Osterhoudt, Robert G.

English

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Philosophic Exchange
Volume 4
Number 1 Volume 4 (1973) Article 13
1973
On Keating on the Competitive Motif in Athletics
and Playful Activity
Robert G. Osterhoudt
University of Minnesota
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Osterhoudt, Robert G. (1973) "On Keating on the Competitive Motif in Athletics and Playful Activity," Philosophic Exchange: Vol. 4 :
No. 1 , Article 13.
Available at: http://digitalcommons.brockport.edu/phil_ex/vol4/iss1/13
ROBERT OSTERHOUDT 
Assistant Professor of Physical Education 
University of Minnesota 
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Osterhoudt: On Keating on the Competitive Motif in Athletics and Playful Acti
Published by Digital Commons @Brockport, 1973
ON KEATING ON THE COMPETITIVE MOTIF 
IN ATHLETICS AND PLAYFUL ACTIVITY 
by 
Robert G. Osterhoudt 
I 
In accord with the principle of charity, we must allow Professor Keating his 
conception of competition as: " . . .  an attempt, according to agreed-upon rules, 
to get or to keep any thing either to the exclusion of others or in greater measure 
than others."1 That is, such a phenomenon has been frequently and accurately 
observed, it seems, and it is thereby not a vacuous concept (an idea without an 
object, or fact) we have of it, irrespective of the term employed to represent, or 
signify it. We are also given to take as unproblematic, as Professor Keating 
claims, that such a phenomenon provides a socially useful mechanism (assists in 
the construction and maintenance of a viable social heirarchy) for determining 
our place, or position, in relation to others with respect to any particular 
ability. It, in effect, provides for an amicable testing of powers and is in this 
sense helpful in terms of its encouraging self-discovery and thereby contributing 
to the public interest. We acknowledge as well Professor Keating's disposition 
to axiologic subjectivism , allowing that this competition is in and of itself 
ethically neutral, and its ethical status waits upon human objectives for, and 
experiences of, it. 
The crudal question here., then, the one upon which the very preservation of 
athletics may well rest, is that concerning the nature of man, the social sub­
stance, and the common good as located in athletic competition. That is, this 
, 
competition is in the end justified by Professor Keating himself as contributing 
to the common good; such that, an adequate understanding of the competitive 
strife requires an explanation of it in view of the common good, and not in isola­
tion by itself alone. Professor Keating's treatment while instructive in itself fails 
to secure a tenable conclusion largely because it does not consider the con­
sequences of such a treatment in terms of its implications for a synoptic view 
of man, the social substance, and the common good. If Professor Keating's 
examination is lacking in any respect, then, it is apparently lacking in the vision 
of the metaphysician to carry the inquiry further, and to set out its first 
principles and plausible consequences more explicitly, comprehensively, and 
systematically. The dispute here, then, is onre with respect to the order of 
generality at which these various phenomena operate. And more so than a 
disputation, or refutation, of Professor Keating's theses, it is rather the hope 
to offer an interpretive extension of them. 
The major observation we wish to make here is that Professor Keating's 
conception of competition does not, and ought not, commit us inexorably to 
the notion that it is the excelling, or vanquishing of others which is of primary 
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ON KEATING ON THE COMPETITIVE MOTIF IN ATHLETICS 
significance in this process. For Professor Keating himself rather allows that 
we encourage this sort of activity in the economic and political spheres, as it 
operates in the end to the common good. It is the common good, then, which 
we seek foremost, and not the victory of one at the destructive expense of 
others. The question here is not whether or not competition performs a 
socially useful function or whether or not it is an indisputable fact of life, but 
more fundlamentally how it is that one ought to regard other men generally and 
one's so-termed athletic opponent more specifically. The keeping of the com­
petitive urge in proper bounds must entail not only the mere observance of 
rules and regulations (laws), but the genuinely sympathetic regard for others 
necessary to the elimination of deceit, hatred, and jealousy among athletes, 
and to the constructive respect for humanity generally. 
The spiirit of profit and success is coextensive with the spirit of service, if 
they are both kept confluent with the common good, in which case profit and 
success are construed in terms of public service. An act is profitable, a person 
successful, in virtue of it or him contributing to the commonweal. The material 
welfare of the world is not, then, it..5elf at odds with essential morality, though it 
is rather clear that an unsatisfactorily inequitable distribution, or treatment, of 
it is. In this preferred condition, self-interest and public interest coalesce and 
produce a harmony (a synthetic unity) among men, which is unknown when 
they are conceived in exclusive terms, or independently of one another. If all 
compete in the end for the same thing, which may be mutually held, the great 
cleavages between men dissolve, as Professor Keating admits. The difficulty here, 
and that to which the substance of our response to Professor Keating speaks, 
arises from a general conception of the world which allows the rival, the other or 
others, to be construed as means to an end, and not as ends in themselves, there­
by promoting a view of man which serves principally to divide particular men 
irreconcilably, and which is potentially destructive of the whole of humanity, 
let alone athletics. This instrumental treatment of other men comes in large 
measure to regarding them as empirical objects to be employed in the service of 
our own egoistic satisfactions and aspirations, and is at utter odds with Kant's 
exhortation: "Act so that you treat humanity, whether in yoUJr own person or in 
that of another, always as an end and never as a means only."2 Each man is 
hereby regarded as a free moral agent, and not a mere object bound to, and 
thereby exploited by, the self-interested desires and inclinations of others. The 
use of men to produce ,ends beyond, even alien to, themselves is, so it would 
appear, self-destructive of them, in the sense in which it requires of them an 
action which is contrary to the cultivation, even preservation, of their human 
distinctiveness and integrity. 
Our rivals are perhaps best conceived not as other men, but as standards of 
excellence to which we are assisted by other men (our so-termed opponents). 
The ends of such a quest are exclusive in only a superficial sense. That is, they 
provide the necessary constraint to excellence which allows one to achieve that 
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Osterhoudt: On Keating on the Competitive Motif in Athletics and Playful Acti
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ROBERT G. OSTERHOUDT 
which he seeks foremost, self-fulfillment, or an acting in accord with the 
common good (a transcendence of exclusivity, a bringing of the self-interest to 
one with the common good, a unification of all ends). Contrary to what super­
ficial inspection may have led us to believe then, the victory sought is not a 
victory over, so much as a victory with, others. Consequently, we may most . 
properly be said to be competing against others· for an exclusive prize only in 
terms of our unreflective, or superficial, apprehension of the character of 
athletic competition. In terms of the larger scheme, the whole, of things and the 
normative preferences reported here, Professor Keating's notion, if raised to all­
embracing (metaphysical) perspective without further modification, leads us to a 
distasteful, a self-destructive view of man, the social substance, and the common 
good; and nothing well-disposed, it seems, can be said to actively favor its own 
demise. This objectionable view, in effect, refuses to allow other men the human­
istic regard we seek openly for ourselves. There is, then, as James suggests, no 
sufficient reason to hold that the destructive, military form of competition is its 
only, nor its last, form: 
Patriotic pride and ambition in their military form are, after all, only 
specifications of a more general competitive passion. They are its first form, 
but that is no reason for supposing them to be its last fonn. 3 
II 
In his discussion of the attitude and conduct proper to playful activity (a free, 
creative activity in which the goal of the participants is to maximize the joy of 
the moment, seeking no good outside the activity itself) and that appropriate 
, 
to athletics (physical contests designed to determine human excellence through 
honorable victory in a contest), Professor Keating argues that these forms of 
activity are radically different in terms of their objectives, that the nature of 
the activity (its goal, or objective) determines the attitude and conduct appro­
priate to it, and that the attitude and conduct proper to playful activity cannot 
therefore also be suitable to athletics. But his treatment here appears to proceed 
on an equivocal notion of competition, and in the case of athletic competition 
leads once again to a potentially self-destructive view of man, the social sub· 
stance, and the common good. 
It would appear that Professor Keating wishes to regard the competitive motif 
as located in playful activity as an essentially cooperative venture in which the 
participants in the end seek a mutually obtainable goal (namely, the immediate 
joy of all participants) and which is therefore dominated by a spirit of generosity 
and magnanimity. This process is not productive of listless competition, Profes­
sor Keating argues, but is rather the source of an arduous competitive under­
taking. Apparently, however, the competitive theme as located in playful activity 
differs from that appropriate to athletics in three very crucial. ways. 
First, in the case of playful activity, competition is an intermediate involve-
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ON KEATING ON THE COMPETITIVE MOTIF IN ATHLETICS 
ment; that is, one of interest only in terms of that which it allows beyond itself, 
namely, a heightened joy and pleasure for all disputants. It functions in this 
instance as a means to achieving a yet more venerated end. And in the case of 
athletics, conversely, it appears to function as an end in itself. Second, since 
playful activity generally may include particular activities which are in no evi­
dent manner similar to athletic forms of competitive activity, even in phenome­
nal appearance (e.g., stamp collecting, reading, and the like), the competitive 
strife itself appears altogether accidental to playful activity, while a necessary 
condition for athletics. And third, competition as construed in athletic terms is 
not consonant with the ends sought for playful activity; such that, the sort of so­
termed competition appropriate to playful activity is not competition in the 
strict sense at all. That is, in playful activity, we have a so-termed competitive 
endeavor conducted in ·accord with the form and spirit of a cooperativ� enter­
prise, or an activity which is not essentially competitive at all; that is, an activity 
in which exclusive ends are not sought foremost. In point of fact, then, com­
petition in its athletic form is so radically different from that appropriate to 
playful activity that the two phenomena are not properly signified by the same 
term. For, insofar as the activities are both genuinely (in the same sense) com­
petitive, and we are not operating under an equivocal notion of competition, 
they are essentially the same, at least with respect to their competitive aspects, 
and we have seen rather clearly that they are not. Such a use, consequently, 
comes to an equivocation with respect to the term, competition. 
The distinction proposed by Professor Keating between athletics and playful 
activity is, in effect, a discrimination between two radically different ways of 
regarding activities which may be similar in phenomenal appearance, but are 
necessarily discrete in essence, in terms of their goals, or objectives (the primary 
intentions of their participants). What we have here as well, then, it seems, is the 
germ of two radically discrete manners of conceiving man, the social substance, 
and the common good-two inclinations which are so clearly and distinctly 
different as to be incompatible. That is, the principles supporting these two 
codes of moral conduct are so incongruent as to oppose one another. It is not 
a mere difference in degree, but one of a substantial sort. Professor Keating's 
case may be more effectively argued, it appears, by opting for one of the two 
general conceptions, for a hybrid form of one of the two views, or for a 
thorough reconciliation of them. We cannot tenably regard other men botih as 
the strict competitive notion would have us, and as the strict cooperative notion 
(competitive in only a superficial sense, as suggested previously: competitive 
only in the sense in which one is constrained by some thing in his quest for 
excellence, and therefore has no free, cavalier path to its realization) would 
suggest. As per our discussion in Section I, then, we conclude that the cooper­
ative notion native to playful activity is the one which ultimately yields the 
most appealing general account of man, the social substance, and the common 
good. For, it is a conception which yields not merely a jurisprudential justice, 
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Osterhoudt: On Keating on the Competitive Motif in Athletics and Playful Acti
Published by Digital Commons @Brockport, 1973
ROBERT G. OSTERHOUDT 
but one of a spiritual order; and is therefore preferable to its major alternative. 
Sportsmanship, when regarded as the moral category appropriate to playful 
activity, and to the whole of life, becomes the all-embracing moral principle 
Professor Keating holds that it is not. It becomes one with the sentiments of 
generosity and magninimity proper to all forms of human activity. The moral 
qualities absolutely essential to the sportsman are resultantly those absolutely 
essential to all humanity. The application of sportsmanship to athletics, then, 
is not so much an attempt to soften the force of the competitive struggle as it is 
an attempt to reorder and reform it. 
It has been the intent here to offer a brief critique of James W. Keating's 
"A Philosophy of Competition and the Nature of Athletics." Clearly, issues 
have been more so raised than resolved. Nothing has been set to rest absolutely. 
If this attempt has done no more than provoke thought with respect to notions 
alternative to those expressed by Professor Keating and to the larger conse­
quences of his view, then it has likely achieved all that might be plausibly ex­
pected of it. 
FOOTNOTES 
!James W. Keating, "A Philosophy of Competition. and the Nature of Athletics." Essay 
presented at the Symposium on Sport and Ethics, Brockport, New York, October 26·28, 
�972, P .  5 .  
Immanuel Kant, Foundations o f  the Metaphysics of Morals. Lewis White Beck (trans.), �dianapolis: The Bobbs-MerrW Co., Inc., 191>9, p, 47. 
William James, "The Moral Equivalent of War." Pragmatism and Other Essays, Joseph L. 
Blau (ed.), New York: Washington Square Press, Inc., 1968, p. 398. 
ADDITION AL REFERENCES 
Herrigel, Eugen. Zen in the Art of Arcl�ery. Hermann Tausend (ed.), New York: Random 
House, Inc., 1971. 
Keating, James W. "Sportsmanship as a Moral Category," Ethics, Vol. 85, No. 1 (October, 
1964). 25-35. 
Metheny, Rleanor, Connotation,; of Mot11! m1mt 11'1 Sport a11rl Dal'ICI'!, Dubuque, Towa: 
William C. Brown Co., Publishers, 1965. 
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