Programska knjižnica 9. Lošinjskih dana bioetike - Hrvatsko ...

GAMBLING AND MORALITY
This paper analyzes different aspects of the morality of gambling. Based
on the results of up-to-date research regarding moral aspects of gambling,
two attitudes have become particularly firmly accepted. The first one is advocated
by a large number of moralists who believe that it is very hard to use
a set of abstract arguments in order to ascertain the immorality of gambling.
In their view, every person has the right to use their own assets as they see fit,
as long as it does not prevent them from fulfilling all their social responsibilities.
A smaller number of moralists, on the other hand, believe that gambling
is an act of immorality in itself, regardless of whether one can afford it financially
or not. They reject the notion of affordability based on the claim that it
differs between the rich and the poor, which makes something that is moral
for rich people to be immoral for the poor. The Puritan moralists hold that
gambling opposes the foundational values of the capitalist economic system,
which is supported by Protestant ethics. Some of the main values of capitalism
are rational economic behaviour, prudence, sensibility, self-discipline,
moral feelings of duty and calling, as well as supposed correlation between
effort and reward. The values which are embodied in gambling are quite the
opposite of these values. Gambling relies on luck or chance, which is unethical
in itself (antiethical, even) as a basis for reward distribution. Gambling
is detrimental for “sensibility”, and it encourages superstition and fatalism.
All in all, gambling represents the breaking of the fundamental principles on
which capitalism rests, at least according to the arguments of the Protestant
moralists. The Catholic attitude toward gambling is that it is, just like alcohol,
acceptable in moderate amounts, but that it should be abstained from
if it becomes a problem. The author, however, warns that it is not just the
compulsive gamblers who are paying the price of increased addiction to the
gambling industry. State-governed gambling gets most of its profits from the
poorest classes. Most of those who bet, or who gamble on slot machines, or
who buy lottery tickets, come from the poorest, blue-collar class. The author
goes on to conclude that gambling is becoming less and less of a social activity.
Ground-based forms of gambling are becoming increasingly replaced
by the Internet while the gaming tables in casinos are being replaced by slot
machines. Compared to the traditional forms of gambling, involvement with
the slot machines is autistic: it is senseless, lonely and addictive – and its
popularity increases on a daily basis.
86