Pugilistic rationality and medico-legal supremacism. An argumentative controversy about consensual violence/Racionalidad pugilistica y supremacismo médico-legal. Una controversia argumental sobre la violencia consensuada

Abstract

This article presents a critical review of some of the main arguments put forward by detractors and defenders in the so-called boxing debate. It examines the positions put forward by prominent representatives of medico-legal activism in favor of the total abolition of boxing and particularly confronts the myth of the savage and irrational nature of the sport. This conception is contrasted with the ethnographic approach proposed by Lois Wacquant and his mentor, Pierre Bourdieu, on the existence of a pugilistic rationality forged in the boxer's bodily habitus. Important aspects of the problem are discussed, such as the fact that pedagogy, through which boxing is taught, is far from being conscious, reflective, theorizing and intellectualistic (which feeds the appearance of a supposed absence of training and cultivation of a knowledge that is eminently practical). It also shows the duality of medical argumentation by subtly moving from the epistemic plane to the ethical-moral plane and the implications that such opacity entails. The aim of the article is not to close the controversy to the detriment of the concerns of the medical-health sector, but to show the philosophical complexity that underlies it.