Should Kids Play (American) Football?

Journal of the Philosophy of Sport 42 (3):443-462 (2015)
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Abstract

In recent years, Pop Warner, the world’s largest youth football organization, has seen its numbers decline. This decline is due to concerns about new research establishing a link between football and chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a debilitating neurodegenerative disease. Hundreds of thousands of parents are now struggling with a difficult ethical issue: should kids play football? Since parents have an obligation to help children develop the capacities required for autonomous choice, the risks posed by football establish a strong presumption against allowing kids to play the game. I consider whether this presumption can be defeated by the arguments for allowing kids to play dangerous sports offered by John Russell in his papers ’The Value of Dangerous Sport’ and ‘Children and Dangerous Sport and Recreation’. While Russell does not argue that kids should be permitted to play football, and agrees that some sports may be too risky for children, he argues that kids should often be allowed to participate in..

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Patrick Findler
Kwantlen Polytechnic University

Citations of this work

Kid’s Cage-fighting: It Should Be Banned, Right?Taryn Knox & Lynley Anderson - 2021 - Sport, Ethics and Philosophy 16 (3):300-317.
Children and Mixed Martial Arts.Aderemi Artis - 2022 - Sport, Ethics and Philosophy 16 (4):607-622.
The Moral Equivalent of Football.Erin C. Tarver - 2020 - The Pluralist 15 (2):91-109.

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References found in this work

The Value of Dangerous Sport.J. S. Russell - 2005 - Journal of the Philosophy of Sport 32 (1):1-19.
Boxing, Paternalism, and Legal Moralism.Nicholas Dixon - 2001 - Social Theory and Practice 27 (2):323-344.
Personal Foul: an evaluation of the moral status of football.Pamela R. Sailors - 2015 - Journal of the Philosophy of Sport 42 (2):269-286.
Remote Sport: Risk and Self-Knowledge in Wilder Spaces.Leslie A. Howe - 2008 - Journal of the Philosophy of Sport 35 (1):1-16.
Children and Dangerous Sport and Recreation.J. S. Russell - 2007 - Journal of the Philosophy of Sport 34 (2):176-193.

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