Aug 19, 2016 — Our interest in the Olympic Games can teach us something about the goodness of playing, and watching, sports.

Jul 1, 1894 — Vter-page This Number Contains the only Authorized PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE GOLD MEDAL Presented to President Eliot by the Alumni. Commencement, 1894. No. 5. VOL. XVIII. PRICE, TWENTY-FIVE CENTS. June 27. THE HARVARD MONTHLY JULY, 1894. CONTENTS. FRONTISPIECE: The Medal presented to President Eliot on his Twenty-Fifth Commencement. A FEW WORDS. The Bishop of Massachusetts. PHILOSOPHY ON THE BLEACHERS. George Santayana. RIVER SONG. Henry Copley Greene. LEGENDS OF LOST HAVEN. Bliss Carman. OXFORD: 1800-1810. Edwin Godfrey Merrill. THE PICTURE AND THE BIRD. EDITORIAL. William Vaughn Moody. CAMBRIDGE, MASS. PAGE. 179 181 190 191 192 212 217 Digitized by Google PHILOSOPHY ON THE BLEACHERS. 181 PHILOSOPHY ON THE BLEACHERS. IN this early summer there is always an answer ready for the man who asks you, "Why do you go to games, why do you waste your time upon the bleachers?" The balm of the air, the lazy shadows of the afternoon, when it is too warm for a walk and too early for dinner, the return of the slack tide between lectures and examinations-all form a situation in which the path of least resistance often leads to Holmes Field. But although these motives lie ready as an excuse, and we may find them plausible, there remains a truer and less expressible interest behind. Motives are always easy to assign, unless we wish to get at the real one. Those little hypocrisies of daily life by which we elude the evils of self-analysis can blind us to our most respectable feelings. make ourselves cheap to make ourselves intelligible. How often, for instance, do people excuse themselves, as it were, for going to church; the music is so good, the parson such an old friend, the sermon so nearly a discourse of reason. Yet these evasions leave untouched the ultimate cause why churches exist and why people go to them-a cause not to be assigned without philosophy. And it seems to me that similarly in this phenomenon of athletics there is an underlying force, a power of human nature, that commonly escapes us. We talk of the matter with a smile as of a fad or a frolic, a meaningless pastime to which serious things are in danger of being sacrificed. Towards the vague idea of these "serious things," which might upon inspection be reduced almost without a remainder to the getting of money, we assume an attitude of earnest concern, and we view the sudden irruption of the sporting spirit with alarm and deprecation, but without understanding. Yet some ex- planation of the monster might perhaps be given, and as I have here a few pages to fill and nothing of moment to communicate, I will allow my pen to wander in the same direction as my feet, for a little ramble in the athletic field. If it is not mere indolence that brings the spectators to our games, Digitized by Google 182 THE HARVARD MONTHLY. neither is it the mere need of healthy exercise that brings the players. The least acquaintance with them or their spirit is enough to convince one of this truth; and yet both friends and enemies of athletics are sometimes found speaking of them as a means of health, as an exercise to keep the mind clear and the body fit for work. That is a function which belongs rather to gymnastics, although the training for games may incidentally accomplish it. If health was alone or chiefly pursued, why should we not be satisfied with some chest-weights in our bedroom, a walk, or a ride, or a little swimming in summer? What could be gained by organized teams, traditional rivalries, or great contests where much money is spent and some bones possibly broken? It is amusing to hear people who are friendly to athletics by instinct or associations labouring to justify them on this ground. However much one may love buoyancy and generosity, and hate a pinched and sordid mind, one cannot help yielding the victory to the enemy when the battle is waged upon this utilitarian ground. Even arguments like those which the New York Nation, a paper often so intelligent, propounded not long ago on the subject of foot-ball, might then seem relevant, and if relevant conclusive. We should be led to believe that since athletics outrun the sphere of gymnastics, they have no sphere at all. The question why, then, they have come to exist would then pertinently occur, and might lead to unexpected results; but it is a question which the Nation and those of like mind need not answer, since to be silent is an ancient privilege of man of which the wise often avail themselves. Now athletics have a higher function than gymnastics and a deeper basis than utility. They are a response to a natural impulse and exist only as an end in themselves. That is the reason why they have a kind of nobility which the public is quick to recognise, and why "professional- ism" is so fatal to them. Professionalism introduces an alien and mercenary motive; but the valetudinarian motive is no less alien, and only harmless because so limited in scope. When the French, for instance, shocked at the feeble health and ugliness of their school-boys, send commissioners to England and America to study athletics and the Digitized by Google PHILOSOPHY ON THE BLEACHERS. 183 possibility of introducing them into France, the visitors return horrified at the brutality of Anglo-Saxon youth, and recommend some placid kind of foot-ball or some delightful form of non-competitive rowing, as offering all the advantages of fresh air and exercise, without the dangers and false excitements of the English practices. And gymnastics, with or without pink tights, the French may easily introduce; they are no whit inferior to other nations in this field, as the professional circus can testify. But to introduce athletics into France there must be more than a change of ministry: there would have to be a change of ancestry. For such things are in the blood, and the taste and capacity for them must be in- born or developed by national experiences. From a certain point of view we may blame athletic enthusiasm as irrational. The athletic temper is indeed not particularly Athenian, not vivacious, sensitive, or intelligent. It is rather Spartan, active, coura- geous, capable of serious enthusiasm and more ready to endure discipline than to ask for an ultimate reason for that devotion. But this reproach of irrationality ultimately falls upon every human interest, since all in the last analysis rest upon an instinct and not upon a rational necessity. Among the Greeks, to be sure, games had a certain relation to war; some of the contests were with weapons, and all were valued for develop- ing martial qualities of soul and body. The relation of athletics to war is intimate, but it is not one of means to end, but more intrinsic, like that of the drama to life. It was not the utility of athletics for war that supported the Greek games; on the contrary, the games arose from the comparative freedom from war, and the consequent liberation of martial energy from the stimulus of necessity, and the expression of it in beautiful and spectacular forms. A certain analogy to war, a certain semblance of dire struggle, are therefore of the essence of athletics. Like war, they demand an organization of activities for the sake of victory. But here the victory is not sought for the sake of any further advantage. There is nothing to conquer or defend except the honour of success. War can thus become a luxury and flower into artistic forms, whenever the circumstances of life no longer drain all the energy native Digitized by Google 184 THE HARVARD MONTHLY. to the character. For this reason athletics flourish only among nations that are comparatively young, free, and safe, like the Greek towns and those American and Australian communities which, in athletics as distin- guished from private sport, bid fair to outdo their mother country. The essential distinction between athletics and gymnastics may help us to understand some other characteristics of our sports. They must, for instance, be confined to a few. Where so much time, skill and endurance are required, as in great athletic contests, the majority is necessarily excluded. If we were dealing with an instrument of health, a safety-valve or balance wheel to an overstrained system, the existence of an athletic aristocracy would be an anomaly. But the case is other- wise. We are dealing with an art in which only the few, the exception- ally gifted, can worthily succeed. Nature must be propitious, circum- stances must be favourable, patience and inspiration must not fail. There is an athletic aristocracy for the same reason that there is one of intelli- gence and one of fashion, because men have different endowments, and only a few can do cach thing as well as it is capable of being done.. Equality in these respects would mean total absence of excellence. The analogy of moral and practical things would mislead us in this sphere. Comfort or happiness would seem to lose nothing of their value if they were subdivided, and a proportional fraction given to each individual: such an equal distribution of them might even seem a gain, since it would prevent envy, and satisfy a certain sense of mathematical justice. But the opposite happens in the arts. The value of talent, the beauty and dignity of positive achievements, depend on the height reached, and not on the number that reach it. Only the supreme is interesting: the rest has value only as leading to it or reflecting it. Still, although the achievement is rare, the benefit of it is diffused; we all participate through the imagination in the delight and meaning of what lies beyond. our power of accomplishment. A few moments of enjoyment and intui- tion, scattered through our lives, are what lift the whole of it from vul- garity. They form a background of comparison, a standard of values, and a magnet for the estimation of tendencies, without which all our Digitized by Google

Jan 1, 2015 — Catholics and Sport: An Historical and Theological Overview and Contemporary Implications Patrick Kelly, SJ, Seattle University A frequently recurring narrative in the writing of the history of sport tells how Christians up until the time of the Reformation viewed the body only in negative terms, as associated with sin or evil. According to this narrative, because of their negative attitudes toward the body, Christians did not regard physical recreation and sport as important or encourage them. As Eitzen and Sage put it, “Early Christianity gradually built a foundation based on asceticism, which is a belief that evil exists in the body, and therefore, the body should be subordinate to the pure spirit. ... Nothing could have been more damning for the promotion of active recreation and sport.' The recurring narrative tells us that it was only after the repressive regime of the Puritans in England and America that people began to have more enlightened views about the body. In the nineteenth century reasonable people started accepting games and sports and they began to have a more prominent place in society. The suggestion is that Christians and theologians have only recently, and somewhat reluctantly, embraced sports. This way of understanding the history of sport in the West has difficulty accounting for some basic things we know about the daily lives of Christians during the medieval period, however. In fact, Christians participated in games and sports during this period on Sundays and on the feast days of the church year. As William Baker put it in his book Sports in the Western World: اود No puritan pall hovered over Sundays. After the sermon and the sacraments in the morning, villagers lounged or played on Sunday afternoon. For youths, especially, re-creation meant recreation. Nor was recreation confined to Sunday 1 afternoons. The church calendar of holidays, aligned with ancient seasonal patterns, granted festive occasions at Easter, during harvest season, and at Christmas. Throughout Europe this basic pattern was followed. . . . Blessed by church leaders, accepted by landlords, and sanctified by tradition, some of these seasonal breaks in labor ran for several days. Wine or ale, music, and dance accompanied the peasant games and frolic.² It is significant that the feast days were so numerous that they typically accounted for around one third of the calendar year. The games and sports were also depicted in the religious art of the period, on stained glass windows and woodcuts in churches and in prayer books. When humanists during the Renaissance began running the first schools primarily for lay students in the fifteenth century, they included time for students to play games and sports in the daily schedule. They were influenced in this regard by the medieval traditions just mentioned and also by what the classical authors of Greece and Rome had to say about the importance of the body and sports in the educational process. The early Jesuits followed the humanist lead and incorporated time and space for games and sports in the first schools they opened in the late sixteenth century— and all of their subsequent schools. These developments would have a significant influence on education because the Jesuits were running nearly eight hundred schools in Europe and in other parts of the world by the mid-eighteenth century. The ease with which games and sports were incorporated into medieval and early modern Catholic cultures and educational institutions was supported by several factors, including an understanding of the material world as good and of the human person as a unity of body and soul (or body, soul and spirit); an understanding of the relationship between faith and culture which tended toward the acceptance of non-Christian customs and cultural traditions which were good 2 in themselves (or at least not objectionable on moral grounds), and their inclusion in the religious tradition; and the view that a virtuous person should be moderate in his studies or work and take time to engage in play and recreation. For some theologians, such as Thomas Aquinas, play was even understood to be related to spiritual values. The material world and human body It is true that one can find examples of theologians in the early church and medieval period who encouraged flight from society, and who seemed to regard the body (and sexuality, in particular) primarily as an obstacle or problem in the Christian life. Some of this is due to the fact that almost all theologians were monks or celibate priests. Such emphases often served a rhetorical purpose in their writings about the Christian life and were possibly even helpful with regard to living out their particular vocation. But this was not the only, or even the dominant, perspective in the longer tradition. Indeed, early and medieval Christian theologians spent much of their time criticizing Gnostics and Manicheans, precisely because these groups associated the material world and the human body with evil. One of the complaints of Christian authors was that Gnostics and Manicheans did not include the Old Testament as a part of the Christian scriptures, and therefore did not accept the account of the creation of the world in the first chapter of Genesis. On the contrary, they constructed elaborate mythological accounts of the origin of the material world, which associated it with a ‘fall' or an “evil principle." This is why they regarded the material world as antagonistic to what is truly spiritual. From the Gnostic and Manichean perspective, progress in the spiritual life had to do with extricating oneself from the material world and, indeed, from the body itself. It will come as no surprise, then, that they denied the resurrection of the body. 3 In response to such views, Irenaeus and other early Christian theologians pointed out that if one reads the first pages of the Old Testament, one learns of a God who created all things in the world and pronounced them "very good". As Augustine put it, After each of God's works, is added, “And God saw that it was good," and after the completion of the whole series we have, “And God saw all that he had made, and, behold, it was very good." The meaning of this is that there is only one cause for the creation of the world – the purpose of God's goodness in the creation of good.³ Christian theologians emphasized that if the material world as created by God was good, then it was not possible to regard the human body as non-essential to human existence or the Christian life. Rather, the body was constitutive of the human being as created by God. And they understood the person as a unity of body and soul – or body, soul, and spirit. This way of understanding the human person influenced the way Christians understood the resurrection. As Irenaeus put it, Christians “hope for the...salvation of the whole person, that is, of soul and body." 4 These theological sensibilities influenced Christian religious practices, which engaged the material world and involved the body in an integral way. Theologians such as Thomas Aquinas explicitly referenced these themes in his writings about the sacraments. “That one might not believe visible things evil of their nature," he wrote, “it was fitting that through the visible things themselves the remedies of salvation be applied to human beings." John Damascus also referenced these themes in his argument for the use of images in worship. “You despise matter, and call it contemptible,” he wrote to his opponents. "So did the Manicheans, but the divine Scriptures proclaim it good, for it says, 'And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.' Therefore I declare that matter is the creation of God, and a good thing." In 4 addition to participating in the sacraments, which made use of water, fire, oil, bread and wine, and using images in worship, medieval Christians went on pilgrimages; participated in processions; put on mystery and morality plays; sculpted—and venerated-statues; fingered their rosary beads; blessed themselves with holy water; lit candles; crawled to the cross; put ashes on their forehead; prayed in churches and cathedrals with stained glass windows and woodcuts; and engaged in corporal works of mercy. In other words, they engaged in a whole variety of bodily activities, which they believed (and the priests, theologians, and bishops gathered at church councils concurred with them) were also spiritual. The recurring narrative in the writing of the history of sport, which emphasizes that Christians loathed the flesh prior to the Reformation, is not able to account for the prevalence of play and sport in medieval and early modern periods or its association with religious feast days and its depiction in the religious art of the time. On the other hand, an accurate understanding of mainstream Christian views of the material world and the body does provide us with the beginnings of an explanation for how a religious culture could have emerged in medieval and early modern periods in which bodily practices such as play and sport were so easily accepted. Faith and Culture Christian attitudes toward games and sports were also shaped by their understanding of the relationship between faith and culture. One of the most important decisions made by the leaders of the early church was that the Gentiles did not need to undergo circumcision and adhere to other prescriptions of the Mosaic Law essentially, become Jewish -before they could be baptized as Christians. Theologically, this decision was based on the doctrine of creation on the teaching that God "made from one the whole human race," as St. Paul put it. (Acts 17:26) For St. Paul, just as all people were created by God, so too all people were affected by the sin of 5

Jan 1, 2021 — Sport at the Service of Humanity

Dec 31, 2020 — My introductory remarks addressing the relationship between Catholics and sport historically and why the Catholic Church is paying attention to sport in our time.

Dec 14, 2020 — The Good of Play in John Finnis's Natural Law and Natural Rights El bien del juego en Natural Law and Natural Rights, de John Finnis Christopher TOLLEFSEN University of South Carolina Christopher. [email protected] Abstract: Despite the scrutiny that has been given to John Finnis's masterwork, Natural Law and Natural Rights, rela- tively little attention has been given to a feature of that work that plays a recurring role, namely, the place of the basic human good of play in the book. In addition to a number of passing references, that good is discussed in an extended way on three occasions. The first is when the good of play is introduced, as part of Finnis's taxonomy of basic human goods; the second is in his discussion of Aristotle's understanding of friendship, when Finnis refra- mes Aristotle's friendship of pleasure as instead friendship of play; and then finally, in Finnis's concluding chapter, with its discussion of the >². Finnis elaborates briefly on this in a note in the original 1980 edition by citing books by Johan Huizinga, Josef Pieper, and Hugo Rahner, and quoting Huizinga: in note cited above, presumably because of its references to play as an >. CHRISTOPHER TOLLEFSEN Nevertheless, the revised understanding may seem also somewhat at odds with the idea of play; when children are at play, or indeed, when adults play with children, is excellence in performance for its own sake characteris- tic of what they are engaged in in the way it is for a superior player of some sport, for example? And is there really but one good at stake in two activities as seemingly different in their degree of 7. Huizinga's claim seems plausible, and has explanatory value in understanding a wide variety of cultural forms as involving «play», as discussed in his book. But clearly if he is correct, then a performance integrating some or all aspects of this list will have its own internal set of «, and how can Finnis's revised account acknowledge both the dif- ferences and the unity of the two? The difference cannot be simply that in work there is a material outcome, for this is true of every form of play simply in virtue of the play being a form of performance. Take, for example, dancing, a paradigmatic way in which the good of play is realized. Dancing issues in a dance, a material, albeit transient reality. Similarly, every game results in a play of the game, again, a transient but material reality. Neither, though, should the contrast rest with transience versus perma- nence of result, for the work of a symphony results in the transient perfor- mance of a piece of music every bit as much as does the play of the spontane- ous family performance after Sunday supper. Rather, when what is engaged in is to be considered work, the standards of excellence cannot be entirely internal to the performance. Thus, the work of a physician, or a builder, or a legislative draftsman, for example, is in each case structured by some need that must be met: the need for an intervention to preserve or restore health, the need for this wooden item that will store one's table settings, or the need to establish laws that will bring about justice and peace in a society. Yet in each case, not only the material reality with its structuring princi- ples, but the performance guided by those principles can, in a way that is not true of every material reality, be pursued for its own sake. The physician can seek excellence in her art and then practice the art for the sake of its excellent performance in addition to the governing need of health for which she ini- tially acts. Similarly, the cabinet maker and draftsman can act not only for the sake of the ends of their art, but for the sake of the excellent performance that their skills and the norms of the art make possible. Huizinga focuses on the element of competition central to play, and that element can certainly, as his book makes clear, enter into the sphere of work, further turning it into a form of play, sometimes at the expense of its success qua work. But one can also, I would argue, see in those practitioners of work who approach it as play an aspect of the playful, of treating something seriously but also not entirely in earnest. This too connects the activity of adults in engaged in skilled activities to the activities of children engaged in unskilled but still excellent play: the achievement of excellence in performance for its own sake PERSONA Y DERECHO/VOL. 83/2020/2 O 575

Nov 9, 2020 — The COVID-19 pandemic has brought uncertainty concerning the future of sports, but also led some of us to reflect more deeply on the meaning of sport in our lives. In the second part of the discussion with Dr Mark Nesti, we explore applied sport psychology with athletes during the pandemic, the value of an existential approach for psychology in sport, and the meaning of sport in Mark's own life. Dr Mark Nesti has pioneered the application of existential psychology in sport. He recently stepped down as Reader in sport psychology at Liverpool John Moores University and is now working as a British Psychological Society Chartered sports psychologist with the first team players and staff at Yorkshire County Cricket club and Aston Villa. Mark has written extensively on existential psychology, spirituality in sport, and applied work with elite and professional athletes.

Oct 30, 2020 — Far Too Easily Pleased was originally published in 1976, although it is just as relevant today. Catholic Education Press is thrilled to be able to bring this book back into print. To summarize the volume we can do better than to excerpt part of Fr. Schall’s introduction to the 1976 edition: This book is intended to be a helpful stimulus to incite the reader to survey the truly exciting literature in this field and to assist in organizing personal reflection about the basic themes of game, play, wonder, rite, contemplation and festivity, themes that the theology of play naturally suggests. For it can be truly said that those who have not yet been initiated into this style of religious and cultural thought have been missing highly liberating and ennobling levels of our heritage. For those who already know what rewards are to be found in play and game, it is hoped that this book can again be a fresh and different approach to wonder and fascination, to the curiously marvelous life we have been given. James V. Schall, SJ, (1928-2019) was an American Jesuit Roman Catholic priest, teacher, writer, and philosopher. He retired in 2012 after a long tenure as a professor of political philosophy at Georgetown University Among his many books are The Universe We Think In; Political Philosophy and Revelation: A Catholic Reading; The Mind That Is Catholic: Philosophical and Political Essays; Schall on Chesterton: Timely Essays on Timeless Paradoxes and At the Limits of Political Philosophy: From “Brilliant Errors” To Things of Uncommon Importance (all CUA Press).

Jun 15, 2020 — Competitive sport raises many significant ethical issues. Perhaps the most important of these – and to which the most attention has been paid – concerns how individuals should conduct themselves when...

Feb 4, 2020 — Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Menu Browse Table of Contents What's New Random Entry Chronological Archives About Editorial Information About the SEP Editorial Board How to Cite the SEP Special Characters Advanced Tools Contact Support SEP Support the SEP PDFs for SEP Friends Make a Donation SEPIA for Libraries Entry Navigation Entry Contents Bibliography Academic Tools Friends PDF Preview Author and Citation Info Back to Top Philosophy of Sport First published Tue Feb 4, 2020 While sport has been practised since pre-historic times, it is a relatively new subject of systematic philosophical enquiry. Indeed, the philosophy of sport as an academic sub-field dates back only to the 1970s. Yet, in this short time, it has grown into a vibrant area of philosophical research that promises both to deepen our understanding of sport and to inform sports practice. Recent controversies at the elite and professional level have highlighted the ethical dimensions of sport in particular. Lance Armstrong’s use of performance-enhancing drugs raised new issues in the ethics of cheating, middle-distance runner Caster Semenya has challenged prevailing rules around sex classification in sport, and Oscar Pistorius’s prosthesis has problematized the distinction between able-bodied and disabled sport. While philosophical analysis may help to achieve a deeper understanding of sport, such analysis may also illuminate problems of philosophy beyond sport, ranging from the nature of skill to the ethics of altruism. This entry proceeds in three sections. Section 1 introduces the philosophy of sport with particular emphasis on the history of systematic philosophical thinking about sport. Section 2 examines the nature and value of sport, and it considers the main normative theories of sport developed in the literature. Section 3 addresses a cluster of topics that are central to the philosophy of sport, including: sportsmanship; cheating; performance enhancement; violent and dangerous sport; sex, gender, and race; fans and spectators; disability sport; and the aesthetics of sport. 1. Introduction 1.1 Background: Sport, Culture, and Philosophical Thinking 1.2 History of the Philosophy of Sport 2. What is Sport? 2.1 Formalism 2.2 Conventionalism 2.3 Broad Internalism (Interpretivism) 3. Topics in the Philosophy of Sport 3.1 Sportsmanship 3.2 Cheating 3.3 Performance Enhancement 3.4 Violent and Dangerous Sport 3.5 Sex, Gender, and Race 3.6 Fans and Spectators 3.7 Disability Sport 3.8 The Aesthetics of Sport Bibliography Academic Tools Other Internet Resources Related Entries 1. Introduction 1.1 Background: Sport, Culture, and Philosophical Thinking Human communities have engaged in sport for reasons as diverse as amusement, religious worship and political stability (Baker, 1988). Ancient Sumerians and Egyptians practised sport to prepare themselves for war. So too did ancient Greeks and Romans, for whom sport also had important religious and social signification. For instance, in Classical Greece, athletic contests (gymnikoi agones) provided an arena for the cultivation and demonstration of excellence (arete). This pursuit of excellence through sport played a major role in Hellenistic culture, where striving for perfection in body and mind served as one of the society’s principal unifying activities (Lunt & Dyreson, 2014). Likewise, in the Mayan civilization, ballgames served religious, social, and political purposes such as providing a common bond while downplaying differences and conflict arising from local diversity (Fox, 2012). Philosophers have reflected on the nature of sport at least since Ancient Greece. Plato and Aristotle viewed sport as a key component of education and, by extension, human flourishing (Reid, 2011, 26–80). An educated Greek must find harmony between body and mind by, among other things, engaging in athletic contests. Reflection on the role sports play in human life and culture continued during Roman times and the medieval era. In Rome, sports were understood instrumentally as tools to train warriors. For instance, the fifth book of Virgil’s Aeneid is devoted to the celebration of contests of speed and strength with an emphasis on preparing Romans for war. In medieval times, despite losing relevance in the public sphere, sport played a significant role in Christian imagery (Reid, 2011, 81–106). For example, in City of God, Augustine (14.9) referred to the apostle Paul as ‘the athlete of Christ’. Thomas Aquinas, like Plato and Aristotle, advocated for the need to cultivate body and soul to flourish as human beings (Kretchmar et al., 2017, 93–120). In early modernity, sport regained prominence in public life, not least on account of its potential to cultivate human excellence and promote the good life. Renaissance schoolmasters included sport in their curricula. Even Protestant thinkers, often thought to have been opposed to leisurely activities such as sports, embraced the practice of athletic activities for formative purposes (Reid, 2012). Martin Luther and John Milton advocated for the utilization of sport activities to educate individuals and train Christian soldiers (Overman, 2011). During the Enlightenment, drawing on the empiricists’ emphasis on the cultivation of bodily capacities to achieve accurate sensory data, Jean-Jacques Rousseau argued for the need to exercise and develop body and mind harmoniously (Andrieu, 2014). Rousseau’s pedagogical theory, along with several others, was implemented in the 19th-century Victorian England and Germany, where sports were valued as character-building activities. Inspired by these pedagogical philosophies, Baron Pierre de Coubertin founded the Olympic Movement, regarding Olympic sport as a ‘philosophy of life which places sport at the service of humanity’ (IOC 2019; see also McFee 2012; Parry 2006). In contemporary society, sport plays a central role in the lives of countless players, coaches, officials, and spectators. The teaching of sport is part of national school curricula, sports news forms part of our national media, and sport has been deployed as a public policy measure to address everything from anti-social behaviour to obesity. However, despite the role sport has played throughout human history, the philosophy of sport as an academic sub-discipline did not develop until the middle of the 20th century. We recount some of the field’s history now. 1.2 History of the Philosophy of Sport The philosophy of sport was pre-dated and inspired by the philosophy of play, most notably Johan Huizinga’s Homo Ludens (1938). However, sport is a distinctive type of play and not every instance of sport is an instance of play (Suits, 1988), so sport requires independent philosophical analysis. In the philosophy of sport literature, myriad characterizations and definitions of the nature and scope of the field have been proffered (Torres, 2014, 4–5). For Paul Weiss, the philosophy of sport provides an ‘examination of sport in terms of principles which are to be at once revelatory of the nature of sport and pertinent to other fields – indeed, to the whole of things and knowledge’ (Weiss, 1971, vii-viii). According to Robert G. Osterhoudt, first editor of the Journal of the Philosophy of Sport, this branch of Philosophy is committed ‘to the presentation of genuinely philosophical examinations, or reflective authentic examinations of the nature of sport … and systematic discussions of issues peculiar to sport until they are reduced to matters of a distinctly philosophical order’ (Osterhoudt, 1973, ix–xi). R. Scott Kretchmar (1997) has suggested that, from the 1870s to the 1990s, the philosophy of sport evolved from being a sub-branch of the philosophy of education to being a field of study in its own right. During this time, the field went through three phases: the ‘eclectic’ phase, the ‘system-based’ phase and the ‘disciplinary’ phase. In the eclectic phase, also referred to as ‘philosophy-of-education period,’ philosophies of education laid the ground for the philosophical study of sport. Challenging the dominant intellectualist pedagogical tradition, philosophers such as William James, Edward L. Thorndike, and John Dewey emphasized the value of play, games, and sport in preparing human beings for achieving good lives. Physical educators Thomas D. Wood and Clark Hetherington, among others, built upon these philosophers to develop what was called ‘The New Physical Education,’ a pedagogical movement aimed at showing that physical education should become an integral part of overall human education. These educators, despite contributing little to philosophical discussion, helped to generate an era where physical education was required in most educational programs. In the ‘system-based period,’ pedagogical concerns motivated the philosophical analysis of sport and physical exercise. However, the protagonists of this phase, such as Elwood Craig David and Earle Ziegler, relied on a method that placed greater weight on philosophical modes of analysis. They began by describing and comparing different philosophical systems, distilled them to the basic concepts and positions that related to physical education, and finished by drawing practical implications and pedagogical recommendations. Their emphasis on philosophical systems created a fertile ground for the development of the philosophy of sport. As William J. Morgan (2000, 205) notes, this shift in emphasis led to the progressive displacement of science and pedagogy as the main pillars of physical education curricula, and it facilitated a broader approach to the study of physical exercise and sport that gave pride of place to cultural and historical dimensions. This evolution within physical education departments during the ‘disciplinary phase’ facilitated the emergence of the philosophy of sport as a discipline in its own right. The Philosophic Society for the Study of Sport (PSSS) was formed during the celebration of the 1972 Eastern Division conference of the American Philosophical Association (APA) in Boston; the organization’s name was changed to International Association for the Philosophy of Sport (IAPS) in 1999. The Society founded a scholarly journal, the Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (JPS), and established that the mission of the Society and the Journal was ‘to foster interchange and scholarship among those interested in the scholarly study of sport’ (Fraleigh 1983: 6). Weiss’ contribution to the formation of the discipline in its early stages was crucial. With the publication of Sport: A Philosophic Inquiry in 1969, Weiss, a philosopher of international repute, demonstrated that sport provided a fertile ground for philosophical inquiry. Along with Weiss, other pioneers of the philosophical analysis of sport were Eleanor Metheny (1952, 1965) and Howard S. Slusher (1967), who also helped to consolidate the nascent sub-discipline by publishing monographs in the philosophy of sport. Early philosophy of sport divided along ‘analytic’ and ‘continental’ lines. Klaus V. Meier (1988), Bernard Suits (1977), and Frank McBride (1975, 1979) focused on the possibility of providing individually necessary and jointly sufficient conditions for something to be a ‘sport’. They drew on tools from analytical philosophy to analyse the use of the term ‘sport’ (in both plain and academic language) and to attempt to identify traits common to all sports. Early philosophers of sport also examined sport phenomenologically. R. Scott Kretchmar, Drew H. Hyland, and Robert G. Osterhoudt, among others, drew on the works of Eugene Fink, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Georg W. F. Hegel, Martin Heidegger, and Edmund Husserl to study the nature of sport by focusing on the lived experiences of those individuals engaged in it. More recently, the philosophy of sport has transitioned into a ‘hermeneutic’ or ‘applied philosophy’ phase (Lopez Frias, 2017; McNamee, 2007). The field took a ‘practical’ turn in the 1990s. The work of Alasdair MacIntyre, especially his seminal work After Virtue (1984), played a key role in this shift among philosophers of sport towards normative issues. Drawing on MacIntyre’s concept of ‘social practice,’ philosophers of sport aimed to identify the intrinsic goods and excellences of sport in order to assess and critique sport and related ethical issues such as doping, cheating, and sportsmanship. Classic debates concerning the nature of sport and the phenomenology of participants’ experience have not been abandoned, however. As we will show later (section 2.1), the debate on the nature of sport remains central. Indeed, the rise of electronic games (so-called ‘eSports’) has reignited discussion of the defining elements of sport and, more broadly, the contrast between traditional games and digital games (Conway, 2016). In particular, philosophers of sport have explored the question of whether eSports test physical skills (Van Hilvoorde, 2017; Holt, 2016), the implications of the institutionalization of eSport competitions (Hemphill, 2005; Parry, 2018), and moral engagement in digital gaming (Edgar, 2016). Still more prominent is the phenomenology of sport. The rapid progression of computational science and neuroscience has had a profound influence in the philosophy of sport, encouraging exponential growth in publications concerning skill acquisition in sport (Ilundáin-Agurruza, 2016), the mind-body relationship (Gerber and Morgan, 1979), and sport experience (Breivik, 2014). The aesthetics of sport has also flourished in recent decades by focusing on two themes (Edgar, 2014): the nature and relevance of aesthetic qualities (e.g. beauty, ugliness, grace, and strength) to the experience of practising and watching sport (see also Kreft, 2012; Lacerda and Mumford, 2010; Lacerda, 2012) and the consideration of sport as an art and its relationship to art (see also Best, 1974, 1985; Elcombe, 2012; Gaffney, 2013). So, while still an emergent field, the philosophy of sport has progressed quickly in developing central methods and preoccupations. 2. What is Sport? Philosophical theories of sport take descriptive or normative forms. Broadly speaking, descriptive theories attempt to provide an accurate account of sport’s central concepts, and normative theories attempt to provide an account of how sport should be. Normative theories of sport are broadly classified as either ‘externalist’ or ‘internalist.’ Externalist theories of sport understand sport as a reflection of larger social phenomena. Heavily influenced by Marxism and structuralism, externalist philosophers take the nature of sport to be determined by principles from other practices or the larger society. William J. Morgan (1994) identifies three types of externalist theories: ‘Commodification theory,’ ‘New Left theory,’ and ‘Hegemony theory.’ In Commodification theory, sport is understood as a commodity with use- and exchange-value. When sports are commodified, they are viewed not as having inherent characteristics worthy of protection, but solely according to the economic profit that they can generate (Sandel, 2012; Walsh and Giulianotti, 2007). The main proponents of the New Left theory theory are Bero Rigauer (1981), Jean-Marie Brohm (1978), Rob Beamish (1981), Richard Lipsky (1981), and Paul Hoch (1972). They understood sport materialistically by focusing on the role that sport plays in the genesis and reproduction of social history, mostly by exploring the connection between labor, economic infrastructure, and sport. Hegemony theories of sport attack the reductive and deterministic character of the New Left’s analyses of sport. Hegemony theorists such as Richard Gruenau (1983) and John Hargreaves (1986) explore the role that cultural practices and processes play in shaping the nature of sporting practices, while emphasizing the value of human agency. Externalist accounts of sport tend to be regarded as deflationary because they deny, or overlook, that sport has independent value. They understand sport’s value solely in instrumental terms (Ryall, 2016). Internalist theories of sport do not analyse sport based on other social practices or historical processes. Rather, they aim to identify the distinctive values and purposes of sport that differentiate it from other social practices. Proponents of internalism acknowledge the influence on sport of other practices and the larger society, but internalists argue that sport is a practice with its own distinctive value and internal logic. Thus, the primary goal of internalism is to uncover the intrinsic normative principles of sport. A central task within the philosophy of sport has been to develop an adequate internalist normative theory of sport. At a minimum, such a theory should articulate sport’s non-instrumental value and it should provide guidance on appropriate standards of both conduct within sport, and sporting rules and practices themselves. Internalist views are typically classified into the following three categories: formalism, conventionalism, and broad internalism (or interpretivism). We examine each in turn now. 2.1 Formalism Formalism conceives of sport as constituted solely by written rules: a sport is just the set of written rules that govern it. On this view, there is no need to look beyond the written rules to determine whether an activity is a sport (e.g. is tennis a sport?), whether an activity constitutes the playing of a certain sport (e.g. are they playing tennis or squash?), or whether a particular move is permitted within a specific sport (e.g. is kicking the ball permitted in tennis?). Bernard Suits’ The Grasshopper: Games, Life and Utopia (1978 [2014]) is regarded as the seminal formalist text (Hurka, 2005)[1]. Suits attempts to refute Wittgenstein’s claim that, as a ‘family-resemblance’ concept, ‘game’ resists definition. On Wittgenstein’s view (1958, sect. 66–67), it is not possible to specify individually necessary and jointly sufficient conditions for something to constitute a game. Instead, games are endlessly varied, and, while some games may share features in common with some other games, there is no single element that is shared by all games. Contra Wittgenstein, Suits argues that there are four elements common to every game: goals, means, rules, and a certain attitude among the gameplayers. Games are goal-directed activities. Every game has two distinct goals: a ‘lusory’ goal and a ‘pre-lusory’ goal. The pre-lusory goal is a specific state of affairs that game players try to bring about: placing the ball in the hole in golf, crossing the bar in the high jump, and crossing the line in the marathon. These can be achieved prior to the formation of a game. For example, I can place a golf ball in a hole even if no game of golf has begun, or I can jump over a bar even if no high jump competition is underway. The lusory goal is winning. This can be achieved only in the context of an organised game. The second element of any game is the means. Every game restricts the methods that gameplayers are permitted to use to achieve the pre-lusory goal. Golfers are not allowed to drop the ball into the hole with their hands; high jumpers are not permitted to vault the bar using a trampoline, and marathon runners are forbidden from completing the race using a bicycle. The means permitted in games are always ‘inefficient’ for the achievement of the pre-lusory goal. For example, if the goal of boxing is to incapacitate one’s opponent for a count of ‘10’, it would be much more efficient to attack her with a baseball bat or to shoot her with a gun than having to punch her above the waist wearing gloves. If the goal of soccer is to put the ball into the goal, it would be much more efficient to kick, head, and carry the ball rather than only kicking and heading it. Means permitted within a game are the ‘lusory’ means, and those prohibited are the ‘illusory’ means. The third element of a game is the (constitutive) rules. Rules provide a complete account of what means are permitted and not permitted within the game. They establish what means can be employed to achieve the pre-lusory goal of the game. These limitations on the permitted means make the game possible, for they erect (unnecessary) obstacles that participants attempt to overcome in the game. For instance, boxing rules disallow the use of weapons, such as knives or firearms. This ensures that the sport is a punching contest. The laws of soccer permit the use of any body part other than the arms so that the ball is played predominantly with the feet. In addition to constitutive rules, Suits argues, there are rules of skill, which establish how to play the game well. Such rules are rules of thumb that a coach may advise a player to follow to help her better execute the skills of the sport (e.g. keep your eye on the ball, follow through after impact, accelerate through the finish line). The final element of gameplaying is attitudinal. Suits argues that, to play a game, one must have the ‘lusory attitude’. Players must commit themselves to playing in accordance with the rules that constitute the game just so that the game can take place. The type of motivation must be a particular kind (or at least must include motivation of a particular kind): players must respect the rules because they wish to play and they endorse the formalist view that breaking the rules necessarily ends the game. It is not sufficient to be motivated to respect the rules, for example, to ensure one’s good reputation or to compete for a ‘sportsmanship’ award. So, in the absence of the lusory attitude, it is quite possible, according to Suits, for a player to act in accordance with the rules without actually playing the game. The players accept the constitutive rules because, in the absence of such acceptance, no game is possible. On this view, if someone decided that she would break the rules whenever she could do so undetected, then, according to Suits, she is not really playing the game – even if no opportunity to break the rules undetected ever arose. She might appear to be playing the game, but, in the absence of an acceptance to bind herself to the constraints imposed by the constitutive rules, she would not count as really playing the game. The four elements in Suits’ analysis of games culminate in the following definition: To play a game is to attempt to achieve a specific state of affairs, using only means permitted by the rules, where the rules prohibit use of more efficient in favour of less efficient means, and where the rules are accepted just because they make possible such activity. (Suits, 1978 [2014, 43]) Suits also offers a shorthand definition: ‘playing a game is the voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles’ (Suits, 1978 [2014, 43]). Suits’ account of games has attracted much critical attention. Principal among the objections raised are that games are not constituted by their constitutive rules only (D’Agostino, 1981; Russell, 1999) and that gameplaying does not require strict adherence to constitutive rules (i.e. some rule-breaking can be consistent with game-playing) (Lehman, 1981; Fraleigh, 2003). Suits draws on his definition of games to provide a definition of sport. He defines sports as ‘games of physical skill’ (Suits, 1988, 2), incorporating the elements of his earlier definition of game and adding further elements that are distinctive to sport as compared to other types of games. In particular, a game becomes a sport by meeting the following criteria: ‘(1) that the game be a game of skill; (2) that the skill be physical; (3) that the game has a wide following; and (4) that the following achieve a certain level of stability’ (Suits, 1973 [2007]). Thus, the outcome of the game must be dependent on the exercise of physical skills. This is what differentiates sporting games from card games or chess, for example (see Kobiela, 2018 and Hale, 2008). In the latter, the way the body is moved is irrelevant, and what matters are the moves made (either with cards or pieces on the board). Indeed, such games can be played in non-physical spaces such as virtual reality and by non-human players such as computers. However, in soccer or boxing, the skillful control of the body is essential to the achievement of the goal of the game. The third and fourth criteria in Suits’ definition demand that sports are widely followed institutionalized games. A sport is institutionalized when its norms and codified rules are established and enforced by formal associations or organizations. The institutionalization criterion is often employed in sociological and historical analyses of sport. For example, historian Allen Guttmann (1978) argues that bureaucratization and rationalization are defining components of modern sports. Sport philosophers, however, have remained skeptical about the possibility of defining sports as institutionalized games. For instance, Klaus V. Meier (1988) rejects the institutionalization criterion. For him, the institutionalization aspect is not a defining element of sport, but rather a contingent one that ‘adds color and significance to particular sports’ (Meier, 1988, 15). In his view, should soccer lack international following and institutions to establish and enforce the rules of the game, it would still be a sport. In ‘Tricky Triad,’ Suits revises his original definition of sport from ‘The Elements of Sport’, redefining sports as … competitive events involving a variety of physical (usually in combination with other) human skills, where the superior participant is judged to have exhibited those skills in a superior way. (Suits, 1988: 2) In this definition, Suits narrows the scope of the concept of ‘game’ and distinguishes between two types of sports: ‘refereed games’ and ‘judged performances.’ That is to say, whereas in his earlier definition all sports are games, in his revised definition only some sports are games, other sports are performances. Soccer, basketball, tennis, and American football are games, while gymnastics, figure skating, and diving are performances. The key difference between the two, according to Suits, is that games have constitutive rules, whereas performances lack constitutive rules and have only rules of skill. Thus, for Suits, games consist in overcoming obstacles erected by the constitutive rules, whereas performances centre on the approximation of an ideal or perfect performance. For example, soccer players play the ball with their feet cooperatively as a team to put the ball into the opponent’s net. Using the feet, working as a team, and facing an opponent are the obstacles erected by the rules of soccer. For Suits, there is nothing like these in performances. Figure skaters do not attempt to overcome obstacles. Rather, they try to approach an ideal performance that manifests virtues such as power, grace, and imagination. This revised definition sparked a classic debate in the philosophy of sport between Suits and Meier. The latter criticized Suits’ revised definition of sport and defended the original one. For Meier (1988), Suits’ original definition is correct because what Suits calls ‘performances’ also have constitutive rules. For example, gymnasts perform their acrobatics in a specific space, utilising certain equipment. Kretchmar agrees with Meier that both types of sports are games, but acknowledges that performances place more emphasis on aesthetic criteria, calling them ‘beautiful games’ (Kretchmar, 1989). Despite criticism, Suits’ definitions of games and sport serve as the point of departure for most contemporary philosophical theorising about sport, thereby making Suits the most influential figure in the discipline. Turning to formalism more generally, adherents of this view take rules to be the normative cornerstone of a proper ethical analysis of sport. They define the rightness and wrongness of conduct within sport solely in terms of rule-following. Strict formalists contend that one cannot play the game and break the rules at the same time (i.e. the ‘logical incompatibility thesis’). If gameplaying requires adherence to the rules, then any rule violation – intentional or otherwise – marks an end to the game. Formalists oppose strategic fouling and doping because both practices involve breaking the rules (Moore, 2017a; Morgan, 1987; Pérez Triviño, 2014). Formalist analyses of sport hold important similarities to debates within the philosophy of law about the nature of law. Indeed, the works of philosophers of law such as Ronald Dworkin and H. L. A. Hart, as well as philosophical analyses of rules such as those of Immanuel Kant and John R. Searle, have been influential within formalism (Kretchmar, 2001; Torres, 2000). Formalism has been criticised as an inadequate normative theory of sport on account of its failure to recognise non-rule based norms in sport. As formalists do not recognise normative reasons internal to sport other than the rules themselves, they lack criteria to evaluate existing or proposed rules as well as criteria to evaluate actions not contemplated in the rulebook. Kretchmar attempts to salvage formalism from this criticism by drawing on both Suits and Searle. In Kretchmar’s view, critics of formalism overlook the fact that games and, a fortiori, constitutive rules are created to serve a function: to provide engaging, artificial problems. Games are made by humans for humans. Human biological nature is, in Searle’s terms, a ‘brute fact’ that gamewrights consider when creating the rules. They craft games that fit human capacities to present a ‘just right’ challenge (Kretchmar, 2015a). Otherwise, games would fail to perform their function. Kretchmar argues that Suits’ account already contains the resources necessary to discharge this evaluative function of an adequate normative theory of sport. Suits argues that when games set an extremely difficult or extremely easy obstacle, individuals lose interest in playing them (Kretchmar, 1975). Such games, then, fail to fulfil their goal of providing players with a worthy set of obstacles to overcome. Another criticism that has been levelled against formalism is the apparently implausible implication of the logical incompatibility thesis that any game in which a rule is broken ends at the point at which the rule-breaking occurs. If rule-breaking is incompatible with gameplaying then any foul or accidental transgression of the rules would cause the game to end. For instance, a 100m sprint would cease when a runner makes a false start. A basketball game would terminate when a player commits a strategic foul to prevent an opponent from scoring in a fast break. A tennis match would end whenever a shot is hit out. Formalists have attempted to overcome this objection by distinguishing between ‘constitutive rules’ and ‘regulative rules’. The latter allow the game to be reinstated following a transgression of the rules by determining how the game is to be restarted (e.g. restarting the race, a free kick, a second serve) and how rule-breakers are to be penalized (e.g. disqualified from the race, a penalty kick awarded to the opposing team, the loss of a point). For Graham McFee (2004b), this constitutive rule/regulative rule distinction does not address the objection adequately, as it remains unclear when a rule is constitutive or regulative. For instance, an outfield player in soccer using her hands to stop a counterattack would be considered a strategic foul and, therefore, judged according to a regulative rule. However, if players constantly used their hands, the game would become either impossible (e.g. all players are eventually sent off) or a different game (e.g. rugby or handball). Thus, according to McFee, rules must be understood based on how participants use them in specific contexts. However, formalism does not provide the resources to make these contextual discriminations. What criteria should we use to evaluate the rules of a sport? When should we change the rules of a sport? Can we evaluate a purported need for rule change without appealing to some consideration other than the rules themselves? 2.2 Conventionalism Conventionalism attempts to address the limitations of formalism by recognizing the normative significance of unwritten rules of the game. For conventionalists, rules do not exhaust the sources of normative reasons within sport. Conventionalists argue that rules (whether constitutive or regulative) cannot determine their own application and they fail to provide guidance for all possible eventualities in a game (e.g. situations that were not envisioned by the rule makers). In addition, a strictly rule-centric approach fails to account for the existence of unwritten norms that supplement the rules. Such norms exist independent of, and sometimes in conflict with, the formal rules. Conventionalists argue that an adequate account of sport must appeal to collectively agreed-upon norms called ‘conventions.’ Fred D’Agostino, the pioneer of conventionalism, maintains that the conventions that operate within a game constitute the ‘ethos’ of the game. The ethos of a game is the ‘set of unofficial, implicit conventions which determine how the rules of a game are to be applied in concrete circumstances’ (D’Agostino, 1981, 15). Thus, from a conventionalist perspective, sports comprise both formal rules and conventions. For example, in soccer, convention dictates that the ball must be put out of play when any player requires medical attention. No written rule demands that players kick the ball out of play in such circumstances. However, any player who failed to do so would be subject to blame and rebuke. Conventionalism is better equipped than formalism to describe and understand how sports are actually practiced in specific contexts. For instance, despite playing the same game, amateur soccer players in a pick-up game and professional players in the World Cup final apply the rulebook differently (e.g. amateurs often suspend the offside rule, whereas the rule is crucial at the professional level). Likewise, the non-contact and travelling rules in basketball are applied differently depending on the context. Critics acknowledge that conventionalism is a fruitful descriptive theory of sport, but point out that its normative implications are problematic (Ciomaga, 2013). For instance, much as formalism lacks the resources to distinguish good from bad rules, it has been objected that conventionalism too lacks ‘critical edge,’ for it fails to provide the resources necessary to distinguish good from bad conventions (Simon et al., 2015). That a convention in fact operates in a sport does not settle the question of whether it should operate. In short, conventionalists seem to take the status quo as normative. An implication of conventionalism would seem to be, then, that manifestly objectionable conventions (e.g. ‘never pass the ball to a black person’ or ‘spit at members of the opposing team whenever possible’) could be normative on a conventionalist scheme. Drawing on David Lewis’ and Andrei Marmor’s work on conventions, conventionalists have attempted to address this objection by distinguishing ‘deep’ from ‘surface’ conventions (Morgan, 2012). This view is called ‘deep conventionalism’. Surface conventions are what Lewis called ‘coordinating’ conventions. Their main function is to help individuals to resolve recurrent, collective problems. For instance, Morgan argues that, when participating in a game, players may encounter situations that require collective decisionmaking related to the application of a specific rule or an event that disrupts the flow of the game. To solve these problems, participants harmonize their action by agreeing to uphold the same unwritten rules. Deep conventions do not relate to problem solving and coordination. Rather, they are ‘normative responses to deep psychological and social needs for playing sports’ (Morgan, 2015, 39). Put differently, deep conventions shape sports into the various historical and social forms they have taken. For instance, the principles and ideals underlying the amateur view of sport, according to which participants engage in the game chiefly for the love of it, are deep conventions. Thus, a sport’s deep conventions determine the point of that sport and provide a rationale for playing the sport in a specific way by establishing what counts as normatively intelligible and justifiable within that sport. For example, amateur athletes often view sport as a perfective enterprise pursued for its own sake. They play sport for the love of the game not for instrumental benefit. The amateur’s emphasis on the intrinsic value of sport contrasts with the professional’s view of sport. For professionals, sport tends to be viewed as a serious, instrumental occupation, that is, a means to earn a living (Morgan, 2015, 40–41). Thus, amateurs and professionals evaluate differently practices such as training, doping, and strategising. While professionals embrace conduct that increases their chance of victory, amateurs are often more discerning, rejecting practices such as professional coaches and strategic fouling on the grounds that they are detrimental to the emphasis of the appreciation of the practice itself, not the instrumental goals achieved through it. In response to critics of conventionalism, Morgan has argued that deep conventions provide evaluative criteria by which the moral standing of surface conventions can be assessed. However, it remains unclear whether Morgan responds satisfactorily to criticisms that have been leveled against deep conventionalism (Moore, 2018). How can deep conventions be distinguished from surface conventions? Does deep conventionalism only shift the ‘critical edge’ problem to the deep convention level? What resources does deep conventionalism provide to evaluate deep conventions? 2.3 Broad Internalism (Interpretivism) In contrast both to formalists who see sport as constituted by rules only and conventionalists for whom sport is constituted by rules and conventions, broad internalists maintain that sport is constituted by rules, conventions, as well as underlying intrinsic principles (Russell, 1999; Simon et al., 2015). According to Robert L. Simon, one of the pioneers of this view, ‘broad internalism claims that in addition to the rules of various sports, there are underlying principles that might be embedded in overall theories or accounts of sport as a practice’ (Simon, 2000, 7). Intrinsic principles are key for broad internalists, as they provide the foundation for interpreting or understanding sport practices. Such principles are ‘presuppositions of sporting practice in the sense that they must be accepted if our sporting practice is to make sense or, perhaps, make the best sense’ (Simon et al., 2015, 32). Formalists and conventionalists fail to give due recognition to the idea that rules and conventions must be interpreted and applied so as to respect and promote normative principles that determine the point of the practice. Ronald Dworkin’s interpretivist theory of law holds that law must be interpreted in accordance with principles (e.g. justice) without which legal practice would not make sense. Interpretivism heavily influenced Simon’s formulation of broad internalism. This is perhaps unsurprising as several broad internalists consider sport to constitute a type of legal system with its own jurisprudence (e.g. Russell. 2015). On Simon’s view, sport is interpreted by appealing to intrinsic principles, separate to rules and conventions, that define the