warned that failure to limit population growth will mean environmental and hence human disaster; on the other, at least three traditional groups of critics – each with different reasons – have resisted these warnings of overpopulation as well as demands for population control. While rates of population growth and decline affect virtually all areas of health, bioethicists have so far given insufficient attention to such issues. Nevertheless, it is possible to see the outlines of at least a partial solution to population problems, though it is a controversial one.In 1798, Thomas Malthus warned that human beings, like other species, may reproduce at a rate that outstrips the carrying capacity of the site they inhabit and so doom themselves to destruction (Malthus 1798). Malthus's idea is a simple one: since human beings can have more children than simply replace themselves, and since these children in turn can also have more children than replace themselves, the growth of the human population tends to be exponential; but their food resources are ultimately limited by the productive capacity of the land. When a species does exceed the carrying capacity of its site, according to Malthusian theory, it “crashes” ... log in or subscribe to read full text