Moral Responsibilitly
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Three Kinds of cases for moral
responsibility
1) X is a responsible person, meaning to say
something morally favorable about his
character.
2) X is and was responsible for a past action
3) X is responsible for Y when Y still is to
be done.
Case 1: X is responsible
• In this case, responsible is known to be
• trustworthy or dependable with sound
judgment.
• Meaning what morally?
Case 2:
• X is and was responsible for a past action.
• Responsible is being the source or cause of
something happening
Case 3:
• X is responsible for Y to be done.
• Responsible is the condition of being
accountable to act without guidance or personal
authority
Responsibility
• Normative judgment: making a decision based
on a norm or standard. In this case, the
standard is based on an obligation to a certain
principle (to be responsible) from the value:
responsibility
Free Will and Determinism
• Free will: you have choices that you
can make based on your values.
• Determinism: every event, including
human choices and volition, is caused
by other events and happens as an
effect or result of these other events.
Paradox of Responsibility
•Do we teach responsibility? Do
we expect responsibility? Is the
athlete responsible for his/her
actions?
Responsibility on the field/court:
• "Every player is given a job to do and
he is ...accountable for his own
actions. If he cannot get the job
done...he will be replaced by someone
else - It doesn't matter who the person
is, or how valuable to the team that
person might be." Bruce Harris, RB,
Idaho Vandals, 1989
You are responsible
• On the field/court, you either make it
or you are gone...Off the field/court,
the coach watches you, cares for you,
advises you, follows you, provides
tutors for you, monitors your progress,
... even mentors you on what subjects
to take, what major to study, may
even counsel you on personal
problems....
Teaching/Coaching Responsible
action --Frey/Massengale
•Coaches primarily educate
participants in a "dysfunctional
manner".
•"Selected actions, behaviors,
and traits are often taught,
reinforced, and then rewarded,
although these actions do not
reflect desirable social values.
Frey/Massengale
•For example, how often is
blind obedience taught
under the guise of tenacity?
How often is manipulation
and deliberate rule violation
taught as strategy?
Responsibility-Frey/Massengale
•How often is composure and
sportsmanship mistaken for lack
of effort? Frey/Massengale
University of Las Vegas
Sharples Point of View
• Coaches are basically here to get
the most out of an athlete and to
win. It is unrealistic if not naive
to view a coach as a role model.
Responsibility:
•How can we be responsible....
especially in the paternalistic
world of athletics?
•1. Be realistic, know what is
expected of you on the field.
Realize the true purpose of
athletics: to win and make
money.
continued...
•2. Be pragmatic, know where
you stand in this
commercialized world. If you
don't agree, what can you do?
Responsibility
•a. Accept the status quo, but
make your own decisions.
•b. Quit
•c. Foment a rebellion
•d. Work from within to change
the status quo...
Responsibility
•3. Be a skeptic, evaluate what is
occurring. Who is advising you;
what is their motivation? What
is their intention?
•4. Be idealistic, believe that
you can make a difference.
Look for what good you can do
and what good may come to
you.
Responsibility
•5. Become responsible for your
own destiny...don't let the
commercialized world of
athletics rule your life. Become
focused.
•Other choices?
Free Will/Determinism
•Coercion: compelled by
intimidation
•Free choice in reality is a reaction
to coercive external pressure.
A Realistic Athlete...
• Whether the coaches ... approve of the use of
drugs would be irrelevant to each individual's
own decision as to whether they are going to
cheat at sport and use drugs... Patsy Sharples,
former world class distance runner.
Paternalism...
• Paternalism violates our status as autonomous
moral agents.
• The human faculties of perception, judgment,
discrimination, feeling, mental activity, and
even moral preference are exercised only in
making a choice...
• The mental and the moral, like the muscular,
are improved only be being used....He who lets
the world....choose his plan of life for him, has
no need of any other faculty than the ape-like
one of imitation. John Stuart Mill
Autonomy...
•The individual's life is his or
her business, as long as, that
person's acts do not harm or
threaten others, no
interference is justified.
Against Paternalism..
• The ideal of human development
• The right to control our own life must be
primary.
• Paternalism, by treating us as if we were
children, who must be cared for by others,
reduces us in moral stature by denying us
dignity and respect.
Paternalism...acceptable..
•Paternalism is acceptable
when its goal is not simply to
benefit the persons being
interfered with but to
safeguard their status as
rational autonomous agents.
Arthur Ashe....
•The athlete is not responding
to an offer: you can better
yourself by becoming an
athlete. It is really a reaction to
a threat, "If you don't become
an athlete, you will continue to
be a victim of social injustice
and neglect."
Arthur Ashe...
•The problem with this
argument: the limitations of
athletic success
•Perhaps we need eligibility
limitations on who may become
an athlete: There must be
acceptable alternative careers.
Arthur Ashe
•The greatest harm caused by
myth that sports promotes
upward mobility is the
"opportunity cost" it inflicts on
many disadvantaged young
athletes: the hours which might
productively be devoted to
study are spent in gyms, on
fields, and courts.
Arthur Ashe...
•Players are vulnerable, even if
they know the "facts" about
what is being asked, consent is
often not as voluntary as it
should be.
Ashe....
•The athlete is in a precarious
position in making a free-will
consent. If s/he questions, s/he
is like to be benched or put in
less than a positive light by
peers, coach, and fans.
Ashe....
•The onus is on the athlete to
continue playing and to consent
to things that s/he would not
otherwise consent to.
Arthur Ashe...
•Coercion, however subtle,
makes the athlete vulnerable.
It also takes away the athlete's
ability to act and choose freely
with regard to informed
consent.
Mandall’s Point of View
• Even as high school freshmen, athletes are
preoccupied with physical activity and tire from
workouts so they develop their own society,
free from nonjocks who stereotype them as
dummies whether that stereotyping is out of
envy or competitiveness, but athletes in their
world are also deified, given special favors and
then criticized, threatened and made fearful of
losing their standing and prerequisites. (Former
counselor for the San Diego Chargers)
Mandall’s Point of View
• The alumni and the fans control athletes much
as heroin dealers control junkies. From a very
early period in their careers, athletes learn that
they must perform and please others or they
have no place and no worth. Anger and
paranoia thrive under such conditions. all the
warmth in the world, the athlete learns, cannot
substitute for victory. Mandall, former team
psychiatrist of the San Diego Chargers.
Education
•What type of education?
•Informational or moral?