Sport, Rules and Values

the long version

Sport, Rules and Values presents a philosophical perspective on issues concerning the character of sport and the rules that are perceived to define it. Central questions for the text are motivated from 'real life' sporting examples as described in newspaper reports and throughout, the presentation is rich in concrete cases from sporting situations, including ice-skating, cricket, baseball, American football, and soccer. Discussion focuses on three broad uses commonly urged for the rules of sport: to define sport; to judge or assess sport performance; to characterise the value of sport - especially if that value is regarded as moral value. Drawing on Wittgensteinian argument McFee rejects, for the most part, the view that the determinacy of the rules of sport can be at all straight forward. Sport, Rules and Values exemplifies sport philosophy's dependence on more general philosophic argument, resulting in a text that provides a distinctive and appealing conception both of sport and of its philosophic investigation.