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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It's not illegal but practitioners of the game would certainly be judged to be immoral if it was done with the intention of hurting someone. It is true though that we can do things in sports that would be judged to be immoral in other contexts and on this point I agree with Douglas Burnham that it is a matter of giving consent - accepting the rules of the game.

I'm not sure that this is so in the general public. But the reason would be that some great good can come from "academic genius" e.g. cure for a disease, whereas only entertainment can come from athletic brilliance.

I am a boxing trainer so I suppose that is my answer to your question. Boxing should be much more carefully regulated at the professional level of that there can be no doubt. But amateur boxing is quite safe and has been a lifesaver to many young people who are perhaps on the edge- and are often not involved in other sports. While the physical demands of wrestling and boxing are similar, ask anyone who has done both - boxing offers some different challenges. I argue in a forthcoming article in the NY TIMES (Philosophers Stone) that the sweet science provides some unique exercises in dealing with fear - and I think that can be incredibly valuable. Also, while there are of course exceptions, the objective in boxing is not to harm the other person - but instead just to win the contest.

Soccer (futbol) is the best sport, and the World Cup is the best sporting event.

I believe this is as true as any normative truth can be, but I may be biased... and I may be suffering WCW (World Cup Withdrawal).

I cannot imagine an objective criterion that would enable us to decide what sport wins the tournament of sports. And yet - always have to have an "and yet" in this business-- and yet I personally feel that a sport that engages more physical and mental capacities is more a sport than say, flipping baseball cards at a wall. However, this inclination leads me to the conclusion that --and here I have to prepare to duck- that golf is not a sport or at least not as much a sport as say boxing which involves - courage, intelligence, endurance, quickness, coordination, tenacity, and I could go on - but then I am also a boxing trainer and writer.

Alas, probably not, especially if (a) the crowd is very large and (b) your seat would have been filled by another fan, especially if (c) that fan would have been cheering for your team and about as loudly as you. But even if a-c are not true, it's not clear how much the cheering of the fans changes the players' performances and hence the outcome of the game. On the other hand, it always amazes me how significant the home field/court advantage is in every sport, including soccer (I presume that when you said "football match" you were referring to the beautiful game, not American football). What could explain the fact that a team is at least 10% more likely to win at home than away against the same opponent? (OK, I'm making up the 10% figure, but if anything I bet it's low, and Wikipedia says in English Premier League home teams are almost 40% more likely to score goals.)

Well, several things could explain home field advantage other than the crowds, such as familiarity with the environment and not having to travel. And as far as I can tell, contributing to the crowd noise is the only chance we have of influencing the outcome of a game. Hence if a-c are true, it's not clear how you could have an influence on the outcome, barring a belief in weird causal powers (e.g., you can give the opposing players cramps by looking at them funny) or exceptional circumstances (e.g., you are close enough to yell insults at David Beckham which make him perform worse--watch out, they may make him perform better!).

On the other hand, it's kind of like voting. You should vote even if it is unlikely that your vote will make a causal difference in the outcome, because if people stopped voting based on that belief, it would make a difference. If all the fans started thinking their cheers made no difference, the overall silence would make a difference.

Anyway, I still like to believe I can influence the outcome of a game ... even by watching it on TV! Hence, there's no way I'm going to Tivo an important Duke basketball game--they need my magical energy to flow in real time! (Yes, philosophers can believe irrational things, though I'm not sure it's accurate to say I believe something I know is false, but that's a question for another day...)