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Ethical problems with the lottery
Utilitarianism theory of ethics
Utilitarianism theory of ethics
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More handpicked essays just for you.
Ethical problems with the lottery
Utilitarianism theory of ethics
Utilitarianism theory of ethics
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Selling the lottery dream is possible because paradoxically, the probabilities of winning are so infinitesimal they become irrelevant. Jane. L. Risen, an associate professor of behavioral science at the university of Chicago, she said despite our advances in reason and mathematics, we still often rely on crude calculations to make decisions ,specially quick decisions like buying the lottery
In his essay why we keep playing the lottery, Adam piore argues that the lottery is for entertainment, and the hope of possibly winning for the week. Mr. Piore puts ingrains the thought that people play the lottery for fun, hope, and to dream of what we would do if we win. He explains that the odds are so highly against us that our brains can not even compute that fact. Mr. Piore does a good job of expressing the fact that poor people spend more money than richer people on the lottery because of the hope of it changing their life if they win. He states the money earned off of the sale of the tickets go to the funding of public schools.
This gives him a first-hand information and understanding of why the lottery is so popular and attractive. He draws an inference that lottery “is a game where reason and logic are rendered obsolete, and hope and dreams are on sale. And nobody knows how to sell hope and dreams better than Rebecca Paul Hargrove” (Piore
Vidya Jagadeesh Mrs. wald/Mrs. Ruggiero Language Arts- period 7 28 february 2023 Things are not always what they seem in our daily lives when we grow up in them. In the short story book ”The Lottery", Shirly Jackson wrote that a town has a lottery that turns out to be very dark. In the dystopian fiction book the giver, Lois Lowry wrote in the book a town people believe to be a nice friendly town is actually not. In both stories, people's behaviors reveal that things are not always what they seem.
Stories have always been something that we, as humans, enjoy to hear and read. This is shown throughout history and continues to remain true today. In Shirley Jackson’s short story, “The Lottery,” she takes her readers through a whirlwind of a story, starting it out one way and ending it with something unexpected. She does a great job of writing, by implementing in foreshadowing, imagery, and the theme of tradition. When someone thinks of a lottery, it usually means that someone is going to win something, such as money.
Inhumanity in The Lottery and in life The short story, The Lottery by Shirley Jackson, is about a village that takes part in this annual ritual called the lottery, but instead of the usual winning and receiving a heaping of money, you get pelted with stones until you are no longer breathing. Harsh right? There is actually a harsh reality to this story. It is shown in The Lottery that society and humans are very inhumane at times and that they will follow along side others in traditions with out a sight to what is actually going on.
The story " The Lottery " has a lot of government structures confusing but able to find. For example , Tolitarianism. Tolitarianism takes place in the Major of New Hope and the Sheriff. The Major has the most , he control what the people do and how they do it. He decided what everyone did , what there job was and just about anything.
‘The Lottery’ is a story about tradition and sacrifice. However, even though the NY times article is about sacrifice, they are for different things. Such as money vs. good luck. ‘The Lottery’ talks about this small, peaceful village that have no problems and has mainly positive dialogue. But this village has this really weird tradition.
Hutchinson said, as quietly as she could. “I tell you it wasn’t fair. “ (para. 61 ) However, everyone else goes along with the lottery as though blind and oblivious to it’s fatal result that would prove to be the end of one of their own lives. All along, utilitarianism appears to be the key driving force behind this lottery.
In life people tend to heavily rely on others, because we aren’t an independent species. Because of this, when we are told what things are “right” and “wrong” by our leaders, we believe them and follow what they say. This is how society has functioned since the beginning of time. As people, when we follow our leaders we begin to heavily rely on them losing all of our ability to step back to our own conscious reality, and decide whether or not the actions we are doing are humane or inhumane. In the story The Lottery we see this to its full extent, as well as in The Last Duchess, both of these stories show How a group of people can lose their morality, and follow a blind tradition without any regard to the outcomes.
Throughout centuries, traditions and rituals have had the ability to control one’s behavior. In Shirley Jackson’s, “The Lottery”, she tells the reader of a small village. On the surface, this community may seem relatively normal. However, despite the picturesque appeal, this falsely serene village has a distinct deceitful flaw. On June 27th, every year, a lottery takes place.
Human nature can be characterized as being positive, capable of altruism and goodness which sets humankind apart from savage animals; however, human nature possesses a dark side, namely cruelty, and it is capable of barbarism like any beast. In “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, cruelty is part of human nature, and the participants of the lottery demonstrate human cruelty through violence towards one another; markedly, by exhibiting desensitization to violence and the acceptance of violence resulting in internal dysfunction which is perpetuated yearly. Participants of the lottery belong to a close-knit community, and every year the community hosts an enigmatic lottery draw. The conclusion of the lottery draw is only mysterious until the outcome
Many people would die to win the lottery; in the short story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson you would do anything NOT to win this lottery. This annual lottery reveals the negative aspects of this town’s Tradition, Savagery, Barbarism, and cold-heartedness. In this paper I will show why this town blindly follows these customs, not because it’s a tradition but because of the accepting wickedness that can be shown. Why does the town follow this foolish tradition? Throughout “The Lottery” the narrator tells that the people do not remember how the lottery began, and that some of the older people believe the lottery has changed over the years, that now people just want to get it over with as fast as possible.
Yet Jackson wrote "The Lottery" in 1948—before gang violence, teen suicides, the threat of nuclear war, and handgun crimes reached epidemic proportions. Was Jackson looking into the future of the American society?"(Hicks). The story of the lottery truly could be foreshadowing of the future and how we nowadays are. We don’t see the importance of each other's life, no matter if it's one person or a hundred. We would sacrifice each other to fill our own foolish greed.
The characters’ behaviors don’t exactly scream “I love the lottery!” The most logical reason for doing something that makes them unhappy is they are doing it as a tradition. But why not break the tradition? After digging a little deeper, it is easy to see that the lottery has been going on for a long time: “There was a story that the present box had been made with some pieces of the box that had preceded it, the one that had been constructed when the first people settled down to make a village here (p. 16, lines 78-82).” Since the original black box was made when the village first settled, the lottery is an ancient tradition that is generations old.