Examined Sport

In this episode of Examined Sport, I discuss Scott Kretchmar’s “From Test to Contest: An Analysis of Two Kinds of Counterpoint in Sport” published in the Journal of Philosophy of Sport in 1975. One of the foundational papers of the discipline, Kretchmar examines the distinction between tests and contests. The paper introduces several ideas that are influential on Kretchmar’s later work and on other thinkers in the field.

In this episode of Examined Sport, I look at Randolph Feezell’s “Sportsmanship and Blowouts: Baseball and Beyond.” Published in the Journal of the Philosophy of Sport in 1999, Feezell responds to Nicholas Dixon’s paper on blowouts that was the subject of a previous episode of Examined Sport. Feezell proposes what he calls the Revised Anti-Blowout thesis to better explain the ethics of blowouts.

Published in the Journal of the Philosophy of Sport in 1992, Nicholas Dixon’s paper: “On Sportsmanship and Running up the Score” spurred a discussion on the ethics of wide-margin victories in sport. Dixon argues against what he calls the Anti-Blowout Thesis. Blowouts are not, on his view, always or necessarily unsporting.

Kathleen Pearson’s “Deception, Sportsmanship, and Ethics,” was published in Quest in 1973 and it analyzes the ethical status of deception in sport and athletics. This short and exceptionally clear paper has influenced later work regarding deception and fouls in sport.

J.S Russell's “Are Rules All an Umpire Has to Work With?”, published in the Journal of the Philosophy of Sport in 1999, presents a theory of sport adjudication that Russell argues better explains sport, the role of officials and umpires, and guides those officials in officiating their sports. Russell’s paper is one of the first explicit attempts to explain and apply interpretivism, one of the central philosophical accounts of sport. This is part two of two episodes on Russell's paper.

J.S Russell's “Are Rules All an Umpire Has to Work With?”, published in the Journal of the Philosophy of Sport in 1999, presents a theory of sport adjudication that Russell argues better explains sport, the role of officials and umpires, and guides those officials in officiating their sports. Russell’s paper is one of the first explicit attempts to explain and apply interpretivism, one of the central philosophical accounts of sport. This is part one of two episodes on Russell's paper.

Peter Arnold's 1984 article "Three Approaches Toward an Understanding of Sportsmanship" looks at sportsmanship as a social union, as the promotion of pleasure, and as a form of altruism. Arnold also criticizes James Keating's view of sportsmanship that was discussed in a previous episode.

In his 1986 article, "Sportsmanship," Randolph Feezell argues that James Keating's classic account of sportsmanship goes too far in radically separating sports and athletics. In this episode, we examine Feezell's criticism of Keating and then look Feezell's account of sportsmanship as a virtue between seriousness and non-seriousness.

What is sportsmanship? We all know we are supposed to be good sports but how do we know what that means in practice? To answer such questions, we need an account of sportsmanship. In this episode, we are going to look at the classic account of sportsmanship given by James Keating in his “Sportsmanship as Moral Category,” published in Ethics in 1964.