‘Competitive’ is one of the most commonly and confidently used words in sports. I argue that, while this term does have necessary and sufficient conditions, it is still a fairly useless one. Knowing someone is competitive does not tell one about the type of desire to win, the type of quantity of that desire, and the precise way in which one wants to be better. We also don’t know who a person feels a desire to beat, when winning actually becomes (...) a goal, and what kind of knowledge and talents that person has at their disposal. Without this information, knowing someone is competitive tells you very little. (shrink)

En el presente artículo nos proponemos realizar una comparación de la posición de D’Agostino con la de otro de los representantes del convencionalismo: William Morgan. A D’Agostino nos referiremos en el primer apartado y a Morgan en el segundo. Nos preguntaremos si Morgan, además de inscribir sus tesis dentro del convencionalismo, participa al mismo tiempo de la concepción internalista del deporte. Aunque uno y otro autor son convencionalistas, existen matices muy distintos entre sus posiciones que caben ser resaltadas, a fin (...) de clarificar su proximidad con otras teorías filosófico-deportivas. In this paper we propose a comparison of the position of D’Agostino with other rpresentatives of convention: Wilüam Morgan. We refer to D’Agostino’s position in the first section and in the second section to Morgan ’s. We ask whether Morgan, moreover of register his thesis within the Conventionalism, participaos also of the internaüst conception of sport. Although both authors are conventionalists, there are many different shades that fit between their positions be highüghted, in order to clarify its proximity to other phihsophical theories of port. (shrink)

This paper examines footraces that are paced and unpaced, and runners who are pre-arranged, designated pacers and those who are not. Although pacesetting is commonplace in footraces today, the practice challenges our conception of sport competition, the nature of competitors and the meaning of records. For example, Bale calls paced races as ‘staged experiments’ to set world records and argues that pacers were crucial in the running career of Roger Bannister. In 2011, the International Association of Athletics Federation banned women’s (...) world records in mixed gender running events, like major marathons, because women were paced by male runners. By examining these cases and others, the authors here will claim paced footraces are qualitatively different than unpaced competitions, pacers introduce peculiar motives and intentions as competitors, women should not be denied opportunities to excel and perform at their very best, and the 2011 IAAF policy is unjustified. (shrink)

The practice of hiring foreign coaches to lead national teams has been on the rise and is especially visible at the Olympic Games. It has been criticised in both the receiving and the lending countries as a breach of patriotic duty. In a recent publication I defended expatriate coaching as a morally unobjectionable practice with many beneficial effects. In this article, I extend my defence of expatriate coaching into the realm of the Olympic Games. I argue that when articulated from (...) the perspective of moderate patriotism this practice is not only compatible with Olympism, the philosophical vision that underpins the Olympic movement, but also that it enacts and advances the tenets of this vision. In the process, I provide a coherent explanation for the Olympic authorities' lack of an official stance on expatriate coaching and reflect on their disparate stand on the nationality of coaches and athletes. (shrink)

Sport, Ethics and Philosophy, Volume 6, Issue 1, Page 94-98, February 2012.

By adopting Habermas’ communicative theory, this paper categorizes players’ actions into four elements. The strategic action involves players manipulating each other within the framework of a gameFootnote1; normative action is manifested in following the rules and the underlying ethos; dramaturgical action emerges through the players’ deliberate presentation of themselves to both participants and spectators; and communicative action reveals the purpose of a game as a way of being. The conceptualization of game actions leads to a qualitative redefinition of the perfect (...) game, which enables a greater understanding of the game, its participants, and human excellence. As such, this paper’s significance lies in the proposal that the Habermasian perfect game is a potential solution to Suits’ puzzle about what type of games can be played in his Utopia. (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...

ABSTRACTIn this essay, I defend sport as a hobby in contrast to sport as a ‘mutual quest for excellence through challenge’. With the assistance of ideas found in the novel Don Quixote, I rai...

ABSTRACTIn this article, I will identify two key normative principles at the core of Robert L. Simon’s mutualist theory of sport, namely, the respect-for-the-opponent principle and the idea that sport is a practice aimed at pursuing excellence. The former is a Kantian principle grounded in human beings’ rationality, and the latter is an Aristotelian principle related to the development of excellences as a means to human flourishing. After having presented and analyzed both principles, I will critically evaluate Simon’s attempt to (...) combine them within his mutualist approach. To conclude, I will highlight the challenges that mutualism should face to complete such a combination more successfully.Abbreviation: Categorical imperative. (shrink)

Recent articles, including those by Dixon and Torres and Hager, criticize tournament playoffs, primarily for reasons of fairness and integrity. Many suggest that playoff and tournament prominence reflect monetary and entertainment interests rather than the pursuit of athletic excellence. Nevertheless, tournament playoffs are increasingly popular. While the concerns are serious, in this paper I defend the overlooked value of playoffs and tournaments. Playoff critics employ too narrow a conception of the best team and too limited a view of excellence. Rather, (...) playoffs and seasons highlight distinct and valuable conceptions of athletic excellence. To better capture this, I consider two alternative championship formats: the hybrid system and championship pluralism. The hybrid system includes a playoff informed by the regular season. Despite its apparent advantages, I reject the hybrid approach. Instead, I propose championship pluralism as a preferred championship model. (shrink)

As sports have become more professional, winning has become more important. This emphasis on results, rather than sporting virtue and winning in style, probably explains the rising incidence of the Strategic Foul. Surprisingly, it has found some apologists among the philosophers of sport. The discussion of the Strategic Foul in the literature has produced subtle distinctions (e.g. Cesar Torres: constitutive skills versus restorative skills) as well as implausible distinctions (e.g. D’Agostino: ‘impermissible’ but ‘acceptable’ behaviour). In this paper I will review (...) Robert Simon’s defence of strategic fouling and conclude that his justification is not convincing. (shrink)

Without taking a position on the overall justification of anti-doping regulations, I analyse the possible justification of Therapeutic Use Exemptions from such rules. TUEs are a creative way to prevent the unfair exclusion of athletes with a chronic condition, and they have the potential to be the least bad option. But they cannot be competitively neutral. Their justification must rest, instead, on the relevance of intentions to permissibility. I illustrate this by means of a set of thought experiments in which (...) only an athlete’s intentions vary. I argue that the Doctrine of Double Effect sheds some light on TUEs and illustrate this by applying different readings of the DDE to the thought experiment. This underpins a justification of anti-doping exemptions very different from the approach adopted by the World Anti-Doping Agency. I argue for three changes to bring TUEs in line with this understanding: rewriting of the regulations, transparency, and a greater role for athletes in determining what exemptions are allowed, and when. (shrink)

J.S. Russell, Stephen Mumford, and Randolph Feezell have criticized my view that zealous partisans of a particular team are superior to purists, who derive an esthetic pleasure from good play by any team. All three philosophers extol the virtues of purism and Russell defends a pluralistic view that rejects the very idea of an ideal type of fan. In response, I renounce the claim that partisans are superior to purists and instead propose a more modest defense of partisanship. Moderate partisan (...) fans, who constrain their support by moral and esthetic criteria, exhibit admirable concern for their team’s wellbeing, have unique opportunities to display moral virtue, and are necessary for the welfare of competitive sport. Partisans’ choice of team is influenced by arbitrary factors but arbitrariness is built into the very nature of sport and applies equally to purists’ admiration of athletic excellence. It diminishes neither the value of athletic excellence nor the value of partisans’ devotion to their team. (shrink)

Two recent articles in this journal – one by Morris, the other by Pfleegor & Rosenberg – have revived the philosophical discussion of the ethics of deception in sport which had largely laid dormant since the 1973 publication of Pearson’s ‘Deception, Sportsmanship, and Ethics’. Morris and Pfleegor & Rosenberg both share with Pearson the view that ethical deceptive sport acts are those that relate to sport-specific skills. However, whereas Pearson ultimately grounds this view in the agreement she takes to obtain (...) amongst sport participants, both recent treatments overlook this fundamental aspect of her account and offer alternative justifications for that view. I argue, though, that in both cases the arguments offered are incomplete precisely because they require an appeal to the agreement amongst participants that lies at the foundation of Pearson’s account. On all three treatments, I argue, what ultimately determines an action’s ethical status is not its relation to sport-specific skills, but its conformit... (shrink)

How does match-fixing, or other unfair manipulation of matches, that involves under-performance by players, or refereeing and umpiring that prevents fair competition, be thought of in ethical terms? In this article, I outline the different forms that match-fixing can take and seek to comprehend these disparate scenarios within Kantian, Hegelian and contractualist ethical frameworks. I tentatively suggest that, by developing an ethical opposition to match-fixing in sport, we can give much greater substance to popular phrases such as ‘respect for the (...) game’, encompassing the value of sport itself and respect for other players, fans, sponsors and organisers. Arguing that match-fixing denies recognition to these ‘others’ demonstrates how fundamentally match-fixing ‘hollows out’ sport because a fixed match is of no worth: the whole value of the game has literally been evacuated. (shrink)

Sports occupies an interesting ethical space from a pedagogic point of view, being included in physical education curricula in most Western countries. The approach of physical education as vehicle for ethical education, is too limited when restricted to its minimal functional, constitutive and regulatory goals. The aim of this essay is to argue to what extent the ethical potential of physical education extrapolates them in order to, with Sousa Santos, state against to what we consider a waste of sport’s experience. (...) In order to achieve this, we present data from nineteen exploratory interviews with philosophy, sports and physical education experienced researchers and teachers concerning the ethical potentialities of physical education. The sample includes individuals from six different nationalities, whose work shows concerns with the subject under study. (shrink)

In this paper, I critically examine Myles Brand’s criticisms of what he calls the Standard View of the role and value of intercollegiate athletics. According to Brand, the Standard View, held by most faculty members, undervalues college sports and should be replaced by the Integrated View that properly stresses the educational value of participating in athletics. I claim that Brand’s analogical argument has a variety of problems. I show that Brand’s conclusion, derived from his attempt to compare the experiences of (...) student-musicians and student-athletes is unpersuasive, yet his argument forces us to confront persistent and important questions about liberal arts education and the role and value of the arts, especially music, in higher education. (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)

ABSTRACTIn this paper, we provide a normative analysis of the Women’s Tennis Association revised policy on maternity leave, which is regulated by its special ranking rule. To do so, we first explore how the revised policy functions when probed in relation to the nature of competitive sport. Then, we examine the revised policy through the lens of the literature on maternity discrimination. We argue that, when compared to its previous formulation, the revised special ranking rule is morally defensible because it (...) better protects female players’ interest in being able to combine their professional careers and their personal lives. However, we also identify several pronounced vulnerabilities and criticisms to the revised policy. (shrink)

I argue that several recent criticisms Lopez Frias has made against my conventionalist version of broad internalism fail to hit their mark. I further argue that the author's use of Habermas's account of discourse ethics to make his criticisms also misfires because Habermas expressly warned against using his account to resolve normative conflicts that arise from the often conflicting ways different communities order their ethical lives, to include their athletic lives. My main aim in responding to Lopez Frias was to (...) bring critical attention to the normative difficulties that result when we cannot agree on how sport should be done because we cannot agree on what is/are the purpose of sport. (shrink)

If one sits in the stands for awhile at a local sporting contest, whether it is wrestling, soccer, baseball or particularly basketball, before long someone will exclaim toward a referee, ?That was a makeup call. You owe us one.? Everyone knows what this means but if an eight-year old beside you hears this screamed for the first time and asks, ?What does that mean?? An explanation given to her will be something like ?that's when an official makes a call and (...) immediately realizes it was a wrong call so at the first opportunity he can he makes a call against the team that has benefitted from the previous call; he is trying to even things out for his mistake.? The referee or umpire is attempting to be fair by ?giving back? the call with a ?makeup call.? A make-up call can be defined as the act of compensating for a questionable or bad officiating call by making a proportionally even call against the team that was aided by the first call. Usually these are immediate and obvious. They can also be conscious or subconscious, intentional or unintentional. The hope is that the two calls generally offset one another without either team being dramatically harmed. I will argue that the makeup call is prima facie immoral but if one were to attempt to find moral justification for it, this could best be done through a corrective theory of justice. But this presents a number of moral questions and ambiguities, most significantly, is a makeup call just and fair? Is it appropriate to understand the makeup call as an example of two wrongs making a right? A broader philosophic al question about officiating is whether each call in a contest should be viewed by as an independent single call with the goal of the official getting that one immediate call correct or should each call be understood as in a direct relationship with every other call in that game as a type of gestalt thus justifying makeup calls? This work will probe the depths of the highly suspect yet common moral puzzle, the makeup call. (shrink)

Words don’t just describe the world; they change the world. We do things with words as John L. Austin (1975) has argued. But words can also change how we think about something. In this piece I wish to examine the everyday usage of words referring to strategic fouling, as it cuts across various languages. In some languages this rule-violation gave rise to figurative language after the practice became widespread. We find euphemisms but also dysphemisms, as well as evaluative language (whose (...) purpose here is to excuse the action). This is important, because ‘if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought’ (as George Orwell observed). I will argue that euphemisms and other evaluative language which refer to strategic fouling are a piece of sporting propaganda, aiming to dull our senses to such rule-violations. (shrink)

Among philosophers, the question about strategic fouls has been whether they are ethically justified in light of our best conception of sport. This paper proposes a different defense. I argue that many strategic fouls should be excused even if we regard them as unjustified. I first lay out a partial defense of the assumptions that playing to win cannot be subordinate to playing skillfully and that winning has value that cannot be accounted for in terms of the skill that produces (...) it. I then argue that the logic of competitive play structures practical reason such that it is unreasonable to require even an ethical competitor always to subordinate the aim of winning to ethical standards within the game. Some ethical failures should be excused. The argument implies limits on the excusing conditions. I discuss these limits in some detail, showing that they fit patterns in the common acceptance of strategic fouls. I then address possible objections. In conclusion I argue that the logic of excuse rather than justification explains a common reaction to strategic fouls, resolving what might otherwise appear to be a contradiction in that reaction. (shrink)

It is sometimes claimed that formalism and the logical incompatibility thesis together imply that fouls cannot be part of the game. Some philosophers think this proves that therefore strategic fouls are always morally wrong, but other philosophers think this result undermines formalism itself, since strategic fouls clearly are part of the game and are at least sometimes morally permissible. I show that formalism in fact does accommodate strategic fouls and that it is neutral about whether strategic fouls are morally permissible (...) or not. (shrink)

In this essay I endorse Gaffney’s paradoxical analysis that supports the right over the good, ‘horizontal commitments’ to teammates over ‘vertical loyalties’ to the cause of winning. However, I attempt to present two friendly amendments—by adding a second factor to the vertical element and by showing that a virtue ethics approach is needed in certain situations. I conclude that Gaffney’s deontological stance serves him well in the Hope Solo case, but might not be as effective in other circumstances.

One important limitation of the current renditions of interpretivism is that its emphasis on the moral dimension of sport has overlooked the aesthetic dimension lying at the core of this account of sport. The interpretivist’s failure to acknowledge and consider the aesthetic implicitly distances this realm from the moral. Marcia Muelder Eaton calls this distancing the separatist mistake. This paper argues that interpretivism presupposes not only moral but also aesthetic principles and values. What it sets out to demonstrate is that (...) interpretivism is an integralist, or nonseparatist, account of sport, one in which ethical and aesthetic values are not exclusive. Making explicit and specifying interpretivism’s combined moral-aesthetic approach to sport not only helps to better distinguish the whole range of values that make up sport as well as their interconnection but also encourages sportspeople to pursue more coherent sport and, thus, more enriching lives. (shrink)

Roller derby, once known for scripted theatricality that made it more like a stage play than a sport, has reinvented itself as a legitimate athletic endeavour. Since its rebirth as the Women's Flat Track Derby Association in the early 2000s, it has experienced exponential growth, from 30 flat track derby leagues in 2005 to more than 450 leagues in 2010. This translates to more than 15,000 skaters worldwide. Roller derby provides a unique case of a women's sport that is not (...) derived from, or a diminutive version of, a men's sport, proudly stating as its philosophy a commitment to be?by the skaters, for the skaters?. This do-it-yourself aspect opens the way for examination of what a sport wholly created by women looks like and how that differs from sports created by men. The WFTDA claims that roller derby is empowering and revolutionary, yet some critics have claimed that the skaters reinforce rather than dismantle gender stereotypes. Using tools from previous gender critiques, I analyse several aspects of roller derby for their emancipatory potential and conclude that, while not completely unproblematic, the sport can function as a force for reshaping ideas about women, femininity, and sport. (shrink)

Journal of the Philosophy of Sport, Volume 41, Issue 2, Page 177-191, July 2014.