Javier López Frías, a professor at Penn State University, will present “Ethical Challenges Raised by the Technologization of Professional Sports” on Monday, Sept. 11, at 6:30 p.m. in 222 T.J. Day Hall at Linfield College.
In this lecture, López Frías will discuss Nicholas Agar’s notion of radical enhancement to explore ethical issues in the debate on the use of technology to enhance athletic performance. He will focus on two concepts that are critical to such a debate, namely “normalcy” and “intrinsic value.” By subjecting Agar’s understanding of both concepts to critical analysis, he will provide a normative framework to morally adjudicate technology use in sport.
López Frías is an assistant professor in the department of kinesiology and a research associate at the Rock Ethics Institute and the bioethics program at the Pennsylvania State University. He holds a doctoral degree in philosophy from the University of Valencia, where he also completed a master’s program in ethics and democracy. He researches sports ethics and human enhancement but is also interested in political philosophy, normative ethics and applied ethics. Frías has published numerous papers in international journals, as well as book chapters, book reviews and books.
He has been a visiting scholar at Penn State University, the Uehiro Center for Practical Ethics at Oxford University, the Franklin Institute of the University of Alcala de Henares and the University of Rome – Foro Italico. He has been an active member of GIBUV (Research Group on Bioethics of the University of Valencia) and working groups focusing on issues related to Neuroethics, Neuroeconomy and Neuropolitics. López Frías was awarded the Robert Scott Kretchmar Student Essay Award from International Association for the Philosophy of Sport in 2013 and participated in the 29th Seminar for Postgraduate Students on Olympic Studies organized by the International Olympic Academy the following year. He is the secretary general of the European Association of the Philosophy of Sport and an editorial board member of two journals on sports ethics: Fair Play and International Journal of Ethics and Sport Law.
The lecture is free and open to the public. For more information, contact 503-883-2398.
