1. On the Philosophical Importance of Sport

Before I explain and defend this thesis, I will make a few brief points with respect to the philosophical importance of sport. Some will be skeptical that sport is worthy of the attention of philosophers. They may reject philosophy of sport because sport is an element of so-called ‘low’ culture.Footnote ³ Others may be concerned about the violence, anti-intellectualism, fascistoid hero worship, and morally problematic tribalism that can be found in sporting contexts. And perhaps others simply find sport uninteresting as a context for doing philosophy.

However, there are many reasons why sport merits the attention of philosophers. First, many of the foregoing reasons for rejecting philosophy of sport are examples of the type of reflection upon sport done by people working in the field. Philosophers of sport engage the morally and socially troubling aspects of this realm of human life. Given the centrality of sport across numerous cultures, philosophers can provide a useful and important corrective to the excesses of sport and sporting culture. Fortunately, however, there are more hopeful reasons for engaging in philosophy of sport related to its more positive aspects, including the numerous connections that exist between morality and sport.

Second, philosophical work done in the context of sport is relevant to other areas of philosophy. It can illuminate issues in metaethics, normative ethical theory, philosophy of law, medical ethics, and issues related to race, gender, and social justice.Footnote ⁴

Finally, moral philosophers should not only be concerned with a conceptual analysis of morality, seeking to understand the sources of our obligations, and elucidating a sound normative ethical theory. They should, in the tradition of Aristotle, also be concerned with becoming virtuous. Philosophical reflection upon sport and a philosophical approach to it can help us understand and engage in the process of moral development via the cultivation of virtue in our sporting lives which we may then transfer to the rest of our lives. It is to this Aristotelian approach to sport that I now turn.

2. Approaching Sport as a Moral Practice

To conceive of and engage in sport as a moral practice means that one of the primary functions of sport should be to cultivate and display moral and intellectual virtue. From an Aristotelian perspective, in order to flourish, we must be virtuous and act from virtue. It is reasonable and even incumbent upon us, then, to make use of sport for moral development, given its potential for developing some of the particular moral and intellectual virtues. In order to clarify how this is the case, consider one way of understanding the structure of sport. One reason that sport can foster moral development has to do with some of the positive values that are embedded within the structure of its traditions. In order to understand this point, consider Alasdair MacIntyre's description of a practice:

According to MacIntyre, football, chess, music, architecture, and the work of a historian are all examples of a practice. When a person decides to participate in an established practice, she at least tacitly agrees to be governed by the standards of excellence and traditions within that practice, even as those practices sometimes undergo change. Many who have been influenced by MacIntyre think of sports as practices, and believe that in developing skills such as speed, strength, and tactical imagination, moral development occurs:

The upshot is that in many sports, the standards of excellence in operation include not only the physical and athletic skills relevant to the sport, but also moral values and virtues such as sportspersonship, courage, and fairness.

Given the structure of sport as a practice, it can also foster humility in both athletes and coaches, who must submit themselves to the standards of their sport if they wish to excel or even just participate in their chosen sport. These standards not only include the formal rules, but the informal ones as well. Humility can also be acquired via sport as an athlete reflects on the numerous causes of his success. While it is true that an athlete is responsible in part for success at the elite level, given all the work and dedication that this requires, the properly reflective athlete will also see that there is reason to be humble even in the midst of success. As 2006 Olympic gold medalist speedskater Joey Cheek put it, ‘a lot of people… don't realize the sheer dumb luck that goes into being born into a country and a family that has the means and resources to allow you to chase your dreams’.Footnote ⁷

While the structure of sport is in some sense conducive to the development of virtue, the connection in actual practice between sport and moral development is perhaps tenuous at best. In fact, one can abide by the traditions of her particular sport and act in accord with any particular virtue but not truly possess it. Perhaps her motives are directed at more egoistic ends such as fame and fortune. In Aristotle's terms, with respect to an individual trait she may fail to meet the other conditions of being virtuous, by having the wrong motives, desires, and emotions. However, a connection between sport and the cultivation of virtue is present; the potential for significant moral development in and through sport does exist. Sport offers the opportunity to cultivate character as one repeatedly engages in virtuous actions. Given this, I will next offer a brief commonsense account of how sport can be employed for developing the cardinal virtues of prudence, courage, temperance, and justice.

First, consider the virtue of prudence. The practically wise person is able to make good judgments about what to do and then carries out the proper actions based on those judgments. Athletes can cultivate this trait in the context of their sport and then apply it to other areas of life. For example, a good football player will ideally learn that his welfare as an athlete and the fortunes of his club are both bound up with the welfare of his teammates. Beautiful and excellent football requires individual team members to work together on the pitch. Sometimes this also requires that he forego what his in his narrow self-interest for the sake of the team, such as when he lays the ball off to a teammate who is in a much better position to score rather than taking a more difficult shot himself in a quest for individual glory. A thoughtful athlete should realize that a similar interdependence exists in his other relationships and in the broader community, and that he must sometimes sacrifice his narrow self-interest in these contexts as well. When he does come to know these things and then seeks to act accordingly, he is displaying prudence.

Second, consider a character trait more often associated with and admired in sport, the virtue of courage. For Aristotle, the courageous person ‘…stands firm against the right things and fears the right things, for the right end, in the right way, at the right time, and is correspondingly confident’Footnote ⁸ as prescribed by reason. Aristotle also takes courage to involve ‘standing firm against what is painful’.Footnote ⁹ Consider cycling as it relates to the formation of courage. Given the pain of a four hour ride as well as the danger from automobiles, human error, mechanical failure, and the environment, cyclists have the opportunity to develop courage in the context of their sport. If a cyclist is approaching the sport in part as a way to cultivate moral excellence, then this can foster the growth of courage in the context of cycling. And there is reason to think that this can also help foster courage in other contexts of life, as we will see.

Third, temperance, or self-control, can be developed in the context of sport. According to Aquinas, temperance is the character trait that ‘directs our desires for bodily pleasures so that all these movements of the appetite support, rather than detract from, our pursuit of what reason has judged is good’.Footnote ¹⁰ The temperate person is not controlled by her desire for such bodily pleasures, but rather has and exercises self-control in her pursuit of the good.

Sport is related to the cultivation and practice of self-control in a variety of ways. In Plato's Republic, for example, physical training has instrumental value in part because it can train the rational part of the soul to rule over the other parts of the soul.Footnote ¹¹ There are many temptations in the context of sport to fail to display self-control. An athlete is presented with many opportunities to lose control – or in Plato's terms, let spirit or appetite rule the soul – with a dishonorable opponent, disrespectful fans, or a coach who makes a choice with which she disagrees. There are many other high-pressure situations in sport which can make exercising self-control difficult. However, it is just these situations which give the athlete an opportunity not only to display self-control, but to cultivate it as well.

Some contemporary science affirms this, as there is significant empirical evidence in support of the view that self-control can be developed.Footnote ¹² One model takes the capacity for self-control to be similar to a muscle. On this model, an individual's capacity for self-control becomes fatigued immediately after exertion, but over the long-term it becomes stronger as a result of exercise. When people engage in activities which require them to exert self-control, they are more likely to have less ability to exercise it immediately afterwards. But over time they gain increased stamina with respect to self-control. As the authors of one study put it, ‘In the short run, exertion makes self-control tired and diminishes its power; in the long run, exercise makes self-control stronger and increases its power’.Footnote ¹³

This helps to explain why some elite athletes exhibit failures of self-control in other realms of life. Perhaps at certain moments they have exhausted their self-regulatory resources as athletes and are therefore more susceptible to such failures in other realms. However, research also shows that when an individual has sufficient motivation, the effects of this depletion can be overridden.Footnote ¹⁴ It follows that athletes can strengthen their capacity for self-control while avoiding the dangers of depleting their resources for self-regulation if they are sufficiently motivated to do so. If this model is correct, then it seems clear that sport is one context in which there is significant potential for individuals to cultivate self-control.

In fact, there is empirical evidence in favor of this very claim.Footnote ¹⁵ In one longitudinal study, individuals who began an exercise program increased their self-control over a two month period. They watched less television, smoked fewer cigarettes, consumed less alcohol, caffeine, and junk food, engaged in less impulsive spending and overspending, and procrastinated less. In addition, they studied more, were more faithful in keeping their commitments, and reported an increase in their emotional control. The participants exhibited better self-control in behaviors that are both related and unrelated to exercise, as well as their performance on a self-control task in the laboratory. The findings of this study ‘suggest that our regulatory “stock” is not set; it can be increased by a number of behaviors’.Footnote ¹⁶ While it is true that sport is not merely physical exercise, it does include it, and so it is plausible to think that these benefits will also accrue to the athlete. The implication for our present purposes is that while athletes can build their physiological muscles via their sport, there is also the opportunity to cultivate the ‘muscle’ of self-control. Psychologists consistently find that self-control is a crucial trait for predicting positive outcomes in the lives of individuals.Footnote ¹⁷ Given this, and given the potential for developing self-control via sport, it would be wise to approach sport as a moral practice, as I am arguing in this paper.

Finally, consider the cardinal virtue of justice. According to Aristotle, there is more than one variety of justice.Footnote ¹⁸ For our purposes, consider Aristotle's notion of general justice. An important aspect of this type of justice for Aristotle is that he who possesses it will engage in actions that benefit other members of the community. Justice seeks the good of another. This form of justice is relevant to sport in many ways. It can be developed as a player befriends teammates and seeks their good. It is also present when an athlete treats opponents, coaches, officials, and fans with respect. It is exemplified when an elite athlete makes use of whatever fame and fortune he receives to contribute to the common good, as Joey Cheek did when he donated the bonus he received from the United States Olympic Committee for his gold and silver medals at the 2006 Olympic Games to Right to Play, an organization that uses sport to improve the lives of children in disadvantaged areas of the world.Footnote ¹⁹

Admittedly this is a brief treatment of how particular virtues may be cultivated in the context of sport, but the general idea that sport builds character in such ways is familiar and has intuitive appeal. It is also consistent with Aristotle's view that in order to become virtuous, one must practice by intentionally performing virtuous actions, or, as he puts it, ‘we become just by doing just actions, temperate by doing temperate actions, brave by doing brave actions’.Footnote ²⁰ And there is empirical evidence from contemporary psychology which affirms Aristotle's views of moral development and my application of them to sport. But can the notion that sport can be effectively put to use for cultivating virtue stand up to philosophical scrutiny?

The claim that sport ought to be approached as a moral practice is likely to be met with skepticism by some. In what follows, I will consider and respond to objections to this claim.

3. The Moralism Objection

A possible objection to the claim that one of the primary purposes of sport ought to be the cultivation of virtue is that such a view is moralistic. If I am guilty of moralism, then that would be a significant problem for my argument, given that moralism is generally thought of as a vice in which one ‘overdoes morality’ (though there are several different ways of understanding the details of this trait).Footnote ²¹ One variety of moralism that is relevant to my argument is moralism of scope. This form of moralism ‘involves seeing things as moral issues that aren't, and thereby overmoralizing the universe’.Footnote ²² The charge against my argument might be that in it, I am guilty of overmoralizing the sporting universe. Sport is primarily about physical and tactical excellence in service of victory, not the cultivation of virtue.

While one person's illicit moralism is another person's moral exhortation, there are good reasons for thinking that the charge of moralism fails. First, it is clear that victory is not the sole end of sport. The common notion in sport of a hollow victory points to this fact. This fact is also recognized by practitioners at the elite level. For example, in a 1999 Football Association Cup match between Arsenal and Sheffield, a Sheffield player went down with an injury and his goalkeeper intentionally kicked the ball out of bounds.Footnote ²³ Customarily, Arsenal would put the ball back in play to Sheffield, and the match would resume. In this instance, however, a newly acquired player from Nigeria who was perhaps unaware of this unwritten rule took the throw-in and passed it to a teammate who shot and scored. Members of both teams were upset, and after the game ended with a 2-1 victory for Arsenal, manager Arsène Wenger declined the victory and chose to replay the match, saying ‘It wasn't right to win that way’.

Moreover, as I have argued above, certain moral values are embedded within the traditions and structures of sport. There are moral considerations that limit what may legitimately be done in the pursuit of victory. Various forms of cheating, for example, are unjustifiable. Values such as fairness, sportspersonship, and respect for persons are deeply embedded in the traditions of many sports. Nevertheless, in many ways, sport is what we make of it. We can seek to uphold these and other values as we participate in sport, or not. We can abide by these values in our sporting lives, but not in the rest of our lives. However, given its potential for the cultivation and display of not only athletic excellence, but moral excellence as well, we ought to take sport to be and engage in it as a moral practice which can contribute to our flourishing in all of life.

4. The Emotivist Cheerleading Objection

In a recent paper, Alan Bäck argues that while many make claims about the moral excellence of sport, such claims are false:

Bäck's proposed solution is the abandonment of sport for one of the traditional martial arts, which he claims provide the moral benefits many wrongly attribute to participation in sport.

While it is true that much of the empirical research in the history and psychology of sport appears to support the claim that sport promotes vice more than virtue, there are reasons to question how much this research shows about the actual impact of sport as well as its potential for character development.Footnote ²⁵ For instance, some of the research supports the claim that participation in sport can evoke egocentric reasoning. However, the assumption that moral interaction in the context of sport is reducible to moral judgment ought to be challenged. There is more to morality than the application of universal rules. Character is also important, and sport can contribute to both the improvement and deterioration of character, depending in part on the context in which a particular athlete finds himself. In fact, some of the research supports the view that sport can be employed for the development of character.Footnote ²⁶ When the motivational climate emphasizes excellence rather than victory, values such as respect, sportspersonship, and sound moral reasoning are fostered.Footnote ²⁷ There is evidence that elite athletes also prefer a motivational climate where excellence is emphasized over victory.Footnote ²⁸ Ultimately, the moral impact of participation in sport, like most other realms of life, is dependent in a variety of ways upon the beliefs, desires, attitudes, intentions, and character of the relevant persons. Sport is a human creation. It is up to us to make of it what we will.

Lastly, the objection that sport in fact does not yield virtue, but rather vice does not count against the argument I am making, which is that great potential for the cultivation of virtue exists and ought to be realized. The realization of this potential may require wholesale changes in how many of us approach sport at all levels. Given the prevalence of sport across cultures, I believe we should seek to transform sport if this is necessary for realizing its potential for character development, rather than abandon it. Nothing in the empirical research or in Bäck's case for the superiority of martial arts with respect to the cultivation of virtue necessitates abandoning the thesis that we ought to approach sport as a moral practice. However, there is another point raised by Bäck which constitutes a different sort of objection to my argument, to which we now turn.

5. The Restricted Virtue Objection

Bäck points out that it is common for a person who is excellent at a particular sport not to excel in other spheres of life, including the moral sphere. Perhaps this is due to the artificiality of the sport environment, as any excellence cultivated in an artificial environment may be restricted to that environment.Footnote ²⁹ It is clearly the case that there are athletes who appear to have certain virtues in the context of their sport, but in few other contexts. One might conclude that in such cases the athlete does not really possess the virtue in question, or at best has only a truncated version of it. How is it that a person can display courage, self-control, and even justice on the field of play, but not off of it? The objection here is that even if sport does foster certain character traits in that limited context, the artificiality of the environment seems to restrict the scope of the virtues that are cultivated.

Given one way of understanding the structure of any particular virtue, it is not surprising that some individuals will display virtue in one context, but not others. In this book, A Theory of Virtue, Robert Adams discusses the idea that there are modules of virtue. This means that sometimes an individual's behavioral dispositions may be domain-specific. As Adams puts it, ‘a person will often acquire and exercise a disposition to act in a certain way in one domain without being disposed to act similarly in somewhat different domains’.Footnote ³⁰ These modules can be combined so as to form a more complete disposition which can be thought of as a virtue.

An athlete may develop a module of self-control in the context of sport, but not possess it in other realms. However, she may begin to see the value of self-control in her life as an athlete, and then come to realize that it is desirable to have this trait in those other realms. She may then set about acquiring the trait of self-control in those domains as well. When this is done successfully, these different modules can be combined and taken together to be a single virtue.

It is plausible to think that the more domains across which one is able to develop modules of any particular virtue, the more likely it will be that one will be able to acquire still more modules of that virtue until it can be said that she has the general virtue itself. We have seen that humility, prudence, courage, self-control, and a form of justice can be developed in the context of sport. This, then, gives us good reason to think that sport can play a role, and for many people a significant role, in the cultivation of an excellent character.

But why does participation in sport often fail to contribute to the formation of excellent human beings as much as we would like, or perhaps even expect? There are a variety of answers to this, but one that is relevant here has to do with intentionality and character formation. Many athletes genuinely intend to achieve a level of excellence in their sport and order their lives accordingly. However, many of them do not carry that same intention into other domains of life where other modules of particular virtues come into play. They may seek and display courage on the field or self-control in training, but not in other contexts. They may not be motivated to form and carry out such an intention, or they may simply need to be encouraged to apply the lessons learned in sport to other realms of life. If they do form such an intention, including both a specific goal and a means for implementing it, then the chances for success are significant.Footnote ³¹

With this in mind, athletes, coaches, parents, and others involved in sport need to seek to foster moral growth by explicitly encouraging the formation of such intentions outside of the context of sport. As Aristotle would argue, athletes need moral exemplars to imitate. But they also need these exemplars to be experienced practitioners who from the beginning of their athletic careers initiate them into the forms of athletic and moral excellence present in their sport.Footnote ³²

Sometimes, an athlete may simply need to be challenged to pursue a vision of human excellence that has a wider scope than his sport. For example, consider a story Thomas Morris tells about his days as a philosophy professor at the University of Notre Dame.Footnote ³³ One semester Morris walked into an auditorium of three hundred first year students taking an introductory philosophy course. Surveying the class, he was struck by the number of large bodies in the lecture hall, and after investigating Morris discovered that there were fifty-five varsity athletes in the course, five times more than the usual. The department that advises athletes encourages them to take classes from professors who have won teaching awards as a way to encourage their academic interest, and Morris had recently won such an award. Twenty-nine of those students were freshman American football players, and twenty-six of them failed the first exam. Because of this, Professor Morris held a meeting with these students, saying

And according to Morris, they did. This anecdote reveals an important truth about sport and moral development. The virtues (what Morris calls qualities) are transferable from one context to another. In this case, the relevant moral and intellectual virtues which these athletes had developed in the context of their sport were successfully transferred to the context of university studies. But this only occurred after they were explicitly encouraged to intentionally apply the modules of teachability and self-discipline which they had developed as athletes to their academic pursuits. An emphasis on the transfer of virtues developed in the context of sport to other contexts should become a deeper part of the culture of sport.

6. Practical Implications

Whether or not sport builds character is in large measure up to those of us who in some capacity love sport. Approaching sport as a moral practice carries numerous practical implications. Here, I will briefly note four.

One of the most important implications of the foregoing, given an Aristotelian approach to ethics and recent work in sport psychology, is that coaches ought to see themselves as and seek to be (at least) good role models, and ideally moral exemplars.Footnote ³⁵ This is especially important for coaches at the youth level, given the importance of childhood with respect to moral development. In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle claims that childhood is very important with respect to the formation of habits and the development of character, for better or worse.Footnote ³⁶ In addition to this, Aristotle argues that we need capable individuals to serve as moral exemplars as we seek to become virtuous. Coaches are well-situated to fulfill this role.

A second implication is that coaches, athletes, parents, and fans should seek and celebrate excellence in the pursuit of victory, not merely victory in isolation from other goods. Winning matters, as it is generally the best way to determine athletic excellence. But it is not all that matters. Winning should be pursued within the limits of morality. We should not take winning to be the sole criterion for athletic excellence, given the role of such factors as luck and mistakes by officials in determining the outcome of some contests.

Third, athletes must take responsibility for their beliefs about morality and sport as well as their character in the context of sport and the rest of life. If they take sport to be a moral practice, if they are fortunate enough to have moral exemplars to imitate, and if they are intentional about character development via their sport and transferring the lessons and habits acquired to other realms of life, then their involvement in sport will be conducive to their flourishing as human beings.

When we approach sport as a moral practice, we struggle for athletic excellence and victory, but we fit this struggle into a larger and more important human struggle, the struggle for moral excellence.Footnote ³⁸