Posts Tagged ‘law’

With the story of a junior ice hockey player elbowing an opposing player, causing the victim on-ice convulsions as a result of a traumatic brain injury (not to mention a few missing teeth), it was inevitable that violence in sports — and, in particular, ice hockey — would again become headline material.  The immediate result of the infraction, as expected, is that the offending player has been suspended indefinitely.  Some administrators, players, and fans, however, seem to think that a league suspension is not enough, going to far as to expect — or even demand — criminal charges be brought on the offender.  While there’s little doubt that such an offense in everyday life would result in a criminal investigation, violent acts in sports are often seen as untouchable to and even made permissible by law.  Thus, in my opinion, there’s no better example of ethical relativism in mainstream society than the acceptance of violence in sports.

Ethical relativism is the philosophical concept which states that “different groups of people have different moral standards for evaluating acts as right or wrong.”  Even more interesting to me is the fact that ethical relativism can also be found within the same group of people.  That is, in my example above, in general western society sees fighting as unethical and illegal, and yet violence in sports is not only tolerated but, in some cases, encouraged or is the main action within that sport.  The venue and purpose determines whether the action is ethical.  That is the very underlying principle behind ethical relativism: the same action, under different circumstances, is viewed differently in terms of morality.

Bringing law into the picture makes ethical relativism and violence in sports a much trickier issue.  In some sports, violence is the single principle in the sport.  In boxing, for example, two consenting people engage in fisticuffs while others watch for entertainment.  However, if two consenting people fight outside of, say, a bar (regardless of the level of intoxication), it’s likely those two people would be arrested and booked in jail, with further punishment being adjudicated by the judicial system.  We could say the same for almost any other professional sport, too: ice hockey has fights every game, but the penalty is simply five minutes in the penalty box.  Baseball, basketball, and football all have the occasional fight, but the penalties are generally in the thrown-out-of-the-game to suspension range.  Regardless, in each of these cases the violent actions are tolerated on some level, and criminal investigations never come into play.

The question, then, is whether what happens within a sport should be considered outside of the law and outside of normal ethics (although some disagree), as is often the case.  Violent penalties in ice hockey, such as slashing, kneeing, elbowing, roughing, and fighting are policed within the game.  While some could say that the intent is what could trigger outside investigation and action, hockey has a penalty for that, too: “intent to injure,” which would, in everyday law, be called “assault.”  The same could be said for baseball, for example when a pitcher throws the ball at a batter or when the base runner intentionally runs into or “spikes” an opponent.  Should every intent to injure penalty therefore be investigated as a criminal action?  It does seems to satisfy all three of the requirements for determining criminal action: ability, opportunity, and intent to commit the action.

Some cases have been investigated as criminal action.  In 2004, then-Vancouver Canucks player Todd Bertuzzi punched opponent Steve Moore in the side of the head and landed on him, along with other players, resulting in a broken neck, concussion, damage to ligaments and nerves, and facial lacerations for Moore.  Bertuzzi then found himself in criminal court, eventually pleading guilty to assault and was sentenced simply to probation, 80 hours of community service, and couldn’t play against Moore.  Moore, since the incident, has never again been able to play hockey.  Meanwhile, Bertuzzi has amassed over 300 penalty minutes, most of which it can be assumed were for violent actions.  As the terms of his probation have apparently been met satisfactorily, it seems that the courts have chosen to be blind to the vast majority of violent actions within sports.

I don’t know what the answer is for the dichotomy between lawful and unlawful in terms of violence in sports, but I do believe it is a slippery slope should the courts become involved again with actions within a sport.  While I might not personally agree with violence in sports, despite being involved in them more than a few times, myself, the involvement of the courts seems to be almost completely arbitrary considering the violent actions which are willfully ignored.  Unless laws and normal ethics are applied to the actions within sports, the courts seem to have little precedence on which to rely when adjudicating in-game violent actions and determining adequate punishment.  Unless the judicial system is willing to adjudicate all actions within sports the same as those that are outside of sports, they should leave adjudication where it belongs: the civil courts.

As an aside, and perhaps the topic of a future post, I wonder why the same relativism also seems to hold true for doping in sports. Criminal investigation has largely been contained to investigation of doctors and trainers for the dispensing of controlled substances, and much less against the players who have admitted using them for illegal purposes.  It too is an interesting case of dichotomy between what we as society see as unethical and illegal (the taking of controlled substances for uses other than their legal intentions) and permissible (since the taking of controlled substances resulted in more public entertainment).