Jerry says disease, natural disasters, and even war serve a greater purpose. His friends say his views are offensive, and Jerry replies, “But I’m a Malthusian!” Along with Thomas Malthus, Jerry believes that the benefit of problems that wipe out large numbers of humans is that

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The question presents Jerry’s Malthusian view that large-scale calamities have a purposeful role. The only option provided states: 'the decreased pressure on the food supply reduces starvation and misery.' This aligns with the Malthusian framework in which population pressures on scarce resources can be relieved temporarily when a catastrophe reduces the number of people, thereby lowering competition for food and potentially reducing starvation and related misery.

To unpack this, consider what Malthus argued: population grows more or less exponentially while food production increases arithmetically, so when population expands beyond the means to feed everyone, checks such as famine, disease, or war can bring numbers back into balance. In that sense, large-scale deaths reduce the number of mouths that need to be fed, which can decrease demand on the food supply and lessen starvation for the survivors. However, this is a grim and ethically troubling perspective, because it treats human suffering and mortality as a mechanism for resource balance rather than as a moral issue.

Why this option makes sense within a Malthusian lens: it identifies the core mechanism of population-resource dynamics—reducing the denominator (people) lowers relative scarcity, which can translate into fewer people experiencing starvation among those who survive. It does not posit any positive outcome from the disasters themselves beyond the resource-relief effect, which is consistent with Malthus's focus on resource constraints rather than humanitarian benefit.

Why the other potential, unlisted options (if they existed) might be considered incorrect in contrast: many alternative statements would either mischaracterize Malthus (for example, claiming that population growth is always beneficial, or that disasters have no impact on resource pressure) or would imply moral endorsement of suffering without recognizing the underlying mechanism of resource scarcity. In short, the core misfit would be any assertion that contradicts the basic idea that population pressure on finite resources can drive misery, and that reducing that pressure via deaths can temporarily alleviate scarcity, even though such events are ethically unacceptable as a policy.

Overall, the chosen option captures the central Malthusian claim about the relationship between population, resources, and the potential, but ethically untenable, relief of scarcity following large-scale mortality.

SOC 110-003 Quiz 7

Jerry says disease, natural disasters, and even war serve a greater purpose. His friends say his views are offensive, and Jerry replies, “But I’m a Malthusian!” Along with Thomas Malthus, Jerry believes that the benefit of problems that wipe out large numbers of humans is that

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