Ethics, Brain Injuries, and Sports: Prohibition, Reform, and Prudence

Abstract

In this paper, we analyze the issue of the elimination of sports with a high risk of brain injury. In particular, we critically examine Angelo Corlett's and Pam Sailors' arguments for the prohibition of football and Nicholas Dixon's claim for the reformation of boxing to eliminate blows to the head. Two elements are the ground of Dixon's and Sailor's arguments: (a) the empirical assumption that there is an essential or causal connection between brain injuries incurred in football and the development of a degenerative brain disease known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), and (b) John Stuart Mill's analysis of autonomy, in particular, his position related to consensual domination (ie voluntary enslavement). In the second section of the paper, we present four arguments to contest the validity of Dixon's and Sailor's assumptions. First, we present autonomybased arguments for the moral acceptability of consensual domination. Secondly, we argue that the nature of the goods people pursue in their lives might justify their foregoing (degrees of) future autonomy. Thirdly, we argue that Mill´s argument against consensual domination draws on ambiguous and arbitrary distinctions. Fourth, we highlight the lack of consensus and empirical evidence regarding CTE arising from brain injuries in sport. We conclude that the proposals from reforming or eliminating sports with high risks of brain injuries are at present not well founded. Might a ban on sports with a risk of brain injuries be justified? The moral permissibility or impermissibility of those sports in which harms are caused by brain injury is a recurrent theme in sports and medical ethics (

Disruptive Technologies and the Sport Ecosystem: A Few Ethical Questions

“…That is especially so if the injury or illness is more often among athletes rather than among non-athletes, as it is in the case of injuries to tendons, knees, back, or brain damages caused by contact sports such as rugby or football. (There are also the bioethicists and philosophers who argue that some of the contact sports are morally unacceptable because of the brain injuries they can cause: the counterarguments to such claims are related to personal autonomy and freedom, pre-emptive paternalism, and practical difficulties to limit the exercise of these sports, among many others [10]. From this perspective, biotechnology and biomaterials could be seen as additional arguments in favor of leaving contact sports as they are).…”