Abstract
The National Football League, the premier professional organization for American football, developed a policy concerning the protocol in cases where players contract COVID-19. This policy includes elements such as collective punishment that appear, at first glance, to be morally problematic. To the contrary, the policy is indeed morally acceptable as we should not think of organizations such as the NFL in the same way we think of governments in stable nations, but rather in the same way that we think of hybrid justice systems in countries where because of histories of colonialism, the identity of citizens is divided, with tribal identities being more important than national citizenship.
Highlights
The loose integration of the different justice systems make it so that the systems that contain these seemingly unjust elements, are more just. It is in this way, we contend, that the National Football League (NFL)’s COVID-19 policy succeeds from the perspective of philosophical justice
The second principle is that a system of justice based upon rules that encourage or prohibit behaviors ought to be maximally clear when it comes to the criteria for distinguishing acceptable from unacceptable acts, the process by which acts are judged, and the punishment for violations. This principle derives from an even more basic requirement, that society treats all members under the law, a notion that can be traced back to classical Greece and stated explicitly by Pericles: “If we look to the laws, they afford equal justice to all in their private differences” [8] (p. 14)
We concede that at first glance the COVID-19 policy of the NFL seems problematic from a moral perspective, but a deeper understanding of the context and of unexpectedly related systems of justice will show that the two apparent ethical weaknesses of the system are, strengths that allow us to laud the system
Summary
The two principles, no collective punishment and maximum clarity, are legitimate principles ceteris paribus and especially ought to be followed in the case of systems of justice in social-political contexts. This case is less like that of a system of law in a developed nation. The loose integration of the different justice systems make it so that the systems that contain these seemingly unjust elements, are more just It is in this way, we contend, that the NFL’s COVID-19 policy succeeds from the perspective of philosophical justice
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