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Nature sport’s ism problem Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2024-03-13 Pam R. Sailors, Charlene Weaving
Nature sports have been touted for their value “as ways of pursuing excellence and relating to the environment” (Krein 2014, 207). This value, however, is not widely available, in large part due to...
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Boredom, sport, and games Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2024-03-07 J. S. Russell
The philosophical literature on sport and games has had little to say about boredom beyond presuming that sports and games can be important ways of overcoming or preventing it. But boredom is an in...
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On Boxing: Critical Interventions in the Bittersweet Science Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2024-03-06 Alexander Pho
Published in Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (Ahead of Print, 2024)
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World Athletics regulations unfairly affect female athletes with differences in sex development Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2024-03-05 Hilary Bowman-Smart, Julian Savulescu, Michele O’Connell, Andrew Sinclair
World Athletics have introduced regulations preventing female athletes with certain differences in sex development from competing in the female category. We argue these regulations are not justifie...
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Mapping the terrain of sport: a core-periphery model Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2024-03-06 Michael Hemmingsen
In this paper, I propose a new way of defining sport that I call a ‘core-periphery’ model. According to a core-periphery model, sport comes in degrees – what I refer to as ‘sport-likeness’ – and th...
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The philosophy of sport in Brazil: in search of the construction of a field of research Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2024-02-25 Marcelo Moraes e Silva, Evelise Amgarten Quitzau
The field of Philosophy of Sport has been developing in Anglo-Saxon scholarship since the 1960s and since then has achieved considerable consolidation. However, this is a progressing field in Latin...
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Ultra sports as nature sports (proper) Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2024-02-21 Irena Martínková
The term ‘nature sports’ can be understood in different ways, depending on how the words ‘sport’ and ‘nature’ are explained. Since ‘nature’ is usually understood as ‘ungroomed’, ‘nature sports’ may...
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The shared innocence of cycling and mixed martial arts: a reply to Pho and White Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2024-02-21 Marc Ramsay
Alexander Pho and Benjamin A. White respond to Nicolas Dixon’s critique of mixed martial arts (MMA) through a ‘companions in innocence’ argument. Taking up a counterexample that Dixon is quick to d...
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The family, the team, and special responsibilities1 Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2024-02-20 Cesar R. Torres
It is common in contemporary sport to liken the notion of the team to that of the family. That is, the family is used to evoke team life. Portraying the team as a family usually implies a positive ...
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A defence of tanking in sports Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2024-02-14 L. A. Landgraf
The sports world has historically rejected the practice of tanking. I argue that this attitude is unwarranted. To do so, I introduce a concept called strategic suboptimal play (SSP), which is the p...
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‘The hand of God’: hierophany and transcendence through sport Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2024-02-14 Ivo Jirásek
The designation of Diego Maradona’s ‘handball’ goal, that it was an intervention by God himself, brings the phenomena of sport and religion into an interrelationship. The basic thesis of this paper...
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The role of risk in nature sports Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2024-02-14 Gunnar Breivik
In this article, I will examine the role of risk in the risky nature sports. Risky nature sports are identified as nature sports where participants may reckon with the possibility of severe injury ...
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On not being alone in lonely places: preferences, goods, and aesthetic-ethical conflict in nature sports Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2024-02-14 Leslie A. Howe
Ethical questions normally arise in sport because its participants are human moral agents and because its practice community entails the observance of rules and responsibilities that humans general...
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Freeride skiing – the values of freedom and creativity Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2024-02-04 Jusa Impiö, Jim Parry
Freeride skiing is the fastest-growing sector of the skiing industry, but there are no studies analyzing its nature and values. First, we provide descriptions of freeride skiing and competitive fre...
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The paradox of the perfect game Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2024-01-13 Filip Kobiela
The main aim of this article is to reconstruct and comment on Bernard Suits’ argument concerning the paradoxicality of the perfectly played game and explain how the argument might contribute to the...
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Inclusion as the value of eligibility rules in sport Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2024-01-13 Irena Martínková
This paper continues the discussion of three values of sport (safety, fairness, inclusion) that has developed around the theme of inclusion of transwomen in the female category in World Rugby, as d...
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Is WADA creating and then prosecuting thought crimes? Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2024-01-13 Jo Morrison, Eric Moore
Antidoping policy regulates and punishes the use of substances that are listed on a Prohibited List (PL). These substances are colloquially known as ‘performance-enhancing substances’. There is ver...
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What do players do in a game? A Habermasian perspective Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2024-01-13 Xiaolin Zhang, Emily Ryall, Andrew Edgar
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 game1...
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Into the glidescape: an outline of gliding sports from the perspective of applied phenomenology Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2024-01-13 Sigmund Loland, Åsa Bäckström
There is an absence in the literature on sports of a conceptualization of what in French are labeled sports de glisse: sports that imply gliding on water, through air, and on snow and ice, such as ...
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Easy games are still games for Suits Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2024-01-13 Micah D. Tillman
Bernard Suits is commonly thought to have defined games as challenges. This paper argues that Suits could not have done so without ruining his larger philosophical project. It then argues that he d...
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Non-ideal theory, cultural studies, and the transgender inclusion debate Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2024-01-05 Adam Berg
This paper centers two complementary theoretical approaches to advance the debate about transgender women’s inclusion in elite women’s sports – namely, non-ideal theory and cultural studies. In doi...
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Foul-weather fandom Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2023-11-02 Alfred Archer, Georgina Mills
A familiar debate in the philosophy of sport concerns the question of whether fans should seek to be partisans (those who support particular teams or individuals) or whether they should instead ado...
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Sport Realism: A Law-Inspired Theory of Sport Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2023-10-16 Sandra M. Meeuwsen
Published in Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (Ahead of Print, 2023)
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A Confucian mutualist theory of sport Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2023-07-25 Alexander Pho
ABSTRACT 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
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Is bodybuilding a sport? Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2023-07-23 Adrian Kind, Eric R. Helms
ABSTRACT Since its beginnings, modern bodybuilding has been accompanied by the background issue of whether it should be considered a sport. The problem, culminating in its provisional acceptance as a sport by the International Olympic Committee, was later retracted. The uncertainty of whether bodybuilding is a sport or not seems to linger. Addressing this issue, Aranyosi (2018) provided an account
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Surfing and the philosophy of sport Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2023-07-10 Moira Howes
Published in Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (Ahead of Print, 2023)
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Phenomenology and pedagogy in physical education Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2023-06-27 Alimin Hamzah, Wawan Sundawan Suherman, Ali Satia Graha, Muhammad Zulfikar
Published in Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (Ahead of Print, 2023)
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Why privilege the Europeans? A discussion of FIFA’s rules for international transfers for under-18 players Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2023-06-27 Jørn Sønderholm
ABSTRACT Many professional football clubs in Europe have youth academies. The business model of such academies is that a club invests resources in training a player and then, when the player is old enough to sign an adult contract, either sells the player or offers him an adult contract. According to Fédération Internationale De Football Association (FIFA), international transfers of players are only
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Husserl’s three-part model for intentionality: an examination of players, play acts, and playgrounds Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2023-06-27 R. Scott Kretchmar
ABSTRACT In this analysis, I employ Husserl’s three-part description of intentionality to show how a player/play act/play object model for consciousness helps us see play more clearly. I review Suits’ logic-based attempts to amend Huizinga’s overly inclusive characterization of play. However, I do so on what I see as stronger phenomenological grounds by describing four kinds of experience embedded
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On the eighth day: a catholic theology of sport Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2023-06-20 Ivo Jirásek
Published in Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (Ahead of Print, 2023)
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Esports, real sports and the Olympic Virtual Series Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2023-06-15 Jim Parry, Jacob Giesbrecht
ABSTRACT Despite reservations over the status of esports as sports, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has, for policy reasons, encouraged International Federations to pursue links with providers of ‘virtual and simulated’ sports, in part by the introduction of an event, the Olympic Virtual Series, first held in 2021. In providing an account of ‘virtuality’ and ‘simulation’, we query the theoretical
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Risky rescues revisited Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2023-06-08 Patrick Findler
ABSTRACT This essay replies to Phillip Reichling’s recent article in this journal defending a principle of rescue I proposed, but rejected, in my paper, ‘Climbing high and letting die’ (2021). I argued that ‘the comparable risk principle’ imposes unreasonable demands on adventure sport athletes, for it implies that because they assume substantial risks for sport, they have duties to assume comparable
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Beyond the Fields Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2023-06-01 Lou Matz
Published in Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (Vol. 50, No. 3, 2023)
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Epistemological and cognitive aspects of the phenomenon of dance and corporeality Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2023-04-02 Zhanna Ramadanova, Aigul Kulbekova
ABSTRACT This study explores the cognitive and corporeal aspects of choreography as a means of expressing the human subconscious. Recent interdisciplinary research, including studies of somatic intelligence and mirror neurons, suggests that dance can influence human cognitive abilities through psychosomatics. Mirror neurons allow for kinesthetic empathy, enabling dance observers to experience movements
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Deleuze and sport: towards a general athleticism of thought Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2023-03-27 Jonnie Eriksson, Kalle Jonasson
ABSTRACT The French philosopher Gilles Deleuze repeatedly referred to a wide range of sports and games throughout his career. This article assembles a comprehensive view of the philosophy of sport seen from Deleuze’s perspective. By studying the development of how he discussed different sports and games, and by pinpointing the concepts he constructed with reference to them, the article attests to the
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The Philosophy of Mixed Martial Arts: Squaring the Octagons Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2023-03-20 Fabricio Boscolo Del Vecchio, Evandro Barbosa
Published in Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (Vol. 50, No. 3, 2023)
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Return of the Grasshopper: Games, Leisure and the Good Life in the Third Millennium Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2023-02-21 Lukáš Mareš
Published in Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (Vol. 50, No. 2, 2023)
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In defense of religion-sport separation in coaching Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2023-02-15 Lou Matz
ABSTRACT Can a coach rightfully integrate a religious orientation in their coaching in a public institution? In its recent Kennedy v Bremerton School District (2022) decision, the U.S. Supreme Court defended the educational value of players’ exposure to diverse expressive activities as a part of learning how to live in a pluralistic society. I contend that religion-sport separation is the most philosophically
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Suffering and Schadenfreude in sport Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2023-02-14 Sean Foley, Michael Rohlf
ABSTRACT We argue that some sports test athletes’ capacities to endure specific types of suffering, and in such cases the suffering is constitutive of the sport: the sporting contest would not be a good sporting contest if that capacity were not tested. We then argue that it is morally acceptable for athletes to experience pleasure (Schadenfreude) in response to the constitutive suffering of competitors
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Sport and Moral Conflict Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2023-02-10 Jon Pike
Published in Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (Vol. 50, No. 1, 2023)
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A functional analysis of cheating and corruption in sports Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2023-02-06 Sinclair A. MacRae
ABSTRACT My main goal here is to develop a functional analysis of cheating and corruption in sports, and to differentiate cheating within the broader category of corruption. Whereas officials can act corruptly, they cannot cheat. In contrast, sports participants, since they occupy two roles, can do both. I argue that although acts of cheating are acts of corruption, not all corrupt acts by competitors
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Why ‘Meaningful Competition’ is not fair competition Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2023-02-06 Jon Pike
ABSTRACT In this paper I discuss a new conception that has arrived relatively recently on the scene, in the context of the debate over the inclusion of transwomen (hereafter TW) in female sport. That conception is ‘Meaningful Competition’ (hereafter MC) – a term used by some of those who advocate for the inclusion of TW in female sport if and only if they reduce their testosterone levels. I will argue
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MMA and the purist/partisan distinction Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2023-02-06 Jason Holt, Marc Ramsay
ABSTRACT The purist/partisan distinction has dominated recent discussions of sport spectatorship and sport aesthetics. The focus of such discussions, however, has been sport in general or, often implicitly, team sports in particular. Here, using mixed martial arts (MMA) as a case study, we argue that specific aspects of the sport in question can significantly affect how the purist/partisan distinction
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How bad can good sport be? Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2023-02-06 William J. Morgan
ABSTRACT I argue that ethical features of sport strongly interact with aesthetic features of sport, such that all pro tanto ethical merits/defects count as aesthetic merits/defects. This is a much-debated topic in the philosophy of art and aesthetics literature, in which recent critics have taken to task this interactionist take on how ethical evaluative properties interact with aesthetic ones. The
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Somaesthetics and Sport Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2023-01-29 Botond Csuka
Published in Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (Vol. 50, No. 2, 2023)
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High altitude, enhancement, and the ‘spirit of sport’ Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2023-01-24 Emma C. Gordon, Connie Dodds
ABSTRACT The World Anti-Doping Code (2021) includes a substance on the prohibited list if it meets at least two of the following: (1) it has the potential to enhance or enhances sport performance; (2) it represents an actual or potential health risk to the athlete; (3) it violates the spirit of sport. This paper uses a case study to illustrate points of tension between this code and enhancements that
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A just organized youth sport Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2023-01-10 Cesar R. Torres, Francisco Javier López Frías
ABSTRACT Organized youth sport has become a prominent activity in Western societies, one around which myriad families structure their daily lives. Despite its popularity, or rather because of it, youth sport is besotted with complex problems. One distinctive set of problems pertains to children’s opportunities to benefit from engagement in sport. Such problems require a reflection on the conditions
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Idleness would be preferred over game playing as an ideal in Suits’ Utopia Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2022-11-30 J.S. Russell
ABSTRACT This essay argues that idleness as play and leisure would be recognised as an ideal over game playing in Bernard Suits’ Utopia. Idleness is unaccountably overlooked as an ideal by Suits, as is the problem that his description of game playing is an anachronism, pushing his Utopians into a pre-Utopian condition. There is room for playing games in an idle Utopia but in a less prominent and more
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Conflating and misgendering: why World Athletics (and other sports governing bodies) should jettison the competitive labels ‘Women’s’/‘Men’s’ Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2022-10-27 Federico Luzzi
ABSTRACT Martínková et al provide an overview of a tendency to use gender terms in key sports contexts, including eligibility criteria and testing, where gender is unintended. They argue that to avoid conceptual confusion and aid clarity, we should disentangle gender and sex, acknowledging that often gender talk should be interpreted as talk of sex. One of their recommendations is that the labels of
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The business and culture of sports: society, politics, economy, environment Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2022-10-20 Paul Gaffney
Published in Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (Vol. 49, No. 3, 2022)
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Rocks, scorned facts, and diamonds: experience, recollection, and sport philosophy scholarship Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2022-09-25 Douglas Hochstetler
ABSTRACT The American philosophical tradition emphasizes the role of experience as part of philosophical discourse and scholarship. Individuals like Henry Bugbee and Henry David Thoreau described their experiences walking, for example, and connected these experiences with philosophical concepts. My overall contention is to remind us of the importance of sport experiences for our scholarly work. In
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Trash talk and Kantian values Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2022-09-22 Ornaith O’Dowd
ABSTRACT In this paper, I argue for a nuanced, context-sensitive approach to the question of trash talk, based on the Kantian principle of respect for persons and an emphasis on first-person action-guidance. I also suggest that we understand trash talk to have several varieties. On my proposed approach, there is no simple answer to the question of whether trash talk is morally permissible; rather,
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Competing for the gods: agonistic rituals in the ancient world (Competiendo para los dioses: los rituals agonísticos en el mundo antíguo) Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2022-09-22 Luísa Ávila da Costa
Published in Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (Vol. 50, No. 1, 2023)
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The moral proximity of rooting Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2022-09-01 Steven G. Smith
ABSTRACT Rooting, defined as a spectator’s demonstrative encouragement of a contestant’s effort, ideally has the morally positive aspects of benevolent concern and helpfulness but in practice strains against reasonable standards of conduct by being rude, excessively biased, exploitative, fanatical, and superstitious. Rooting may activate an atavistic, morally cogent sense of fighting for one’s group
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The jurisprudence of sport: sports and games as legal systems Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2022-08-09 Jonathan Cooper
Published in Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (Vol. 49, No. 3, 2022)
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Risky rescues – a reply to Patrick Findler Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2022-07-26 Philipp Reichling
ABSTRACT In 2006, mountaineer David Sharp died on the slopes of Mount Everest. Sharp’s death led to public outrage after allegedly 40 climbers passed by the dying Sharp on their way to the peak, without stopping to help. But, since the slopes of Everest are a high-risk environment and rescuing Sharp would have entailed great risks for the rescuers, it is not clear whether the other mountaineers had
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The real ethical problems with strategic fouling in basketball Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2022-07-25 Lou Matz
ABSTRACT Commentators on strategic fouling have not focused on what is most ethically relevant. I contend that strategic fouling in basketball is unethical in all of its forms because it violates the essence or true ethos of the sport: the display of the full realization of the skills of the game. I give an account of the essential skills, how they are determined, and how historical rule changes about
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Why we care about who athletes are: on the peculiar nature of athletic achievement Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2022-06-22 Megs S. Gendreau
ABSTRACT The private lives of elite athletes are frequently subject to the curiosity, scrutiny, and judgment of the general public. While this interest in life ‘off the field’ is not unique to athletes, this paper argues that our focus on athletes’ lives results, in part, from the fact that athletic achievement is deeply tied to the person. I will argue that athletic performance is distinct because
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Magnificent Utopian games Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2022-06-06 Avery Kolers
ABSTRACT The Grasshopper’s game-playing Utopia collapses because, ideal though it might seem to some, ultimately most of us want more out of life than game-play. Building on both The Grasshopper and the published sequels in which Bernard Suits attempts to vindicate his Utopia, the current paper reconstructs Suits’s Utopia in a new way. I start from deeper reflection on Suits’s example of John Striver
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Governing the society of competition: cycling, doping and the law Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (IF 0.8) Pub Date : 2022-05-31 Jacob Kornbeck
Published in Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (Vol. 49, No. 2, 2022)