Eagles fans scramble to pass on Vick's past

To think, being an Eagles fan used to require little more than the ability to spell E-A-G-L-E-S.

Now, you have to grapple with the big stuff.

It's one thing for a fan to take a stand - pro-Vick, anti-Vick, don't care about Vick - when the quarterback with the controversial dog-torturing past is pacing the sidelines as a backup.

But with Michael Vick's recent otherworldly success, and, dare we say, with the Super Bowl no longer a wild fantasy, the Vick conundrum is as twisted a thicket as ever.

So complicated that philosophy professors, ethicists, psychologists, and theologians everywhere are weighing in on the new Vick experience. It's even made its way into the classroom as a case study.

The fan conundrum has become the city's own morality play, raising mind-bending questions about redemption, human potential and purpose, forgiveness, and pain.

(Or, as one tweeter put it this week: "Super huge shout out to any Philadelphia Eagles fan that turned in their season tickets to protest Michael Vick and is now kissing his -!!")

Well, being an Eagles fan is more complicated for some people than others.

For the extra point, you get the question of relative value - that of humans vs. dogs vs. chickens vs. entertainment vs. character vs. talent vs. what many long-suffering Eagles fans would still hold true as the ultimate goal: a Super Bowl victory.

To talk with and read the writings of various philosophy professors, ethics experts, and religious thinkers - a surprisingly ample body of work on Vick exists - you get a lot of deep thoughts, none of them having to do with x's and o's.

"If you take the view that what he did was unforgivable, an abomination - you don't want to see him, he reminds you what he did to the dogs - [then] you might feel betrayed. That's grounds for breaking with the team," said Princeton University philosopher and ethicist Peter Singer, who has written extensively about animal cruelty and bioethics.

Singer surprised many when he took a forgiving view of Vick, who served 19 months in federal prison after pleading guilty in 2007 to running a dogfighting ring, which involved electrocuting and hanging underperforming dogs. When the Eagles signed Vick, Singer wrote on his Twitter feed: "If you eat factory-farmed chicken, eggs, pork or veal, you're in no position to be outraged by the Eagles signing him."