1. Many experts in genetics consider testing an unethical violation of personal privacy.
◦ What does it mean to “violate personal privacy”? ◦ Can a utilitarian argument (the greatest good for the greatest number should be sought) in favor of DNA testing in the Dominican Republic be mounted? What could it look like?
2. In the baseball world, other tests that clearly are allowed as part of the hiring process include testing a player’s strength and speed. Is there anything in the fair application of these tests that may ethically allow—even require—that baseball teams extract DNA to confirm the age?
3. Assume you accept that testing a prospect’s age is a bonafide occupational qualification (after all, the job is to be a prospect: a developing player, not an adult one). Once you accept that, how do you draw the line? Couldn’t teams be tempted to use DNA facts for other purposes? The Times article interviews a coach who puts it this way:
I know [the baseball teams taking the DNA samples] are looking into trying to figure out susceptibility to injuries, things like that. If they come up with a test that shows someone’s connective tissue is at a high risk of not holding up, can that be used? I don’t know.Michael S. Schmidt and Alan Schwarz, “Baseball’s Use of DNA Raises Questions,”New York Times, July 21, 2009, accessed May 24, 2011,http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/ 22/sports/baseball/22dna.html?hp.
Can you formulate an ethical argument in favor of teams secretly using DNA tests to do just that, check for as many yellow and red flags as possible in the young prospect’s genetic code?
4. Baseball scouting—the job of hiring excellent future players and screening out mediocre ones—is very competitive. Those who do it well are paid well; those who don’t are cycled out quickly to make room for someone else. You have the job, you have the DNA sample. What do you do? Why?
Chapter 8 Manager’s Ethics: Getting, Promoting, and Firing Workers
8.5 Case Studies 413
5. You decide to do the test in question four. The problem is people aren’t trees; you can’t age them just by counting genetic rings—you also need to do some cross-testing with the parents’ DNA. You do that and run into a surprise: it turns out that the young prospect’s father who’s so proud of his athletic son isn’t the biological dad. Now what?
◦ Is there an argument here against DNA testing, period? What is it? ◦ Remember, the family paid for the test. Do you have a responsibility to give them these results? Explain.
6. Lou Gehrig was the first athlete ever to appear on a box of Wheaties. From 1925 to 1939 he played for the Yankees in every game: 2,130 straight appearances, a record that lasted more than fifty years. He was voted into the baseball Hall of Fame in 1939. He died in 1941 from a genetic disorder—yes, Lou Gehrig’s disease—that today’s DNA tests would identify. Is there an ethical argument here against DNA testing of prospects or one in favor? Or is the argument about this more theoretical—should the rules be decided regardless of what has actually happened at some time or place? Explain.
7. In a different sport, the sprinter Caster Semenya won the world eight hundred-meter challenge in 2009 with a time that few men could equal. She looked, in fact, vaguely like a man, which led the International Athletics Federation to run a genetic gender test. She is, it turns out, neither a woman nor a man; she’s a hermaphrodite: a little bit of both. Does the fact that genetic tests don’t always return clean, black-and-white results make their use less advisable from an ethical perspective? Why or why not?
