Games have a complex, and seemingly paradoxical structure: they are both competitive and cooperative, and the competitive element is required for the cooperative element to work out. They are mechanisms for transforming competition into cooperation. Several contemporary philosophers of sport have located the primary mechanism of conversion in the mental attitudes of the players. I argue that these views cannot capture the phenomenological complexity of game-play, nor the difficulty and moral complexity of achieving cooperation through game-play. In this paper, I (...) present a different account of the relationship between competition and cooperation. My view is a distributed view of the conversion: success depends on a large number of features. First, the players must achieve the right motivational state: playing for the sake of the struggle, rather than to win. Second, successful transformation depends on a large number of extra-mental features, including good game design, and social and institutional features. (shrink)

In his ‘Rules and Obligations,’ Bogdan Ciomaga defends a pluralist account of moral obligations to follow sport rules by arguing that no single explanation of such obligations will plausibly apply in multiple contexts. I dispute this claim by showing that consent generates rule-following obligations in a very wide variety of the contexts in which sports are played, including each of those Ciomaga cites in support of his pluralist account. The contractualist or consent-based theory of rule normativity therefore offers a substantially (...) unifying – though not a unitary, for reasons I go on to explain – source of moral obligations to follow sport rules. (shrink)

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)

An important book is always a beginning, a new way of looking at and thinking about things, sometimes including familiar things. C. Thi Nguyen’s Games: Agency as Art is one of those books. I...

Sport-related neurotrauma annually affects millions of athletes worldwide. The return-to-play protocol (RTP) is the dominant strategy adopted by sports leagues and organizations to manage one type of sport-related neurotrauma: concussions. RTPs establish guidelines for when athletes with concussions are to be removed from competition or practice, and when they can return. RTPs are intended to be neuroprotective, and to protect athletes from some of the harms of sport-related concussions, but there is athlete resistance to and noncompliance with RTPs. This prompts (...) consideration of whether RTPs, as employed in adult, professional sports, are paternalistic, and if they are, whether they are objectionably so. If RTPs are uniquely effective at protecting current or future athlete autonomy, they might be justified by paternalism. I conclude that RTPs are paternalistic in their effects, but are not adequately justified, and thus they are objectionable. (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)

This article develops a novel theory of sport that I call ‘Confucian mutualism’. Confucian mutualism is underpinned by the Confucian Golden Rule and the Confucian conception of human dignity. It resembles the mutualist theory of sport developed by Robert L. Simon in maintaining that sport participants ethically ought to prioritize promoting sporting excellence both in themselves and in their co-participants. However, while Simon’s mutualism maintains that sporting excellence consists in proficiency at sport constitutive skills, Confucian mutualism maintains that sporting excellence (...) consists in success at achieving the Confucian virtues through sport participation. I provide a preliminary case for why Confucian mutualism’s virtue-centric conception of sporting excellence makes it better able than Simon’s mutualism to explain why sporting excellence is stance-independently ethically significant for all sport participants. I do so by trying to show that we have prima facie justification for believing that Confucian mutualism is not vulnerable to certain kinds of criticisms that have been leveled at Simon’s mutualism. (shrink)