A Summary: Boxing, Paternalism, and Legal Moralism

Summarised by Joe Hicketts

In 2015 Nicholas Dixon explores the arguments put forward by the American Medical Association House of Delegates “AMA” which says that "Professional and amateur boxing should be banned outright." He also poses arguments supporting his own position of a ban of blows to the head in professional boxing.  

Paternal and Pre-Emptive Paternalism Definitions 

The article itself is quite philosophical in structure therefore it’s helpful to first define some key terms. The first is “paternalism” coming from the word “parent/paternal” or more “broadly” carer. Paternalism is the idea of restricting someone’s freedom for the good of that person, an example is a parent not giving their child the freedom to run across a road in order to “benefit” that child by not getting hit by a car. Pre-emptive paternalism is similar but distinct in that present freedoms are restricted in order to protect particularly future autonomy, for instance stopping people taking damaging drugs on the basis of protecting future long term health. Legal moralism is also mentioned and can be defined as simply being morally wrong, in the same way that some in a society think that assisted suicide is simply wrong in a civilised society.  

Boxing and the Lack of Information  

The AMA argument on banning boxing is two fold, the first is intrinsically paternalistic in that by nature most boxers are not aware of the long term physical risks that a professional boxing career brings, and these potential boxers are also unlikely to see major rewards from the sport. This lack of understanding on the risks vs rewards can therefore be deemed a lack of true autonomy and so the individuals concerned should be protected. Dixon also supports this through the argument that most boxers turn to the sport not due to an inherent love but due to socioeconomic disadvantages in striving for a better life which in effect forces them into the sport. A pre-emptive paternalistic argument is also made in that due to the likelihood of brain injury in boxing, boxers should be in effect protected from themselves by not being allowed to compete in the same way that laws stop people take addictive drugs.  

Is Boxing Simply Too Barbaric for Society? 

Dixon’s second argument is centred around legal moralism, he draws parallels with gladiators in that compared to sports such as American Football or Rugby where contact is a means to an end in order to score points, in boxing the goal of the sport is by nature contact and violence. The legal moralism argument however is often conservative in thinking in preserving the status quo in society and has historically been used against homosexuality among others.  

Ban on Blows to the Head 

Dixon finalises his argument in suggesting that simply a banning of blows to the head would reduce the potential downsides of most would be boxers that are unaware of the current risks, but boxing itself would be allowed to continue in some form with emphasis placed on skill rather than violence. Market forces would also be the main driver of change as opposed to legal means as the lack of head punches would reduce overall popularity of the sport thus removing the coercive carrot that draws so many desperate individuals into the support that are unaware of the risks they face.  

https://www.jstor.org/stable/23562068?searchText=&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dboxing%26so%3Drel&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_search_gsv2%2Fcontrol&searchKey=&refreqid=fastly-default%3A2f882aa6f027a441560bc564ef081e7b&initiator=recommender&seq=5