Playing games: an introduction to the philosophy of sport through dialogue

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Notes

1. Feezell chooses to use the word ‘sportsmanship’ instead of the gender-neutral term ‘sportspersonship’ because ‘I prefer the resonance of the old-fashioned language’ and ‘I don’t think it’s a very big deal’. (49) A preference and an opinion do not an argument make, and clearly many counter-arguments to Feezell’s choice of terms could be raised on grounds of inherent sexism. As a reviewer of this book, which is intended as an undergraduate-level text, I felt obligated to flag up this use of language to potential buyers, as it might alienate a significant portion of its intended audience.

2. There is an inherent epistemological difficulty involved in differentiating a seeming blowout from a real blowout. When can a player be certain that their opponent in incapable of rallying and turning a match around? The question of at what point a winning player should stop trying in order to protect the pride of a losing player evokes a version of the Sorites paradox. No guidelines for identifying blowouts are given by Feezell, and there is no obvious uncontroversial way of distinguishing a ‘dead’ game from a ‘live’ one. Yet, if he hopes to convincingly argue that it is morally incumbent on players to avoid blowing out their opponents, then this epistemological problem needs to be addressed first.

3. This psychological component of the blowout seems to make the phenomenon hopelessly relative and subjective. The lowest possible difference in score – 1–0 – could be seen as a blowout under certain conditions, to certain agents. To a hyper-competitive egotistical player, any loss could be considered a blowout against them, and any win could be framed as their having ‘blown out’ their opponent.