Sports and Moral Excellence: The Intersections of Sports and Authenticity
Open Access
- Author:
- Jonsrud, Jarrod Lee
- Graduate Program:
- Kinesiology
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- March 24, 2018
- Committee Members:
- R. Scott Kretchmar, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
R. Scott Kretchmar, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Mark Dyreson, Committee Member
Francisco Javier Lopez Frias, Committee Member
Peter Renton Allison, Outside Member - Keywords:
- Sports Ethics
Virtue
Morality
Authenticity
Existentialism - Abstract:
- This dissertation investigates sport’s role in the ongoing struggle to live the good life – it is about gaining a better understanding of the relationship between sports, morality, and human culture. The current ethos surrounding sports is one of individualism, instrumentalism, and market efficiency. This perspective led to a morally troublesome hyper-competitive orientation toward sports. Characterized by a win-at-all-costs, individualistically motivated attitude, our instrumental perspective of sports caused their morally educative potential (if indeed any exists at all) to be inadequately realized. This study constitutes a reassessment of sport’s potential to act as a resource for promoting moral education employing perspectives provided by virtue ethics in general and ‘existential’ authenticity and civic virtue specifically. Following an introductory chapter outlining the sequence of my overall argument, the second chapter will provide a snapshot of moral life for modern Americans, effectively substantiating the need for my research. Relying on the work of prominent social theorists and commentators, chapter two will be a brief analysis of American morality, noting the rise, entrenchment, and consequences of our individualistic commitment to private gain and personal success. Chapter two will conclude with a discussion of the previous efforts in American history to appropriate sports as a technology to help articulate and institute a shared moral philosophy. Although never fully realizing their aim, these previous attempts to utilize sports as a form of social and moral development show the necessity, and provide a precedent, for investigations into the intersections between American moral and sporting lives. However, my efforts to review the historical practice of using sports as a vehicle for teaching core moral values, such as hard-work, determination, and perseverance, represents only the beginning of the discussion. Thus in chapter three I will identify and review three foundational theoretical approaches relating to the ‘sports as a moral laboratory’ metaphor that have been developed within the philosophy of sports literature, namely: (1) Sports as Equality and Justice, (2) Sports as a Domain of Play, and (3) Sports as the Mutual Quest for Excellence. Taken together, these opening three chapters will form the theoretical framework within which I will situate my own approach. Chapter four will outline the ethical theory I used to substantiate my claim that sports promote the development of authenticity and civic virtue as I have described them. I will begin by showing the utility of virtue ethics in general, and finish the chapter by examining the cogency of a specifically ‘existential’ virtue ethics, where existential authenticity is considered the primary virtue, and civic virtue the primary mode of expression in practice. Assuming an existential understanding of the human condition – as being intersubjectively constituted – I will explain how existential authenticity can be considered the cardinal virtue in an existential virtue theory, and why the practice of civic virtue, or engagement, should be considered its fullest expression. Chapter five comprises perhaps the most important contribution in this discussion: my analysis of sports and MacIntyrean virtue ethics, and their convergence with existential authenticity and civic virtue. Following an evaluation of how MacIntyrean virtue ethics inform the quest for morally educative experiences in sporting situations, the first half of the chapter will conclude with a sketch of certain characteristics, attributes and dispositions displayed by the MacIntyrean athlete, in direct reference to the characteristic of virtue ethics outlined in chapter four. The second half of chapter five begins with a description of the convergence of sports and the existential principles introduced in chapter four, laying the groundwork for the argument that sports represent a valuable social practice in the promotion and development of an athlete’s moral excellence. In order for sports to promote the choice of authenticity, and demonstration of civic virtue, caution and precision must be exercised in the way these concepts are presented, taught, learned and played. In order to provide interested participants of sporting practices with a sense of how the arguments might be used in practical applications I will complete my analysis in this final chapter with a brief sketch of the characteristics and attributes that a virtuous existential athlete would exhibit in their ongoing development of their existential virtues.