Review of Essays About Philosophical Analyses of Sport (Physical Culture) in Central Europe |
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| Authors: | Ivo Jirásek |
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| Institution: | Department of Kinanthropology at the Faculty of Physical Culture , Palacky University , Tr. Miru 109, Olomouc , 771 11 , Czech Republic E-mail: jirasek@ftknw.upol.cz |
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| Abstract: | Herein I address and extend the sparse literature on deception in sports, specifically, Kathleen Pearson’s Deception, Sportsmanship, and Ethics and Mark J. Hamilton’s There’s No Lying in Baseball (Wink, Wink). On a Kantian foundation, I argue that attempts to deceive officials, such as framing pitches in baseball, are morally unacceptable because they necessarily regard others (e.g., the umpire) as incompetent and as a mere means to one’s own self-interested ends. More dramatically I argue, contrary to Pearson and Hamilton, that some forms of competitor-to-competitor deception (which Pearson labels ‘strategic deception’) are similarly unacceptable. Specifically, I offer a ‘principle of caustic deceit’ according to which any strategic deception that divorces a game from its constitutive skills is morally untoward and ought to be met with negative social pressure at least, and/or legislated out of existence. The problem with these forms of strategic deception is that they treat one’s opponents, again in the Kantian sense, as a mere means to one’s own self-interested ends. |
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| Keywords: | deception lying baseball officiating ethics |
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