philosophy paper

John Paul R. Pangilinan July 26, 2005
Philo 104 Fr. Nemesio Que

Basketball Ideals
Basketball is synonymous to the name Michael Jordan. He has been the standards of excellence in basketball. Even though he makes mistakes, these were all overshadowed by his accomplishments like MVP’s, scoring titles, championships and a lot more. Everyone who plays basketball knows his name and even after his retirement he is still well known with the name of basketball. Every good player that played in the National Basketball Association was compared to him even in other countries like China, Japan and especially our country the Philippines we have our own version of Michael Jordan in our country. He was like the “ideal” player to be if you want to make it big time in basketball. Every new player that came in the NBA and dominated the game has been regarded as the next Michael Jordan but after a while that player fails to live up to the expectation of becoming the next Michael Jordan.
In philosophy, there are ideals like ideal concretized and deontological. Plato used Socrates as a person of ideal concretized or an “ideal person”. Just like in basketball, Michael Jordan has now been the basis of an “ideal basketball player”. What makes him ideal? Well, he was known to have a flawless game in other words perfect. He was the complete package in basketball. So a concept of a basketball player has always been compared to him skill wise and talent wise. It’s like everything he said about basketball were correct. A good basketball player must always have his skills which have now become the standard of basketball “a great basketball player is someone who is like Michael Jordan the ideal player”. He is ideal because we think everything he does in basketball is right. It’s like a shuttle maker making a shuttle, before he makes another shuttle, he looks at the shuttles he made before which were molded as ideal shuttles.
Ideal deontological is the view that morality either forbids or permits actions, which is done through moral norms. Simply put, the correctness of an action lies within itself, not in the consequences of the action. An example is lying, lying is bad but it can be neutral if it produces good consequences. Another example is giving money to street children it is a good deed although it is not encouraged because some street children uses it for drugs or for some other bad things. It is also the same in basketball, we know committing fouls in basketball is like a mistake for coaches but there are situations in a game wherein you need to foul a player which equates to a good result. Being too physical in basketball tends to hurt a player which is considered bad but sometimes you need to become physical especially when getting the rebounds which will give good results for the team.
Concrete ideal is important in the moral world because it gives a guide for people to follow. It like an “ideal” law which the people will mold themselves into becoming a good Christian.