The Value of Dangerous Sports

Dangerous Sports

• Why take part in dangerous sports?
• Do we take part in such sports in spite of the danger?
• Or, is the danger in fact part of what makes the sport valuable?

What is a Dangerous Sport?

• ‘By “dangerous sport,” I mean a sport that involves activity that itself creates a significant risk of loss of, or serious impairment to, some basic capacity for human functioning.’
• All physical activity involves some danger, but we shouldn’t say that all sports are dangerous.
• In some cases the risk of serious injury is very low – Russell uses the example of Badminton.
• Further, some sports have a high risk of injury but not ones that are sufficiently serious. (Consider getting wrist injuries from e-sports.)

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What is a Dangerous Sport?

• For a sport to count as dangerous then it has to risk ‘central human functional capabilities’
• “being able to live to the end of a human life of normal length . . . being able to have good health . . . being able to move freely from place to place . . . being able to use the senses to imagine, think, and reason, and to do these things in a “truly human” way.”
• CTE caused by football, for example, would undermine these capabilities.
• This is close to Aristotle’s idea about the importance of living a ‘flourishing’ life.

Why play dangerous sports?

• One idea: the value is in the glory/fame/public recognition that you get.
• Problems with this idea:
• (1) Most people do not get this public recognition and have no hope of getting it. Very few sports can make you famous.
• (2) The fact that people get public recognition for certain sports suggests that there is already something valuable about those sports. You wouldn’t get glory for doing terrible things that make you famous.

Intrinsic vs Instrumental Value

• Here is a very important distinction that’s relevant here.
• Some things are good and valuable because they help you get something else that is good.
• The value, in this case, depends upon the value of the end result.
• These things are instrumentally valuable.
• Somethings though, are just valuable themselves, not because they get you anything else that is valuable.
• These things are intrinsically valuable

Intrinsic vs Instrumental Value

• Consider brushing your teeth. It’s instrumentally valuable – it’s good because it help you achieve something else that is valuable, like good dental health.
• It’s not valuable intrinsically – it’s only good because of the outcomes it leads to.
• What things are intrinsically valuable? People disagree, but perhaps happiness, love, friendship, knowledge, achievement etc. are intrinsically valuable.

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Back to Dangerous Sports

Notice, that if we say the value of dangerous sports is merely in fame/public recognition, that makes the sports instrumentally valuable.

So, part of the question about the value of dangerous sports is about whether the value is instrumental or intrinsic.

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Why play dangerous sports?

Back to the question of why play dangerous sports. One suggestion about about public recognition.

Another suggestion is because they yield ‘states such as pleasure, enjoyment, satisfaction, or contentment—in short, psychological experiences that human agents like to have.’

Clearly this is part of the reason, but is it the only reason that dangerous sports are valuable? If it is, then why don’t we just do other things that are not dangerous but also give us this pleasure.

But also, this suggestion might get thing backwards: ‘If one did not believe that such excellences or accomplishments had value, then it would be difficult to see what special pleasure would be taken in them.’

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Why play dangerous sports?

Perhaps dangerous sports are good because they breed courage.

This is plausible, but it’s not clear whether they breed courage or foolhardiness.

And this educational thought doesn’t really apply to professional athletes.

Perhaps such sports are an outlet for aggression?

Firstly, is this true? Or do they encourage aggression?

But also it doesn’t apply to lots of dangerous sports.

Russell’s view

Russell thinks there is intrinsic value to danger in sport. His discussion is a bit confusing though, but this video gives us a way to understand the idea. (It’s about 7 mins btw.)

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Russell’s view

Russell thinks there is intrinsic value to danger in sport. His discussion is a bit confusing though, but this video gives us a way to understand the idea. (It’s about 7 mins btw.)

There are a lot of ideas in that video that are similar to Russell’s.

There’s an idea of experiencing your limits: “participating in dangerous sport has the potential, in principle at least, to be more satisfying than pursuing nondangerous activity, which can often seem vaguely anemic by comparison, because it can incorporate a challenge to capacities for judgment and choice that involves all of ourselves—our body, will, emotions, and ingenuity—under conditions of physical duress and danger at the limits of our being.

Russell’s view

There’s related idea that we don’t really know our limits, until we have experienced a dangerous situation like that. And so there is kind of self-expression or self-affirmation we get.

‘an important type of self-realization requires a confrontation with, and an attempt to surpass, the apparent limits of oneself.’

And there’s an idea of complete focus and living fully in the moment.

And an idea that the experience of danger is part of appreciating life.

Do you find these ideas compelling? Can we achieve these values in another way? Are you missing out on something if you don’t experience danger?