Final Paper phi 208
docx
keyboard_arrow_up
School
Ashford University *
*We aren’t endorsed by this school
Course
103
Subject
Philosophy
Date
Jan 9, 2024
Type
docx
Pages
10
Uploaded by gengarcia68
1
Ethical Theory Application and Evaluation
Genaro Garcia III
The University of Arizona Global Campus
Phi 208 Ethics and Moral Reasoning
Professor Pistone
July 24, 2023
2
Ethical Theory Application and Evaluation
On June 22, 2023, commissioner Adam Sliver walk up to the podium and announced that
“with the first pick in the 2023 NBA draft the San Antonio Spurs select Victor Wembanyama”.
The city of San Antonio celebrates as it did when it won the championship in 2014. It has been
seen by most people here as the start of the new era of Spurs basketball. With their new franchise
start drafted, the question of building a new stadium for the team now comes up. That is the
focus of this week's case study.
I will look at how building a new stadium can create ethical and
social problems for the city of San Antonio. We will start by giving the back story about the
current stadium and the main issues of building a new stadium. Then I will examine the ethical
question by referencing the philosophical text I choose. After that, we will look at the two ethical
theories in detail and apply them to the case study and then evaluate the theory of the first theory.
Part 1: Introduction, Case Study, And Ethical Question
To understand why the idea of a new stadium is becoming an issue in town it is more than
just spending taxes payers’ money. We must look at the past and current city issues to understand
what justifies the proposed idea for the new stadium. The original home for the Spurs was
HemisFair Arena in the heart of downtown till it was demolished in 1995. At this point, the city
decided to build the Alamodome which was the city's attempt to attract a professional football
team. In the meantime, it was the home for the Spur’s first NBA championship.
Now with a
championship under their belt and after a decade, they realized that the Alamodome was “too
cavernous for basketball and had bad sightlines” (Jefferson & Smith, 2023). Finally, in 2002, the
city opens what is known today as the AT&T Center. Unlike the previous venues which were in
the heart of downtown. The AT&T Center is located at the heart of the eastside of San Antonio
about a twenty-minute drive from downtown. The location is one of the major factors that would
3
make this issue difficult.
The city mentioned that in 1999 the new arena would “spreads the
wealth by bringing the potential of spinoff economic development opportunities to an
underdeveloped part of the community” (Jefferson & Smith, 2023).
What should have been “an
emerging focal point for the Eastside” ends up being a hollow promise (Jefferson & Smith,
2023)?
The area has not developed over the 21 years since the stadium was first built. Through
personal experience myself I can confirm that you don’t go to surrounding businesses. You go to
the arena and then go eat somewhere closer to your house before or after. You know the area was
struggling to produce revenue when they built a Texas staple of Whataburger inside the arena to
be open all day long even if they do not have an event going on. This is important to know since
the proposed location for this new stadium would take the Spurs out of the Eastside and wants
them back in the heart of downtown. Big companies like USAA have left downtown due to “the
pandemic and the convention trade has been slow to recover” (Jefferson & Smith, 2023).
The
plan is to create a sports complex downtown to accommodate both the San Antonio Spurs and
the minor league baseball team the Missions. It would feature a basketball arena and a baseball
arena and a shopping district that would have restaurants and bars. This is like the Texas Live!
The section they built for the Texas Rangers. It is close to their stadium and close enough to the
Cowboys football stadium that they have visitors for most of the year. This now creates the moral
dilemma of whether is it right to build a new stadium to help the downtown economy when they
lied and failed to help boost the economy on the east side currently. Also, what will happen to the
old arena when the basketball season goes on since they would lose all that income? I would
identify the ethical question of should the people in charge of bringing a new stadium to the city
council. Would be should you mention that it will boost the area’s economy if you have no
intentions of developing the area?
Your preview ends here
Eager to read complete document? Join bartleby learn and gain access to the full version
- Access to all documents
- Unlimited textbook solutions
- 24/7 expert homework help
4
Part 2: Philosophy Reading Reflection
The two theories that I chose to cover are virtue ethics and utilitarianism. For virtue
ethics, I chose the philosophical text from Aristotle from Book 2, Chapter 6. I also chose to use
the first passage of Utilitarianism from John Stuart Mills. Let us look at Aristotle's philosophical
text first. The first time that I read the text I understood that for something to be a true virtue, it
needs to be balanced. It can not be overpowering or underpowering. An Example of this would
be the virtue of confidence. If you are overconfident in yourself, you will not have room to grow,
because you would be sure that everything you do is correct. If you are underconfident then you
may not succeed in things. You choose not to try things due to a lack of confidence. After reading
the article the second time it makes sense that you need to balance the virtues for them to be
moral virtues. I can see that anger for example is needed in life sometimes to express how you
feel toward someone that you might not agree with. So, it would not be good to be defective of
anger as people would feel like they could treat you as they see fit. Same as it would not be good
to have excess anger because you would become unapproachable. This could be applied to our
case study because the person who must pitch the idea needs to like morals about why they
should move. They know that this time they are going to mention that it is helping the area. They
need to make sure that there is a plan in place to make that area grow. They did mention that
when they pitched the current stadium, they made sure “The No. 1 thing we would not do was
talk about the number of jobs” (Jefferson & Smith, 2023). They ended up balancing the
exception of development in the area without mentioning the actual potential of jobs.
The second philosophical text that I chose was the first passage of Utilitarianism by John
Stuart Mills. After the first read of the philosophical text it is noted that utilitarianism is based on
the “Greatest Happiness Principle” (Mill, 2008).
It mentions that “pleasure and freedom from
5
pain, are the only things desirable as end” (Mill, 2008).
This would mean that no matter who
else this may affect good or bad as long as it gives your freedom from pain or pleasure. After the
second reading thought I was able to get a clearer explanation of the example that the passage
presents. The passage talks about how utilitarianism is important but does not affect the theory of
life. This would translate to the fact that pleasure and avoiding pain is not the main theory of life.
This can be applied to the case study the best out of the two. The reason is that the reason that
comes up with the move is the people affected on the east side. The city would need to decide if
the pleasure of providing jobs to the community and city in the downtown area. Would be greater
than the pain that they will cause to the people over on the east side of town? And are they going
to be able to convince the city is better for pleasure since that was a selling point for the current
arena that has failed to live up to expectations? The mention of the baseball stadium does help
push the pleasure side of the conversation. Having two of the city’s sports teams in one area
would keep a year-round worth of traffic. This would also help if it is near other downtown
landmarks like the Alamo. This would become a tourist destination as they could walk around to
experience everything.
Part 3: Explanation of First Ethical Theory
The first ethical theory that I am going to cover is the idea of utilitarianism. The book
defines utilitarianism as morally right actions “whose consequences have the greatest positive
value and least negative value compared to available” (Thames, 2018). It can be summarized as
choosing the decision that gives you the most pleasure over pain. Utilitarianism is a
consequentialist approach to moral reasoning. This would mean that between the options
available if you chose the one that is more pain than pleasure then you chose the morally wrong
one. This concept presented makes sense in situations that may not have a clear answer to which
6
option to choose. An example of that would be the example we were given about choosing to
sacrifice one person by throwing them into a train to save five people on the track. This would be
one example of a hard decision because it still involves the pain of knowing that you have people
who died. The choice is which one for you brings you the least amount of pain.
In that example,
you would have to decide that you do nothing and let five lives get taken by not doing anything.
The other option is living with the fact that you would be murdering to save the five lives.
Utilitarianism has two philosophers primarily associated with it. The first person is Jeremy
Betham who is considered the founder of utilitarianism. He valued Hedonism which said that
everything can “all value to happiness or unhappiness” (Thames. 2018).
If the choices, you
made were more towards happiness it was considered a good decision. It wasn’t the philosopher
John Stuart Mill that made the next advancement in utilitarianism. He announced the idea that
pleasures can have different weights to them. There can be a high and lower pleasure. An
example of this would be you are hungry and must make the decision of making something to eat
or going out to buy something to eat. It is up to your which option gives you the most happiness.
One saves you the work, while the other one saves you money.
Part 4: Application of First Ethical Theory
Ok so let us dive into the stadium issue and see how utilitarianism fits in this situation.
The moral issue of the problem is the fact that the city would go back on the promise of
development growth for the east side. They would instead try to create development growth for
the downtown part of the city. The question can be seen in utilitarianism which move brings the
most pleasure to the city? Do you stay and help the promised area finally grow and develop after
almost two decades of nothing? Do you leave and help another area that needs help also but has
more help with the idea of the baseball team possibly being their next-door neighbor? No matter
Your preview ends here
Eager to read complete document? Join bartleby learn and gain access to the full version
- Access to all documents
- Unlimited textbook solutions
- 24/7 expert homework help
7
which option they choose, both would bring happiness to an area. This would be that hedonism
would not be a simple answer in this case. You would have to use Mill's version of utilitarianism
to decide which of these would have the higher pleasure. I would say that to make the most
accurate choice with utilitarianism you have to determine which painful consequence would be
the least. The idea of moving the team is will the city be able to come through with the promise
of new jobs. They should that it didn’t occur with the eastside can we trust them a second time?
Also what happens to the business currently in the area, do they get any help since they will lose
a good part of their traffic? On the side of staying in the current location would be will the team
be happy with them staying in a twenty-plus-year-old arena? The last season they had games in
Mexico, Austin, and the Alamodome. Fans in the city are calling this a near sign of the team
looking for new locations to play in. So, if they are demanding a new place and they choose not
to build the new one they could lose the team. Which would be a huge blow to the city and the
fans? Also, they would more than likely will have to make future upgrades to the aging arena, so
it is also factored as would it be cheaper to just build a new one to stay updated with the other
teams in the NBA.
Part 5: Explanation and Application of Second Ethical Theory
The second ethical theory that I am going to apply to the case study will be the theory of
virtue ethics. Virtue ethics “focuses on the nature and character of the person acting” (Thames,
2018). This is important in being able to tell if a person has good intentions or not. The ability to
flourish as a human or live well is what makes these moral virtues. These virtues would make up
teleological by creating telos. A telos would be the “purpose of a person’s life, or what kind of
person one should be” (Thames, 2018). When using this to the question about building the area it
is a little bit harder to apply. I would say that currently on the eastside they feel like the people
8
who proposed the area lied and were dishonest to them. They were told this new construction
would bring opportunities and new jobs to the area that was needed at the time. As was
mentioned earlier the proposal did not mention an exact number of jobs predicted with the new
arena. So for example the people hired to work at the AT&T center did provide new jobs as they
promised. This would still be a failed promise if they approved the new stadium since this would
remove those jobs if they move. They must now convince the city that they could be trusted to
provide development for the new area they want to build. They can say that it would be practical
wisdom for them to move it close to downtown as that is one of the tourist hotspots in town. It
will help restore the dying nightlife of downtown as well.
Part 6: Evaluation of the First Ethical Theory Application
So looking at the ethical question with both theories in mind I would say that the best
answer would be to move the team over to the downtown area.
I made this decision with a
utilitarian mindset when looking at it. It offers the strongest resolution to the problem because
you have to see which option gives the city the best option to have growth for the city. Both
options have a pleasure aspect and a pain aspect, so you would need to look at both options and
pick the better pleasure. In this case, it would be to have close access to just all locals but the
tourist as well, which is good since the Spurs play teams from all over North America. It also
would be used for good use as with the baseball team moving in it would have traffic year-round.
That is something currently hard to do since the only thing that happens outside of basketball is
the occasional concert. The 2
nd
theory of virtue ethics is just more about how are they able to
trust the people that are planning the new area since they were walking around the idea of
growing the eastside by not giving a plan. The other issue that applying utilitarianism is the fact
that the team will be the final pursuing factor in any decision. The owner of the Spurs just
9
became the owner of the baseball team. This might cause the push for the stadiums to be pushed
harder as it would bring money to both of their teams in one location.
The Spurs are so
embedded in the city and part of the culture. Their old pink, orange, and teal logo was paying
homage to the weeklong party here called Fiesta. If they were not able to make the team happy
the pain of losing the team to another city would be the ultimate pain for the city. That is why
they would have the final say since the ultimate goal is to make the team happy.
Conclusion
After looking at both utilitarianism and virtue ethics it is very important when deciding if
there should be a new arena built. Virtue ethics is important as the people who are purposing the
new arena need to have the people voting to feel like they can trust the idea. That is how they
were able to build the current one because they thought they were getting a bunch of jobs.
Utilitarianism is the one that plays the biggest factor in the case. The city needs to do what option
is best for both the city and the Spurs. They are going to let need up letting off on the areas of
town down regardless. The question is which one is going to bring the biggest pleasure with the
smallest pain possible. That is why I believe that it would be the best solution to build a new
stadium to help downtown tourism and give the Spurs a new place for the new era.
Your preview ends here
Eager to read complete document? Join bartleby learn and gain access to the full version
- Access to all documents
- Unlimited textbook solutions
- 24/7 expert homework help
10
References
Aristotle. (1931). Nicomachean ethics (W. D. Ross, Trans.). Oxford: Oxford University
Press (Original work published ca. 350 B.C.E.)
Jefferson, G., & Smith, M. (2023, July 21).
‘Broken agreement’: Many on East Side feel
betrayed by talk of moving Spurs downtown
. San Antonio Express News. Retrieved July
22, 2023, from
https://www.expressnews.com/news/article/spurs-stadium-east-side-
development-betrayal-18208014.php
Mill, J. S. (2008). Utilitarianism. In J. Bennett (Ed. & Rev.), Early Modern Philosophy.
Retrieved from
http://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/mill1863.pdf
Thames, B. (2018).
How should one live? An introduction to ethics and moral
reasoning
.
B
ridgepoint Education.