![Sample our Sports and Leisure journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5949/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Sports-Leisure.jpg"})
Abstract
The popularity and profitability of American gridiron football is beyond dispute. Recent polls put football as the overwhelming favorite of people who follow at least one sport and huge revenues are reported at both the professional and the university level. We know, however, that what is the case tells us little about what ought to be the case, and it is to the latter question that this paper is directed. I offer a three-pronged attack on the ethical acceptability of American football, both amateur and professional, based on (1) harm to the players, (2) objectification of the players, and (3) harm to others done by the players, leading to the conclusion that the sport, as currently constituted, is morally unacceptable.
Notes
1. Throughout this term refers to the sport also called American football or gridiron.
2. The NFL’s original offer of $765 million, plus more than $100 million for legal fees was unacceptable to the judge in the case (Anita B. Brody) who did not believe it was adequate to cover the medical costs of former players. A second offer with an open-ended commitment by the NFL to cover all qualified claims has been submitted to Judge Brody. Once a settlement is approved, former players will vote on whether to accept, reject, or opt out (Belson Citation2014a).
3. For those who prefer a more Kantian grounding, The Metaphysics of Morals contains a similar injunction against making oneself a permanent slave. Kant does allow for the employ of servants and insists that they belong to their owner. However, he says that ‘a contract by which one party would completely renounce its freedom for the other’s advantage would be self-contradictory, that is, null and void, since by it one party would cease to be a person and so would have no duty to keep the contract but would recognize only force’ (Kant Citation1991, 101).
4. For more on the issues surrounding boxing, see Davis (Citation1993), Herrera (Citation2002), Leclerc and Herrera (Citation1999) and Schneider and Butcher (Citation2001).
5. Simon continues: ‘Moreover, the rewards that some professional fighters can obtain are potentially great’ (Simon Citation2007, 382). I don’t think this carries much weight, as there are plenty of ethically problematic professions with potentially great rewards, like drug dealing or the production and distribution of pornography. The issue here is not the reward, but the means required to obtain it.
6. Fainaru-Wada and Fainaru (Citation2013) go on to note: ‘These assertions had obvious implications for the NFL. The league could change the rules to cut down on helmet-to-helmet hits. It could monitor the number of concussions in an effort to reduce them. It could put independent neurologists on the sidelines to look for concussions and try to end the culture of pain that pressured players to play through it. But if CTE was occurring at a deeper level … that raised questions about the very essence of football’ (302).
7. Feinberg provides two additional arguments for paternalism, one claiming that more significant potential harm allows us to demand assurance of higher and more certain autonomy. The other argument worries that allowing people to act in ways that would cause significant future harm ‘sounds hard-edged and cruel after the fact of their injuries and may foster an undesirable indifference to others (Feinberg Citation1986, 140). I focus on the (psychic) harm to others argument as I find it most compelling and applicable to the football and CTE case.
8. Corlett (Citation2014) offers an economic version of the harm-to-others position in his argument for the elimination of inter-collegiate football, concluding: ‘even if certain athletes want to play football even if they knew that it is linked to CTE, it is unfair to saddle others with the health care and medical costs associated with such risks’ (16).
9. I should be clear that Tamburrini’s analysis of Mill and the possible application of the Harm Principle to issues in sport goes far beyond what I mention here. I refer interested readers to the full article (Tamburrini Citation2011).
10. According to Kant, ‘every rational being, exists as an end in himself, not merely as a means for arbitrary use by this or that will: he must in all his actions, whether they are directed to himself or to other rational beings, always be viewed at the same time as an end’ (Kant Citation1964, 95).
11. As evidence for the truth of this in football, recall how University of South Carolina’s Jadeveon Clowney’s reputation was enhanced by his brutal hit on Michigan running back, Vincent Smith, in the 2013 Outback Bowl. In that moment he became, and remained, the number one draft choice for the National Football League upon completion of his college career. The YouTube video of the hit, which took Smith’s helmet off, has been viewed over 2 million times.
12. For a thorough discussion of violence and intent, see Jim Parry (Citation1998).
13. It may be easier for football players to objectify their opponents since the uniform covers almost all individualizing characteristics, like facial features and expressions.
14. I have chosen the term ‘objectification’ to indicate that players are treated as objects rather than persons. In other places, I use the term ‘exploitation’ to indicate that players are taken advantage of for the benefit of others. I take this to be consistent with Alan Wertheimer’s view that exploitation requires gain (Citation2007); I am adding that objectification does not require gain, and is, in part because of that fact, morally worse.
15. Branch recognizes the politically charged nature of the charge of slavery and suggests an alternative: ‘Perhaps a more apt metaphor is colonialism: college sports, as overseen by the NCAA, is a system imposed by well-meaning paternalists and rationalized with hoary sentiments about caring for the well-being of the colonized. But it is, nonetheless, unjust. The NCAA, in its zealous defense of bogus principles, sometimes destroys the dreams of innocent young athletes’ (Citation2011, 83).
16. The slavery metaphor is also cited by Easterbrook (Citation2013): ‘Football was changing from segregated to largely African-American, a development both good (career opportunities and recognition for a minority group) and disquieting (what University of Georgia professor Billy Hawkins calls the “new plantation” of blacks harvesting not cotton but sports income for the nearly all-white NFL and NCAA power structures)’ (10).
17. Wertheimer (Citation2007) and Simon (Citation2010) point out the benefits, both educational and vocational, that universities offer to athletes and conclude that university sports are not without value. I agree, and note that my argument is not directed against university sports in general, but only against the sport of football, and not only at the university level.
18. Teitelbaum also notes this connection, saying: ‘It is interesting to see how some sports stars who are at the top of their game can be dysfunctional in their personal relationships. Their aggression and ability to assert their supremacy on the ballfield become liabilities when carried over into the realm of personal relationships’ (Citation2010, 109).
19. As just one example, ‘New Orleans Saints rookies were asked to put pillowcases over their heads during training camp in 1998 and run through dorm hallways while 20 to 30 veterans hit them, some with a bag of coins’ (Brady, Corbett, and Jones Citation2013).
20. It is worth mentioning that Dixon hints that his proposal would likely result in the end of boxing, saying: ‘The single regulation, a ban on blows to the head in any type of boxing is justified by the uncontroversial goal of protecting boxers from acting on inautonomous decisions and suffering a permanent reduction in future autonomy. And the likely disappearance of professional boxing would be the result of market forces rather than governmental coercion, as would the likely reduction in the number of participants in amateur boxing’ (Citation2001, 344).
21. Dixon also raises this question in his argument against MMA, claiming that.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Pamela R. Sailors
Philosophy Department, Missouri State University, 901 S. National Avenue, Springfield, MO 65897, USA.