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Gambling II
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Peter Collins, “Is Gambling Immoral? A Virtue
Ethics Approach”
Collins’ Project
• Collins begins by outlining the central issues pertaining to the
ethics of gambling, and then investigates the approaches
taken by a variety of ethical theories, some of which we have
investigated elsewhere in this course.
• Collins takes an Aristotelian “virtue ethics” approach to the
ethics of gambling, and argues that although gambling may
present some problematic consequences when done in
excess, when tempered it may actually produce good
consequences.
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Preamble
• Historically, gambling tends to arise as a policy issue as a
result of two beliefs:
1) Gambling is immoral.
2) The government’s job is to stamp out immoral activities.
• This second belief is probably more widely attacked than the
first.
- As a result, anti-gambling advocates tend to avoid the claim
that gambling is somehow intrinsically immoral, and instead
claim that it causes harm to the gamblers, to third parties,
and to society generally.
• Gambling provides a good case study for the ethics
surrounding pleasure.
• Gambling also provides a good case against which to test
various ethical theories, including utilitarianism, Kantian ethics,
puritan or religion-based accounts, and “virtue ethics” theories.
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What is Gambling?
• A standard definition of gambling involves three components:
1) Something valuable is placed at risk (staked).
2) There is a prospect of winning something more valuable if
one set of events occurs, and of losing one’s state if
another set of events occurs.
3) The outcome is wholly or partly unpredictable by the
gambler.
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What is Gambling? (cont’d)
Some issues that immediately arise include:
• Is buying stocks and shares gambling?
- The stock exchange is not in essence a provider of
gambling services, but rather of opportunities for general
investment.
- Unlike gambling, the stock exchange depends primarily on
the exercise of rational judgment, not luck.
- Unlike gambling, in which there are winners and losers but
the overall dollar amount up for grabs stays constant, the
stock exchange is not a zero sum game.
- For this reason, many argue that gambling, unlike investing,
“is an irrational activity which is unproductive, at best, and
destructive of wealth, at worst.” (169)
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What is Gambling? (cont’d)
• Is there any important (ethical) difference between “social
gambling” and “commercial gambling”?
- In a game of poker between friends, all participants have a
formally equal chance of winning.
- Gambling in commercial contexts tends to be set up to make
it certain that players will lose in the long run.
- This may strengthen the claim that commercial gambling is
irrational and thus morally wrong.
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What is Gambling? (cont’d)
• This paper, then is concerned primarily with the morality of
commercial gambling in which the odds are systematically
stacked against the players.
- “With respect to most sports- and other event-betting I take
it that ignorance of the relevant facts for most punters is
sufficient to make the outcome the equivalent to one which
is predominantly determined by luck.” (169)
- Conversely, the paper will not be concerned with the
activities of “professional” gamblers.
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Mill, Utilitarianism, and Vice
John Stewart Mill
• In On Liberty, Mill argues that:
1) The individual is not accountable to society for his actions
if they affect only himself.
2) If the individual’s actions do affect the interests of others,
the individual will be so accountable.
- Since gambling (and consensual fornication, and so on) do
not harm others, the government and society cannot morally
sanction such activities.
- But there still may be reason to refrain from these activities.
• In Utilitarianism, Mill argues that:
1) Vicious self-indulgence may be contrary to the principle of
utility if it is damaging to oneself in the long-term.
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Mill, Utilitarianism, and Vice
2) Some forms of pleasure are “lower” pleasures than others.
Enjoying great works of art, for instance, is a “higher”
pleasure than, say, gambling or fornicating.
- Regarding the first claim, there seems little evidence that
indulging in gambling will ultimately produce any
measurable misery (at least in most cases).
- The argument of “higher” and “lower” pleasures is
particularly notorious. Ask most people whether enjoying
great works of art is essentially of greater value than, say,
having sex, and you will get mixed responses.
- This being said, on a utilitarian calculus, there is probably
always going to be a better way to spend one’s money (i.e.
a more pleasure-producing activity) than the mindless,
mechanical activity of sitting in a casino, pulling the arm of a
slot machine.
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Kantian Arguments and Gambling
Immanuel Kant
• One form of Kant’s “Categorical Imperative” is that one should
only act on those principles that one could will to be universal
law (the “formula of universal law”).
- For instance, one cannot rationally desire that everyone tells
lies or breaks promises.
• Some hold that the whole point of gambling is to redistribute
property randomly, and that gamblers are people who want
something for nothing.
- “A Kantian might then argue that one could not rationally
desire a world in which what people possess bears no
relation to what they deserve.” (171)
- However, as a matter of fact, “property in society mostly has
been and mostly still is distributed according to accidents of
birth.” (171)
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Kantian Arguments and Gambling (cont’d)
- Moreover, one might argue, gambling is not all about
wanting something for nothing, but is merely a pastime in
which some people are willing to pay for pleasure.
- “Surely, there is nothing irrational about the principle that
people should be able to spend their own time and money
on entertainments of their own choosing.” (172)
• A subtler Kantian argument might be made that gambling is an
anti-rational activity and runs counter to our autonomous
nature: that we are surrendering our freedom of will by putting
ourselves in situations where rationality cannot affect the
outcome, and which undermine or degrade intelligence.
• However, it is not clear that it is more rational to spend time
listening to Beethoven rather than playing roulette.
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Kantian Arguments and Gambling (cont’d)
• “What is obviously true as a matter of fact is that lots of people
actually do get a lot of pleasure from gambling, and that it does
them no harm, and that they get as much benefit from it as
others … get from other forms of recreation.” (172)
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Eudaimonic Ethics
• “Eudaimonia” derives from the Greek for “well being” (eu) and
“spirit” (daimōn) and is usually interpreted as the search for
true happiness.
• Eudaimonic theory begins with Socrates but was most
developed in Aristotle’s “virtue ethics.”
• “In technical terms, it is analytic that one ought to live the best
possible life of which one is capable and it is also analytic that
the best possible life is the one which most conduces to
eudaimonia or true happiness.” (174)
• In Aristotle’s thinking, a life devoted to the pursuit of mere
pleasure or money will not be a happy one.
- Doctrine of the “golden mean”.
- Aristotle argues that we should find the “mean” between
excessive asceticism and hedonistic over-indulgence, and
live that mean.
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Eudaimonic Ethics (cont’d)
• Gambling isn’t for everyone, but for those who do derive
significant pleasure from the activity, Aristotle’s principle of
“nothing in excess” seems a sensible route.
• “Not only does temperance obviously avoid the dangers of
addiction but it is not unreasonable to suppose that it issues in
a life which is better than one of total abstinence.” (174)
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Conclusion
• It seems the worst, conclusive thing we can say about
gambling is that it is a waste of time, mindless, anti-social,
boring, dehumanizing, degrading, and so on.
• If this is so, why do people gamble?
1) Gamblers are buying a product: the pleasure of play. “It is
hard to make a serious moral case against indulging in the
pleasures of playing games for recreation or
entertainment.” (175)
2) The money spent on gambling fuels the dreams of
gamblers of “hitting it big”. This is, at worst, escapism and
morally no different than watching soap operas. And, as
Newton points out, there is the chance that gamblers will
seriously improve their lives.
3) Some gamblers enjoy the “ancillary pleasures” of
gambling: the glamour of the casino, the mood of the
betting track, and so on.
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Conclusion (cont’d)
• As well, gambling may actually be good for character:
- It may make people less devoted to their money and
material possessions;
- It may strengthen the virtues of courage, equanimity, and
graciousness in adversity.
• “[F]or the vast majority of people who engage in it gambling
has no significant impact on their moral character at all.” (175)