The proposition that “promises ought to be kept is one of the most important normative ideas or value judgements in our daily lives. But what about “illegal promises”? That is to say, what about promises that are, legally or morally speaking, malum in se or inherently wrongful, such as voluntary exchanges that are inherently immoral or wrongful, like bribes, blackmail, murder, etc.? In short, what moral obligations, if any, do such promises impose? Although many of the greatest thinkers in Western (...) civilization have offered a wide variety of theories to explain the source of promissory obligations, it turns out there is a blind spot in this centuries-old conversation, for few theorists have given the problem of illegal or immoral promises any sustained thought. Nevertheless, illegal or immoral promises should be of theoretical interest to us because such promises may help us delimit the outer boundaries of promissory obligations. (shrink)

Besides its intrinsic interest, the definition of ‘game’ is important for three reasons. Firstly, in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations ‘game’ is the paradigm family resemblance concept. If he is wrong in thinking that ‘game’ cannot be defined, then the persuasive force of his argument against definition generally will be considerably weakened. This, in its turn, will have important consequences for our understanding of concepts and philosophical method. Secondly, Wittgenstein's later writings are full of analogies drawn from games—chess alone is mentioned scores (...) of times—and a proper understanding of ‘game’ can lead us to exercise more caution when considering the parallels between games and non-games. Thirdly, games and play are intriguingly and closely related to art and ritual, and an analysis of games can throw considerable light on both of the latter. (shrink)

Sport often seems to teeter on the edge, on one side of the entertainment industry, on the other of cheating violent aggression: from a make-believe simulacrum of serious play to a nasty chemically enhanced descent into a Hobbesian state of nature. Such perversions lend credibility to reductive views of sport itself as a metonymic feature of capitalism. But that sport as entertainment means fixing it to produce exciting outcomes and amplifying capacities to superhuman proportions, while sport as aggression means treating (...) rules as mere obstacles to brute dominance, shows how far we in fact are from these abysses, even in the days of the Coca Cola/Nike Olympics, Vinny Jones and cricket sledging. In this essay, I try to delineate through history— from Homer to … Gomer?—a common culture of sport and sportsmanship that, with its excesses and perversions, continues to operate as one, albeit complex, ideal of human excellence. (shrink)

Games, which philosophers commonly invoke as models for diverse phenomena, are plausibly understood in terms of rules and goals, but this gives rise to two puzzles. The first concerns the identity of a single game over time. Intuitively one and the same game can undergo a change in rules, as when the rules of chess were modified so that a pawn could be moved two squares forward on its first move. Yet if games are individuated in terms of their constitutive (...) rules and goals, this is incoherent—new rules mean a new game. The second concerns the individuation of games at a point in time. Intuitively, there can be different versions of a single game, where the versions differ in the details of their rules. I offer a solution to this problem that draws on an analogy with individuating languages. The resulting theory should illuminate the metaphysics of games more generally. (shrink)

Philosophy has a schizophrenic relationship with games. On the one hand, philosophers love using games as model, arguing that phenomena as diverse as linguistic meaning, meta‐ethics, normative ethics, applied ethics, law, and aesthetics can be illuminated via an analogy with games. On the other hand, there is scant focused discussion of the concept of a game as such. This is problematic; the appeal to games as a model to clarify philosophically puzzling questions has limited utility if games themselves (and the (...) concept of a game) are poorly understood. Moreover, playing games plausibly is an important element in a good life; anyone interested in the theory of welfare, a traditional philosophical topic, should be interested in games. We play games, but if anything, play itself has been more neglected by philosophers than games. This neglect is unwarranted. Historically, philosophy has investigated foundational questions about human nature, and a disposition to play plausibly is a deep part of human nature. Moreover, play is an important concept in evolutionary biology and psychology, yet those working in those fields struggle to define the concept to their own satisfaction. E.O. Wilson went so far as to remark that “no behavioural concept has proved more ill‐defined, elusive, controversial, and even unfashionable than play.” One might have hoped philosophers could help here. In this paper, I provide an opinionated introduction to the philosophy of play and games. (shrink)

Participation in sport, in particular intensive elite sport may be associated with shorter and longer term risks to health. Elite sport participation might also be associated with a narrow focus, to the detriment of developing in other ways, perhaps with regard to friendships or education. This paper explores the issues surrounding prudence and sport. It begins by examining two central aspects of the rationale for prudential engagement with sport and physical activity. The contention that each stage of life counts equally (...) in assessing well-being over a life; and The need to detach from present concerns and commitments to maintain a range of options from which to pursue well-being in the future. These aspects of a prudential athletic lifestyle, along with the contention that prudence can be defended in terms of rationality are explored and challenged. These challenges are not found to be persuasive in terms of abandoning altogether the notion that a prudent engagement with sports and physical activ.. (shrink)

The differences between the image of top athletes in history and those today could meet at the intersection between cyborg theory and sport studies. The reconceptualisation of athletes could at first be viewed as a shift from the “natural” to the “artificial”. Throughout history top athletes have always been considered to be somehow unnatural, and have always been celebrated as heroes who have overcome the boundaries of their natural bodies. Today’s sports events have been attracting more viewers than ever before, (...) and tough competition has been raising the very standards of competition. High attendance sports are already freak shows; whether from the comfort of their homes or from the grandstands, it is difficult for sport supporters to imagine themselves sculpting such a super-muscular body with super-fast reflexes. Old-fashioned blood, sweat and tears are still present somewhere, although they are incorporated into the advanced achievements of the modern techno-culture. A number of the issues raised from this perspective have found room for discussion in the relatively new pluri-perspectival approach to the challenges of the biotechnological era – in bioethics. Bioethics offers a platform for a dialogue on the key questions of today’s world, a dialogue that surpasses disciplinary, expert, historical and cultural positions. However, any such discourse is facing a pluralism of approaches and methodological barriers, and presupposes the existence of adequate theoretical grounds. This paper highlights only some of the problem points that plastically outline the insufficiencies of the existing mono-perspectively guided conceptions in the field of sport. Accordingly, the authoress emphasises only some of the symptoms that point to the disorientedness of everyday life, which is portrayed in sport in a rather peculiar way: the fragility of the ethical positions contained in the concepts of the “spirit of sport” and fair play in facing the developments of science and technology, the objectification of the body, and an increase in the people’s interest in high-risk activities. The authoress views these traits as signs of the need to transcend the until recently prevalent reductionistic and mono-perspectival approaches, which the distinctive bioethical approach can indeed do. (shrink)

Der Unterschied zwischen einem Spitzensportler früher und heute tritt an den Berührungspunkten zwischen der Kyborg-Theorie und verschiedenen Sportstudien am deutlichsten zutage. Eine Rekonzeptualisierung des Begriffs ,Sportler’ erweist sich demnach als eine Sinnerweiterung von ,natürlich’ zu ,künstlich’. Im Laufe der Geschichte wurden Spitzensportler stets als irgendwie ,un-natürlich’ empfunden und als Helden gefeiert, die die Beschränkungen ihres natürlichen Körpers überwanden. Sportveranstaltungen ziehen heute mehr Zuschauer in ihren Bann, als dies früher jemals der Fall war, und durch die scharfe Konkurrenz werden auch die (...) Standards und Kriterien von Sportwettkämpfen angehoben. Vor einem Massenpublikum stattfindende Sportveranstaltungen haben sich schon längst zu Freak Shows gewandelt, bei denen den Zuschauern in den Stadien oder vor den Bildschirmen zu Hause unvorstellbar ist, dass sie je selbst einen so muskulösen Körper mit superschnellen Reflexen besitzen könnten. Das alte Schlagwort von „Blut, Schweiß und Tränen” besteht auch weiterhin, wenn auch eingebunden in die zukunftsträchtigen Errungenschaften der modernen Techno-Kultur. Die vielzähligen Fragen, die sich aus einer solchen Perspektive ergeben, haben in einem relativ neuen Zugang zu den Herausforderungen des biotechnologischen Zeitalters ihre Plattform gefunden – in der Bioethik. Die Bioethik bietet ein Diskussionsforum für die wichtigsten uns heute bewegenden Fragen, für einen Dialog, der über disziplin- und fachgebundene, historische und kulturologische Positionen hinausgeht. Ein solcher Diskurs sieht sich jedoch sowohl in den unterschiedlichen Ansätzen als auch in den methodologischen Barrieren mit einem Pluralismus konfrontiert und erfordert als Voraussetzung eine entsprechende theoretische Grundlage. In diesem Artikel werden nur einige Problempunkte hervorgehoben, die sich im Bereich des Sports infolge der Unzulänglichkeiten der bestehenden monoperspektivisch orientierten Konzeptionen auf eine plastische Weise abzeichnen. In diesem Sinne verweist die Verfasserin auf einige wenige Symptome, die auf eigentümliche Weise im Sport zum Vorschein kommen und die Desorientiertheit im Alltag sichtbar machen: Gemeint ist die Fragilität ethischer Positionen, die in den Konzepten von „Sportsgeist” und Fairplay enthalten sind und sich gegen den wissenschaftlich-technischen Fortschritt, die Verobjektierung des Körpers und ein gesteigertes Interesse an risikoreichen Aktivitäten behaupten müssen. In der vorliegenden Arbeit werden die angeführten Merkmale als Zeichen des Bedürfnisses verstanden, die bis vor kurzem noch vorherrschenden, reduktionistischen und monoperspektivischen Ansätze zu überwinden, zumal mithilfe der Bioethik, der diesbezüglich besonders gute Chancen nachgesagt werden. (shrink)