Sports ethics is that branch of the philosophy of sport addressing the specific ethical questions that arise during and around sports competitions. With the affirmation of professional sports in the past century as well as the rise of a voluminous entertainment industry related to it, sport ethics has become a fertile terrain for testing and developing philosophical notions and theories, but also a foremost point of contact between philosophy, civil institutions, and the society at large.
Lessons of Respect, Justice, and Integrity
Sports are based on the fair enforcement of rules.
- This means that every contestant has the right to see the rules of the game applied in equal measure to each and every contestant while having the duty to try and respect the rules as best as possible.
Further Online Reading
Further online reading
- IAPS’s website
- A resource guide to the Philosophy of Sport prepared by Dr. Leon Culbertson, Professor Mike McNamee, and Dr. Emily Ryall
- Steven Connor’s “A Philosophy of sport,” Reaktion Books, 2011
- Andrew Holowchack’s “Philosophy of Sport: Critical Readings, Crucial Issues, Prentice Hall, 2002
Enhancement
Another major area of confrontation regards human enhancement and doping
- Considering how invasive the application of drugs and medical techniques is to the contemporary professional sport, it has become increasingly difficult to set an intelligent boundary between those performance enhancers that shall be tolerated and those that shall not be tolerated
- Every professional athlete competing for a well-off team receives medical aids to enhance his or her performances
Money, Just Compensation and the Good Life
The increasingly high salaries of certain athletes and the disparity between the pay of the most visible as opposed to the least visible ones have also offered the opportunity to rethink the issue of just compensation
- For instance, what is the just compensation for an NBA player? Should NBA salaries be capped? Should student athletes be granted a salary?
