ETHICS AND AESTHETICS IN SPORTS

Ethics, moral principals that govern our behaviour, are displayed in many different
sports. One situation I picked was when Serena Williams argued with the umpire. In this
situation, Williams claimed she was treated differently than her male counterparts would have
been treated. According to some fans she was targeted by a sexist and egotistical man. For
example, a rarely enforced rule in tennis is coaching during the game, but Ramos (the umpire)
warned Williams for coaching during the game. In the second game of the second set Ramons
believed he saw Williams coach using hand signals to communicate with Williams. Williams
said, “I have never cheated in my life. You owe me an apology”. In my opinion, I think that it was
unethical for Ramos to issue those penalties not because they weren’t valid, but because of the
way, he issued them. Essentially, I think that it wasn’t that Williams didn’t violate ITF rules, but it
is how the penalties were issued and whether they were fair in that particular situation. If a man
was put in this position they would not have been getting penalties for saying thief or
communicating with their coach, but they could be counted as penalties so Ramos counting this
as a penalty shows the unethical decision made. It was an unjust choice making it unethical.
Aesthetics play a very strong role in sports as they are generally conjugated with smooth
actions. Looking at Cordner’s conclusions both sports and art reflect human creativity and
imagination just in very different ways. In sports, a player may act differently when playing with
family than when he plays in the Olympics similarly an actor may act differently when he is
actually injured vs. when he is acting making them both a form of art.