Core Ethical Theories, Bioethics, and Sport Wearables Analysis

Aristotelian ethics

Aristotle's theory says morality is about human flourishing and becoming an excellent person through virtue.

Eudaimonia

This is Aristotle's word for human flourishing or living well.

Virtue

A virtue is a good character trait, like courage, temperance, or justice.

Mean between extremes

Aristotle says virtue is often the right middle point between two bad extremes.

Habituation

Habituation means becoming good through repeated practice.

Telos

Telos means the purpose, end, or essential nature of a thing or practice.

Honor

Honor means what a social practice chooses to reward and admire.

Proper pleasure

Proper pleasure is the kind of pleasure that naturally fits an activity and helps it go better.

Alien pleasure

Alien pleasure is pleasure from something else that interrupts the activity you are trying to do well.

Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism says the right action is the one that creates the greatest balance of pleasure over pain or the most overall good.

Consequentialism

Consequentialism is the broader idea that actions are morally right or wrong based on their consequences.

Deontology

Deontology says morality is about duties, rights, and rules, not just outcomes.

Kantian ethics

Kantian ethics is a deontological theory.

Duty

For Kant, an action has real moral worth when it is done from duty, not just from personal preference or self-interest.

Autonomy (Kantian)

Autonomy means self-rule: a rational being gives moral law to itself instead of just following impulses or outside pressure.

Heteronomy

Heteronomy means being ruled by something outside true rational self-legislation.

Categorical imperative

Kant's main moral test.

Humanity as an end

Kant says you must treat humanity, in yourself and others, always as an end and never merely as a means.

Autonomy (bioethics)

Respect a person's right to choose based on their own values and reasoning.

Nonmaleficence

Do not cause harm.

Beneficence

Act for the good and well-being of others.

Justice

Treat people fairly and equitably, especially when distributing benefits and burdens.

Informed consent

A person agrees to a medical action with enough understanding and without coercion.

Voluntariness

A person's choice must be free from coercion or strong pressure.

Manipulation

Influencing someone in a way that bypasses or distorts their reasoning.

Soft paternalism

Restricting a person's action when they are not fully autonomous or informed.

Hard paternalism

Restricting a person's action even when they are competent and autonomous.

Doctrine of Double Effect

An action with both good and bad effects can be allowed if the act is good or neutral, the bad effect is not intended, the bad effect is not the means to the good, and the good outweighs the bad.

Negative duty

A duty not to do something harmful, like not killing or not lying.

Positive duty

A duty to actively help or assist others.

Moral status

How much a being matters morally and what kinds of duties we owe it.

Full moral status

Having strong moral protections, like the right not to be harmed, the right to fair treatment, and equal regard.

Sentience

The capacity to feel pleasure and pain.

Moral agency

The ability to make moral judgments and act for moral reasons.

Cognitive properties

Features like consciousness, thought, memory, and volition that some theories use to ground moral status.

Relationships view of moral status

The idea that moral standing can depend partly on social roles and relationships.

Violinist analogy

Judith Jarvis Thomson's argument that even if a fetus has a right to life, that does not automatically mean it has the right to use someone else's body.

Viability

The point at which a fetus could potentially survive outside the womb, usually with medical support.

Procreative beneficence

Julian Savulescu's idea that parents should choose the possible child expected to have the best life, based on available information.

PGD (preimplantation genetic diagnosis)

A way of testing embryos before implantation to select for or against certain traits or conditions.

PGT-A

Testing embryos for chromosomal abnormalities.

PGT-M

Testing embryos for single-gene disorders.

PGT-P

Testing embryos for polygenic traits or disease risks.

Procreative autonomy

The idea that people should have wide freedom in reproductive decisions.

Open future

The idea that children should have access to a reasonably wide range of future life options.

Impairment

A bodily condition or difference in structure or function.

Disability

A disadvantage or restriction created partly by a society that fails to accommodate impairments.

Camporesi's argument on choosing deafness

Selecting for deafness through PGD can be morally wrong because it narrows a child's future options.

Levy's argument on deafness and culture

Wanting your child to share your culture is understandable, but choosing deafness is still a mistake because a hearing child could belong to both Deaf and hearing culture.

Transhumanism

The idea that humans should use science and technology to improve themselves beyond current biological limits.

Extropy

A transhumanist value tied to growth, improvement, intelligence, and pushing beyond limits.

Rationalism (in transhumanism)

The idea that reason and science should guide self-improvement and overcoming limits.

Life extension

Trying to greatly lengthen human life, not just treat disease.

Enhancement

Using technology not just to treat illness but to improve humans beyond the normal baseline.

Transhumanist goals

Transhumanists want to be more resistant to disease, avoid aging, keep youth and vigor, and gain greater control over desires and moods.

Max More on death

More argues death is bad because it ends our ability to experience, create, explore, improve, and live.

Fukuyama's caution

Fukuyama worries enhancement could damage equality and the shared humanity that rights depend on.

Bostrom's caution

Bostrom is open to enhancement but says it comes with risks like inequality, coercion, and dangerous misuse.

Biopower

A form of power focused on managing, optimizing, and regulating life, bodies, and populations.

Sovereign power

Older style power that mainly works by taking away life or restricting liberty from above.

Disciplinary power

Power that trains bodies to behave in useful, efficient, controlled ways.

Body as machine

Foucault's idea that power can treat the body like something to discipline, optimize, and control.

Biopolitics

The regulation of populations through things like health, birth, disease, and life expectancy.

Panopticism

A system where people internalize surveillance because they know they may always be watched.

Always visible

Part of the panopticon idea: the subject feels constantly exposed to possible observation.

Always unverifiable

You never know exactly when you are being watched, so you assume you might be.

Object of information

Foucault's phrase for a person reduced to data to be observed and managed.

Disciplined subject

A person who has internalized norms and begins enforcing them on themselves.

Sports tracking

Your lecture notes explicitly list sports tracking as part of the transhumanist and surveillance conversation.

Sleep tracking / step counting / health maxxing

These are examples of tracking practices that can make life feel more measurable, optimized, and surveilled.

Telos of sport

The purpose of sport is not just producing numbers. It is developing and displaying human excellence through effort, discipline, courage, judgment, and fair competition.

Why Aristotle fits the prompt

Aristotle is the best framework because the prompt itself asks whether wearables fulfill or degrade the telos of sport.

My main claim on wearables

Wearables can degrade the telos of sport when they stop being a tool and start defining what counts as excellence.

Optimization vs virtue

Optimization means chasing measurable performance and control. Virtue means becoming an excellent athlete in character and judgment.

Wearables and practical wisdom

Athletes need judgment, pacing, self-knowledge, and feel. If they rely too much on devices, they may outsource those skills.

Wearables and panopticism

Wearables can make athletes internalize surveillance and evaluate themselves constantly through data.

Wearables and transhumanist ethos

Wearables can reflect the transhumanist push toward control, enhancement, and optimization.

My balanced position

Not all wearable use is bad. It becomes morally troubling when the device stops serving the athlete and starts shaping the meaning of excellence.

If asked your thesis in one sentence

Wearables degrade the telos of sport when they shift sport from a practice of virtue to a practice of optimization and surveillance.

If asked what the telos of sport is

The telos of sport is human excellence shown through disciplined, embodied effort and honorable competition.

If asked for your strongest reason

My strongest reason is that wearables can change what sport honors by making measurable output more important than judgment, courage, and character.

If asked for your best objection

The best objection is that wearables improve performance and self-knowledge.

If asked your response to that objection

Better information is not the same as better judgment, and Aristotle cares about the formation of character, not just useful data.

If asked how Foucault helps

Foucault helps because sports tracking can turn the athlete into an object of information and create self-surveillance.

If asked how transhumanism helps

Transhumanism helps because it shows the drive toward control, enhancement, and optimization that wearable culture can encourage.

If asked for your personal connection

As a college swimmer, I understand why athletes love data, which is exactly why I think the temptation is real and worth criticizing.