Opinion - The recent ball-tampering scandal with the Australian cricket team highlights a number of classic philosophical dilemmas. These illustrate either (a) just how universal these problems are or (b) the extent to which we never learn. You can decide.
Photo: Photosport NZ
Perhaps the most obvious of these is the 'slippery slope' dilemma. At what point does something cross the line from grey area to dark art and our naivety become culpability?
The boundary of acceptable and unacceptable is always open to negotiation. So how far down the slope do we go?
Perhaps the most amazing thing about the Australian cricket team, and one that seems to have been slightly lost, is Steve Smith's press conference confession.
Former captain Steve Smith, flanked by teammate Cameron Bancroft, speaking as he admitted to ball-tampering during the third Test against South Africa. Photo: AFP
He insinuated that it was no big deal. And there are many reasons for that, not least of which being that his opposite number as captain, Faf du Plessis, had also been caught ball tampering only a few years previously. Twice.
In 2013 he was caught scuffing a ball against the zip of his trousers. In 2016 he was accused of using his sugar-infused saliva (from sucking a mint) to give the ball an extra shine.
Both of these actions have found defenders.
South Africa's cricket captain Faf du Plessis in 2016. Photo: AFP
Du Plessis, it is argued, was simply utilising something that was already in field (a zip, his own spit) whereas the Aussies had to bring something on the field of play, which shows more premeditation. Perhaps this is true, although mints aren't usually found at the crease, but even then to many people the net effect is still cheating.
The gradient just seems to be a little higher.
The slope gets even steeper when we broaden out to other sports.
At what point is trying to get an advantage in the ruck acceptable gamesmanship? Is it cheating to make tackles in the full knowledge of potential injuries? If many cyclists take performance enhancing drugs, is it unprofessional not to?
Lance Armstrong at the 2009 Tour de France in Monaco Photo: 123RF
There are all sorts of factors that make the latest affair more troubling: not least the use of the most junior member of the team, the repeated lying (it was tape, no it was sandpaper), and the mysterious reference to a "leadership group" that actually consisted of Smith and Warner.
All the while, the fundamental issue of ball tampering itself remains disappointingly mundane, and one that has been done time and time again.
So perhaps the even slipperier slope is our collective response. We should be shocked that we are shocked, because we should not be shocked at all at professional sportsmen cheating. That is possibly the least shocking thing to happen in 2018.
Let's look to ourselves, therefore to see how honest our own responses are. If any readers can truly claim to have never bent the rules for their own benefit (or the benefit of their friends and family), whether in the sporting arena or elsewhere, then that person is likely not being truthful.
If they have bent the rules, then what is their motivation? Likely, a few people may simply be using outrage over this incident to fuel their own views against pampered sportsmen, or cricket, or Australians. Or all of the above.
Before long, we appreciate that we - all of us - are constantly on a slippery slope of varying degrees, trying to cling on.
None of this excuses cheating but it does show that our own foundations for ethics are not as solid as we would either usually hope or assume.
Michael Macaulay is Associate Dean of Victoria Business School and a former judge, who works in the fields of ethics and integrity.
