Not wrong at all, I'd say.

The only reason I can think of for thinking otherwise is that it would amount to not being loyal to one's country. We can agree that there are at least some kinds of loyalty we can normally expect from a good citizen. (Not committing treason is the most obvious example.) That said, it would be very bad if the demands of loyalty went all the way to which side you root for in a sporting match. That would be well down the road to mindless jingoism.

In one way it's a small point, but it has some real-life relevance. Noisy, thoughtless accusations of being "unpatriotic" are a far-too-familiar part of political discourse. If we worry that rooting for another country in a soccer match crosses the line, then the worry that we shouldn't disagree with any of our country's policies will seem all too real. That, however, is a disaster for thoughtful citizenship.

So root for the team of your choice. Root for them because they're the underdog, or because you like the way they play, or because you like the color of their jerseys. It is, after all, just a game. And you are, after all, not just a citizen of the United States but also of the world.

Great set of quetions. I think the concept of a game has shifted. In Ancient Rome, "games" included gladiator fights to the death, but today any intentional killing in the course of a game would be seen as no longer a game. If in the middle of a baseball game the batter beat the short stop to death with his bat we would think the game was at least interrupted. And in a case when two people agree to fight to the death this appears to be a duel and thus (at least in many countries) illegal. My colleague, who also serves on this panel, Gordon Marino, is a great boxer and defender of the virtues of this sport, so at least he would defend the permissibility of hitting other persons under controlled conditions. (Check out some of his answers to questions on this site.) I personally have reservations about games in which intentional harm is a goal (hence I prefer tennis to boxing, personally), but Marino makes a good case for how boxing can be done to build up self-repect and can be done while respecting one's opponent. As for deception and lying, some games explicitly build into them a reward for success at both, but only in defined areas. Actually, we might be quite hesitant to equate deception and lying in a game that calls for craft. A tennis player who makes her opponent think she will hit long but then only taps the ball over the net is considered smart. But some forms of deception seem at least to be bad sportsmanship. Although I doubt there is any rule against it, but I would think ill of a tennis player who made everyone think he has a severe injury when in fact he is perfectly fit and simply trying to lull his opponent into a state of reckless self-confidence.

Great question. I use a similar question on my first day of my Intro to Philosophy class to help my students see that not all questions have either objective answers or subjective answers. (I use "What is the greatest rock band of all time?" to make the point.) Objectively answerable questions are ones for which we have agreed-upon methods for finding a single correct answer: Is earth bigger than mars? How many humans are in this room? What is the capital of Nigeria? ... even if we don't yet know the answer: How many planets in the Milky Way have water on them? What will I weigh at noon on Jan 21, 2012?

Subjectively answerable questions are ones that depend only on the opinion of the person answering the question: What's your favorite color? What is your favorite rock band? What is your favorite soccer team?

But what about: What is the best rock band of all time? What is the best national soccer team in the world right now? (or: Why does Hamlet wait so long to avenge his father? What led to World War II?) These questions do not seem to be objective, nor subjective. I call them normatively answerable. By that, I just mean that we have norms about what counts as better and worse answers and also norms about what counts as better and worse ways or methods of answering them, though these methods may not point to a single correct answer. We also expect people to offer justifications for their answers to these questions and we make judgments about whether their justifications are defensible, irrelevant, etc.

The Beatles and Rolling Stones are defensible answers. Back Street Boys and In Sync are not. (Of course, the best answer is Led Zeppelin, which I can defend some other time.) Spain is a very defensible answer to what is the best soccer team. Alas, the USA is not. We could provide justifications both for the specific answer and for the methods we use to obtain it.

Here's a defensible method: The reigning champion of the World Cup is the best national team (especially if it is also the reigning European champion). So, Spain. But there are other defensible methods, including ones that use statistics (win/loss/tie ration, possession percentage, goals for/against, etc.). Without looking them up, I'd guess Spain is best on just about any of these measures. So, at this point the answer to this question may be easier than at other times.

Note that if the relevant community comes to complete agreement about how to answer a question, it looks objective. What is the best movie of the year? If we all agree it's the winner of the Oscar, then the answer is objective. But typically, we have lively debates about what methods are best to answer such questions, so they remain 'normatively answerable.' (I think most, if not all, ethical questions are normatively answerable.)

I hope this helps. And I hope that someday the US might be the best answer to the soccer question, but it might take a while.

A good question.Here are some very limited thoughts.

I suggest that we distinguish between rules external to the game or sport that set it up such that it can begin -- e.g. rules that define the conditions under which participants take part -- and the internal rules that define how the game is played, such as permitted 'moves'. A violation of an external rule is not so much a violation of this or that particular rule, as an attempt to subvert the game entirely. Not doping is an external rule, and likewise the rules governing permitted equipment, the size and shape of the court/ field/ route. Rules like travelling in basketball, or committing a foul, are internal rules. (It may be that this distinction cannot be rigorously maintained, and that some rules appear to fall into both camps.) Nevertheless, we seem to be able to then say that most instances of things we call ' cheating' fall into the infraction of an external rule.

However, there are circumstances where the infraction of an internal rule is generally considered cheating. To me, the most obvious example is diving in football/ soccer. Although it looks like a violation of an internal rule, diving is a deliberate attempt to deceive the referee, and thus to subvert the rules of the game. For that reason, I suggest it is analogous to an external rule infraction.

Not an entirely adequate answer, but it may be a start.

I am against needless animal suffering, such as factory farming, so I should probably be against bullfighting. But it offers an interesting test case for a purely utilitarian response to animal cruelty. Basically, utilitarians believe that an action is wrong if it leads to a net decrease in happiness. So, something like factory farming is clearly wrong because the amount of suffering produced during the lifetime of the animals raised in awful conditions outweighs any pleasure meat-eaters might get that they couldn't get from eating other food. (This is oversimplified because there are other considerations, like the environmental damage from factory farming.)

OK, but what about bullfighting? One might argue that the bulls are raised in relatively good conditions and then suffer pretty badly for some time, but that the suffering is outweighed by the happiness experienced by the spectators. Again, oversimplified--e.g., perhaps the spectators could easily find substitute sources of happiness that do not require animal cruelty--but it's an interesting case.

Of course, one might think that these sorts of calculations and conclusions show why utilitarianism is a problematic moral theory. There are certainly other arguments one might offer for why bullfighting is wrong. And it's not clear exactly what the arguments would be for why bullfighting should be preserved, except for tradition.

The issue, it seems to me, is that there are more than one set of criteria for what is a good game of football, or even what is fair. So, from the player, fan, coach and owner's point of view, whatever it takes to win might be considered both good and fair and 'part of the game' (thus the 'cheating is really trying' claim). The referee, on the other hand, is interested only that the game runs strictly according to the rules. The commentator or neutral fan is interested in the game as an exhibition of skill, dedication and drama, and blatant cheating (especially if the camera sees it but the referee does not) is likely to be seen as ruining the game. The broadcaster wants something that will raise viewing figures, and controversial or even violent acts might be just the ticket – everything of that type is 'fair' to them.

One might be tempted to say that the referee's view is the most valid because it is the most regulated by the rules that define the game, and is free from extraneous factors such as the owner's or broadcaster's profits, a player's sponsorship deal, or the fan's heartbreak. However, that is a bit like saying the 'game' of eating is to consume nutrients and avoid toxins. The taste of the food, the joy of the successful cook, the dedication of the farmer, sharing a meal with friends in a restaurant, the the supermarket's profits, or learning about new cultures through their cuisine (not to mention the occasional modest intake of toxins) would all be 'extraneous' criteria. Is it possible meaningfully to describe a cultural event like a football game, or a meal, in terms of its minimum conditions? Or is it an essential feature of such events that they involve the intersection of different purposes and thus criteria?

I think you would really enjoy a new anthology from Wiley-Blackwell--Hunting. It is written largely by and for hunters, and looks at the sort of ethical questions you raise in a way you will find hospitable.

I think hunting is extremely difficult to justify. Though once necessary to obtain necessary nutrients, clothing, etc., killing animals to obtain these things is no longer necessary. It doesn't really help justify hunting/fishing to eat what you kill, if you could have eaten something else.

Even assuming it was necessary to eat meat, it would still be problematic to engage in killing as a recreational leisure activity--which is what hunting/fishing are for most people. If the main goal of sport hunting/fishing are having fun, and food is just a byproduct, something odd is going on (as I argue here). But now getting to you question...

Hunters who are concerned about fairness at least see animals as "subjects" instead of merely as "objects." That's all to the good. Fair hunters will probably kill far fewer animals. But should they really think in terms of fairness? Hunting an animal is not a sport involving two competitors, since the animal doesn't participate voluntarily and has no idea what's going on. In a competition between two humans, fairness is mutually beneficial, but that's not necessarily so in the case of hunting and fishing. The "unfair" hunter at a hunting ranch will lure a tame animal to a hunting station, and then shoot him at close range with a powerful rifle. The "fair" hunter might chase a terrified deer for miles, and then shoot him from a distance with a bow and arrow, so the animal dies a slower death. The extra "fairness" in the second case doesn't benefit the deer, and in fact harms him!

I agree with you that all hunting is not equal, and if one is going to hunt, one should do it "the right way." But the right way, it seems to me, is just less wanton and more humane, not necessarily the way that involves concepts of fairness imported from human sport.

It depends what you mean by "substitute." If by that you mean function symbolically than yes, I think sports can work as a substitute for war. Just consider some of the lingo in football. The long pass is the bomb and we talk of an offense as having a lot of weapons and of the qb as a general. I suppose that sports might also be considered as a way of sublimating aggressions and reinforcing communal bonds. For instance, when I lived in central Florida many people who seemed to share very little else in common, thought of themselves as "Gators" and could always relate to each other along those lines. And they got hyped up for certain games as though it were a kind of symbolic war. In thinking about the uses of sport, we should also consider that famous soccer game that took place between enemies during a cease fire. The men played together, embraced, shared food etc and the next day went back to bayoneting one another.

Sean has correctly pointed out that part of what you are asking calls for empirical answers. But your last sentence - about sports being the least thing humans ace invented - raises an issue of value. And what you seem to be saying is that since sports produce no tangible outcome, in your words, it's hard to see what their value could be.

I'd like to suggest that this isn't the best way to look at the matter. After all, why are activities that produce tangible results (making shoes, or painting pictures, or building houses) valuable? The plausible answer is that they contribute in some way or another to human welfare, happiness, or flourishing. Some things we need for basic survival - food for example. But a flourishing life calls for a lot more than mere survival. And if something is a reliable source of otherwise harmless pleasure, that pretty clearly gives it value.

I suggest that this gives us at least part of the answer to your question. Playing sports gives many people a great deal of complex enjoyment. (Exercises of skill tend to do that, or so the psychologists tell us.) But watching sports also provides people with a good deal of pleasure - as do listening to music, looking at paintings, and a great many other activities.

Not everyone enjoys sports, but that doesn't take away from the point. After all, not everyone appreciates Beethoven. And the fact that sports are reliable sources of pleasure need by no means be the end of the story. But I'd suggest it goes a long way towards taking the mystery out of the value question.

The question is an interesting one, although it seems to me to be an empirical, rather than a philosophical question--or rather, several empirical, rather than philosophical questions. The first question is why people play sports; the second question is why people play the kinds of sports that they do; the third question is why people in different countries play different types of sports. (What follows is highly speculative; this is not an issue about which I have any special expertise.) The first question seems to me to be closely related to the question of why peoople--or, for that matter--animals, play at all. (Sports seem to be a particular kind of play engaged in only by human beings.) Considerable research has been done on the topic of animal play. It has been claimed that there are close parallels between animal and human play, and various hypotheses have been offered as to why humans and animals play: for example, that play reduces stress, overcomes boredom, enables creatures to form bonds with one another, etc.. (For more on the topic of play, you might consult the following books--there are many works on the topic: Play in Animals and Humans and The Genesis of Animal Play.) The second question--why certain sports are played in certain countries--seems to me probably to be due to patterns of immigration and colonization: cricket, I believe, spread to East Asia and the West Indies on account of the fact that the British were the colonial rulers of those areas. Finally, as for why certain kinds of sports are played in certain countries, this seems to me to be due to differences in the cultural values of the countries in question.


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