Given the great importance of morality and values in modern sports, especially among young athletes, in this pilot study, we sought to broaden the exploration of the factors that may play role in these contexts, which have not been widely researched to date. Accordingly, the study tested the relationships between sport type (team or individual) and parenting styles (authoritative vs. non-authoritative), and moral decision-making in sport and sport values among 110 adolescent athletes whose age ranges from 11 to 22 (M= (...) 16.04,SD= 2.86). The findings indicated that participants with authoritative parents, as compared to those with non-authoritative parents, are significantly less accepting of cheating in sport, while they also tend more to keep winning in proportion and hold significantly stronger moral values toward sports. Moreover, participants whose main sport is a team sport type tend to accept more cheating and gamesmanship than participants whose main sport is an individualistic sport type. While no differences were recorded between these groups in moral values, team athletes tend to value status in sport more than individual athletes, while the latter tend to value competence regarding their sport. The implications of the findings are discussed in light of no interaction between the effects of parenting styles and sport type on moral and sport values. (shrink)

In this paper, we argue that there are important differences between playing and non-playing roles in sport. The relevance of sex differences poses genuine philosophical and ethical difficulties for feminism in the context of playing sport. In the case of non-playing roles in general, and officiating in particular, we argue that reference to essential differences between men and women is irrelevant. Officiating elite men?s football is not a role for which ?essential? (psychological and biological) differences are causally implicated neither in (...) competence nor excellence. Reference to such purported differences to justify the exclusion of women from roles such as officiating is unfounded and sexist. (shrink)

ABSTRACTHead-to-head records are often used in round-robin contests for breaking ties between athletes or teams that are equal on points or wins. In this paper, I argue, on the one hand, that tie-b...

Officiating and the role of officials in sport is are crucial and often decisive factors in sports contests. Justice and desert of sport contests, in part, rely on officiating truths that arise from an appropriate admixture of epistemic and metaphysical ingredients. This paper provides a rigorous and original philosophical analysis of the problems of obeying and applying the rules of sport. The paper focuses on a the scrum in rugby union. The scrum has become a focus of criticism and bewilderment. (...) Elite rugby is damaged as a spectacle because too much time is wasted setting and re-setting scrums. Furthermore, trust in the fairness of games is eroded because the scrum is a ‘lottery’. In this paper, we identify two fundamental structural problems which contribute to the scrum controversy. First, we argue that officials cannot make reliable judgements about scrums because they cannot see what they need to see. Secondly, we argue that players cannot follow the law... (shrink)

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)

ABSTRACTHead-to-head records are often used in round-robin contests for breaking ties between athletes or teams that are equal on points or wins. In this paper, I argue, on the one hand, that tie-b...

Whilst the relationship between money and success in elite sport is acknowledged, the exact nature, extent and implications of this relationship is one that has not been carefully examined. In this paper, we have three main aims. Firstly, to provide empirical evidence of the extent that money buys success in the English Premier League. Secondly, to evaluate this evidence from a sports ethics perspective, and finally, to discuss potential solutions to the problem. We argue that the evident performance advantage teams (...) gain through financial investments is contrary to the spirit of sport as it undermines athletic excellence and the ‘sweet tension of uncertainty of outcome’ that is central to good competition. Consequently, financial investments in elite football ought to be regulated and controlled. We argue, however, that current attempts to do so are inadequate as they focus on issues concerning financial health, rather than the health of the game in terms of s... (shrink)

Sport, Ethics and Philosophy, Volume 5, Issue 4, Page 359-361, November 2011.

Ensuring fairness is a capital issue in any sporting competition. However, fairness is a complex concept. We seek here to offer an analysis of the construction and upholding of fairness within comp...

It seems fairly straightforward to describe what should and should not count as a disability into two separate and opposing categories. In this paper we will challenge this assumption and critically reflect on the narrow relations between the concepts of 'talent' and 'disability'. We further relate such matters of terminology and classification to issues of justice in what is conceived of as disability sport. Do current systems of classification do justice to the performances of disabled athletes? Is the organisation of (...) a just and fair competition similar for abled as it is for disabled sport? Two cases (of Francesco Lentini and Oscar Pistorius) will be explored to further illustrate the complexities of these questions, in particular when related to notions of normality and extraordinary performances. (shrink)

His batting stance was pure Skrimmer, the easy sink of the knees, the sense of prevailing silence, the dart of the hands to the ball. Good players tended to be good mimics: old footage of Aparicio,...