IAPS2005, Czech Republic Friday morning
Doping
Dehumanisation - Schneider and butcher consider incomplete, since do not know what humanness is
Paper on philosophy of language
4. could a human being ever not be or be less human?
Miah - “concluding what is ethical about what is ethical….what is valuable about being human….human dignity…autonomy….capacity for being persons…strong evaluations….’ - Central claim about personhood – measure of individuals…personhood ….. humanness as personhood responds to Schneider and butcher that no …. .persons need not be humans (McNamee – OK, but this is not Mike’s idea. Tooley wrote about this and Singer )
Metaphysical conception of humanness is a mistake
Miah - Warnock – personhood takes direct route
ME: but Warnock was engaged in various processes – a working legal document
What gives sport value?
For whom?
Which sport, what level, etc?
Dehumanise is dominant concept, rather than human
No need for metaphysical conception of humanness
Charles Travis
What is a greyhound?
Fathers method of developing sense of greyhoundnes is useless
Mother is better – point to different dogs and call them
ME: but what would the mother say?
If we can identify conception of contrast, creates apparent philosophical problem
Baker on Wittgenstein – we get in trouble when picture associated with concept is incompatible
Moral particularism
Account of humanness appears necessary
Need disappears
Approach from concrete use in language
ME: when you begin to ascribe rights and freedoms, you need a metaphysical definition that allows you to make distinctions
Contrasts are drawn in general way
Drawing a line - in moral judgements creates misleading picture - leads us to want to say that everything on one side is ok and on other is objectionable - generalisation is misake
ME: but line drawing is not really used as moral judgment, but to enable a judicial (rule-based) system to function
Degrading v dehuman
Decomposed, demobilised, decapitated
De indicates a lack of something
ME: why are we talking about dehumanising?
The blood is human
Lack of feeling was inhuman – does not mean person not a human, more to do with lack of moral characteristics of human
We know what’s at stake
Schneider and Butcher use humanness rather than moral agency, this is a mistake
Use of language is more complicated than
Not simply GM or performance enhancing drugs that dehumanising, but also other entities
Dehumanise does not mean no longer human
Metaphysical used as basis for grounding moral judgements cannot work
ME: So humanness as personhood doesn’t help?
Bill: ‘a woman is less than a human, so I can do something to her that I would not do to a man’ often used to treat universal in principle vs universal in reach start with relevant similarities what it means to be human is certain relevant similarities
ME: but there are other considerations – rationing, for example, but not only. Dignity functions in a contested manner when dealing with PVS – where one has to assume interest (UK law substituted judgement)
Bill: Rawls: suffering – of course occasion sensitive
Jim: Do animals suffer? What is a supplement? Difference between sup and dope? How classify things on earth? Birds, fish, mammals. Difference between a definition and a clarification of a term. What Schneider and butcher get wrong is that their conceptual analysis is that they think necessary and sufficient conditions define humans – that last bit is wrong!
Leon: Do not need to go to specifics of a case
ME: how specific is a case? What constitutes a case?
ME: What if I am a giant?
Friday 1030-1200
Philosophy of Extreme Sports
Adventurous Changes: Rethinking sport in the age of the extreme Kevein Krein
Best – aesthetic sports – closer to extreme sport
Aesthetic sport and art difference is art = self expression, sport not
Booth – translate philosophy into movement Really?
Cannot represent such abstract ideas through surfing
Discussion:
Extreme correct term? - death sport or high-risk?
ME: so is sport!
Concept of extreme diminishes with skill
Still a performance for others – but peers, not personal
Photography
The very act of being on the wave is the articulation of a philosophical or perhaps in the case of some sports an ideological premise, eg. Skateboarding and the urban (Dogtown).
Danger of relying on the athlete’s articulation of what they are.
The Intelligibility of Suits: Scott Kretchmar
Reply to Thompson, JPS
Thompson – utopia is conceptually incoherent, implodes because of own contradiction - welll rid of it
suits is constrained utopia, but not coherent
Thompson - in utopia, Suits says is no suffering, but in sport there is plenty
thompson’s concern about utopia
suits and play
suits agreed that ideal of existence revolves around those things the sake of which we do other things
suits accepts play as intrinsic, but interested in games
did not praise play over work
not like Huizinga
suits wanted to make a claim about games
utopia populated w activities like baseball and crosswords
game thesis, not play commitment that caught attention of skepticus
why only games?
Knowing what the game is
In utopia, Suits puts games on high normative pedestal - effort and striving would no longer make sense
instrumentally free mode of living
games give us something to do when there is nothing to do (said the Grasshopper)
ant existence predicated on scarcity
for ants, often too much to do
grasshopper unimpressed w mandate of scarcity umoved my moral pressure of prudence
living life predicated on plenty, even if foolish
presents himself as future harbinger of….
For grasshopper, often too little to do
Suits: Game playing only remaining candidate for utopian occupation. Game playing makes utopia intelligible
Intrinsically valuable No further end Games meet this requirement Must have obstacles to overcome Game playing makes it possible
Argument fails because suits’ utopia is an ideal existence. Needs all intstrum activities save one do not exist
If one is living in bliss, who cares if there is nothing to do?
Cannot be a place where all needs have been met, though work meets a logical conclusion – human basic needs met But larger problem of boredom is left
Suis conclusion that there is nothing to do must be false
Problem w Suits ‘nothing to do’ He actually means, no probs to solve – work/natural probs
Having no probs to solve does not mean nothing to do
Countless things left to do – eg eating, listening to music, sitting in sun, etc
Suits does not answer question by Prudence and Skepticus – why free from work = games
Why liken to game playing rather than trumbone playing?
Suits has only shown us that nothing to do relating to problem solving, not that there is nothing to do
We are inherently problem solving creatures and he neglects this
Partial answers from anthrop - contemporary human beings are product of millions of years of successful problem solving ancestors met obstacles
lesser problem solvers died off
good problem solvers populate t earth
Suits: many of us are in game denial!
Article 6yrs after grasshopper - utopia need not be tiddley winks, but grandiose games Suits leaves us w questions about future.. - utopia comprised as intrinsically satisfied games might be bleak or beautiful, but need to address
humans are made game ready
The Devoted Athlete: An Examination of Seriousness in Competitive Sport Peter Hager, SUNY
330-5pm Friday
Mark Hamilton
LASIK – shown to be beneficial for baseball Tommie John surgery – UCL 10% better for all baseball players - when elective? – but wasit?
ME: why doesn’t it happen?
Inevitable
ME: but contingent on physician position
ME: Why care? - if medical standard, no issue – except diminished autonomy which we cannot possibly pursue
should it be banned?
ME: can it be banned? No, because first outside of sport too
Transsexuals - Renee Richards – see reassignment surgery 1975 - 1976 US open denied access - 1977 US supreme court ruled in favour
USPGA on ladies prohibits - Charlotte Wood, finished 3rd 1987 - Led to ‘female at birth’ clause intro
3 options - let them (transhuman – Julien Huxley - surgical analogous to equipment changes
Anger Jeff Fry
Execessively high display of anger leads to aggressive play
ME: doesn’t anger/aggression win games?
Aristotlte: man angry at right things should be praised, if not angry, coward, etc – slavish
Robert Thurman
Coaching anger relevance? - caring deeply? - Justifiable – if injustice – eg cheating by officials - Pressures coaches face
Anything in sport worth getting angry about?
Why coach?
What is appropriate display of anger?
Can debate value of anger
Donald Jones? – role-differentiated ethics - take into account special circums
coaches cultivate passion
ME:: but is thi a flaw?
ME: compare w politician – should they get angry
Suits Doug McLaughlin
Elucidation on game playing for understanding utopian lure
3 aspects - utopia - lusory att as unifying aspect of game playing - dream and vision of grasshopper
purpose of grasshopper - utopia - theory of games
formulation of games not most important aspect
game v the good life
relationship between games and utopia
grasshopper - life most worth living - not exemplar of game playing
we find significance in problem solving - utopia wout problems would not be a utopia
Thompson article - does not recog move from play to game playing in suits
Fair is Fair, or is it? Bill Morgan
Both dopers and dopers claim they make the playing field level They are both wrong
Rawls - justice as reciprocity
doping is a moral offence that affects fairness
WADA and USADA within moral rights to test, but recent efforts they have made are also unfair and morally problematic
Deep seated complex moral problem and looking for easy technical fix
Elliott Better than Well – double standard – we expect athletes not to take drugs, but not in everyday life
Drug rules are not constitutive – not athletically relevant
2 kinds of rule violation - offensive: break rule to gain adv - defensive: occur when v little compliance w rules. Break rules to protect oneself
not persuasive
2 problems
1. protecting self-interest, no concern about fairness, main concern is not being taken adv of – not being a sucker 2. everyone’s doing, so ok for me to do it
v difficult to know how many athletes are doping
from 5% to 95% but who knows?
Significant number who don’t dope
Cannot assume that all are, so looks like offensive rather than defensive rule violation
Idea that everyone’s doing it means overestimating no of people doing it, so am overestimating my reaction
Doping claim to level playing field does not work, so authorities have moral right to test
What about WADA and USADA? Fair?
Standard way is drug test - objectve, impartial, at first glance
devil in detail
1. even though tests are getting better, still easy to get around test. 2. False positives as well as false negatives (Tyler Hamilton)
Only people who get caught are dumb or unlucky
Biowash – shampoo
Flush mouth solution
Urinator –
Whizzinator – prosthetic penis (ME: see article in endnote)
Analytic techniques largely failed
Crackdown by legal
Balco – coop w criminal courts
Michelle Collins – never tested positive disqualified for 8 years
Non-analytic attempts along with analytic
Gary Wadler – favourable article on WADA, they willl catch dopers and standardised rules across sports. New world order ‘commiteed to fair play and ethical values’
Not so!
Problems:
WADA has changed burden of proof - to comfortable satisfaction
raises social justice issue
treating similar cases dissimilarly
violation of mutual reciprocity
ME: but they could not win – burden of proof was too high
Justification has been ‘righteous indignation’
American Arbitration has resisted, but not for much longer
Classic problem of fairness
Not a concern for moral integrity of sport
Problem 2:
Circumstantial criminal cases against dopers
Criminalisation of street drugs and doping - difference is that former kill each other
dopers will rat each other out
end up with Hobbesian all against all
BALCO
ME: what is a designer drug? – a product that never made the market, but is in the journals
AAP
Three approaches to Pain in Sport – a critical review Sigmund Loland
Background
Phenomenon of pain - significance in sport – ethical challenges - ambiguous – epistemological crossroads
a critical review and comparison of 3 ideal-typical approaches
research strategies