Sporting supererogation and why it matters

Abstract

A commonly accepted feature of commonsense morality is that there are some acts that are supererogatory or beyond the call of duty. Recently, philosophers have begun to ask whether something like supererogation might exist in other normative domains such as epistemology and esthetics. In this paper, I will argue that there is good reason to think that sporting supererogation exists. I will then argue that recognizing the existence of sporting supererogation is important because it highlights the value of sport as a mutual pursuit of excellence and reinforces the value of sportsmanship.

Keywords:

• Philosophy of sport
• sporting obligations
• fair play
• sportsmanship
• supererogation

Acknowledgements

Thanks to the audience at the 2017 Conference of the British Philosophy of Sport Association and the European Association for the Philosophy of Sport at Radboud University and to two anonymous referees for their helpful comments.

Notes

1. Fowler is sometimes credited with deliberately missing his penalty in an attempt to make up for the referee’s error but he has subsequently denied this.

2. The one exception that I am aware of is Fry (2011), though the main focus of this paper is on the duty to try hard in sports and the possibility of cases of sporting supererogation is discussed only in passing. I discuss this paper more in section ‘Sporting obligation and supererogation’.

3. For an overview of the theological origins of the concept see Heyd (1982, Chapter 1).

4. Those who endorse this condition include: Archer (2016a), Ferry (2013), Portmore (2011, 91), and Rawls (1971, 117).

5. McNamara (1996, 427) puts this point in terms of ‘The Miniumum That Morality Demands’. Though not all put the point in the same way, the following seem to endorse the claim that supererogatory acts are morally better than non-supererogatory acts: Archer (2016a), Archer and Ware (2017), Dorsey (2013), Ferry (2013, 574), Heyd (1982, 5), and Portmore (2011, 92). Some authors argue that there is a need to add a further necessary condition, that the act be praiseworthy to perform (e.g. McNamara (2011, 203), Mellema (1991, 17) and Montague (1989, 102). For an argument against including this additional necessary condition, see Archer (2016b).

6. These criteria are similar to those given by Archer and Ware (2017) and McElwee (2017a) for the conditions that need to be met in order for acts of supererogation to exist in a given normative domain.

7. While this seems true for D’Agostino, the case is less clear cut for Hamblin’s actions. Given her own role in D’Agostino’s injury and the help she received from D’Agostino, we might think that Hamblin had an obligation to help D’Agostino.

8. For challenges to Suits’ account see, for example, Meier (1988) and Simon, Torres, and Hager (2014, 26–27). See also Kobiela (2016) for a proposed amendment to Suits’ account.

9. Similar claims are defended by McFee (2004, Chapter 8) and McNamee (2008, 1).

10. An interesting issue that I do not have space to investigate here is whether it is possible to deliberately break the rules and still be said to be playing the game. For a discussion of this issue see D’Agostino (1995), Fraleigh (2003), Leaman (1995), Lehman (1979), Loland (2002), Morgan (1995), and Pearson (1995).

11. For a discussion of how to give a conception of fair play that can handle these kinds of cases see Loland and McNamee (2000). The normativity of informal norms is also appealed to by conventionalists, those who hold that sports have to be understood in terms of conventions rather than formal rules. For an influential account of conventionalism see D’Agostino (1995).

12. See Abad (2010, 30) and Feezell (1988).

13. Both players admitted in interviews to using their hands deliberately.

14. For an interesting argument in defense of Maradona’s actions from the moral and sporting point of view see Borges (2010). While I will not attempt a full refutation of Borges’ argument here, it is worth noting that his claim to better capture the phenomenology of those involved in football does not rest easily with the negative reactions of both players and sports fans to Maradona and Henry.

15. We might also think that the separation of moral obligations and sporting obligations gives us reason to think that sporting obligations are not moral obligations. According to Bredemeier and Shields (1986), sport involves a form of ‘bracketed morality’ in which participants hold themselves to different moral standards than those they normally comply with. This we might think shows the separation of moral and sporting obligations in a way that makes it clear that sporting obligations are not reducible to moral obligations. This is an interesting suggestion, though I do not wish to rest my argument on it. Thanks to an anonymous referee for suggesting this.

16. Cf. the related widely discussed issue of whether sport has an internal morality or merely reflects wider societal values. See, for example, Morgan (1994, Chapter 5) and Simon, Torres, and Hager (2014, Chapter 2).

17. Thanks to an anonymous referee for this suggestion.

18. For some recent contributions to this discussion, see Vanessa Carbonell (2016) and McElwee (2017b).