Cheating as wrongful competitive norm violating

ABSTRACT

In this article, I begin to develop and defend a reformed concept of ‘cheating’ as ‘wrongful competitive norm violating’. I then use this to reject Oliver Leaman’s view that cheating is sometimes not wrong and can make sport better as sport. I also consider and reject an attempt by John Russell to defend what would essentially be a middle position between Leaman’s and mine. Russell’s defense of his view also fails, either for the same reasons that Leaman’s does or because it is irrelevant.

KEYWORDS:

• Cheating
• competition
• adversarial norms
• Leaman’s challenge
• competitive shenanigans

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank John Russell and an anonymous reviewer for their helpful comments and criticisms, and Paul Gaffney for his editorial guidance and suggestions. Any remaining deficiencies are, of course, mine.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. For a similar criticism see Feezell (2004, 105).

2. This example is a variation of Bernard Williams’ example involving George. See (Williams 1973, 97–98).

3. Here I set aside the question whether one can give one’s free and informed consent as a competent person to be a professional wrestler.

4. Actually the full quote is that acts of competitive shenanigans affect ‘principles of equality and justice’ because they are ‘morally questionable or at least ambiguous’ (2017a, 103). I have not included this second disjunct because including it would render Russell’s claim here nonsensical. The plain meaning of the assertion that an act is ethically ambiguous is that it can be ethically wrong or not ethically wrong. However, if we interpret his meaning in this second way then his claim here would be that acts of competitive shenanigans affect ‘principles of equality and justice’ because they are not ethically wrong. This would make no sense (If they are not ethically wrong then why would they undermine equality and justice?).

5. I am struggling to fairly interpret Russell here. On a literal reading this claim is contradictory. Russell’s placing of the expression ‘fair play’ in quotes here connotes that such conduct is merely regarded as fair play, not that it actually is. However, on this interpretation there would be nothing paradoxical about such a claim. His claim is only paradoxical if the expression ‘fair play’ is taken out of quotes.

6. Russell also appeals to an argument by Susan Wolf (1982) that consists in claiming that just as in our personal lives we can err by overvaluing morality at the expense of our welfare, so too can morality be overvalued in sports at the expense of what is best for sport:

Just as the best sort of human life, a life of fully lived personal well-being, is not achieved through a life dominated by moral value, neither is the best exemplar of sport one that is dominated by moral values. (2018, 219)

A problem with this analogy is that whereas in one’s personal life one can choose one’s own prudential value over promoting the good of others, since sports is essentially social, the notion of ‘the best exemplar of sport’ must be an ethical assessment and hence the notion that sports with competitive shenanigans operate in a zone disengaged from ethics makes no sense. In making an assessment about the ‘best exemplar of sport’ we are making an ethical assessment that involves choosing the good of some over the good of others, and this leads us back to my main argument against Leaman.

7. Although different types of dogs are considered different breeds of the same species, rather than different species of one genus, I trust that the liberty I am taking with biological taxonomy in this example is nonetheless sufficiently illustrative. My edificational goal is classificatory rather than biological.