Applied Ethics for Sport & Physical Activity Professionals

© Copyright 2007 Earle F. Zeigler Ph.D., LL.D., D.Sc.

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CONTENTS

DEDICATION

PREFACE

PREAMBLE

CHAPTER 1   ETHICAL DECISION-MAKING: A PERSONAL DILEMMA

CHAPTER 2   A CONFUSING MIASMA: ETHICAL VALUES AND PROBLEMS TODAY

CHAPTER 3   THE GOOD AND THE BAD IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

CHAPTER 4   WHAT ARE THE MAJOR ETHICAL ROUTES AVAILABLE TO YOU TODAY?

CHAPTER 5   MOVING FROM PERSONAL TO PROFESSIONAL ETHICS

CHAPTER 6   PHASE ONE: A THREE-STEP, PHILOSOPHIC APPROACH TO ETHICAL DECISION-MAKING (FROM KANT TO MILL TO ARISTOTLE)

CHAPTER 7   PHASE TWO: DEVELOPING A FOUR-STEP, LAYOUT APPROACH FOR SUPERIMPOSING A LEGAL ARGUMENT

CHAPTER 8   PHASE THREE: BLENDING THE PHILOSOPHIC APPROACH (PHASE ONE) WITH THE LEGAL-ARGUMENT APPROACH (PHASE TWO)

CHAPTER 9   PHASE FOUR: ADDING A CASE-METHOD APPROACH TO ETHICAL DECISION-MAKING

INTRODUCTION TO PART III:

CHAPTER 10   APPLYING ETHICAL DECISION-MAKING TO PERSONAL PROBLEMS

CHAPTER 11   APPLYING ETHICAL DECISION-MAKING TO PROFESSIONAL PROBLEMS

CHAPTER 12   APPLYING ETHICAL DECISION-MAKING TO ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS

CHAPTER 13   SCIENTIFIC ETHICS: HOPE FOR THE FUTURE?

CHAPTER 14   TAKING IT FROM HERE

GLOSSARY

APPENDIX   LEARNING TO REASON CLEARLY. A REQUIREMENT FOR ANY CENTURY

DEDICATION

To

Richard Fox, Michael Bayles, and John Kekes

(I am grateful for the many helpful insights I gained from their writings on applied ethics.)

PREFACE

This book is designed to provide you, the sport and physical activity professional in the 21st century, with an introduction to ethical decision-making. It can apply readily to your personal, professional and environmental (societal) life—if such a trichotomy can be established in connection with ethics and morality in one’s life pattern. In the final analysis, of course, everything is personal.

Any new book being recommended for use by a great many people needs solid justification. In Applied Ethics for Sport and Physical Activity Professionals, I believe strongly that an excellent case can be made for use of this basic, multi-phased (1-23-4) approach to ethical decision-making offered here. Faced with the prevailing ethical chaos of the 21st century—and keeping firmly in mind the vital need to preserve our individual freedom and civil liberties—it starts in a relatively simple fashion in Phase One—the three steps that might actually do it for you (and for me!) in most situations! Then it moves progressively and sequentially through Phases Two, Three, and Four that are assuredly desirable, but optional.

Although I say optional, it is true that they could serve to confirm or negate your Phase-One decision. Interestingly, and importantly nevertheless, all four phases of this approach to ethical decision-making can be carried out successfully by a reasonably intelligent lay person. (Phase Four, a case method technique, can presumably be pursued best in a group discussion of the issue at hand by those concerned.)

I argue here, for several basic reasons, that the young person in society today is initially missing out completely on a sound experiential introduction to ethics and morality. This is true whether we are referring to that which typically takes place in the home, the school system, or the church—actually an experience that doesn’t take place adequately!. In fact, the truth is that typically no systematic instruction in this most important subject is offered at any time. (And I refuse to accept the often-heard osmosis stance—i.e., that such knowledge is better caught than taught!.)

In Part I, to improve the prevailing situation, you will learn initially how this all came about, how and why such a terrible gap exists. Where previously, for many at least, a relatively strong, orthodox, religious indoctrination prevailed, the situation has steadily deteriorated in our present multi-ethnic, secular culture to a point where confusion reigns as to ethical conduct (see Chapters 1). This topic will be elaborated still further through a brief narrative explaining how such a confusing miasma came into existence on the topic of ethical values and problems in our society today (Chapter 2).

Next the good and the bad will be explained briefly in historical perspective (in Chapter 3). Next, because this subject can become confusing unless the terms used are understood and one’s reasoning is sound, elementary reasoning (i.e., informal logic or critical thinking was planned for Chapter 4—but it is now in the Appendix (for ease of reference). So Chapter 4 offers now a quick look at six of the major ethical routes or approaches extant in today’s confusing Western-world scenario. Finally, in Part I, it is explained how a person’s ethical outlook should be an implicit/explicit experiential approach that necessarily moves daily from personal to professional ethics (Chapter 5).

In Part II, one basic philosophic approach to applied ethics—a three-step one—is offered as Phase One of a total four-phase, experiential plan that may be applied to a specific problem-solving ethical situation (Chapter 6). This plan of attack moves sequentially from the time-proven thought of three great philosophers of the past (i.e., proceeds from Kant to Mill to Aristotle). Then, a second, legal or jurisprudential approach (Phase Two) is introduced as a (possible) follow-up to Phase One using a four-step technique). This can be employed by those who wish to consolidate and support their embryonic decision-making process of Phase One somewhat more with a (jurisprudential) law argument (Chapter 7).

Next, in Phase Three, you are presented with the possibility of strengthening and supplementing (i.e., verifying) his or her (Phase One) decision by carefully superimposing or blending the results of the three-step, philosophic approach onto the (jurisprudential) law argument developed in Phase Two (Chapter 8). Finally, in Phase Four, if you wish to carry this analytic process one step further, a more detailed case method approach to ethical decision-making has been added (Chapter 9). Here one sample case will demonstrate the possible progression through the FOUR phases resulting in ethical decision-making of a personal nature.

At this point you will move into Part III of the book. Here, after a brief explanatory discussion, in Chapters 10, 11, and 12, a variety of ethical problems will be offered for your consideration and laboratory practice. It was decided to divide these ethical problems into three reasonably discrete categories: (1) personal, (2) professional, and (3) environmental. (Of course, we appreciate that each of these categories is personal in nature, in that it would be an individual who would be making ethical decisions related to the case problems offered under each category. However, I will make every effort through initial consideration of the nature of the ethical problem at hand to have a specific problem be (a) largely personal (e.g., one’s private sex life); (b) largely professional (e.g., one’s professional conduct on the job); or (c) largely environmental (e.g., one’s involvement in combatting environmental degradation). Of course, there is bound to be some overlap among these categories. Exercises will be provided with each category (e.g., professional). The case situation or problem will be explained briefly but succinctly. Then, after a brief analysis, I will ask you to follow the same progression through the one or (possibly) more of the four phases resulting in the making of a defensible ethical decision.

I have observed that many books of this nature propose a number of different philosophical stances, often in a semi-neutral fashion, recommending that the reader ultimately make his or her own personal decision about which to follow. In this book I planned to follow this striving-to-stay-neutral approach. But then I decided, also, that first I would provide an easy-entry approach as well, one that can be used before a person makes a final decision (i.e., as more experience and maturation are obtained during life).

In addition, in Part IV, I felt also that I had a responsibility to make my own position on ethical decision-making known at some point (see Chapter 13). I did this because I felt—especially since the turbulent 1960s when most students demanded it as a right—that (a) I owed that to you, and (b) I felt that so-called scientific ethics possibly offers the best hope for the entire world in the 21st century (or as soon as possible thereafter).

A final, brief concluding discussion (Chapter 14) will urge you to follow through and to take it from this point in your own personal, professional, and public life. The need for critical evaluation will be stressed as you strive to form an evolving, possibly fluid, basis for sound ethical decision-making in what are bound to be difficult years ahead in the 21st century.

If time is of the essence in the resolution of a pressing ethical problem of either a person or professional nature, you may well decide that Phases No. 2, 3, and 4—which can be considered as optional—are not absolutely necessary for you. However, by adding Phases 2,3, and even 4 to your complete decision-making process, it should be possible for a person (or a group in Phase 4) to ultimately feel much more secure about proceeding with (i.e., acting on) a decision that has been crafted more carefully than the use of only Phase 1 might indicate.

At this point I feel it appropriate to call to your attention a device that I hope will be helpful as you read this book. In certain chapters (e.g., Chapters 2 & 3), you will come across various philosophic words, terms, or definitions. They will typically—not always!—be followed, immediately by a superior asterisk (*). Thus, it will be possible to check the precise meaning or definition of such a word or term in the Glossary at the back of the book. (If no superscript is present, and the meaning is unclear, check it in the Glossary anyhow.)

Still further, I want to express my appreciation and gratitude to those who have helped at specific periods along the way in developing this material. In this respect I am referring to the three people to whom this book is dedicated: Professor Richard Fox for the Phase-One approach, Professor John Kekes for his unique assessment of the present moral dilemma society faces, and finally to the late Dr. Michael Bayles whose work on professional ethics has been so helpful to me.

As I conclude, I emphasize that I have made every effort to use non-sexist language, a truly difficult task where writing style has been one-sided for so long. Also, to the best of my knowledge, fictitious names and places have been employed in the case situations included.

Finally, I have found this to be a fascinating area for study, reflection, and ethical practice. I wish the same level of experience for you, the reader. The experiential nature of this recommended approach can be so helpful—indeed vital-as one matures in what is indeed a troubled and perplexing world. It is my most sincere hope that you will find this approach helpful as you face seemingly ever-present ethical problems in the years ahead.

Earle F. Zeigler

Richmond, BC

Canada

PREAMBLE

Throughout this book you will be exhorted to develop what Ayn Rand (I960, p. 36) called an intellectual roadbed, a competency that is needed for ethical decision-making. As you approach this subject, I want to make very clear, also, my personal belief about how vitally important it is for a person to learn to make rational ethical decisions. As an essential complement in the effort to do this effectively, I recommend also an implicit/explicit experiential approach that means—stated simply—we learn by doing!

Rand offered us her interesting analysis of what occurs in the life of a young person before any semblance of a rational philosophy develops. Western world religions often impress on the young child the idea that God is watching over him or her, and that He (She?) knows and makes note of every misdeed through some sort of supernatural recorder. Rand’s reaction to this and her subsequent personal explanation were that she regarded this as a myth. However, she explained that interestingly this myth is true, not existentially, but from a psychological standpoint!

This psychological recorder, she argued, is truly the integrating mechanism of the young person’s subconscious. She called this the individual’s sense of life and described it as a pre-conceptual equivalent of metaphysics, an emotional, subconsciously integrated appraisal of man and existence. It sets the nature of a man’s emotional responses and the essence of his character (p. 31). Thus, this human being is making choices, is forming value judgments, is experiencing emotions, and in a great many ways is acquiring an implicit view of life. All of this young person’s conclusions or evasions about or from life, she explained, represent an implicit metaphysics.

It is important for us at the outset, also, to take a few moments to consider how a child’s personality typically develops in early life prior to maturity. This same child as a maturing person subsequently gets a further opportunity through formal and informal education to develop his or her rationality. The hope is, of course, that such reasoning power will enable the individual to make sound ethical decisions as problems of this nature present themselves in daily life.

All people should be interested in the entire educational process, of course, our own and that of others with whom we might come into contact. Our hope is that young people will have the chance to develop their rational powers. If this occurs, reason can then act as the programmer of the individual’s emotional computer. The hoped-for outcome is that the earlier sense of life will develop into a reasonably logical philosophy. If not—that is, if the maturing child does not have the opportunity to develop a considerable degree of rationality, or somehow evades the opportunity—then unfortunately chance takes over.

What is society faced with then? We have a person who has matured chronologically, but who is integrating blindly, incongruously, and at random (p. 33). (And don’t we all know people where this seems to be occurring daily—and often to the extreme?) Thus, we can see how really important it is that in the process of developing a fully integrated personality the young person’s sense of life matches his or her conscious, rationalized convictions?

As individuals we can either drive this powerful integrating mechanism that we inherently possess—or be driven by it! Accordingly, we should inquire assiduously as to the role of philosophy in our lives, asking ourselves how a sound philosophy can help in the formation of a fully integrated personality. Truly, can we deny that the goal of education should be an individual whose mind and emotions are in harmony, thereby enabling the maturing person to develop his or her potential and accordingly achieve maximum effectiveness in life?

Taking the matter of the individual’s development one step further, we need to keep in mind that we are dealing with a social animal, a person who in all probability will need sound and consistent help to bridge the gap from an early sense of life, where embryonic, plastic value-integrations occur, to the making of ethical decisions in life’s many activities of both a personal and professional nature. We should be helping this young person to develop conscious convictions in which the mind leads and the emotions follow. To put it another way, the developing IQ (intelligence quotient) ought to assist what Goleman (1995) calls the developing EQ (emotional quotient) to function optimally. In the process the embryonic, steadily adapting MI (moral intelligence) of the growing child, to coin a term based on the work of Coles (1997), should enable the young person to relate to the values and moral norms that prevail in society.

Keeping in mind the difficulty of defining the term good, adequately and satisfactorily, the key concept in the formation of a person’s sense of life may well be the term important. Rand argued that in this context important is a metaphysical term that serves as a bridge between metaphysics* and ethics while the young, immature person is learning what values are important individually and socially. In summary, the integrated sum of a person’s basic values is that person’s sense of life (p. 35). Then, during the period of adolescence, a certain amount of rebellion occurs typically. At this point parents are apt to encounter a situation characterized by often quite frantic irrationality on the part of the young person as he or she is confronted by a set of adult-imposed values and norms.

As was said above, what the young person truly needs in his or her development is an intellectual roadbed for one’s course of life (p. 36) in which both emotional intelligence and moral intelligence are integrated as well. The eventual goal, we trust, will be a jully integrated personality, a person whose mind and emotions are in harmony a great deal of the time. When this occurs, we have helped to create a situation where the individual’s sense of life matches that person’s conscious convictions.

In this struggle that takes place to a greater or lesser extent in each person’s life, a sound philosophical approach can help in the setting of criteria of emotional and moral-integrations. If the young person’s view of reality has been carefully defined and is logically consistent throughout, the result should be a gradual, but steady, growth and development from implicit, emotionally based reactions to life’s many problems and issues to reactions that are truly explicit, conceptually derived value-judgments.

Such, then, is undoubtedly the goal for which we must strive both as mature individuals directing and guiding our own lives, as well as for those times when we are guiding others either as offspring or as young people in our charge when we are serving in a professional capacity. Now we can move ahead to the topic at hand—the making of ethical decisions.

REFERENCES

Coles, R. (1997). The moral intelligence of children. NY: Random House.

Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional intelligence. NY: Bantam.

Rand, A. (1960). The romantic manifesto. NY & Cleveland: World.

CHAPTER 1

ETHICAL DECISION-MAKING: A PERSONAL DILEMMA

A reasonably intelligent person today understands that most of the world’s nations have won a recognizable semblance of victory over what is often a harsh physical environment. Yet many of the world’s peoples living within these nations’ boundaries have not yet been able to remove much of the insecurity evident in their efforts to live together constructively and peacefully. Why is this so? The questioning title of this book provides one significant answer to this question. The dilemma posed by the Who Knows What’s Right Anymore? question of this book’s title opens the door to an understanding of much of the fractionating division that exists in the world. The awesome power exerted by the inherent ethical systems of the world’s organized religions needs to be fully understood before the situation can be improved.

Organized religion has continued for millennia as a social force that almost automatically controls the lives of billions of people of the world to a greater or lesser extent. One might argue that this is a good thing, that humankind truly needs the guidance provided by, for example, the original-sin group (i.e., the promulgators and adherents of many of the more conservative elements of the world’s 13 great religions, along with the innumerable sects within these enterprises). Indeed the need for this guidance appears to have been vital in the distant past. It could be argued further that there is evidence that similar conditions still exist today—but to varying degrees

A second group is increasing in number daily. This second group believes that the great religions have had their day, and that humankind had best devise a more effective and efficient way to decide what is right and good in contrast to what is wrong and evil, respectively. This could well be called the scientific-ethics group.

Finally, there is another truly substantive group of humans—many who are nominal members of one of the 13 (or more!) religions mentioned above—who typically live their lives as though these major religions don’t even exist. This is what I am identifying loosely as the common-sense group.

ETHICAL DECISION-MAKING: A PROVOCATIVE SUBJECT

The title of this book was meant to be disturbing, mainly because ethical decision-making—i.e., deciding what is right and good—can indeed be a most provocative subject. When you get right down to it, the trichotomy of original sin or scientific ethics or common sense is a capsule analysis of the basic choices that the majority of humankind is facing. On the one hand, there are those who believe that some external power, God or whatever, made this basic decision about right and wrong—good and evil—for humankind eons ago. On the other hand, there are those who consider such pronouncements to be largely myth or fairy tale. The latter group argues that it is up to us today to create our own heaven and/or hell. This is to be done presumably through a steady, evolutionary, scientific search for what is good (workable) and what is bad (unworkable) or what is right or wrong. A third group, perhaps the majority, don’t really spend much time worrying about it all. When an ethical problem arises, they use their common sense to arrive at a solution and then muddle their way through.

Consequently, as a result of this original sin, scientific ethics, or common sense plight, people of all ages and backgrounds in most societies still find significant disagreement on the subject of human values, morality, and ethics. Nevertheless, there is also substantial evidence that many men and women are diligently and resolutely seeking a sensitive understanding of themselves and their fellows. Yet, as a result of the most divisive, long-standing, basic intra-and intercultural differences in belief that prevail, there is reason to believe that the future of the world society may well be in danger as the 21st century progresses.

Indeed, it may well be that our distorting emotions and destructive passions created by these and other seemingly unlovable differences represent the greatest danger for the future (Burtt (1965, p. 311). If such a danger does indeed exist, the development and application of a sound, but not too complex, approach to cross-cultural, ethical decision-making in personal and professional living could be of inestimable assistance to people everywhere. This will not occur, however, unless the present inability to shed many archaic beliefs and ideologies is overcome.

NO UNIVERSAL ETHICAL FOUNDATION AVAILABLE

Unfortunately, even though many philosophers have searched persistently throughout history for a normative (i.e., standard) ethical system on which people could and should base their conduct, there is still no single, non-controversial foundation accepted universally on which the entire structure of ethics can be based. This need for an acceptable, workable ethical approach is especially true at a time when developments in the field of communications, for example, have thrust us into a situation where the concept of the world as a global village has become a reality in the developed world. Any event that is newsworthy becomes almost immediately available through satellite communication to television stations at all points of the globe. As a result, it is becoming increasingly difficult, if not impossible, to view humanity as only an indistinct amalgam of separate cultures able to proceed on their own.

Despite the above, we have witnessed a steadily rising tide of often unreasonably chauvinistic nationalism in recent years throughout the world. This development has been occasioned by an evident need for people to retain strong cultural identities through independent national status. However, because of an accompanying tide of rising expectations, we find many people within these nations-many of dubious political status—becoming part of disenfranchised populations where strife and revolt often prevail. As a result a certain percentage of these men, women, and children are seeking to move where they believe they and their offspring will have a better opportunity for "the good life.’

This turmoil in both developed and/or underdeveloped nations has created serious problems for the world, at large. Of course, this holds true, also, for the United States, Canada, and Mexico here in our North American culture. On this side of the Atlantic, we were supposedly entering an age of leisure in the industrialized world in the 1960s, but today there’s a completely different outlook confronting us as we struggle in the throes of emergence as post-industrial nations. Resultantly, this continent is rapidly becoming a vast multi-ethnic culture peopled by individuals who as they came here originally brought with them religious and ethical backgrounds. It would be too visionary, of course, to expect that cultural differentiation would cease tomorrow, and that overnight all would become enthusiastic Americans or Canadians, or Mexicans, respectively. However, it should be possible to work in that direction specifically in a much better manner than we find today.

Also, it does bring home the need to promote steadily improving international relations. Whether the global village concept working in certain aspects of society (e.g., economics) will lead to the eventual establishment of one recognizable world culture is anybody’s guess. However, cross-cultural understanding must be cultivated with great diligence. I believe this is vital because our global village with its blanketing communications network is steadily and inevitably viewing human values, ethics, and morality in at least a similar manner. This could well be the only hope for human civilization on Earth if people are to live together peacefully in the future.

Further, as if the need for such harmonization will not be difficult enough in itself, we are at present also witnessing the origins of a new science called evolutionary psychology. This developing field, based on the investigations of evolutionary biologists and a variety of social-science scholars, presents a strong possibility (probability?) that the end result will be a sharply revised view of human nature itself. Assessing contemporary social reality, Wright (1994) argues that a new understanding of the imperatives required by human genes is needed. Resultantly, it could be that the very foundation of our human concept of goodness will never be the same again.

With thoughts such as these as a backdrop, I have personally survived as a presumably ethical, dual citizen of the United States and Canada, a person who has worked professionally for a total of 60 years in both countries (first one, then the other, etc.). Yet I have also long since come to the conclusion that we all face a confusing Tower of Babel daily when we are confronted with everyday decision-making about problems of an ethical nature. I say this because in our relationships with others we so often seem to be speaking different languages about what’s right and what’s wrong, as well as which actions are good and which are bad.

I have found this statement to be true for many reasons: whether a parent is speaking to a son or daughter about a social-relationship problem in school, whether that same parent is facing a marital problem in the home, whether a member of that family confronts someone with an issue on a neighborhood street, or whether the same man or woman has an ethical decision to make at work as a professional practitioner or tradesperson. Let’s face it, these examples cited