I had a most interesting conversation with my friend this morning.
Let me give everyone the background of our conversation first. My friend said he hates "greedy soccer players" like Frank Lampard of Chelsea United because they draw very high wages (reports suggest around 130k pounds a week). This is contributing to soccer being increasingly inaccessible to the general public, with higher ticket prices, and more expensive cable tv fees / subscription rates.
I found his "hatred" irrational because to me, Frank Lampard and all these players, to the best of my knowledge, are just pawns in the game. The clubs find the players are worthy of the high pay, and hence offer them appropriately so. We cannot expect the players to not want to seek the highest pay possible, and this does not constitute greed in my opinion. And hence as its the clubs ultimately who offer them these wages, I do not think the players are "responsible" for the escalating cost of soccer.
We had a fairly long debate on this. And ultimately we realised that we had fundamentally very different views on "responsibility" and "blame". Here I will offer a moral dilemna that captures the essence of our differences for my readers, would be very happy to hear your views.
"You are a golfer. You are about to strike your golf ball, after having done your best to check that the way infront is clear. You have abided every possible rule there is, you are absolutely sure the way infront is clear. Now you strike the golf ball. A small girl suddenly ran from the bushes 100m infront and the ball struck her temple, and she died. Are you "responsible" for her death?"
My friend thinks that regardless of the situation, the fact that the ball was struck by him, means he is in some way responsible for the death. I on the other hand, strongly believe that i would not be responsible for the death, for i could not have done better.
This is a fundamentally different way of looking at things. My friend's concern is really more on the end result -- the process does not really matter. My concern is more on the process -- could i have done better? If I could not have done better, why should i be blamed? How could I be responsible?
It extends to the first situation about the footballers, because my friend attributes "responsibility" and "blame" to the footballers, as he thinks the players' acceptance of the high wages, whether they had insisted on it or not, ultimately did "cause" the escalating costs to some degree. I on the other hand do not think so. I think every player should fight for the highest wages possible, as do any of us given any job. If the club does not think they are deserving of the wages, they would sack them, its that simple. In other words, the players could not have done better. For that reason, I don't hold the player responsible.
What do you all think?
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6 comments:
I've sort of been misrepresented there in the post. I singled out Lampar(d) as "greedy" because I've read alot about him "demanding more and higher wages". I did not use him as an example simply because he is on a high salary to begin with.
But yes, I do mean that soccer players in general with their high pay is a major contributing cause to the high amount we have to pay for sports cable tv subscriptions. And I feel to think of them as mere pawns in the game AND HENCE absolve them totally of any responsibility towards the rising cable tv cost is plain blind talk. This is so plain and straight-forward.
Ok take this example:
In WWII, some germans worked as administrators in the concentration
camps. Others worked as truck drivers and cleaners. The trucks were
meant to transport the prisoners (mainly Jews) around.
Those trucks were fitted with pipes that drove the exhaust into the
chamber. The "passengers" were often dead before they got to their
next locations because of carbon monoxide poisoning.
The truck drivers knew this, and when they were asked at the end of
the war, "Do you feel guilty for being part of the Holocaust?" They
answered: "I was only a truck driver, just doing my job. I didn't kill
anyone."
Now do you see the difference? "I could do no better" is a pointless
assertion. Life is always about moral choices you must make. Just
because you could do no better does not make you less responsible for
your own actions. The truck drivers could have punched holes in the
pipes, they could have made their passengers aware of the whole
scheme. They might have protested against the Nazi regime and died
most probably for their bravery.
Are we all going to be like Jerry Yang of Yahoo, and stand accused at
the penultimate court of being "moral pygmies"?
-- Stanley Yong
From T.
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the situation with the football player is different from that of the
golfer. the football player situation is one where the dilemma is due to
lack of cooperation. if everyone cooperates, they can reach agreement but
if no one cooperates, no single individual has any incentive to take lower
wages than the rest.
the golfer situation is totally different. i would say intention is more
important than result. why do i say that, because if you measure by result
you are screwed, there is no end to the kind of analysis you can do and
you can potentially always be questioning if you did something wrong.
look if you go by result and not intention, then no one should work in the
armed forces, no one should work in arms manufacturing industries, no one
should even manufacture golf balls. what if you take this kind of
reasoning to the extreme, are you going to stop manufacturing golf balls
because they could potentially be deadly? i would have to stop doing
number theory because my result might potentially be used in a new
cryptosystem that some rogue organization might use to hide secrets...you
get my point?
in fact your golfer example captures the essence of why i like to be a
religious person in the sense that i dislike gaining scientific knowledge
of the material world - i only like to gain knowledge specific to my
vocation (pure mathematics) and for everything else, i rely on God
(Proverbs 3:5-6). why do i say this, because awareness of the state of
affairs of the material world is what wrecks you. in the golfer example or
in anything in life, if you have the mentality that it is your
responsibility to keep checking for potential harm you may cause to others
then you can live in extreme paranoia, you can keep questioning your
actions, gradually you accumulate more and more scientific knowledge and
the end result is your life is unlivable. if you are religious then your
mentality is that as long as you are just doing your duty in life then the
responsibility for making sure other people dont get hurt by your actions
lies with God, so you dont worry about these things.
i frankly dislike worrying and the feeling of guilt more than anything.
for me it is the worst feeling and the more scientific knowledge you have,
the more you feel responsibility for things and the more worries you have
and i like to be just carefree to think about math and play tennis and do
things i enjoy. so i see no point in gaining excessive scientific
knowledge because it is a burden. i think that if you do your duty in life
and you fear God, then God will see your heart, and the peace that God
gives you when you have honestly made an attempt to do the right thing is
something that no circumstance can ever take away from you. indeed it says
in the Bible that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor
powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any
other creature shall be able to seperate us from the love of God that is
in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Original: ... But yes, I do mean that soccer players in general with their high pay is a major contributing cause to the high amount we have to pay for sports cable tv subscriptions. And I feel to think of them as mere pawns in the game AND HENCE absolve them totally of any responsibility towards the rising cable tv cost is plain blind talk. This is so plain and straight-forward.
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RE: As i said again, the difference lies in our perception. You are concerned with the end result, while I am concerned with the process. I don't attribute blame to the players because the wages were offered to them by the clubs and its irrational behaviour from them to want to seek a lower pay. On the other hand, you attibute blame to them because you are only interested in the end result which is higher costs in the game. Obviously then in this world view, the players are at "fault".
I had received several emails with regards to this post, I will reproduce some from them.
From V:
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In terms of moral responsibility, the way it is used in law and, I think, ultimately the right way to give the word 'responsibility' its understood meaning, one is not blameworthy if he is considered to have acted without negligence and intent to cause that harm. What is considered to be negligent behaviour, has many shades of grey in some situations. How much do we expect him to do etc, and thats why we have lawyers, because things are not always clear cut.
So, if the golfer has done everythign expected of the golfer, he's looked around, he's followed the rules, he didnt see the girl, the girl shouldnt have been there and people are never walking around or getting hit by balls usually, then we wouldnt hold him morally responsible.
In terms of the soccer players, we could hold them 'responsible', becasue they do act, knowing the impact it has on the game and the pervesity of their salaries, to get the best salaries for themselves. But I do not consider them to be immoral for that, because I expect people to be able to do taht for themselves. After all, people (the consumers) are willing to pay a lot of money, and the money will have to go somewhere. If not in the pockets of the players, it will be the pockets of the cable companies or owners. Actually, it is perhaps best that the money goes to the players because, perhaps even more than affordability, the most important value to preserve in the game of professional soccer, is integrity and honesty of the competition. And perhaps the multimillion dollar salaries will help keep the game honest.
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