Changes and the introduction of new equipment or technologies can have an effect on how a sport is played or impact its performance. Therefore, the equipment that is being used in sports should be designed and developed in such a way that it would not cause harm or injury while facilitating the maximum performance of athletes. It is imperative to study the topic in greater detail because innovation and new developments drive the changes in various sports, and the introduction of new solutions by engineers should be both technologically and ethically sound. As mentioned by Dyer, long periods of time without intervention or resolution of ethical issues associated with the use of sports equipment and technologies can add to more confusion and misinformation (1). The objective of the current study is to determine how technologies and equipment can be used in sports ethically and in a way that will be the most inclusive and effective. With the wide range of advancements available, there are significant risks of harm and injuries, as well as the creation of unequal opportunities for players. Therefore, despite the multi-dimensional nature of sports, it is essential to differentiate between technologies and equipment that can and cannot be used.
In the exploration of the topic, seven important concepts were selected as associated with ethical measures undertaken to ensure fairness and effectiveness. The first concept is professional identity, which denotes a set of attitudes, attributes, values, experiences, and motives that define one’s job in a specific sphere (Slay and Smith 86). Professional identity is essential to apply within the current research because it would allow for a better understanding of the aims that sports engineers pursue and what values they share when developing new equipment and technologies. The second concept is virtue ethics, which is an approach that uses the basic ideas of universal morality as imperative to ensure that individual acts in a way that a virtuous individual would act (Harris et al. 124). It is necessary to discuss in the current exploration because virtue ethics offers multiple perspectives for understanding the moral motivation for the development of professional rules.
The third concept refers to responsibility, which, in the context of engineering, implies the adherence to regulatory norms and standard practices that align with the expectations of reasonable care. In the current context of research, responsibility is imperative to discuss because it would allow exploring not only good judgment on the part of sports engineers but also such issues as negligence and inappropriate action. The fourth concept refers to the culture in organizations and is necessary to consider because it encompasses a wide range of policies and procedures required to foster communication and ethical choices. The fifth concept is trustworthiness, which encourages engineers to be honest in their actions and foster transparency during reporting. The concept of risk should be explored further because of its importance to the current research in terms of the identification of potential harms, economic loss, bodily injury, and trauma, or mortality. Risks are imperative to consider in the contexts of sports because the improper design and functioning of equipment could lead to adverse consequences for athletes. The seventh concept to be explored is life cycle analysis as the key to ensuring that engineering processes do not have an adverse impact on the environment.
Works Cited
Dyer, Bryce. “The controversy of Sports Technology: A Systematic Review.” SpringerPlus, vol. 4, 2015, pp. 524-525.
Harris, Charles, et al. Concepts and Cases: Engineering Ethics. 6th ed., Cengage, 2019.
Slay, Holly, and Delmonize Smith. “Professional Identity Construction: Using Narrative to Understand the Negotiation of Professional and Stigmatized Cultural Identities.” Human Relations, vol. 64, no. 1, 2011, pp. 85-107.