Paul Hamm
The Paul Hamm gold medal controversy now seems to be behind us. It captured the interest of the world for two reasons. Paul Hamm made one of the greatest comebacks in history in winning the gold medal in the all around competition. Second, the judges made a clear mathematical error against the Korean gymnast Yang Tae Young ... ultimately costing him the gold medal.Bruno Grandi, international gymnastics federation chief, wrote a letter to Paul Hamm and said if the gymnast were to return the medal “such action would be recognized as the ultimate demonstration of fair play by the whole world.”
What is the fair thing to do? I got into many discussions with family and friends. At first, I thought he should keep it. Then, I reconsidered and thought he should give it back. Then, I flip flopped and thought he should keep it.
As far as moral cases are concerned, this was a tough situation. Imagine the roles were reversed and it was Paul Hamm who accidentally got the bronze due to an oops by the judges. Maybe our feelings would change entirely.
My point in this post is not to work out the particular moral reasoning in this intriguing case. I think that would be a fun exercise, but I observed something more significant going on in this whole affair.
The rightness of fair play is a universal moral truth. Now we may disagree over the particulars of what constitutes fair play. I do not dispute that. But almost everyone agrees that fair play is a good thing and we all ought to practice it. I don’t know of any country or athlete who thinks that fair play is a horrible idea, and the gold medal should go to the best cheater.
It reminds me of how C.S. Lewis opens his classic book Mere Christianity
“Everyone has heard people quarreling … They say things like this: ‘How’d you like it if someone did the same thing to you?’ – ‘That is my seat, I was there first’ – ‘Come on, you promised’ … Now what interests me about all these remarks is that the man who makes them is not merely saying that the other man’s behavior does not happen to please him. And the other man very seldom replies, ‘To hell with your standard.’ Nearly always he tries to make out that what he has been doing does not really go against the standard, or that if it does then there is some special excuse. He pretends that there is some special reason in this particular case why the person who took the seat first should not keep it… it looks very much as if both parties had in mind some kind of law or rule of fair play or decent behavior or morality or whatever you call it, about which they really agree.”
Lewis is right. There is a universal sense of “oughtness” … and the Olympics, despite its controversies, reminded me of one component of that “oughtness” – when we play, we ought to play fairly.
2 Comments:
I am not up to date with the discussion but "fair play" includes letting the "umpire" make the calls and accepting them. "Umpires" often make mistakes we may complain but the game goes on.
I am not up to date with the discussion but "fair play" includes letting the "umpire" make the calls and accepting them. "Umpires" often make mistakes we may complain but the game goes on.I agree with your comment.
My fascination was with the fact that our morally relativistic culture was engaging in a discussion about what "ought" to be done. It was assumed that everyone had that the same standard of fair play ... but in a relativistic culture, there is no standard of fair play.
That is where I was headed with the post.
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