Gambling, Sexism And Racism: Morality Essay Sample

There are a few methods for approaching morality as a concept. Thinking about morality is different for everyone, and the way in which an individual thinks about morality may change his or her moral compass. Morality can be defined scientifically, as a set of codes that human beings are biologically forced to follow. It may be presented as a case of relative ethics, giving the individual a choice of what is right or wrong; lastly, it may be discussed in sociological terms, by defining what is good for society and extrapolating from there.
Gambling, sexism, and racism all present moral issues for people. Collins writes that gambling occurs when an individual puts something valuable at risk; if a certain set of circumstances occurs, then the gambler will receive something more valuable, but if a second set occurs, he or she will lose his or her stake. Finally, Collins writes, the outcome must be partially or completely uncontrollable by the gambler. Collins examines all the ethical and moral arguments against gambling closely, and determines that gambling is a morally “trivial” issue, because in his view, gambling essentially does nothing to change or vary a gambler’s character or behavior.
Fletcher, on the other hand, comes to a very different conclusion. While he defines gambling in a very similar manner, he states that gambling courts addiction and interferes with the compulsive gambler’s life in such a way to make his or her standard of living lower. Essentially, gambling, to Fletcher, is poisonous to an individual’s character.
On the whole, Fletcher’s line of reasoning is more compelling than Collins’; many families are torn apart due to compulsive gambling, and most ethical and moral are strict on the idea that a behavior that harms others that are innocent cannot be a morally-sound behavior.
Sex-marking is a type of unconscious behavior that humans exhibit. It is a way of culturally marking an individual as male or female; for example, a waiter pulling out a chair for a woman in a restaurant, or a waiter addressing only the male half of a couple at that same restaurant. Sex-marking is incredibly common in western societies; most people do not even realize they are participating in the behavior. Holding open doors, serving women first, and even the differences between handshakes for a man and a woman are all daily examples of sex-marking.
Sex-marking contributes to sexism, as women-- no matter how intelligent, well-educated, beautiful, or successful they are-- will always be at a certain level of disadvantage due to their gender. Sex-marking has a twofold purpose: first, it reminds a female of her femininity, and her place in a male-dominated society, and second, it often contains subtle infantilization of women, implying that they are delicate and incapable.
Sexism is wrong because women as an entire gender are oppressed; there is no meaning and no biological imperative behind it. Sexism is a learned cultural experience, not a biological necessity. Sex-marking contributes to entrenched sexism by perpetuating values that are sexist (but not necessarily perceived as so) in society,
Racism is a term that refers to the different aspects of society that limit the abilities of certain racial groups to live up to their potential because of their race. Garcia is extremely critical of Wasserstrom’s definition of racism, because Wasserstrom postulates that for racism to occur, there must be an outward, systematic expression of that racism; Garcia feels otherwise. Garcia writes that racism and sexism stem from the same concept: oppressive structures in society, and individual prejudice. Garcia believes that racism is still racism regardless of whether or not the individual acts on it.
Garcia’s description of racism and sexism is excellent for drawing parallels between the two issues, because fundamentally, racism and sexism do the same thing: they oppress a group of people based on nothing but an uncontrollable biological characteristic that society has defined. Both racism and sexism are entrenched societal behaviors that privilege certain classes while oppressing others.