Defining sport: Intrinsic and Instrumental Values

I have written before about defining sport and distinguishing sport from other athletic competitions. My preferred definition of sport includes four elements: 1) Large motor skills; 2) Simple machines; 3) Objective scoring (distinct from subjective judging); and 4) Competition. Of these, # 3 has proven to be most difficult, controversial, and contested, as the comments on this post show. Watching the Olympics (count me among the many who detest the NBC Primetime productions) has lead me to a different way of thinking about # 3, using a line familiar to legal scholarship--the difference between intinsic and utilitarian instrumental values. Hear me out.

Everything involves the performance of particular skills (dives, flips, swimming strokes, running strides, throwing, putting the shot, whatever), with the hope of performing those skills as correctly as possible. The difference is why the athlete performs those skills.

Sometimes they are done for utilitarian instrumental purposes--to enable the athlete to swim or run faster or to put the shot further or to put the ball in the basket. And the better or more perfectly the athlete performs those skills, the more likely he is to do well in the competition. But ultimate evaluation is not on the skills themselves and correct performance is not essential to success. A shot-putter still can have a good throw even if his performance on that throw is not technically correct; a swimmer still might swim fast even if his stroke is off; a jump shot in basketball may go in  even if the form on the shot is off. Each of those scores is worth the same as one done with perfect form. Other times, those skills are performed for their intrinsic value and utlimate evaluation is on the correctness and form of the skill itself. An Inward 2 1/2 that is not done correctly will score less than an Inward 2 1/2 done correctly; a backflip not done correctly will score less than a backflip done correctly.

This is our new third element. Sport is utilitarian instrumental; skills are performed toward some other end and outcomes are determined by the result of the skill rather than by evaluating the skill itself. It is not sport if it is intrinsic; skills are performed for their own sake and outcomes are determined by evaluating the skill itself. We no longer care about objective or subjective evaluation, about scoring or judging. Instead, we focus only on the thing being evaluated to determine outcome--the skill itself (not sport) or the results of the skill (sport).

Combined with elements 1, 2, and 4, above, we may have a winner.

Fan speech and Penn State: A Response

Thanks to Geoff for the shout-out on my writing on fan speech. I wanted to post a quick response.


First, while I agree it would be disgusting for opposing fans to taunt players about the specifics of child sexual assault, I am not as sure that taunting players about the overall scandal at a university and football program of which they are a part would be uncivil. Especially if the message is that PSU is not the holier-than-thou place it pretended to be for 60 years. A little bit of schadenfreude is a core part of cheering speech. Geoff also is right that the NCAA, Big 10, and schools cannot do anything about this (exception, ironically, my alma mater).


Second, I do not have a problem with Penn State fans overdoing it with praise for the involved school officials. I expect it and, in fact, welcome it. One reason to protect speech for uninformed or offensive ideas is to expose those ideas, and those who hold them, to public attention and ridicule.

Fan Speech and Penn State

In less than a month, the Penn State football team will take the field for the first time since the NCAA imposed sanctions on the school for the conduct of Athletic Department employees in connection with the Sandusky child sexual assault scandal.  One of the factors which led me to take the position that Penn State should take the year off from football, rather than continue to play, is a concern about what kinds of signs we'll see and chants we'll hear from the stands.
 
Howard has written in this blog about fan speech, and the challenges in regulating it, in this blog on a number of occasions: here, here, here and here, for instance.

We have two reasons to be concerned about fan speech here.  First, we may see signs at home games which are overly supportive of key Penn State figures now besmirched by the scandal.  In spite of the mountain of evidence indicating a colossal breakdown in morality and leadership, some fans may stubbornly cling to rosy images of football heroes. 

More likely, though, when Penn State travels to play away games in Iowa City and Lincoln -- never easy places to visit -- we'll see some fans who use the scandal to taunt the current players (players having nothing to do with the matter).  No doubt the Big Ten or the NCAA will urge fans to keep their cheers civil, but we've already seen the emergence of (grammatically challenged) fan speech in connection with the scandal and I think it's fair to expect more.

Here, players may be more likely, than in the case of the kind of racist fan speech that usually raises concerns, to be able to brush of these insults.  Yet by dragging the matter into the light of national TV, potentially offensive fan speech has the potential to continue to cause hurt to the real victims of this scandal:  Sandusky's targets.  Unfortunately, there's not much that the NCAA or the Big 10 can do about it.

Minority relgiions and the Olympics

My colleague Tom Baker linked me to this story on the Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, and other minority religious groups taking special rooting interest and pride in the Olympic success of their co-religionists, even if they are competing for other countries. The author seems surprised by this, although I am not sure why. American Jews always have been very conscious of the existence and success of Jewish-American as well as Israeli athletes (while never being afraid to recycle the old joke "Do you have some light reading? Here's a pamphlet of great Jewish athletes"). What is new here, if anything, is the way that other religious groups in the U.S. are catching on. 

For what it's worth, my sense with Jews and Jewish athletes is that it always has been more ethnic/cultural than religious. People knew gymnast Aly Raisman is Jewish because of her name and her floor routine done to "Hava Nagila." The issue was never whether she was particularly observant (although her rabbi is quoted in the story, so we somewhat know), but that she identified as Jewish. That has always been enough.

Mutu v Chelsea – Three Years After the “Remarkable” CAS Decision

This is a special guest post by Romanian attorney Smaranda Miron, LL.M, who practices at
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP in Frankfurt, Germany, on the Court of Arbitration for Sport ordering Romanian football player Adrian Mutu to pay 17 million to Chelsea.

Mutu v Chelsea – Three Years After the “Remarkable” CAS Decision

It was back in July 2003 when Roman Abramovich commenced the £140,000,000 takeover of Chelsea FC plc and then proceeded to create a star-studded team, with one aim: bringing the Stamford Bridge club among the world’s football elite.

In August 2003, Romanian football player Adrian Mutu was transferred from AC Parma to Chelsea for €22,500,000 the highest amount ever paid for the transfer of a Romanian athlete. Mutu’s arrival at Chelsea was highly acclaimed: compared by some with Gianfranco Zola, the “brilliant” Mutu received Chelsea's flattering number°7 jersey. At that time, Romania’s “golden team” of football players was retiring and, as they stepped out of the field, they pointed at Mutu as being the new leader capable of securing future victories.

Under his almost five years contract with Chelsea, Mutu was to be paid an annual gross salary of £2,350,000 a once only signing fee of £330,000, the usual bonuses and incentives Chelsea paid to its players, as well as a special goal bonus. Mutu's agent was to receive €500,000. Things started relatively good for the Romanian striker, though for some reason he failed be as prolific as he had been in Parma. Up until 1°October 2004, he appeared in 27 games and found the net 6 times.

But on 1 October 2004, Mutu's dream began to collapse: a targeted drug test was held on him by the English Football Association. On 11 October 2004, Mutu was found positive for cocaine. A few weeks later, on 28 October 2004, Chelsea terminated Mutu's contract with immediate effect. He also received a seven-months worldwide ban. What followed was an endless battle, both in the media and in the courts, between Mutu and Chelsea: after almost eight years and numerous proceedings in England, Switzerland and the US, they are still waiting: Chelsea for its money, and Mutu for an almost impossible reversal of unfavourable rulings.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne has dealt with no less than three matters between Mutu and Chelsea. Mutu lost every single one of them.

The first CAS award was rendered in 2005. Previously, the Football Association Premier League ruled that Mutu’s admitted use of cocaine constituted a unilateral breach of contract without just cause. He appealed the decision before CAS, and his appeal was dismissed.

As a result, in 2006, Chelsea requested the FIFA Dispute Resolution Chamber (DRC) to impose the adequate sporting sanctions on Mutu and/or to order him to pay compensation for breach of contract. The DRC declined jurisdiction, and Chelsea brought the case before CAS. In this second CAS award, the club’s appeal was upheld, CAS said that the DRC wrongly declined jurisdiction and soon afterwards Chelsea re-applied for compensation before the DRC.

On 13 August 2008, the DRC decided that Mutu was to pay Chelsea € 17,173,990 for breach of his employment contract, which comprised the unamortised portions of the transfer fee paid by Chelsea to Parma, the sign-on fee and the agent's fee. What is more, the DRC noted that, due to specificity of sport, additional punitive measures can be imposed on athletes, so that compensation can sometimes be even higher than normally calculated under the applicable rules. At that time, it was the highest fine ever imposed by FIFA.

Mutu then filed a third case before CAS, and asked them to annul the DRC decision.

The CAS Panel considered that the quantification of damages by the DRC (based on unamortised acquisition costs) was consistent with the applicable provisions, namely English law and the 2001 FIFA on the Status and Transfer of Players. However, the Panel revised the calculations made by the DRC and took into account additional items of acquisition costs: a solidarity contribution, a transfer levy and the club agents’ fees. It reached an amount of €19,113,688 and £371,444, higher than the one put forward by the DRC. But in order not to go ultra petita, the CAS Panel could only confirm the damages awarded by the DRC.

Furthermore, all Mutu’s arguments were rejected:

He argued that he had been discriminated on the basis of nationality (which is forbidden in the European internal market), since the legal framework applicable to English football players transferred at a domestic level was different than the one applicable to foreign players performing in England. The CAS Panel disagreed and said that it was not the nationality of the player that triggered the application of one set of rules or the other, but whether the player was moving between clubs belonging to different national football associations or not.

Contrary to Mutu’s submissions, the Panel considered that English Football Association’s competence to rule on the measure of damages and the fashion in which the damages were calculated were not in breach of European legislation prohibiting anti-competitive practices.

Mutu’s argument that such a way of calculating compensation would act as a deterrent to players wishing to perform in other countries and would thus be in breach of the European rules on freedom of movement was also unsuccessful. The Panel stated that the obligation to pay compensation can never be seen as an impairment of the freedom of movement.

Mutu challenged the third CAS award before the Swiss Federal Tribunal (Schweizerische Bundesgericht), but the review system before the Swiss Federal Tribunal was of little comfort for the player. Mutu argued that the method of calculating damages by the DRC (upheld by CAS) was breaching the Swiss public policy. On 14 June 2010, the Swiss Federal Tribunal dismissed Mutu’s case as unfounded.

On 8 November 2010, Chelsea filed a petition before the US District Court Southern District of Florida (Miami Division) and requested them to recognize and enforce the third CAS award against Mutu under the New York Convention. According to Chelsea, Mutu was owning various residential property in Florida, including property in Miami-Dade county. In his defence, Mutu argued that the enforcement of the CAS award would have been contrary to public policy because it relied on a contractual penalty clause. He asked the court to deny recognition and enforcement of the CAS award under article 5(2)(b) of the New York Convention.

On 13 February 2012 the US court issued recognizing and enforcing the CAS award. It ruled that, even if one were to find the relevant provision of the 2001 Regulations for the Status and Transfer of Players as being a penalty clause, the CAS award was properly and independently decided pursuant to English law. However, the review of the US court was limited; as the judge put it, even if an award was unsupported, foolish and poorly reasoned, as long as it does not violate public policy (i.e., basic notions of morality and justice), it cannot be subject to court interference.

On 19 March 2012 Mutu appealed the Southern District of Florida order before the US Court of Appeals, 11^th Circuit. A decision is pending.

While waiting for the 11^th Circuit decision, a few issues still linger:

Athletes are not machines. Nor are – or can – they be perfect. Football players remain people, and no matter how talented and disciplined they are, things can go awry at any time. When Mutu was taking cocaine, he was also going through a highly publicised divorce and had regular conflicts with coach Mourinho. Mutu had never offered any guarantee that the transfer sum paid by Chelsea was indeed worth paying. He was not involved in the negotiations and had one way only to influence the amount at stake: the better he played, the higher the transfer sum would have been. Therefore, when a contract between two rich almighty clubs is concluded, should the player bear all the risks?

Is the legal framework applicable to football players truly running against European law, as Mutu argued before CAS? The CAS Panel said no. However, at no point of the dispute could Mutu have had his case heard before a national court of a Member State which, in turn, could have referred the case to the Court of Justice of the European Union for a preliminary ruling and shed light on this matter. Shouldn’t football players, European citizens rendering services in a Member State of the European Union, be given some kind of remedy before the European courts in addition to the CAS system?

By all means, this is an atypical anti-doping case: cocaine is everything but a sports performance enhancing substance. In addition, Mutu was not cocaine addicted. He needed no medical support to recover from use of cocaine and, once he returned to Italy, he continued his series of startling performances. For Fiorentina, he scored 54 goals in 112 appearances and was named the player of the season in Il Calcio in 2006/2007. Anyway, he still has to pay an incredible amount to Chelsea, amount that –as press reports say– will most likely plunge him into bankruptcy. Needless to say, he never made this money from football. Indeed, FIFA and CAS had taught him and the whole sports world a tough lesson. It remains to be seen how much was achieved with that. It is beyond contestation that anti-drug messages are positive. But one can only wonder if payment of roughly €17,000,000 and endangering an athlete’s career is not too big a price to pay for a message which, at the end of the day, each of us can also read on street billboards.

Note: all the opinions and errors in the article are Smaranda Miron's and the article does not express the views of Miron's firm.

My debate with William Lane Craig finally released on video

Yes, it's finally been posted up. Recorded last October in front of audience of 2,000 (largely, though not entirely Christian) at Westminster Central Hall.

I usually watch any recording of myself with my head in my heads, cringing at what an idiot I am, but actually this went alright, I feel. I did wobble in my first rebuttal, partly because I forgot what I was going to say. But the rest of it goes OK. Especially the Q&A at the end.

The point I make about evidence for the resurrection comes across fairly clearly on the video, to my surprise (I had suspected it was too quick to follow) - and I do think it a very strong point (and also original so far as I am aware). People have also previously complained that the audio recording was poor and I couldn't be heard, but I seem pretty audible on this.

Still, I could certainly have done better. My debating skills are pretty poor compared to Craig's. There are also points I could have added that would have caused him significantly more difficulty, particularly regarding his playing the skeptical card on the problem of evil. Maybe next time, if there is one....

What is Humanism?

(From my OUP book - A Very Short Introduction to Humanism). One aim here is to nail various myths about what Humanism involves, which in turn lead to a whole series of strawman attacks from its critics.

What is humanism?

The word “humanism” has had, and continues to have, a variety of meanings. At its broadest, “humanism” means little more than a system of thought in which human values, interests and dignity are considered particularly important. Understood in this way, perhaps almost everyone qualifies as a humanist (including those of us who are religious).

However, those who organize under the banner of “humanism” today, particularly in the UK, usually mean something rather more focussed. They embrace a particular kind of worldview that by no means everyone accepts. That worldview is the focus of this book.

So what distinguishes the humanist outlook? It is difficult to be very precise. The boundaries of the concept are elastic. But I think most humanists would probably agree on something like the following minimal, seven-point characterization (in no particular order):

First, Humanists believe science, and reason more generally, are invaluable tools we can and should apply to all areas of life. No beliefs should be considered off-limits and protected from rational scrutiny.

Secondly, humanists are either atheists or at least agnostic. They are sceptical about the claim that there exists a god or gods. They are also sceptical about angels, demons and other such supernatural beings.

Third, humanists believe that this life is the only life we have. We are not reincarnated. Nor is there any heaven or hell to which we go after we die. Notice that the humanist’s sceptical position regarding both gods and an after-life is not a dogmatic “faith position”, but a consequence of their having subjected such belief to critical scrutiny and found them seriously wanting.

Fourth, Humanism involves a commitment to the existence and importance of moral value. They also believe our ethics should be strongly informed by study of what human beings are actually like, and of what will help them flourish in this world, rather than the next. Humanists reject such negative claims as that there cannot be moral value without God, and that we will not be, or are unlikely to be, good without God and religion to guide us. Humanists offer moral justifications and arguments rooted other than in religious authority and dogma.

Fifth, humanists emphasize our individual moral autonomy. It is our individual responsibility to make our own moral judgements, rather than attempt to hand that responsibility over to some external authority – such as a political leader or religion – that will make those judgements for us. Humanists favour developing forms of moral education that emphasize this responsibility and that will equip us with the skills we will need to discharge it properly.

Sixth, humanists believe our lives can have meaning without it being bestowed from above by God. They suppose that lives of, say, Pablo Picasso, Marie Curie, Ernest Shackleton and Albert Einstein were all rich, significant and meaningful, whether there is a God or not.

Seventh, humanists are secularists, in the sense that they favour an open, democratic society in which the state takes a neutral position with respect to religion, protecting the freedom of individuals to follow and espouse, or reject and criticize, both religious and atheist beliefs. While humanists will obviously oppose any attempt to coerce people into embracing religious belief, they are no less opposed to coercing people into embracing atheism, as happened under the communist regimes of Stalin and Mao.

There are a number of other views sometimes also associated with humanism that I have not included here. Note, for example, that, as characterized here, a humanist need not:

• be a utopian, convinced that the application of science and reason will inevitably usher in a Brave New World of peace and contentment.
• believe that only humans matter, morally speaking. Many humanists consider that the happiness and welfare of other species is also important.
• be a utilitarian – supposing that maximizing happiness and minimizing suffering are all that matter, morally speaking. While some humanists embrace utilitarianism, and almost all believe that happiness and suffering are morally important, not all humanists are utilitarians.
• embrace those brands of naturalism that say that the natural, physical universe is the only reality there is, and/or that the natural, physical facts are the only facts that there are. Many humanists, perhaps the majority, embrace some form of naturalism. Some even define their brand of “humanism” as involving naturalism. However, the looser definition employed here allows humanists to criticize naturalism if they wish. Yes, humanists reject, or are at least agnostic concerning, belief in gods, angels, demons, etc., but that doesn’t require that they sign up to naturalism. Take, for example, a mathematician who believes that mathematics describes a non-natural, mathematical reality (a sort of numerical heaven). This mathematician rejects naturalism, but that does not entail they cannot be a humanist. Or take a philosopher who believes they have established that, say, moral facts, or the facts about what goes on in our conscious minds, are facts that exist in addition to all of the natural, physical facts. Again, I see no reason why such a philosopher cannot be a humanist. A recent survey revealed that while only 14.6% of professional philosophers believe in god, just under 50% of them are committed to naturalism. I consider it unnecessarily restrictive to define “humanism” in such a way as automatically to exclude the significant proportion who fail to believe in either gods or naturalism.
• embrace scientism, believing that every genuine question can in principle be answered by science. Take moral questions, for example. Humanists can, and often do, accept that, while scientific discoveries can inform our moral decisions, science and reason alone are incapable of determining what is morally right or wrong. A humanist may suppose that other questions - such as “Why is there anything at all?” – are also bona fide questions that science cannot answer. Humanists are merely sceptical about one particular answer – that the universe is the creation of one or more gods.

In order to refute humanism as I have characterized it, then, it is not enough that one refute utopianism, utilitarianism, scientism or naturalism. A humanist can reject, or remain neutral concerning, all these philosophical stances.

Humanists are sometimes criticised for not being “for” anything. They are often caricatured as naysayers, defined entirely by what they oppose – belief in a god or gods.

However, notice that even the theist rejects belief in the countless other gods people have believed in down through the centuries (such as those of the Ancient Romans, Greeks, Norse, Mayans, Egyptians, and so on). Humanists are unconvinced of the existence of just one or two more.

Moreover, notice that, as outlined here, humanism goes far beyond mere atheism or agnosticism, and is clearly for a great deal.

For example, humanism is for freedom of thought and expression and an open society. Humanism is for forms of moral education that stress our moral autonomy and the importance of thinking critically and independently. Humanists don’t just reject dogma-based approaches to answering moral, political and social questions, they are very much for developing positive, rational and ultimately more life-affirming and life-enhancing alternatives.

Humanist thinking is also sometimes caricatured as a hodgepodge of disparate, unconnected ideas – but again this is untrue. Humanism’s focus is on the “big questions”: e.g. of what ultimately is real; of what ultimately makes life worth living; of what is morally right or wrong, and why; and of how best to order our society. While religion typically addresses such questions, they are clearly not the unique preserve of religion. Such questions also belong to philosophy, and were being addressed in a rational, non-religious way before the appearance of Christianity. What pulls our seven characterizing views together into something like a system of thought is (i) their shared focus on the “big questions”, (ii) a degree of interconnectedness (for example, if you are sceptical about gods, that will lead you to be sceptical about the claim that our moral sense was placed in us by a god), and (iii) the over-arching role played by the first: these views on the “big questions” are collectively embraced, not as a dogmatically held “faith positions”, but because, having subjected the various alternatives to rational scrutiny, the humanist considers these the most reasonable positions to adopt.

Finally, I want to say something about humanist antipathy to religion. Clearly many humanists consider religion, not just false, but dangerous. Some even view religion as a great evil. But not all. A significant number of religious people actually share many of the views in terms of which I have characterized humanism. They too are secularists. They also accept that morality and a meaningful life are possible even in the absence of god. They may also share many of the same goals as humanists. Many humanists are happy to work in conjunction with religious people and organizations to achieve such goals. And of course there are religious people willing to work in conjunction with humanists. At the time of writing, the Bible Society’s think tank Theos donated towards a British Humanist Association advertising campaign promoting the idea that children should not be labelled with a religion, but should be allowed to grow up free to make their own decisions about what religion, if any, to embrace. Humanists and religious people obviously disagree on certain fundamental issues. But there is often a great deal on which they often can agree. There is no particular reason why humanist organizations cannot develop constructive working partnerships with their religious counterparts.

This book aims to further explain, and begin to make a case for, humanism, as characterized above.