Obligations, Moral and Otherwise
 
I was just reading an article by Cass Sunstein in the Minnesota Law Review entitled Moral Heuristics and Moral Framing, 88 Minn. L. Rev. 1556.  I didn't read the whole thing because I keep going back to an illustration that he used to begin the article.

When you have been a fan of a sports team, you have a moral obligation to continue to be a fan even if the team is now terrible.  It is disloyal to cease being a fan merely because the team keeps losing. 'Once you're a fan, you're a fan for life.'

He goes on to say this claim is "absurd," but the problem is that he is making (at least) two diffent claims.  The first is that supporting a team creates a moral obligation and the second is that failing to support a team is disloyal.  I's still not sure if the obligation to support one's team despite years of losing could be called a moral obligation, but I'm pretty sure that most true sports fans would say that abandoning a team because they're losing would in fact be disloyal.

 
But back to the first claim, what is that obligation called that makes people want to support the same losing team year after year?  Growing up, lots of my friends loved the Dallas Cowboys when they were winning Superbowls.  I had other friends that spontaneously became Florida State fans even though we lived in Mississippi and never knew anyone who went to school in Florida. 

I always considered these people morally inferior.  Seriously, I look down on them.  But I guess I should rethink that idea.  Perhaps they aren't morally inferior, but just plain inferior.

Perhaps I will post more on this later this weekend, but for now, I invite your thoughts.