Sledging, or ‘trash talk’ or ‘chirping’, as it’s known in other parts of the world, has long been part of competitive sport. However, more recent times have seen the issue of sledging, and its place in sport, debated with many athletes, fans and academics arguing that sledging has moved outside the notion of ‘sportsmanship’ and gone beyond light hearted, good natured banter. They argue it is now characterized as hurtful, insulting, offensive and intimidating – a tactic that has moved beyond (...) fair play and, in many instances, no longer acceptable. This paper seeks to explore this issue in greater depth. In particular, this paper seeks to ask, ‘is sledging part of play, or is it a characteristic of play’s corruption?’ The argument proceeds by adopting a conception of play grounded in the work of Johan Huizinga. Play may be understood as a core component of even professional sport, not least in that play lies at the moral core of the ‘spirit of sport’ in fairplay and respect for one’s opponents. Using... (shrink)

This paper argues that an instance of trash-talking is permissible if and only if the relevant sports organization’s system of rules permits the expression. The argument for this position rests on the notion that if there is no relevant side-constraint on trash-talking, then if the player commits to a moral boundary on trash-talking then that is the moral boundary on trash-talking. I then argued that there is no relevant side-constraint on trash-talking and that the players commit to the ownership theory (...) as the moral boundary on trash-talking. Hence, the ownership theory is the moral boundary for trash-talking. I then considered a number of objections, the most important of which are that there is a side-constraint against trash-talking because it is degrading, disrespectful, exploitative, or objectifying and that the ownership theory is false because it confuses what is wrong with what is penalized. (shrink)

MMA fighting in a competition is not necessarily wrong and is often, as far as we can tell, permissible. Our argument has two premises. First, if an act does not infringe on anyone’s moral right or violate another side-constraint, then it is morally permissible. Second, MMA-violence does not infringe on anyone’s moral right or violate another side-constraint. The first premise rested on two assumptions. First, if a person does a wrong act, then he wrongs someone. Second, if one person wrongs (...) a second, then the first infringes on the second’s right. We then looked at Nicholas Dixon’s powerful Kantian argument that MMA fighting is wrong. (shrink)

The landscape of sport shows conspicuous discursive and material disparities between the responses to openly violent on-field transgressors and the responses to other kinds of transgressor, most notably drug users. The former gets off significantly lighter in terms of ideological framing and formal punishment. The latter—and drug users in particular—are typically demonised and heavily punished, whilst the former are regularly lionised, dramatised, celebrated and punished less severely. The preceding disparities cannot be upheld from the standpoint of morality in general or (...) from that of a Broad Internalist sport ethic. Consideration of the consequences, actions, motives and vices involved in the respective categories fails to support them. Nor is support provided by the notion that sports are tests of the physical skills and virtues that the obstacles presented are designed to foster and promote, and behaviour that threatens the opportunity to exercise those excellences or have competitions determined by them should be the subject of critical moral scrutiny. Openly violent on-field transgression does not fare at all well by the yardstick of Broad Internalism. Robust investigation of and ultimate change in the values underpinning the disparities is warranted. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This paper explores the dynamics of extrinsic pressure in sport and its relation to athletic excellence. We argue that psychological pressure exerted by activities extrinsic to sport can be relevant to success or failure in it, such that how one manages extrinsic pressures can transmit to failure to perform in sport and thus be a determinant to victory, with no reason to think failure mitigated by the non-sporting nature of one’s other behaviour. To make this argument we offer a (...) series of examples to test intuitions about what constitutes sporting excellence and what constitutes sporting failure. On the basis of these examples, we offer a categorization of pressures in sport and argue that psychological pressure from almost any area of life may be relevant to competition, whether intrinsic or extrinsic to the sporting contest. We substantiate this claim by proposing a framework for adjudicating the relevance of extrinsic pressures to sporting performance by appealing to the internal goods of each sport and their contribution to flourishing. (shrink)

Sporting excellence is a function of physical, cognitive and psychological capacities: its standard requires demonstration of superlative physical and strategic skills and the performance of these...

In this paper, I argue for a nuanced, context-sensitive approach to the question of trash talk, based on the Kantian principle of respect for persons and an emphasis on first-person action-guidance. I also suggest that we understand trash talk to have several varieties. On my proposed approach, there is no simple answer to the question of whether trash talk is morally permissible; rather, context-sensitive judgment can help us to determine what we ought to do when the possibility of various forms (...) of trash talk arises. (shrink)

In an earlier paper, Stephen Kershnar argued for the following thesis: An instance of trash-talking is permissible if and only if the relevant sports organization’s system of rules permits the expression. One person trash-talks a second if and only if the first intentionally insults the second during competition. The above theory sounds implausible. Surely, the conditions under which a player may insult another do not depend on what the owners arbitrarily decide. Such an approach doesn’t appear to be true in (...) the workplace, bar, or sandlot, so it is hard to see why it should be true in sport. With this general skepticism in mind, this paper evaluates Nicholas Dixon’s objections. Dixon rejects Kershnar’s argument because trash-talking conflicts with the internal value of a sport, violates a right, and degrades the person toward whom the trash-talking is directed. (shrink)

In this paper I establish a normative limit of spectator interaction. I argue that attempts by non-participants (e.g. spectators) to affect the outcome of a contest, whether intended or merely foreseeable, are unsporting and ought to be discouraged because they undermine fairness, which is a fundamental premise of ideal competition. Because this is at odds with the participatory ethos of contemporary sports fanaticism (e.g. ?12th man? campaigns, visual distractions by spectators, etcetera) I anticipate several potential objections. I refute concerns that (...) my thesis is empirically dubious; that it is impractical; that it is subordinate to financial considerations; that it is nullified by participant acquiescence; and that it is subordinate to spectator interests. (shrink)

The work of Bernard Suits continues to be discussed in the sports philosophy field, over forty years after the publication of his brilliant book, The Grasshopper: Games, Life, and Utopia. Much of t...

Contributors to the literature on gamesmanship typically assume that gamesmanship can be clearly distinguished from other legal strategies used in sports. In this article, we argue that this is a m...

The role of the ‘enforcer’ in elite-level sports contests is a familiar one. Simply, the role involves establishing or restoring a ‘moral balance’ to the sporting encounter when it is absent – usually when match officials are thought to be failing to apply the laws/rules of the game. How the enforcer secures this outcome is more morally contentious as it may involve deliberate violations of the laws/rules of the sport. In this paper we consider the role of the enforcer in (...) rugby union. First we interrogate some of the extant sports ethics literature and explore the notion of ‘fairness’ in the well-played game, including the role of the enforcer. Second, we illustrate conceptually how the ethos of elite sport as a moral discourse creates a theoretical platform from which to assess the intervention of an enforcer. Third, we address the role of match officials as members of the practice community from an institutional sense (what the international governing body for rugby union makes explicit) and from an empirical sense (what actually occurs or might occur) in the circumstances that precipitate the intervention of ‘enforcers’. We conclude that the conceptual tension between the laws and the spirit (ethos) of the game is reflected in the choices facing players when playing the game. (shrink)