In this article I argue both that an understanding of sport’s general character as competitive play can help us to read Homer more insightfully and that this reading can boomerang back to us to further illuminate the sport as competitive play thesis. My overall method is that of (Rawlsian) reflective equilibrium. The three sections of Homer that I examine are the Phaiacian games in Book 8 of the ‘Odyssey’, the Patroclos games in Book 23 of the ‘Iliad’, and the Penelope (...) games in Books 21–22 of the ‘Odyssey’. (shrink)

Current anti-doping in competitive sports is advocated for reasons of fair-play and concern for the athlete's health. With the inception of the World Anti Doping Agency (WADA), anti-doping effort has been considerably intensified. Resources invested in anti-doping are rising steeply and increasingly involve public funding. Most of the effort concerns elite athletes with much less impact on amateur sports and the general public.

This paper considers the relevance of human genetics as a case study through which links between bioethics and sport ethics have developed. Initially, it discusses the science of gene-doping and the ethics of policy-making in relation to future technologies, suggesting that the gene-doping example can elucidate concerns about the ethics of sport and human enhancement more generally. Subsequently, the conceptual overlap between sport and bioethics is explored in the context of discussions about doping. From here, the paper investigates the ethics (...) of gene-doping, arguing that a straightforward mapping of medical ethics onto sport ethics is not justified. In conclusion, it argues that gene-doping is consistent with a broader ethics of enhancement within elite sports. Moreover, the increased legitimacy of lifestyle medicine in society is likely to reduce the relevance of an anti-doping programme that is concerned with protecting the integrity of an alleged natural athlete. (shrink)

Scholars such as Simon (2007; 2004) and Loland (2002) as well as the authors of the World Anti-Doping Code (2001) argue that using performance-enhancing substances is unhealthy and unfairly coercive for other athletes. Critics of the anti-doping position such as Hoberman (1995), Miah et al. (2005) and Tamburrini (2007) are quick to argue that such prohibitions, even though well-intended, constitute an unjustifiable form of paternalism. However, advocates for both of these positions assume that preserving good health and, conversely, avoiding health-related (...) harms, lie at the centre of the debate. Given the apparent stalemate in the debate over the validity of health concerns on performance-enhancing drugs, in this essay, I investigate ethical issues of ‘harm-free’ pharmaceutical performance enhancement. Beginning with the hypothesis that a harm-free performance-enhancing drug may be produced in the future, I ask if there would still be compelling reasons for prohibiting such a drug. I address this question by providing two arguments against allowing athletes to use pharmaceutical performance-enhancing drugs – the damage to the testing and contesting of sport and the loss of internal goods that are intrinsically satisfying. These two arguments taken together, I argue, are sufficient to sustain the prohibition of pharmaceutical performance-enhancing drugs without citing their harmful side effects. (shrink)

In this article, I first address the ethical considerations about football and show that a meritocratic-fairness view of sports fails to capture the phenomenon of football. Fairness of result is not at centre stage in football. Football is about the drama, about the tension and the emotions it provokes. This moves us to the realm of aesthetics. I reject the idea of the aesthetics of football as the disinterested aesthetic appreciation, which traditionally has been deemed central to aesthetics. Instead, I (...) argue that we should try and develop an agon aesthetics where our aesthetic appreciation is understood as involving and being embedded in our engagement in the game. The drama of football is staged but not scripted. The aesthetics of competitions like football matches—the agon aesthetics—lies in engaging in the conflict that a competition is, while being aware that the conflict is not over ordinary world or everyday life issues, but unnecessary and invented for the very purpose of having a conflict to enjoy. (shrink)

In the sport ethics literature, the general attitude with regard to the influence of commercialization in sport is to draw attention to the ways it undermines sport and morally corrupts those involved in it. This paper attempts to provide a counternarrative to this literature, focusing on criticism of commodification of sport that revolves around the idea of fairness. A brief libertarian framework is presented and three characteristics of sport are outlined, which are shown to make sport a particularly well-suited context (...) for libertarian approaches. Unlike a good deal of human activities, engaging and disengaging from sport carries few internal barriers, a fact that creates the opportunity for participants to introduce alternatives to the established way of playing sport. In this case, if alternatives to certain means of playing sport can always be found, then no concrete instance in which sport is played can truly be considered as unfair as individuals always.. (shrink)

Sports organizations face various ethical challenges. To tackle these, ethical codes are becoming increasingly popular instruments. However, a lot of questions remain concerning their effectiveness. There is a particular lack of knowledge when it comes to their form and content, and on the influence of these features on the effectiveness of these codes of ethics. Therefore, we developed a framework to analyze ethical codes and used this to assess codes of ethics in sports clubs from six disciplines. The form and (...) content characteristics of the codes were tested for their impact on the ethical climate of sports clubs. Our results show that most codes focus on the themes of integrity, and on solidarity among the members of sports clubs. Deontological phrasing is dominant in ethical codes in sports clubs. The occurrence of comprehension aids, such as examples, and procedural content, such as the mentioning of sanctions, is low. When it comes to code effectiveness, i.e., the influence on the ethical climate, we see a positive significant effect of the use of consequentialist oriented statements, and of the combination of regulatory and inspirational phrasing. Also the presence of explicit guidelines for the members of the board had a positive significant affect. This shows that codes should be a source of inspiration and stimulate moral awareness, rather than merely guide behavior by simple rules. Other content elements do not influence code effectiveness, suggesting that ethical codes merely have a function of raising ethical awareness in sports clubs. These results help to shed light on what it takes for a code of ethics to become a useful and effective instrument to tackle unethical behavior in sports clubs. (shrink)

Traditionally, acts of sportsmanship have been upheld as worthy of praise. The purpose of this paper is to discern whether Bernard Suits’ Grasshopper -- in "The Grasshopper: Games, Life and Utopia" -- would share this approval. The paper begins with a conceptual analysis of good sportspersonship. From this, four action categories are identified including good sportspersonship in the forms of game desertion, changing the game, not trying, and lusory self-handicapping. A strategy for evaluation is derived from the Grasshopper’s theory. Game-playing (...) is defined as action reflecting lusory attitude acknowledgement. Game-spoiling is introduced as action demonstrating lusory attitude abandonment. Three of the four actions categories are characterized as game-spoiling including good sportspersonship in the forms of game desertion, changing the game, and not trying. It is concluded that genuine good sportspersonship is characterized solely by altruistic forms of lusory self-handicapping. (shrink)

Stimulated by Hugh Upton's recent article in this journal, in which he argues that there can be a moral duty to cheat in games, I attempt to examine his claims. Much of what he writes revolves around examples from two sports, cricket and rugby, and with differing connections to those games' rules. While the example from cricket is said to involve a breach of the spirit of that game, it is contravention of the written rules of rugby on which the (...) latter part of Upton's case focuses. Given limited space I concentrate on the cricketing example, but several of the points I make about that apply also to when rule-breaking itself is involved. My conclusions express doubts about whether a case for a moral duty to cheat in games has been established. (shrink)

“What are you prepared to do to win?” This is a question that any serious competitor will at one time or another have to consider. The answer that one is inclined to make, I shall argue, is revealing of the deeper character of the individual participant in sport as both physical competitor and moral person. To that end, I examine one of the classic responses to the question, gamesmanship, which can be characterised as an attempt to win one game by (...) playing another. I contend that gamesmanship is a deliberate strategy of competition that has certain paradoxical outcomes; while it may produce an enhanced competitive environment that calls forth superior performances from participants, its more aggravated manifestations are in the long term athletically self-destructive for those who rely on them as a competitive device, and argue the presence of more profound underlying moral failings as well. (shrink)

Cheating and rule violations in intercollegiate athletics continue to be relevant issues in many institutions of higher education because they reflect upon the integrity of the institutions in which they are housed, causing concern among many faculty members, administrators, and trustees. Although a great deal of research has documented the numerous rule violations in NCAA intercollegiate athletics, much of it has failed to combine sound theory with practical solutions. The purpose of this study was to examine the possible extensions of (...) the organizational justice framework to the problem of rule violations in intercollegiate athletics. In doing so, the current study examined (a) perceived areas of injustice among coaches at NCAA Division I institutions, (b) avenues by which coaches resolve these injustices, and (c) potential solutions for resolving injustices in an attempt to reduce NCAA violations. Six NCAA Division I basketball coaches from various parts of the country (four from men's teams and two from women's teams) were interviewed using a semi-structured format. Despite the NCAA's efforts to create parity, results showed that coaches perceived several areas of inequities in recruiting, including financial resources and academic standards. The interviewed coaches described several means that are currently used to resolve these inequities and offered recommendations for changes to reduce injustice in the future. (shrink)

Morgan has argued that attitudes to the medicalisation of sports are historically conditioned.While the history of doping offers contested versions of when the sports world turned againstconservative forces, Morgan has argued that these attitudes are out of step with prevailingnorms and that the World Anti Doping Agency's policy needs to be modified to better reflectthis. As an advocate of critical democracies in sports, he argues that anti-doping policy mustacknowledge and reflect these shifts in order to secure their legitimacy. In response, (...) wecritically present the World Anti-Doping Agency's policy that incorporates the Prohibited Listof Substances and Methods for athletes. We evaluate the validity of the therapy-enhancementdistinction in relation to its role in both justifying and sustaining the operation of theProhibited List. In particular, we focus on the case of thyroxine, which has been the subjectof controversy in athletic doping. While thyroxine is not currently banned, critics haveclaimed that its use in the absence of a relevant pathology is tantamount to doping. Wechallenge Morgan's claim that a conventionalist defence of the therapy-enhancementdistinction is the best available, and his conclusion that this properly supports a morepermissive stance towards performance-enhancing drug use. Furthermore, we reject hisconventionalist support for democratic line drawing in relation to doping and in particular thestatus of thyroxine with regard to the prohibited list. We offer a modified defence of the statusquo, a qualified, naturalist account of health and disease, where athletes may be prescribeddrugs that are genuine responses to medical necessity that do not, or do not typically, threatenthe goods of athletic excellence. (shrink)

Ob eine sportliche Leistung anerkannt wird, hängt maßgeblich davon ab, ob sie im Einklang mit Werten steht, die wir für wesentlich für den Sport halten. Die philosophischen Standardargumente gegen Doping im Sport behaupten eine Unvereinbarkeit von Doping mit Werten wie Fairness, Gesundheit oder Natürlichkeit. Ich möchte im Gegensatz zu diesen Argumenten eine grundsätzliche Unvereinbarkeit von Doping mit dem Wert eines nachhaltigen Umgangs einer Person mit sich selbst behaupten. Wer dopt, so meine These, folgt einem verabsolutierten Leistungsdenken, was aus ethischer Perspektive (...) kritisiert werden kann, wenn man den Wert der Nachhaltigkeit als ethischen Wert annimmt. (shrink)

In recent years it has become increasingly the norm in football1 to kick the ball out of play when a player is, or appears to be, inadvertently injured. Kicking the ball out of play in football represents a particular instantiation of a generally understood fair play norm, the voluntary suspension of play (VSP). In the philosophical literature, support for the VSP norm is provided by John Russell (2007) who claims that his interpretivist account of sport is helpful for evaluating complex (...) moral issues in sport in general and issues related to injury in football in particular. This paper examines whether Russell's interpretivist-backed account of autonomy can adequately inform football players as to the nuanced and ambiguous moral considerations that arise in relation to the VSP norm. The paper goes on to identify the highly complex dynamic circumstances football players need to consider in order to better discharge their moral responsibilities when faced with inadvertent injuries. (shrink)

Academic scholarship has steadily reported unfavourable clinical findings on the sport of boxing, and national medical bodies have issued calls for restrictions on the sport. Yet, the positions taken on boxing by medical bodies have been subject to serious discussions. Beyond the medical and legal writings, there is also literature referring to the social and cultural features of boxing as ethically significant. However, what is missing in the bioethical literature is an understanding of the boxers themselves. This is apart from (...) their brain injuries, the debates about the degenerative brain disease known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy, and related issues about the disease. This article argues that the lives of boxers, their relationships, their careers, and their futures, also requires its own research, particularly in telling stories about their lives, and those lives and futures which boxing affects. The article uses two approaches. First, to imagine a more enduring “whole of life viewpoint” by using an extended future timeframe. Second, to consider perspectives of a person’s significant others. After reviewing the boxing literature, the article discusses social settings and then explores the hidden social relationships in life after boxing. With these longer time and close relationship viewpoints, three important themes emerge: family and kinship; age, stage and career; and the effects of boxing fatalities. These analyses are used in conjunction with relevant clinical findings. which complement the telling of stories to improve medical information, and engages professional and public empathy for people’s experience of illness and difficulties in coping. (shrink)

The ?values of sport? is a concept that is often used to justify actions and policies by a range of agents and agencies from coaches and teachers to governing bodies and educational institutions. From a philosophical point of view, these values deserve to be analysed with great care to make sure we understand their nature and reach. The aim of this paper is to critically examine the values carried by the educational conception of sport that Pierre de Coubertin developed and (...) to see how they relate to certain values in the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. To be able to understand in depth the moral construct of de Coubertin's system, it is essential to delve into the entire system he builds in order to develop athletic participants closer to his ideal of what a human should be. This in turn rests on his conception of Man, which is comprised of body, spirit and character. An understanding of his structure opens the way to a broader awareness of de Coubertin's educational system, of which sport was only part. We will then see that the values are a consequence of this pedagogical search for the ideal human. It is argued that this ideal of a human is similar to the one described by Nietzsche as the Übermensch . A philosophical case study is conducted, taking as its object the story of the first recipient of the Pierre de Coubertin medal, which rewards fair play among Olympic competitors. Judging the story through Nietzschean eyes allows for his thoughts to be put into practice. His lesser-known texts such as Homer and Competition on the emulation of creative powers shed light on today's sports. Concepts such as guilt, excellence, will to power and effectiveness help us compare these two authors and understand that competition is not necessarily about dominating others, but more about generating human excellence. (shrink)

In the following article, it will be argued that there are at least four clusters of arguments generally proposed to justify banning doping in sport and that Simon’s contribution has been of a seminal nature to at least two of the clusters.

The main goal of this paper is to argue that Anglo-American philosophy and Continental philosophy should work together within the arena of the philosophy of sport. To do so, the concept “communicative community”, which is found in Habermas’ and Apel’s discursive ethics, will be analyzed and applied to sports. As several authors, such as Raúl Sebastian Solanes, Robert L. Simon and William J. Morgan, have done this task before, I will critically analyze their proposals. In so doing, I will show (...) that in order to make sense of contemporary sports we need a more integrative communicative sporting community than the ones proposed so far in the literature. (shrink)

Given current studies in moral psychology and following recent cases of wrong behaviour occurred in elite sporting events—i.e. the racist chants scandals in the English Premier League or the events following Mourinho’s poke in the eye scandal—, I shall analyze the extent to which supporters’ brain makeup is biasing them to behave in an “unfair way”. Yet, this paper is not just a work on descriptive ethics, but a normative ethics work. Therefore, once I have developed the “psycho-biological account of (...) sports supporters”, I shall explore whether or not a more virtuous account of sports supporting can be drawn. To conclude, I shall utilize such neuroethical analysis of the sport supporter in order to propose some policies or strategies that can help us to promote a “healthy” and virtuous behaviour among fans. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to deepen our understanding of the inherent purpose of sports competitions. In ‘On Winning and Athletic Superiority’, Nicholas Dixon states that the central comparative purpose of an athletic contest is to determine which team or player is superior, or, synonymously, to provide an accurate measure of athletic superiority. Dixon identifies athletic skill as the standard of athletic superiority in competitive sport. However, I argue there are three separate standards of athletic superiority: the demonstration of (...) athletic skill, the achievement of prelusory goal using lusory means, and achievement of superior formal result. This stance responds to Dixon’s argument that failed athletic contests are contests that have not fulfilled the central purpose of competitive sport, because they have been undermined by refereeing errors, cheating, gamesmanship or bad luck. I argue that a failed athletic contest occurs when any of the three standards of athletic superiority conflict. (shrink)

La filosofía del deporte, al igual que la pedagogía, la historia y otros estudios humanísticos alrededor del fenómeno deportivo, ha permanecido tradicionalmente en un segundo plano en facultades e instituciones educativas, incluso en aquellas cuyo fin es, precisamente, comprender adecuadamente cómo y por qué jugamos del modo que lo hacemos y con qué finalidades (Kretchmar, 2005). En una reciente editorial de la revista Sport, Ethics and Philosophy, Michael McNamee (2015) hace un repaso de la actualidad, exponiendo cómo a pesar de (...) que la disciplina no para de crecer y ganar protagonismo, sobre todo en el ámbito editorial, no acaba de hacerse el hueco pertinente en la academia. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungOb eine sportliche Leistung anerkannt wird, hängt maßgeblich davon ab, ob sie im Einklang mit Werten steht, die wir für wesentlich für den Sport halten. Die philosophischen Standardargumente gegen Doping im Sport behaupten eine Unvereinbarkeit von Doping mit Werten wie Fairness, Gesundheit oder Natürlichkeit. Ich möchte im Gegensatz zu diesen Argumenten eine grundsätzliche Unvereinbarkeit von Doping mit dem Wert eines nachhaltigen Umgangs einer Person mit sich selbst behaupten. Wer dopt, so meine These, folgt einem verabsolutierten Leistungsdenken, was aus ethischer Perspektive (...) kritisiert werden kann, wenn man den Wert der Nachhaltigkeit als ethischen Wert annimmt. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungOb eine sportliche Leistung anerkannt wird, hängt maßgeblich davon ab, ob sie im Einklang mit Werten steht, die wir für wesentlich für den Sport halten. Die philosophischen Standardargumente gegen Doping im Sport behaupten eine Unvereinbarkeit von Doping mit Werten wie Fairness, Gesundheit oder Natürlichkeit. Ich möchte im Gegensatz zu diesen Argumenten eine grundsätzliche Unvereinbarkeit von Doping mit dem Wert eines nachhaltigen Umgangs einer Person mit sich selbst behaupten. Wer dopt, so meine These, folgt einem verabsolutierten Leistungsdenken, was aus ethischer Perspektive (...) kritisiert werden kann, wenn man den Wert der Nachhaltigkeit als ethischen Wert annimmt. (shrink)