While the Patriots may have won the forty-ninth Super Bowl, a question about their integrity still remains. If the NFL investigation comes back conclusive that the Patriots willfully attempted to deflate the balls in the AFC Conference Championship game against the Colts, ethics offers America two ways to view the crisis. In Kantian ethics, the Patriots are guilty even if they won by thirty-eight points; however, a different result occurs if they are to be judged with Utilitarianism.
The fundamental rules of Kantian ethics are based in the conscious choice before the action, no matter what the outcome of a person’s choices yield. Even if a man loses his leg from frost bite because he jumped in a freezing lake to save a drowning child, and that child dies, the man is still considered heroic. If these ethics are applied to a guilty Patriot franchise, then they should be viewed as cheaters because they desired to cheat. Kantian ethics describes the desire/purpose behind an action as the ethical weight of the action. All that means is even though the Patriots blew out the Colts, they still cheated. In addition to their guilt, they should be punished by the NFL. Following Kantian thought, the Patriots are morally wrong (because cheating is morally wrong). They should be disqualified for cheating if they willfully deflated the footballs.
A different school of thought, Utilitarianism, offers a different view of moral justice. Utilitarianism is best described as the greatest amount of pleasure for the greatest number of people. So in this case, morality is determined by how the action affects the happiness of the world. So if deflating the footballs and winning the game brings about more happiness than not, then deflating the footballs was the right choice by the Patriots. Unfortunately, the number of Patriot fans does not equal the number of Colt fans and other fans that take offense to their alleged actions. So, the actions of the Patriots, if they are found guilty, are morally wrong in this scenario as well.
Ambiguity prevents this debate from being solved. Until the NFL returns with their verdict, a cloud of doubt and ethical ignorance surrounds the American cultural event known as Super Bowl XLIX.
American Cultural Icons 