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ABSTRACT
I present a corrective to the formalist and conventionalist down-playing of physical actions in the understanding of the value of sport. I give a necessarily brief account of the Causal Theory of Action (CTA) and its implications for the normativity of actions. I show that the CTA has limitations, particularly in the case of failed or incomplete actions, and I show that failed or incomplete actions are constitutive of sport. This allows me to open up the space for another model, drawn from Aristotle, for failed or incomplete actions, conceived of as ‘doables.’ This avoids some of the problems of the CTA. I explain the importance of difficult but doable actions, at which athletes often fail, and suggest that this establishes pro tanto value. Finally, I claim that this account of the actions that are constitutive of sport deepens our understanding of the value of sport as a whole.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. The reference is to Adam Smith (Smith 1993 [Citation1776], 882): ‘if the rod be bent too much one way, says the proverb, in order to make it straight you must bend it as much the other.’ Lenin also approved of stick bending.
2. There are exceptions such as Gunnar Breivik (Breivik Citation2017).
3. See especially Thompson (Thompson Citation2008), Wiseman (Wiseman Citation2016a), Ford (Ford Citation2018).
4. Whilst the discussion of deviant causal chains is an important aspect – and a further weakness – of the CTA, it is orthogonal to my line of argument in this paper and I pass over it.
5. For a discussion of the difference between tense and aspect see SEP.
6. Or, supposing we drop the action as time-slice event ontology and adopt a process ontology, then Actions are processes, not events, and processes take time to happen (Steward Citation2013).
7. It is interestingly not the same, more a quirk of language, but in a long jump event an athlete can produce a No Jump.
8. In dwelling on this aspect of the CTA and its antecedents in Aristotle I follow many others including Thompson (Thompson Citation2008) Hornsby (Hornsby Citation2010) and Coope (Coope Citation2007).
9. It is worth remembering here that the primary targets of Modern Moral Philosophy, (Anscombe) which Intention underpins, were G.E.Moore and R.M.Hare.
10. I am grateful to Yuval Eylon for pressing this point on me.
11. I choose, for no very good reason, star players from Brighton and Hove Albion FC season 2018/19.
12. Likewise, and equally obviously, when one watches a play, one presupposes that the actors will remember their lines.
13. Just to press home the point, there are, of course, music competitions. But imagine the kind of piano competition that would match up to the high jump: it would be a matter of playing a standard piece – perhaps the flight of the bumblebee – against the clock, faster and faster, without mistakes, until only one competitor was left.
14. Missing (when trying to hit), hitting (when trying to miss), dropping, and so on.
15. In other work, I hope to illustrate the commonalities between the notion of a doable, as introduced here, and the concept of an affordance – coined in ecological psychology by Gibson (Gibson Citation1986).
16. There is, of course, a great deal more to say about the nature of difficult actions and what makes them difficult. We might distinguish between those actions that are intrinsically difficult – such as running 26.2 miles – and actions that are extrinsically difficult – made difficult by the possibility of being thwarted by an opponent – such as not just hitting a target, but hitting a target when an opponent is bearing down on you. My view is that difficult actions fall into a range (between easy and impossible), and that competition tends to keep us in that range by acting as a sort of difficulty-governor rather like the centrifugal governor on a steam engine. Hence difficulty is primary, and competition (such as thwarting) is secondary, but a mark of difficulty. And if this is right, then the shape of the conventions or rules is at least partially determined by their function in maintaining the right sort and level of difficulty – in turn determined by the size, shape and mobility of human beings. I am grateful to Paul Gaffney for pressing me on this point.
17. Of course, and just to forestall the obvious objection: only pro tanto. It is neither good for the innocent person, nor good all thing considered if I aim my gun at her and shoot her. But, conceived merely as an action there is still some value in success, though it is overwhelmed by other disvalues, all things considered: this is the point of the pro tanto/all things considered distinction. And some value is all I need.
19. I am grateful to Yuval Eylon, Paul Gaffney, John Russell, and Christopher Yorke, for comments and encouragement, as well as audiences at IAPS Oslo 2018 and at the Open University Philosophy Department research conference 2018 for helpful comments. All the failures are my own.