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Abstract
In a recent article in this journal, Lopez Frias and McNamee (2017) raise some concerns about an argument presented in Corlett (2014), also published in this journal. This article is a detailed response to Lopez Frias and McNamee (2017) in clarification and defense of the argument in question in Corlett (2014). The discussion concerns the questions of whether or not inter-collegiate football ought to and will be eliminated, and why or why not. More specifically, the discussion concerns the health care and medical costs to others argument for the elimination of inter-collegiate football articulated in Corlett (2014).
Notes
1. This article is written with gratitude to both Lopez Frias and McNamee, and also to Professor Andrew Edgar, the current Editor of Sport, Ethics and Philosophy for affording me the opportunity to further discuss these matters. Gratitude is also expressed to two anonymous referees for Sport, Ethics, and Philosophy for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article.
2. It is hereby proposed that ‘American football’, though a well-intentioned name for the sport in question, is inappropriate in that ‘American’ encompasses North, Central, and South American countries most of the citizens of which do not even play or seem to care much if anything about the sport in question. It is proposed that something like ‘US football’ serves as a better categorization of said sport, especially since most Americans who are sports fans prefer instead to participate in or watch fútbol (or soccer, as it is generally referred to in the US).
3. It is not just the general public which may be effected by such health care and medical costs of putatively football-caused CTE. It would also likely have a significant deleterious effect on nonprofit hospitals which often bear substantial costs of uninsured/underinsured medical treatments: https://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/who-bears-the-cost-of-the-uninsured-nonprofit-hospitals (accessed on 8 September 2017). The health care and medical costs to others argument is intended to include this fact, as the name and inclusion of ‘others’ implies. Simply because a nonprofit hospital desires to assist in covering uninsured medical costs does not mean that, say, it should or must seek to cover medical costs which are unnecessary in the sense that the medical conditions being treated are avoidable (by not playing inter-collegiate football, for instance) and not the result of normal life activities in which members of the public engage. The playing of football is certainly not necessary, and costs associated with it ought to be borne only by those who are associated (or voluntarily associate themselves) with the sport. Otherwise, the coverage of said costs is effectively coerced, and, as such, unjust because unfair. In the case of nonprofit hospitals, their funds could be used instead to cover the costs of more uninsured people who are not playing sports, but are stricken with cancer, dementia, or some other serious medical condition or injury not incurred by their own high-risk activity.
4. Rawls (Citation1971, 266) provides a different example of a public good, namely, that of a country’s military defense against an unjustified military attack. It is an ‘indivisible’ public good in that ‘All citizens must be provided with this good in the same amount’ (Rawls Citation1971, 267).
5. The Emergency Medical and Treatment Labor Act (EMTLA) passed by the United States Congress in 1986 explicitly forbids the denial of care to indigent or uninsured patients based on a lack of ability to pay.
6. However, journalistic sources might be sufficiently justified in reaching their conclusions about the possible link between CTE and normal football play, namely, to the extent that they consistently rely on respectable and relevant scientific sources of evidence.
7. This is in part what is meant in Corlett (Citation2014, 129) where it is stated that ‘… the fact that the Pandora’s box of CTE and its possible connection to normal football activities has already been opened and the scientific evidence that is still under investigation is forthcoming may well be sufficient to spell the demise of a sport that so many of us have come to appreciate and enjoy’.
8. This point is also intended to imply the further point that increasing numbers of concerned parents are prohibiting their sons from playing football due to their perceptions of there being a solid scientific link between CTE and normal football play. Recently, US television features a commercial depicting a mother of a boy who apparently wants to play football as she articulates her support of it in light of perceived dangers. Why would such a commercial be necessary if the NCAA did not worry about the impending repercussions for inter-collegiate football programs given what the relevant medical and brain sciences might conclude about the possible connection between normal football play and CTE? The fact is, as Corlett (Citation2014) notes, the existing CTE studies have already influenced the public perception of the safety of normal football play. And the future of football as a sport remains in somewhat of an abeyance until the matter is resolved, one way or another, scientifically. Implicit here is the future viability of inter-collegiate football programs.
9. In Corlett (Citation2014, 131), it is reported that the NFL enjoyed a hefty federal tax exemption for several years. Recently, that tax advantage has been discontinued.
10. For more on paternalisms, see Joel Feinberg (Citation1984).
11. I have in mind the various kinds of auto racing: formula 1, stock car, drag, dirt track racing, etc.
12. In some cases, basketball is a revenue-generating inter-collegiate sport.
13. This already occurs as inter-collegiate football players are informed by their respective universities of the medical risks of playing football.