Humanities Homework Help

This is a class discussion about the balance between parents’ desire to raise their children without external interference and the knowledge produced by advances in modern science of neuropathology. In a recent article, published by the Chicago Tribune on August 6, 2017, Antonio Perez, from the Tribune Editorial Board, describes the new findings of neuropathology related to Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) and the ethical dilemma that it creates to parents who allow their kids to play tackle football before the age of eighteen. The article highlights the case of Zac Easter, a young football player from Indianola, Iowa, who killed himself at the age of 24 in consequence of CTE. Below you will find a summary of Zac Easter’s case as described in the Tribune’s article. After reading the whole article and the related material found in D2L, and based on what you have learned in this course, post a brief comment (150-175 words) stating your opinion of the moral issues involved in the Zac Easter’s case.

Try to address the following questions. Under which ethical theories would (or would not) Zac’s family decision of allowing him to play football be morally justified? As a parent, given what is known today about the causes of CTE and its relationship with high impact contact sports, would you allow your under eighteen child to play football? And what would be your moral justification for doing so? Explain your position from the utilitarian, deontological, or any other ethical theory discussed in our course. Use the theory’s name in your postings.

Zac Easter’s Case

Zac began playing organized football when he was 8 and didn’t stop until his senior year of high school in Indianola, Iowa. Concussions marred his days as a linebacker. After he stopped playing, Zac coped with depression, headaches and slurred speech. At 24, he took a shotgun from his father’s truck, drove to a state park, and blasted a hole into his chest. A postmortem examination of Zac’s brain confirmed what the young man had long suspected: He suffered from CTE.

The Des Moines Register reported that Zac Easter kept a journal he called “Concussions: My Silent Struggle.” The paper said he shot himself in the chest rather than the head because he wanted his brain examined for evidence of CTE. [Which was confirmed later by Dr. Bennet Omalu, the Nigerian-American doctor credited whith discovering CTE and its association with high impact contact sports, like football.]

“I’m horrified every time an athlete runs out on a field on a Friday night,” Zac’s mother, Brenda Easter, told the Register after learning [the] … latest findings. “We don’t know who the next Zac is going to be.