Philosophical Issues in Sport Science

The role and value of science within sport increases with ever greater professionalization and commercialization. Scientific and technological innovations are devised to increase performance, ensure greater accuracy of measurement and officiating, reduce risks of harm, enhance spectatorship, and raise revenues. However, such innovations inevitably come up against epistemological and metaphysical problems related to the nature of sport and physical competition. This Special Issue identifies and explores key and contemporary philosophical issues in relation to the science of sport and exercise. It is divided into three sections: 1. Scientific evidence, causation, and sport; 2. Science technology and sport officiating; and 3. Scientific influences on the construction of sport. It brings together scholars working on philosophical problems in sport to examine issues related to the values and assumptions behind sport and exercise science and key problems resulting from these and to provide recommendations for improving its practice

What is the Philosophy of Sport?

A cursory glance at the daily sports news highlights perennial philosophical and ethical issues in sport: drug taking, cheating, corruption, discrimination and violence, amongst many others. Indeed, the hot topics on the day of writing include: a criminal investigation into corruption within a high profile sport Governing body, concern over the effects of concussion in contact sport, a judicial challenge on whether a card game should be classified as a sport, officials banned for match fixing, further discussion about the introduction of goal-line technology, and ongoing lamentation by politicians on the low profile of women’s sport. We are confronted with philosophical and ethical issues in sport on a daily basis and they regularly form heated arguments between aficionados everywhere. Sport is a large part of modern life. The issues that sport raises are even larger. And nearly everyone has an opinion. Many of those interested in these types of issues and discussions have not been explicitly introduced to philosophic methods or to the philosophy of sport as a distinct academic subject. Yet when these debates occur in the pub, on the terraces or in the media, those involved are engaging in a philosophical discussion about the meaning and value of sport and the concepts related to it. This chapter aims to provide an overview to the uninitiated as to the development and history of the philosophy of sport, the types of questions raised, and the methods used to answer them. It will demonstrate that what many people do naturally when they discuss sporting issues is essentially philosophy; but it will also highlight where and how philosophy is done badly and how philosophical arguments and skills can be improved

Why teamwork is not a virtue - a response to Gaffney

This paper seeks to provide a response to Gaffney's analysis of teamwork by arguing that teamwork is morally neutral rather than a virtue in itself. This conclusion will be supported by examples which demonstrate how teamwork can develop and foster undesirable traits and practices such as resentment, contempt and the purely instrumental use of others in the achievement of desired ends

Goal Line Technology: Success or Failure? A Retrospective Look at Scholarship on the Issue

This article considers the way in which goal-line technology has been embraced or rejected by those within and outside the game

Goal Line Technology: Success or Failure? A Retrospective Look at Scholarship on the Issue

This article considers the way in which goal-line technology has been embraced or rejected by those within and outside the game

Good Games as Athletic Beauty: Why Football is Rightly Called 'The Beautiful Game'

Soccer, which I shall call football, is a game that is won or lost on whether a ball is deemed to cross a line. How the goal is scored is irrelevant since the result of a goal-mouth scramble is worth the same as a skilfully executed half-volley in to the top corner. On this basis, there is no logical reason for attaching the term “the beautiful game” to football at all, since every instance of the game could be far from beautiful. Indeed, there have been those (such as Kretchmar, 2005) that have argued that sports that are determined by events (such as golf and tennis), rather than time (such as football and rugby), are aesthetically superior because they allow for a greater number of “skilful interchanges.” Yet, there is nevertheless an argument that the skills required for football allow for a far greater demonstration of beauty than those required for other sports, even the so called “aesthetic sports” of gymnastics, figure skating, and high-board diving. This is due to the types of skills it entails and the space which is given to demonstrate them. Ultimately, the freedom afforded by football and its constitutive rules rightly allow it to be labelled “the beautiful game.” This paper will consider the notion of beauty in relation to grace, symmetry, athletic excellence, and genius before outlining its application to the game of football. It will take into account Scott Kretchmar’s (2005) notion of “skilful interchange” and argue that there is a far greater capacity for this to be demonstrated in the game of football than in other sports. Bibliography: Davis, P. “Game Strengths.” Journal of the Philosophy of Sport 33 (2006): 50-66. Kretchmar, R.S. “Game Flaws.” Journal of the Philosophy of Sport 32 (2005): 36-48. Lacerda, T. & S. Mumford. “The Genius in Art and in Sport: A Contribution to the Investigation of Aesthetics of Sport.” Journal of the Philosophy of Sport 27 (2010): 182-193. Ryall, E. “Good Games and Penalty Shoot-Outs.” Sport, Ethics and Philosophy 9 (2015): 205-213

Evaluating Violent Conduct in Sport: A Hierarchy of Vice

The landscape of sport shows conspicuous discursive and material disparities between the responses to openly violent on-field transgressors and the responses to other kinds of transgressor, most notably drug-users. The former gets off significantly lighter in terms of ideological framing and formal punishment. The latter – and drug-users in particular – are typically demonised and heavily punished, whilst the former are regularly lionised, dramatized, celebrated and punished less severely. The preceding disparities cannot be upheld from the standpoint of morality in general or from that of a Broad Internalist sport ethic. Consideration of the consequences, actions, motives and vices involved in the respective categories fails to support them. Nor is support provided by the notion that sports are tests of the physical skills and virtues that the obstacles presented are designed to foster and promote, and behaviour that threatens the opportunity to exercise those excellences or have competitions determined by them should be the subject of critical moral scrutiny. Openly violent on-field transgression does not fare at all well by the yardstick of Broad Internalism. Robust investigation of and ultimate change in the values underpinning the disparities is warranted

Are there any Good Arguments Against Goal-Line Technology?

Despite frequent calls by players, managers and fans, FIFA's resistance to the implementation of goal-line technology (GLT) has been well documented in national print and online media as well as FIFA's own website. In 2010, FIFA president Sepp Blatter outlined eight reasons why GLT should not be used in football. The reasons given by FIFA can be broadly separated into three categories; those dealing with the nature and value of the game of football, those related to issues of justice, and those concerned with the practical implementation of GLT. This paper intends to evaluate these eight reasons in order to assess whether there are, indeed, any good arguments against GLT in football

Is Women's Sport a Clear Case of Sexual Discrimination?

This paper considers Tannsjo's claim that sport is the last bastion of sexual discrimination by segregating sport into male and female categories and asks whether it would be fairer to utilise a different means of dividing competition