blackshoe Posted November 10, 2011 Report Share Posted November 10, 2011 If it's not illegal, what makes it unethical? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phil_20686 Posted November 10, 2011 Report Share Posted November 10, 2011 If it's not illegal, what makes it unethical? Laws are the attempt to turn ethics into procedures. However, ethics precede laws and are more fundamental. The correct question therefore is: If it is unethical, why is it not illegal? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
campboy Posted November 10, 2011 Report Share Posted November 10, 2011 The fact that you or I think something is unethical does not give us the right to expect anyone else to share that opinion, unless there is some suitable higher authority we can appeal to. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackshoe Posted November 10, 2011 Report Share Posted November 10, 2011 Laws are the attempt to turn ethics into procedures. Perhaps this illustrates an error in calling the rules of a game "laws". Or pehaps not; in my dictionary app, one of the definitions of 'law' is 'a rule defining correct procedure or behavior in a sport: the laws of the game'. This definition agrees with my earlier assertion that the ethics of a game are defined by its laws. Therefore, your assertion that "ethics precede laws and are more fundamental" is incorrect. Perhaps the problem is that my use of "ethics" refers only to the ethics of the game of bridge, while yours refers to "moral principles that govern a person's or group's behavior" where "moral" means "concerned with the principles of right and wrong behavior and the goodness or badness of human character", which is a totally different thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackshoe Posted November 10, 2011 Report Share Posted November 10, 2011 The fact that you or I think something is unethical does not give us the right to expect anyone else to share that opinion, unless there is some suitable higher authority we can appeal to. Was Rand wrong then when she said "Judge, and prepare to be judged"? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vampyr Posted November 10, 2011 Report Share Posted November 10, 2011 Was Rand wrong then when she said "Judge, and prepare to be judged"? Maybe yes and maybe no, but this is more properly a discussion for the Water Cooler. Anyway, a friend of mine once had a fairly regular partner. On the last occasion they played, their elderly opponent pulled out a recouble card when she had intended to take out the alert card. I wasn't there but I assume that the action did not fit the definition of unintended - ie she did reach for the blue card that she ended up removing from the box. So, this partner called the director, who was forced to penalise the opponent for an illegal redouble out of turn. The partner's action was legal. Was it ethical? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackshoe Posted November 10, 2011 Report Share Posted November 10, 2011 Was it ethical? I said upthread that in this discussion "ethical" has two meanings: "ethical according to the laws of bridge" and "ethical according to society's general moral code". So my answer is "yes (meaning one) and no (meaning two)". I think also that breaches of ethics (meaning two) which are not breaches of ethics (meaning one) are outside the scope of the TD's powers and duties. An extreme example: a player shoots another player for some breach of bridge rules or partnership agreement or whatever. The TD can apply the laws and regulations to deal with the disruption to the game; he cannot hang the shooter. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EricK Posted November 10, 2011 Report Share Posted November 10, 2011 Perhaps this illustrates an error in calling the rules of a game "laws". Or pehaps not; in my dictionary app, one of the definitions of 'law' is 'a rule defining correct procedure or behavior in a sport: the laws of the game'. This definition agrees with my earlier assertion that the ethics of a game are defined by its laws. Therefore, your assertion that "ethics precede laws and are more fundamental" is incorrect. Perhaps the problem is that my use of "ethics" refers only to the ethics of the game of bridge, while yours refers to "moral principles that govern a person's or group's behavior" where "moral" means "concerned with the principles of right and wrong behavior and the goodness or badness of human character", which is a totally different thing.Surely the laws are not purely arbitrary but are an attempt to codify a certain view of what sorts of things are right and wrong (from a purely bridge perspective). It is notoriously difficult to capture everything you might want to in a codified set of laws, which is why some also refer to the "spirit of the game" - i.e. whatever it is that the laws are an attempt to codify. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackshoe Posted November 10, 2011 Report Share Posted November 10, 2011 Perhaps so, but where the laws (and regulations) fail to capture something, the "spirit of the game" is a matter of opinion, and no ruling should be made on the basis of a player's opinion. As to the TD's opinion, that's a little grayer, as in many cases the TD is required to use his judgement to arrive at a ruling, but I think that at least in cases where the TD's judgement is not required by law, his opinion is not relevant. In cases where the TD is required to use his judgement, there is usually some guidance as to what he's supposed to be judging about, so again his opinion as to "spirit" is irrelevant. I think it very dangerous for TDs to make rulings on the basis of their opinion as to an unstated "spirit of the laws" rather than according to the actual laws in place. Bottom line: if a player wishes to act according to some ethical standard defined outside the rules of the game, that's up to him so long as he does not violate the rules of the game in doing so. However, such player cannot legally expect other players to adhere to the same standard. A TD who imposes some outside ethical standard in his rulings is wrong if there is no basis in the rules of the game for that ruling. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mycroft Posted November 10, 2011 Report Share Posted November 10, 2011 I'm just going to put into this the fact that "the laws of a game determine the ethics of a game" is not universally true - and in many games, explicitly *not* true - even though, for the purposes of Duplicate Bridge, it is true, by the very nature of giving the guide to good ethics Laws numbers. Having said that, why was (as it was in my case) the "illegal redouble out of turn" not ruled L25A? It's an inadvertent call... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aguahombre Posted November 10, 2011 Report Share Posted November 10, 2011 Having said that, why was (as it was in my case) the "illegal redouble out of turn" not ruled L25A? It's an inadvertent call...Presumably, you are talking about post #56. Stephanie answered that in the post, but I don't buy it either. It seems the LOL wasn't trying to make any call yet, rather to alert partner's bid. There is nothing else in that part of the box which could be used at all, unless she was passing by accident (and probably out of turn) or announcing a skip bid. She intended an alert. If she was reaching for a green card instead of a blue one, then there might be a non 25A determination. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barmar Posted November 10, 2011 Report Share Posted November 10, 2011 In the real world, ethics and morality are too complicated to expect everything to be codified in explicit laws. Laws are mainly concerned with those aspects of society and relationships that require intervention of the state (and what fits into that category is quite debatable as well -- libertarians think it's very narrow, and anarchists think it's the empty set). We don't have laws defining polite versus rude behavior, everyone just knows them. A game, on the other hand, is generally considered a microcosm whose rules CAN be summed up concisely. So we write Laws with the intent that they cover all the bases. However, while they obviously come closer than the laws of regular society, it's not clear that they succeed 100%. Consider that every 2-3 months the editorial in The Bridge World is about dumping and whether it's legal/ethical. The conclusion is usually that it's legal, and that makes it ethical because the Laws define the ethics of the game, but it still "smells" wrong. And then there's Law 74, which makes reference to courtesy, annoyance, and embarrassment, which are quite subjective. And while we'd like to think that when we're in this microcosm we can divorce ourselves from ordinary social conventions, we're not automatons. Many people feel guilty taking advantage of quirks and loopholes in the laws. World champions have admitted to letting opponents take back an inadvertent card, rather than calling the TD and taking advantage of the penalty card laws; they want to win through normal cardplay, not through the legal system. Their personal ethics trump their need to play by the letter of the law. However, this is entirely personal for them, they don't consider anyone else wrong for playing strictly by the rules. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
campboy Posted November 10, 2011 Report Share Posted November 10, 2011 Was Rand wrong then when she said "Judge, and prepare to be judged"?This is where I was hoping to cover myself with "suitable" without being too wordy. Of course the higher authority you appeal to needs to be accepted as such by the other person :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluejak Posted November 11, 2011 Report Share Posted November 11, 2011 Maybe yes and maybe no, but this is more properly a discussion for the Water Cooler. Anyway, a friend of mine once had a fairly regular partner. On the last occasion they played, their elderly opponent pulled out a recouble card when she had intended to take out the alert card. I wasn't there but I assume that the action did not fit the definition of unintended - ie she did reach for the blue card that she ended up removing from the box. So, this partner called the director, who was forced to penalise the opponent for an illegal redouble out of turn. The partner's action was legal. Was it ethical?"was forced"? Why? I would not rule it was anything but an alert. When people alert with pass cards, stop cards, or doubles or redoubles, in my experience all that happens is a little laughter. I think calling the TD shows a lack of humour, a lack of commonsense, but it is not unethical. There has been an infraction. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vampyr Posted November 11, 2011 Report Share Posted November 11, 2011 "was forced"? Why? I would not rule it was anything but an alert. I don't know; I wasn't there. All I know is that that is how the director ruled. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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