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| NHL: Ron Shock |
Situational Ethics II
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The original associated You Tube video has been deleted, states You Tube.
NHL Jan. 19, 1977 Mike Robitaille,VCR v Dennis Owchar,PIT (hit) Vancouver Canucks Pittsburgh
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Chris Elliott
1 year ago
Last game he played , sued Canucks and won for mismanaging his injuries .
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The Pittsburgh Penguins 'color' commentator from January 1977, states it was a 'high hit' and a 'clean hit'. Not by 2021 standards and by the last few years, anyway, within professional sports, culture. In more recent years it would be considered a prohibited 'headshot'.
I am not medically educated but that stretcher position seems rather untypical.
I like the Penguins road blue uniforms from 1977.
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His career ended pre-maturely in 1977 when he was blind-sided by Dennis Owchar of the Pittsburgh Penguins, which caused nerve damage in his neck. He would later win a lawsuit against the Canucks for mistreating his injuries.
I can admit that this video makes me sad to view. I hope Mr. Robitaille has recovered from his serious medical issues, reasonably well over the years. Culturally and socially, times change. But do situational ethics make this career ending hit palatable in 1977 and not in 2021?
Photo of Ron Schock, 1977, National Hockey League, Bleacher Report
Blackburn on situational ethics
The view that ethical judgments apply to whole situations, rather in a similar way that aesthetic judgments are applied to works of art. Blackburn (1996: 352). A difficulty being with the view that ethics is not only a matter of responding to ethical situations but is a practical subject where 'future options have to be ranked in the light of different features'. Blackburn (1996: 352).
Cambridge
The Cambridge Dictionary on 'situation ethics':
It states it is an anti-theoretical case-by-case applied ethics that became popular in some European and American religious circles after World War II. Becker (1996: 738). Each moral choice must be determined by a particular context and situation. Becker (1996: 738). It rejects the idea that ethical principles are universal, and the same for moral principles, and these ethics and principles do not go beyond 'indeterminate commitments or ideals' Becker (1996: 738). It rejects attempts to develop general ethical and moral guidelines from a case. Becker (1996: 738).
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I reason that consistent Biblical, Christian ethics and morality should be and needs to be applied in all life situations. Biblical commands do not supply and allow for example, theatrical and sporting, exceptions and exemptions.
That is not to state that one could not be an actor as that would actually be presenting fiction.
However, I can acknowledge that in professional sports and professional hockey in 1977, there was much less data, medical and scientific knowledge in regards to 'headshots', head, neck and spinal cord injuries than in 2021 and recent years. There was also, of course, much less knowledge of these by the public and by athletes. A professional hockey player was allowed to legally hit his opponent with such a hit.
But of course even by 1977 standards a blind side hit in a public skating rink causing the same damage as the hit under review, would be legally prohibited, within, generally, I would deduce, most jurisdictions preserving law and order. Again, the context of this time of 1977, and prior, was that the National Hockey League allowed this type of hit as legal. This video seems a practical, historical, example where situational ethics can be referenced, noting philosopher Blackburn's mentioning of 'aesthetic judgments', 'practical subject' and 'different features'. Each moral choice must be determined by a particular context and situation. Becker (1996: 738).
There is no black and white moral and ethical judgement by me on this one...
BECKER, LAWRENCE C. (1996) Situation Ethics, in Robert Audi (ed.), The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
BLACKBURN, SIMON (1996) Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, Oxford, Oxford University Press.
