Toni
Contributor
- Joined
- Aug 10, 2011
- Messages
- 19,812
- Basic Beliefs
- Peace on Earth, goodwill towards all
The default assumption is that the coach is an asshole who is much more interested in running up a score than in fair competition.This does not help to answer my questions.Causing discomfort to others can be placed on a moral scale. It can be a moral thing or an immoral thing depending on the circumstances. Here's an exercise in morality for Metaphor. Imagine a situation in which causing others discomfort feels like a moral thing and then imagine a situation in which causing others discomfort is an immoral thing. What did you come up with?
Evidently, some people agree that some threshold was crossed by the coach when his team beat another team by a large number of points. This seems to be predicated on the idea that some unnecessary 'discomfort' at the magnitude of the loss was caused, though nobody appears to think it was somehow unethical to win the game, but merely to win by too much.
Does this apply only to high school teams and not collegiate sports? Why or why not?
Did the girls have a moral obligation to play more poorly as well as the coach instructing them to do so? Why or why not?
Does a high school long distance runner have an obligation to do less than her best if she is winning by a large margin? Why or why not?
Is asking a team to perform at less than their best effort a more ethical choice than winning by a large margin? Why? What about an individual?
EDITED: And why is the default assumption that the girls did this primarily to cause discomfort, instead of (as I would expect a sports team to do), playing to the utmost of their ability?
In a sport such as basketball, there are 5 starting players who are the best and then the second string for substitutions, and a third string, etc. who usually don’t get much play time.
A coach who is interested in fair play abs developing his team abs the skills of all his players would pull his starting players once it became apparent that they were badly outmatching their opponents. Second string goes in. Again, if they are still badly out performing the opponents, either the bench warmers go in OR the coach instructs them to only take shots after X number of passes or only from a certain distance or only the kid who rarely gets a shot: they get all the shots. You do your best to make it a fair match—and to give players who aren’t on the court much more time and the chance to improve. Otherwise, you unnecessarily demoralize your opponents, don’t give your less good players a chance to play and significantly risk injuries to both teams. Demoralized teams sometimes begin to throw a lot of elbows, etc. Players on teams that deliberately run up scores are not improving their skills and are merely learning to be bullies.
In individual races, where the winner is an individual, then yes, your runner gets to go for their best time in every race. Points are awarded to teams based on the number of runners placing high. And if you have an entire team that is much faster than the competition, do be it but you should be looking for more competitive opportunities. And good runners teach other runners, even if they are beating them.