Pre-Game Cheating and Playing the Game

ABSTRACT

There are well-known problems for formalist accounts of game-play with regards to cheating. Such accounts seem to be committed to cheaters being unable to win–or even play–the game, yet it seems that there are instances of cheaters winning games. In this paper, I expand the discussion of such problems by introducing cases of pre-game cheating, and see how a formalist–specifically a Suitsian–account can accommodate such problems. Specifically, I look at two (fictional) examples where the alleged game-players cheat prior to a game-instance in such as a way as to cast doubt on whether the alleged game-players are truly playing the game. To escape the worries brought about by these examples of pre-game cheating, I will appeal to the concept of nested games. This concept will give us the needed tools to explain how the alleged players are cheating and how the alleged players are players. On the whole, this discussion should help illuminate some important issues with regards to cheating and rules on a Suitsian account of game-play, and help give support for formalist accounts more generally.

KEYWORDS:

• Games
• suits
• cheating

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to Cody Gilmore, who over a decade ago helped a young undergraduate at UC Davis discover a passion for philosophy. Thanks also to the faculty at CU Boulder – especially Garrett Bredeson, Chris Heathwood, and Alastair Norcross – for encouraging me to pursue my interest in playing games with philosophy while I play philosophy with games.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Entymology: Grass, from that glorious guardian of games himself, the Grasshoper, and sopher, from the Greek sophia, or ‘wisdom’.

2. It is worth noting that not everyone is in agreement about different sort of rules, specifically with respect to this view of how regulative rules relate to constitutive rules. While an interesting topic, I won’t be able to address it more deeply here. For some worthwhile discussions, see D’Agostino (1981), Wertz (1981), Loland (2002) Chapter 1, and, for some foundational reading, Searle (1969), Chapter 2 Section 5.

3. For some further discussions on other accounts of cheating in games, see Feezell 1988, Wertz (1981), Lehman (1981), Simon (2016) chapter 2, especially pp. 40–48, Leaman (2018) chapter 9, and of course Chapter 4 of The Grasshopper.

4. For some quality discussions see Fraleigh (2003), Simon (2005), and Papineau (2017) chapter 4.

5. For some discussions on the relationship between sports and games, see Suits (1988; 1989; and, 2004), Meier (1988), and Berman (2013).

6. Note that this is a fictional example. No person named Justin has ever finished first in four games of 100m dash during one Olympic Games.

7. Again, note that these examples are fictional. There is no team in the NFL named the Nationalists.

8. The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) is the international governing body for what the Yanks call Track & Field, and has strict anti-doping regulations. It, along with many other sporting governing bodies, associates with the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).

9. Or should I say ‘should-be-obvious,’ as it took the prodding from a helpful referee for me to explicitly address it!.