that sport in itself neither requires ethical actions nor necessarily teaches ethical principles. ...... values are integrated with and enacted in everyday sporting life.
This is an Author’s Accepted Manuscript of: Aggerholm, K. (2017). Ethics of Youth Sport. In R. S. Kretchmar (Ed.), Philosophy: Sport (pp. 223-242). Farmington Hills, MI: Macmillan Reference USA/Gale, a Cengage Company.
Ethics of Youth Sports By Kenneth Aggerholm Associate Professor, Department of Physical Education The Norwegian School of Sport Sciences, Oslo, Norway
Shortly after a soccer team from Dynamo Moscow visited England to play Arsenal in 1945, British author George Orwell (1903–1950) grabbed his pen and wrote a column in the Tribune. It was titled “The Sporting Spirit” and revealed a relentless critique of sport: Sport is an unfailing cause of ill-will.… Even if one didn’t know from concrete examples (the 1936 Olympic Games, for instance) that international sporting contests lead to orgies of hatred, one could deduce it from general principles.… Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence: in other words it is war minus the shooting. (Orwell 1945)
The same kind of ill will in soccer was experienced by French philosopher and author Albert Camus (1913–1960). He was known to be a courageous and passionate goalkeeper when he played for the Racing Universitaire Algerios (RUA) junior team around 1928 to 1930. During this time, he met the big center forward Boufarik (also called “the Watermelon”), who was a plague to Camus because he would land on his kidneys, pull his shirt, put his knee to his crotch, or sandwich him against the post. But when Camus wrote about his experiences in 1957 he became sentimental. He noticed that there was something good in even “the Watermelon” and noted also how playing powerfully and yet fairly (a golden rule at RUA) was a hard compromise. From these reflections, he came to the famous and often-quoted conclusion that the world had
provided him with many kinds of experiences, but all he knew about morality and obligations he owed to sport (Camus 2002). These observations from Orwell and Camus illustrate the ambiguous moral status of sport. It is indeed a highly contested area, not least when it comes to youth sports. The contemporary ills of youth sports are well known, and many engaged in this field have experienced ambitious and unqualified coaches or helicopter parents, contributing to excessive pressure, elitism, and other morally challenging phenomena. But at the same time, many philosophers of sport argue for moral values of sport, and competitive youth sports often are presented and conducted with goals related to moral education. So should responsible parents stop allowing their children to take part in activities that involve aggression and may even cultivate ill will? Or can experiences in sport, on the contrary, teach young people moral lessons about such things as meeting obligations and playing fairly? This chapter will draw on key positions within the philosophy of sport and normative ethics to discuss how competitive youth sports can be conducted in morally defensible and sustainable ways. Youth sports will be understood as organized sports conducted in clubs and associations (i.e., not sport as part of physical education in schools or other forms of lifestyle sports), where participants are at the stage of life after childhood and before adulthood (ranging approximately from age twelve to nineteen), and in cases in which the participation and engagement in practice is officiated and supervised by adults. In applying philosophical perspectives to this field of practice, the chapter will focus on the role and responsibility of the coach and especially how coaches can nurture ways of participating in competitive youth sports that can contribute to the moral education of the participants. Hence, the aim of the chapter is not just to discuss the exhaustive range of ethical aspects of competitive sport. Rather, the philosophical and ethical considerations will be related to educational and developmental perspectives, with the hope of clarifying ways in which coaches can make youth sports a venue for moral development. This perspective makes the work of
youth coaches a matter of pedagogy, and it is through this particular lens that the chapter will reflect on ways that coaches can help to make competitive sports good for young people. The first section of the chapter prepares the subsequent analyses by describing the relation between sport and morality as seen through a pedagogical lens. Against this background, the next section considers deontological ethics in relation to formalism and interpretivism to discuss issues of obligation and ends, including justice and fairness. Subsequently, the final section considers virtue ethics in relation to sport as a social practice, discussing issues of excellence, virtues, and sport as part of living a good life.
SPORT, MORALITY, AND PEDAGOGY There are various ways to interrogate the relationship between sport and morality. One is to ask whether competitive sport is good? This implies looking for essential features of sport and determining whether such characteristics are inherently good or bad. The answers to this run, not surprisingly, in two directions. On the one side, philosophers argue that sport is inherently good. In contemporary sport philosophy, this understanding of a positive relation between sport and morality is reflected in arguments for an “inner morality of sport” (Simon 2010, 196). On the other side, philosophers argue for a negative relation between sport and morality, or at least a discrepancy between moral ideals and the reality of sport. On this view, sport is not inherently good and does not in itself hold moral values, which implies that “sport is not a moral business” (Møller 2010, 21). A way to transcend these rather fundamental disagreements regarding the moral status of sport is provided by asking whether competitive sport can be good? This question implies acknowledging that it can be both good and bad depending on how people engage in it, which at least to some extent, depends on how coaches organize, think, and talk about it. On this view, sport can be seen as a moral laboratory. Graham McFee (2004) uses this metaphor to argue that sport in itself neither requires ethical actions nor necessarily teaches ethical principles. But
that does not mean that sport cannot contribute to moral education. In fact, he argues that sport can have some advantages in this regard, because it can serve as a relatively safe moral laboratory in which various ethical principles and concepts can be tested, negotiated, experienced, and applied in a concrete and embodied form. The outcomes of experiments in this laboratory, however, are not fixed. The laboratory merely provides opportunities to “explore the contours of morally-relevant possibilities” (McFee 2004, 140). Thus, seeing sport as a moral laboratory can help coaches and others involved in youth sports pay attention to the opportunities for learning moral lessons in and through sport. A third way to consider the relationship between sport and morality is to ask whether competitive sport ought to be good? Answering this question takes a more normative approach than the value-neutral metaphor of sport as a moral laboratory allows. It also transcends descriptive and analytical approaches to sport and morality. Even if there were an essence of sport, it would not be able to inform normative moral considerations regarding engagement in, or even less development through, sport. Scottish philosopher David Hume (1711–1776) famously argued that it is not possible to logically derive what ought to be from what is. So we cannot deduce from empirical facts or observations in sport—for example, the fact that some participants threaten referees or behave in violent ways—how sport ought to be or how young people and coaches ought to engage in sport. This step transcends descriptions and observations. It requires seeing sport as a valued practice, a notion through which Peter J. Arnold brought together issues of morality, sport, and pedagogy in his rich analyses of moral education in and through sport (1997). In light of this analysis, coaching youth sports must involve value judgments and normative considerations. Because all pedagogical work is normative, as it involves an intention to want something for someone, this is the area in which sport and morality becomes a matter of pedagogy. Within the area of sports coaching, interest has been growing in the pedagogical aspect of being a coach. The emerging field of sport pedagogy has generated various attempts to reconceptualize the activity and role of the sports coach as an educational and pedagogical
endeavor (see, e.g., Jones 2007; Jones, Morgan, and Harris 2012; Jones 2006; Tinning 2008; and Tinning 2010, 65–82). This concept has been presented as an alternative to the dominate rationalistic and instrumental approaches derived from
physiology, psychology, and
biomechanics that tend to reduce the practice of sports coaches to the instruction of objective skills and to the achievement of measurable goals that fit the abstract models found in coaching literature. As a contrast to this, seeing the coach as pedagogue can broaden the scope of coaching to include the aim of nurturing personal learning and development. In addition to this approach, sport philosophers have argued that coaching is inherently a moral enterprise. In the introduction to an anthology on this aspect of sports coaching, Alun Hardman and Carwyn Jones state this in a clear way: “At its heart, sports coaching aims to affect the attitudes, values and behaviours of athletes towards each other and how they play sport. Most, if not all, coaching exchanges have a moral dimension to them” (Hardman and Jones 2011b, 2). This moral dimension is even more prevalent when coaches work with young people, and especially if the aim of coaches is to nurture the moral conduct and development of the participants. Hence, if the answer to whether sport ought to be conducted in a way that promotes the good is affirmative, then coaches have a prima facie moral responsibility to guide practice and participants in morally appropriate ways. To borrow a captive phrase from Stephen Harvey, David Kirk, and Toni M. O’Donovan (2014), this implies seeing moral development in youth sports as something that must be taught and not just caught. As these authors argue on the basis of existing sport education research literature, ethical development does not simply happen by itself. It requires explicit pedagogical work to facilitate it. If this moral responsibility of coaches is acknowledged, the next question that emerges is what kind of pedagogical work coaches should do. When the pedagogical task of coaches concerns moral conduct and development of participants it must involve moral reasoning, that is, reflections on what is right and wrong, good and bad, just and unjust. To this end, normative ethics can contribute with a framework for determining moral values and guiding good coaching
practice. Three main positions compose normative ethics: deontology, consequentialism, and virtue ethics. The following section focuses on deontological and virtue ethics, and the aim is to ask how these different accounts of moral action and education can, each in their own way, inform the pedagogical work of coaches.1 These positions will be related to normative theories of sport to consider how moral and sport philosophical reflection can contribute to help coaches navigate the ambiguous ethical waters of competitive youth sports.
DEONTOLOGICAL ETHICS: FREEDOM, OBLIGATIONS, AND DUTIES The term deontology is derived from the Greek word for “duty” (deon), and deontological ethics in general determines the moral value of actions on whether or not it rests on duties related to moral laws and principles. In Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785), Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) developed this view of ethics. He argued that moral actions must rest on principles that are freely chosen by a rational individual. He called the unconditional and overarching version of such moral principles the categorical imperative, which describes a duty to “act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law” (Kant [1785] 2002, 37). For example, if a person feels inclined to tell a lie, Kant would ask this person to consider whether he or she could want for everyone to follow a principle (maxim), such as “lying is okay if it makes it easier for you.” Most rational people probably would see that this would make good social relations difficult; hence, it would not be preferable as a general moral principle. Kant also formulated a practical version of the categorical imperative: “Act so that you use humanity, as much in your own person as in the person of every other, always at the same time as end and never merely as means” (Kant [1785] 2002, 46–47). Kant recognizes that none of us likes to be used solely as a means, and for this reason, we have a moral duty to treat others as ends in themselves. In the same way, deontological ethics in general see moral actions as good ends in themselves, rather than determining the value of them by their consequences.
In his lectures on education, Kant (2007, 469) elaborates this metaphysical foundation and stresses that a primary concern of moral education must be the grounding of a moral character. For Kant, character consists of an aptitude to act rationally in accordance with moral principles, and the development of moral character is a matter of self-formation based on reason that binds oneself to moral principles. As we shall see later, this is different from the ancient understanding of character found in virtue ethics.
FORMAL CONDITIONS AND PRINCIPLES IN SPORT This Kantian approach resonates well with positions in the philosophy of sport commonly referred to as formalism and interpretivism. These normative theories of sport argue that when taking part in competitive sport, athletes should comply with the rules, regulations, and principles that prescribe right ways of performing and behaving. The roots of formalism can be traced to Bernard Suits, who analyzes game playing as goal-directed and rule-governed activities that involve choice: “To play a game is to attempt to achieve a specific state of affairs [prelusory goal], using only means permitted by rules [lusory means], where the rules prohibit use of more efficient in favour of less efficient means [constitutive rules], and where the rules are accepted just because they make possible such activity [lusory attitude]” (Suits 2005, 54–55). Suits also offers an often-quoted portable version of this definition, stating that “playing a game is the voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles” (2005, 55). From this perspective, accepting and complying with formal conditions equals playing the game. These conditions carry normative weight as they prescribe right ways of behaving in sport. If you use improper means or break the rules (cheater), do not care about the goal (trifler), or recognizes neither rules or goal (spoilsport), you are simply not playing the game (Suits 2005, 58–59). An additional requirement, proposed by interpretivist approaches,2 is that constitutive rules should be interpreted and applied in accordance with principles that prescribe appropriate sporting behavior and present sport in its best light. This argument has been advanced by J. S. Russell (1999), in which he formulates four key internal principles of sport as he argues that
rules should be interpreted (a) in a manner that the excellences embodied in achieving the lusory goal of the game are not undermined but are maintained and fostered, (b) to achieve an appropriate competitive balance, (c) according to principles of fair play and sportsmanship, and (d) to preserve the good conduct of games. How can these formal conditions and moral principles inform coaching pedagogy in youth sports?
FREEDOM AND AUTONOMY A first prerequisite for sport to have value in relation to moral education is that it must be a voluntary pursuit that rests on a free choice of engagement by the participants. This requirement was central to Kant’s understanding of moral actions. Moral laws presuppose freedom in the sense that they must be principles that are freely chosen by a rational individual. When it comes to participation in sport, the consent principle proposed by Russell (2004) can be informative in this respect because it reminds coaches that competitive sports can, as he argues, be morally defensible only if they are undertaken voluntarily. The importance of freedom and autonomy is also mirrored in Suits’s (2005, 52–53) requirement of a lusory attitude for game playing, which features the voluntary acceptance of constitutive rules. This acceptance is crucial if youth sports are to be morally educative. Kant (2007, 444) argues that building a moral character is not a matter of moral indoctrination or coercion. Moral education involves learning to make use of one’s freedom. This is an important but difficult pedagogical task for youth coaches. In real life, a wide range of power structures and interests influence the participation of young athletes, and regarding the pedagogical work of coaches, the issue of freedom involves what often is referred to as the pedagogical paradox, which Kant described in relation to a fundamental problem for education: One of the biggest problems of education is how one can unite submission under lawful constraint with the capacity to use one’s freedom. For constraint is necessary. How do I cultivate freedom under constraint? I shall accustom my pupil to tolerate a constraint of his freedom, and I shall at the same time lead him to make good use of his freedom. (Kant 2007, 447)
Although this delicate balance between constraints and freedom is not always easy for educators or coaches, it can be an informative and important starting point for any coach working with youth sports. Awareness of this element of freedom, volition, and consent can contribute to highlight the important role of autonomy in the development of the individual as a moral agent, and avoid the potential dangers related to being pushed forward, or initially into sport, by ambitious parents or coaches.3
ACCEPTING AND COMPLYING WITH RULES The role of freedom is also important in relation to constitutive rules in sport. According to the socalled logical incompatibility thesis advanced by formalists, one cannot win or even compete in a game if one resorts to cheating (Morgan 1987). So obeying rules is necessary for playing games, and participants in youth sports have a duty to do so. But can the rules of games also play a constructive role in developing moral character? As part of his developmental psychology, Jean Piaget (1896–1980) was clear about this when he stated that “all morality consists in a system of rules, and the essence of all morality is to be sought for in the respect which the individual acquires for these rules” (1948, 1). It is, however, worth being cautious here. Many have argued against the view that rule-following is a moral skill that can be transferred between areas of life (see, e.g., Stolz 2014). A more refined understanding can be found in the Kantian claim that rules, to have moral value, must become principles (maxims) as part of moral education. In relation to this, Kant’s notion of a particular “voluntary obedience” (2007, 469) resonates well with Suits’s argument that “games require obedience to rules which limit the permissible means to a sought end, and where such rules are obeyed just so that such activity can occur” (2005, 47). Complying with the rules of games can in this way serve as a principle that is universal in the sense that the rules apply to everyone in the game. Voluntary obedience to rules in sport can work as a maxim for participants insofar as they have freely chosen to obey to them. Constitutive rules in sport therefore appear to be compatible with Kant’s requirements for moral formation.
Indeed, games and sport may be a particularly relevant field of practice for moral education, in which the pedagogical efforts of coaches to cultivate freedom under constraint do not have to constitute a paradox. Because rules provide constraints that make game playing possible in the first place, they are inherently attractive and therefore are chosen easily as ends in themselves. Nurturing an awareness of the moral value of such voluntary obedience, as part of youth engagement in sport, can be seen as a central pedagogical task for coaches in sport.
TRYING TO WIN Rules are important for right performance in sport, and learning to comply with these can play a role in the moral education of young people. But although rules are necessary for good contests, they are not sufficient. Rules prescribe the means, but not the ends, of contests in sport. Therefore, it is valuable to consider another formal requirement related to pursuing good ends. As mentioned, Kant has described the formal foundation for moral actions to be that they are good in themselves. This has implications for moral education. He writes: “The human being should not merely be skilled for all sorts of ends, but should also acquire the disposition to choose nothing but good ends. Good ends are those which are necessarily approved by everyone and which can be the simultaneous ends of everyone” (Kant 2007, 444). Coaches therefore should aim at teaching young people to pursue good ends. But what ends are good in themselves and can be approved by everyone in sport? Young people engage in sport for all kinds of reasons and with different purposes and ends. For these to be good, they must comply with, or at least not negate, the end of sport contests, which Suits has described to be the achievement of a specific state of affairs implied in the lusory goal. But logically, the end cannot be victory, because competitive sports are zero-sum games in which all competitors cannot win. Hence, winning cannot be a duty for all participants. Should coaches and parents therefore deemphasize competition in youth sports? Harvey, Kirk, and O’Donovan (2014) have suggested offering rewards other than winning and being best as a way to promote qualities other than competitiveness. They describe how this has become
apparent even in the English Premier League, in which the fairest performing team (the team with the fewest red and yellow card offenses) is given a qualifying entry berth into the Europa League. But imagine a soccer player who focuses more on not getting yellow or red cards than playing to win a match. Is this player really playing the game? The obvious answer to this indicates, as Cesar R. Torres and Peter F. Hager (2007) have also argued, that there are reasons for being cautious about de-emphasizing competition. As an alternative, it would be more relevant for coaches to emphasize right ways of competing, and a central principle in this approach would be that it is the attempt to win that matters. This argument rests on Warren P. Fraleigh’s (1984, 35–50) analysis of trying to win as the end of good contests in sport. If all participants did not adopt, as their personal intended end, the end of striving to win, the activity of playing games in competitive sport would cease to exist. Teams or athletes who do not comply with this obligation, for example, by trying to tie a game for strategic reasons, refusing to compete for political reasons, intending to lose for economical reasons (i.e., match fixing), or seeing it as their primary end to avoid getting yellow or red cards (as in soccer), compromise the very purpose of sport by detracting from or negating the end of aiming to win. In such cases, participants would, in Kantian terms, treat the other contestants as means and not ends. Thus, trying to win is a key formal principle that can inform ethical participation in sport, and should inform the pedagogical work of coaches in youth sports. It is necessarily approved by everyone for good competition to take place and thus can inform a central duty for young contestants. At this point, however, concern may be voiced that attempts to win easily degenerate into win-at-all-cost attitudes resulting in hostility, cheating, and violence. There is no shortage of empirical evidence that this happens all the time, which led Verner Møller to describe competitive sport as a “cultivation of the will to win taken to the threshold of evil” (2010, 24). This description of competition is relevant for coaches to take into account and seek to avoid. Competition is not universally good. That is why a primary pedagogical task is to help participants engage in sport in a morally edifying way. In this regard, Kant’s reflections on
moderation of pleasures and affect, as part of moral education, can be of value: “Morality is a matter of character. Sustine et abstine [endure and sustain] is the preparation for a wise moderation. If one wants to form a good character, one must first clear away the passions” (2007, 474). Sport is surely a kind of activity that can evoke strong passions. That is a central and meaningful part of participation (Aggerholm 2015). It is also a realm that celebrates excess (cf. the Olympic credo Citius, Altius, Fortius [“faster, higher, stronger”]). This can, and often does, result in selfish, brutal, and unethical behavior. But does that mean that sport cannot be a venue for moral education? On the basis of Kant’s reflections on moral development, this wouldn’t have to be the case. In fact, it might actually make sport particularly suitable for learning a moral lesson, at least if coaches promote the requirement of moderating one’s passions. Hence, the fact that moral behavior may not be the result of competitive sport, but rather exist in spite of it, does not have to mean that sport cannot be a place where moral character can be built. In sport you must be able to resist temptations and control your passions. This ability is exactly what strong character is in the commonsense use of it, as well as in Kant’s understanding. It is tempting to cheat or to go too far in your eagerness to win. The good coach would nurture a wise moderation in the participants’ attempts to win, and through this pedagogical work would guide the moral development in youth sports. As Harvey and his coauthors (2014, 54–55) suggest, this work could be informed by and rest on an ethical contract between coach and participants. In an explicit or implicit form, this could be a pedagogical tool for coaches that could secure agreement regarding the terms of engagement, to facilitate right ways of contesting on the basis of the principles previously discussed. This is similar to social contracts featured in John Rawls’s (1921– 2002) theory of justice (1999) and Jean-Paul Sartre’s (1905–1980) notion of “the pledge” (2004), by which Sartre analyzes a football player’s free dedication to a common group project. The pedagogical implication and value of this would be that participants in youth sports, under the responsible
guidance of coaches, could become aware of and accept the ethical principles of their sporting life. This would be relevant for their understanding of justice and fairness in sport as well.
JUSTICE AND FAIRNESS A formalist account of sport holds that these formal requirements regarding means and ends are both necessary and sufficient for describing and interpreting right ways of engaging in sport, but others have argued that they may be necessary but not sufficient (for a discussion of this, see R. Scott Kretchmar 2015). A relevant concern could be that the duty to try to win, even in moderate forms, is overshadowed by the negative experiences of defeats for, or deselection of, the less skilled participants. This is important for coaches to be aware of and handle in thoughtful ways. To this end, it can be relevant to examine the duty to others in competitive sport through Sigmund Loland’s interpretations of the concept of right in terms of ideas of fairness and justice (Loland 2002; Loland 2010; Loland 2014; Loland 2015). Central to this analysis is the account of justice as fairness outlined by Rawls (1999), which draws on the Kantian idea of respect for people as autonomous and rational moral agents who should be treated as equals. But how can you treat others as equals in competitive sport? As part of his argument for trying to win as a right end in sport, Fraleigh also argued that the “purpose of the sports contest is a just purpose because it guarantees equal opportunity to the good(s) of the institution of sport by all participants” (1984, 46). This transcends Suits’s account of game playing and can be understood as a foundation for competitive sport as it clarifies a primary and formal principle to ensure fairness in sport, namely, that everyone should have equal opportunity to perform. Thus, equality in sport is not only about being equal before the constitutive rules, but also about being equal at the outset of competition. This principle must be enforced by coaches as the basis of all contests in sport to secure appropriate competitive balance. It is, however, only a starting point because competitive sport rests on a meritocratic norm system that establishes inequality at the end of competition (i.e., finding a winner). Hence,
coaches cannot and should not aim to shield participants from experiencing defeats. Defeats are not morally problematic if they are the result of fair competition, and to this end, it is a precondition that participants have equal opportunity to begin with. Only on this basis can young people in sport experience the captivating and attractive sweet tension of uncertainty of the outcome (Kretchmar 1975). Competition in youth sport should test relevant skills to evaluate competitors according to inequality in athletic performance. Otherwise it would become a venue for merely asserting oneself over others who are less capable. This would be a case of seeing other participants as means rather than ends in themselves and hence would make the activity unethical both in principle and practice. To avoid this, and for sporting competitions to form part of moral education for young people, it can be important to notice Kant’s instructions regarding duties to others: “Reverence and respect for the rights of human beings must be instilled into the child at a very early age, and one must carefully see to it that the child puts these into practice” (Kant 2007, 476). If sport is to be a field of practice in which such rights can be instilled and put into practice, fair opportunity for participants must be secured by good coaches. This fair opportunity principle, as Loland terms it, implies that “we should eliminate or compensate for essential inequalities between persons that cannot be controlled or influenced by individuals in any significant way and for which individuals cannot be deemed responsible” (Loland 2010, 118). This has important consequences for the organization of youth sports and relates to issues of regulation, classification, and adaptation. It is beyond the scope of the present analysis to go deeper into these organizational aspects related to fairness, but in the daily pedagogical work of coaches, it can inform an awareness of securing fair opportunities for all participants. In addition, it can contribute with pedagogical reflections regarding inclusion, for example of people with disabilities and special needs, in clubs and sporting communities, and help avoid discrimination, for example, based on race or sexuality.
A pedagogical tool to facilitate working with the obligations and principles discussed in this section could be discussions in sports panels (Harvey, Kirk, and O’Donovan 2014, 55– 56). Disputes regarding the principles, breaches of the ethical contract, and other ethical issues can be debated. This debate could help coaches stimulate dialogue and reflect on moral issues in sport, nurture critical thinking, and possibly arrive at agreement and consensus, for example, about what fair play is. Such pedagogical work could be informed by discourse ethics, a position developed by Jürgen Habermas (1990) to take Kant’s account of universal moral laws and the categorical imperative in a communicative direction. In discourse ethics, normative justifications are based on moral argumentation and reasoned agreement among participants in a practical discourse. Thus, through dialogue and discussion, coaches can invite participants to reflect on new perspectives and possibly come to reasoned agreement regarding the moral principles of their social interactions, which can cultivate the participant’s sense of right actions and fair play in competitive sport.
THE LIMITS OF RULES AND PRINCIPLES This part of the chapter has, on the basis of deontological ethics as well as formalist and interpretivist theories of sport, outlined key rules, principles, and formal structures that can provide insights and tools for coaches to help their pedagogical task of facilitating moral conduct and development in youth sports. It has focused on reasoning and the rational agent’s duty to comply with principles and has described the potential pedagogical value of this for coaches. This Kantian approach, however, which informed Lawrence Kohlberg’s (1981) influential cognitive development theory of moral education, has been criticized widely by sport philosophers for being overly rationalist and being primarily a theory of moral understanding and knowledge, not of moral action (Jones 2005, 140–142; McNamee 2008,
72–85). This critique suggests that duties and principles are not all there is to moral behavior and development in sport. The following example illustrates why this is so. At the 2015 Solheim Cup in golf between the United States and Europe, American Alison Lee (1995–) scooped up her ball at the seventeenth green, as it was eighteen inches from the hole, and she thought the Europeans conceded her short distance putt, which is common procedure. However, Suzann Pettersen (1981–) on the European team claimed that they had not conceded, and the hole therefore went to Europe, leaving Lee in tears and triggering wide debate about who was right and wrong. This controversial situation was summed up by BBC’s Iain Carter: “The rulebook was followed on the 17th green but the spirit of what happened was disappointing. There was fault on both sides” (BBC Sport 2015). Even though Pettersen followed the written rules of golf, she was widely criticized for being disrespectful, dishonorable, and unsporting, breaking the moral code of golf and violating the spirit of the game’s rules. A former player on the European team, Laura Davies (1963–), said: “We got the point, but they’ve got the moral high ground” (Coffin 2015). Following this critique, Pettersen publicly apologized the day after in a statement on her Instagram profile: I’ve never felt more gutted and truly sad about what went down Sunday on the 17th at the Solheim Cup. I am so sorry for not thinking about the bigger picture in the heat of the battle and competition. I was trying my hardest for my team and put the single match and the point that could be earned ahead of sportsmanship and the game of golf itself! … I hope in time the U.S. team will forgive me and know that I have learned a valuable lesson about what is truly important in this great game of golf which has given me so much in my life.… And I want to work hard to earn back your belief in me as someone who plays hard, plays fair and plays the great game of golf the right way. (Pettersen 2015)
This example and these reflections illustrate how it is not always enough to play by the rulebook or follow such principles as trying to win or playing fairly. Sport ethics cannot be
reduced to following rules and moral education is not only about duty and obligation to perform right actions. The example therefore illustrates the limits of deontological reflections. Participants in sport must perform in accordance with a bigger picture for their actions to be good. Becoming aware of this fact apparently taught Pettersen a valuable moral lesson about sportsmanship and fair play. To pursue this further, the next section outlines how a virtue ethics approach can be of relevance to the pedagogical work of coaches, as it can shed a new and different light on moral conduct and development in youth sports.
VIRTUE ETHICS: EXCELLENCE, VIRTUES, AND GOOD LIVES Virtue ethics belong to the category of ethical theories that are aretaic, a word derived from the Greek term for “excellence,” arete. It describes how good behavior is a capacity for performing one’s characteristic activity well. In the Nicomachean Ethics (2004, 1097b), Aristotle (384–322 BCE) described this to be activity in accordance with the most complete, final, or perfect end that qualifies as a human good, which is not pursued for the sake of something else. He describes happiness (eudaimonia), which also translates into human flourishing or well-being, as such an end. This indicates that the evaluation of moral actions cannot be reduced to the rightness of a single action. It concerns the whole person and behavior “over a complete life” (Aristotle 2004, 1098a). The virtues are what enables this, and virtuous actions therefore are conducive to, and in fact constitutive elements of, living a good life. This makes Aristotelian virtue ethics teleological (i.e., goal directed); however, in contrast to utilitarian or consequentialist understanding, the good is an intrinsic and inherent part of virtuous actions, not a result of it. When it comes to moral virtues, Aristotle has described this as a disposition of a person’s character in which “excess and deficiency are characteristics of vice, the mean characteristic of virtue” (2004, 1106b).
This expresses the famous Aristotelian doctrine of the mean, which is relative to the particular person, the area of human action (e.g., fear, honor, and anger), and the context and situation in which it is enacted. Thus, virtue of character is not universal or absolute, but rather is situated. The evaluation of virtuous actions therefore requires the use of scalar properties, such as being more or less admirable, noble, or good, rather than the deontic evaluation of actions as either right or wrong (Steutel and Carr 1999). Virtue ethics also evaluates moral actions by how it is done, that is, the manner in which the person acts, including personal sources of agency (inclinations, motives, intentions), and not simply if an action is in accordance with principles. Thus, the Aristotelian tradition of virtue ethics has emphasized ethical behavior as the balancing, exercise, and display of appropriate virtues in specific contexts and situations. The enactment of virtues takes practical wisdom (phronesis), which can be described as a practical rationality between theoretical knowledge (episteme) and skills (techne) (for an extended analysis of this, see Aggerholm 2015, 65–74; Standal and Hemmestad 2011). This approach involves both deliberation and doing, the result of which is the ability to see situations correctly by encompassing the virtuous in one’s action. Hence, rather than applying universal principles to particular situations, practical wisdom implies understanding the general in light of the particular (Gallagher 1992, 153; Standal and Hemmestad 2011, 50–51). In Aristotle’s account, moral character and practical wisdom are developed with experience through a process of habituation. He writes: “Virtue of character (éthos) is a result of habituation (ethos), for which reason it has acquired its name through a small variation on ‘ethos’” (Aristotle 2004, 1103a). Hence, even if practical wisdom is not a skill, we acquire the dispositions for virtuous actions in the same way we acquire any other skill, namely, by repeatedly doing, exercising, and practicing them: “We become just by doing just actions, temperate by temperate actions, and courageous by courageous actions” (Aristotle 2004, 1103b).
SPORT AS SOCIAL PRACTICE(S) This Aristotelian approach to ethics resonates well with sport understood as a social practice. This, like most contemporary (neo-Aristotelian) virtue ethical approaches, considers the good and the corresponding virtues in relation to a social and cultural context. In his seminal work After Virtue, Alasdair C. MacIntyre replaced Aristotle’s metaphysical biology with a socially teleological account of virtue, acknowledging the “multiplicity of human practices and the consequent multiplicity of goods in the pursuit of which the virtues may be exercised” (MacIntyre 2007, 196). On this account, youth sports can be seen as a social practice in which participants can realize the internal goods of that practice, as they try to achieve the standards of excellence within the practice. External goods, such as results, money, fame, prestige, records, and others, are the property or possession of individuals (or teams) and can be achieved through athletic skill. Internal goods, on the other hand, benefit the whole community, and can be experienced and enjoyed only by taking part in the social practice. The standards of excellence transcend formal rules, but they still prescribe what counts as desired and proper behavior in sport. They have been analyzed as ethos, conventions, regulative rules, and spirit as well as, simply, excellence. Albeit in different ways and with different normative emphasis, these highlight how informal and unwritten rules, unofficial codes, implicit conventions, traditions, and tacit social norms and values regulate activities and influence the moral value of performance in sport. Embodying these in one’s actions is to enact sportsmanship, which Arnold has described as concerning “certain types of commendatory acts done in sport which are not obligatory but which enrich it as a worthwhile practice” (1997, 78). The previous golf example highlighted that certain standards of excellence in golf transcend the formal rules and principles. Because Pettersen did not live up to this standard, she did not show sportsmanship and therefore did not realize or experience the internal goods of her sport, even though her team won the hole.
INITIATING INTO SPORT AS A VALUED PRACTICE In light of this, a first important pedagogical task of coaches is to initiate participants into the social practice of their sport (Hardman and Jones 2011a; Arnold 1997, 73). To be fully engaged in a social practice, participants must enact and uphold the history, traditions, conventions, ethos, and appropriate customs that belong to it. These elements are what make up sport as a valuable practice, and coaches should be attentive to initiating participants into this as a first central aspect of moral education. An important part of this pedagogical task is to promote internal goods to guide and help participants toward valuing sport as an end in itself. Morgan (1994; 2004; 2006) has argued on several occasions that the ills of modern sport are related to the influence of external and instrumental values. The values in sport, not least the moral ones, can corrupt if sport is merely instrumental activity, that is, a means to external ends. In real life, motivations for engaging in practices are of course complex, and internal and external goods do not have to be mutually exclusive. But the aim of the good coach from a virtue ethical perspective is still to promote internal rather than external goods of sport. This role of the coach transcends technical or instrumental instructions and aims, as well as the principled guidelines described earlier. Good coaching in this perspective requires practical wisdom (Standal and Hemmestad 2011), which is personal and situated, and concerns what otherwise could be. Hence, it rests on a good character, ability to make judgments in individual cases, and flexibility, as well as sensitivity regarding human relationships, expressed, for example, by being authentic, courageous, kind, protective, trustworthy, caring, and supportive and by showing sympathetic understanding. Such requirements do not make coaching easier, and virtue ethics can be seen as vague when it comes to prescribing proper conduct, not least when it comes to pedagogy, and even more so when it comes to coaching for moral development. Two general guidelines, however, can be highlighted. First, the pedagogical task is to structure environments in which good norms and values are integrated with and enacted in everyday sporting life. Even if the spirit and ethos of
sport is mostly lived rather than known, the coach must be reflective about these norms and values to produce a good moral habitat. Second, and related to this, it is not enough to tell participants what to do, the coach must also show it. Coaches must be aware that they are, whether they intend to be or not, examples for participants. What matters has less to do with what you say about values and ideals, and more to do with how you enact them. Hence, role modeling should be seen as part of the pedagogical work of coaches. They must seek to enact admirable qualities of character and set good examples for the participants to follow. Another aspect of role modeling can be for coaches to point toward other admirable role models who incarnate excellence, individuals whom young athletes can look up to and from whom they can learn about good conduct. This is important because the capacity for virtuous actions is developed and cultivated in practice, through habituation. It should not be confused, however, with mindless conditioning. It is, rather, the ability to take responsibility for performing moral actions, with knowledge of what you do and choosing what is good for its own sake (Parry 2007, 192). The shared values in a community of practice are not universal principles but contextual norms and agreements. Therefore, they can be tested critically and challenged by both coaches and participants. Loland and Mike McNamee have described how such testing and critical scrutiny can be an integral part of participation, in which the “morality of particular sporting games is continuously presented, challenged, and negotiated, not always in articulate forms, but in terms of embodied interaction throughout sports performances” (2000, 75). This insight is important for both coaches and participants to avoid dogmatic reference to traditions and remaining open to informed reasoning about values in sport, while upholding what Arnold calls “its finest conventions and traditions” (1997, 73) in which its internal goods are rooted. He goes on to stress the value and importance of this for moral development: What then, more specifically, is it to have a moral character in the context of sport as a valued human practice? It lies, having been initiated into it, in making a commitment to its
internal goals and standards.… It involves exercising those virtues such as honesty, fairness, courage, determination and persistence which not only help characterize sport as a practice, but which are indispensable elements in allowing it to flourish. (Arnold 1997, 77)
This describes the pedagogical importance of initiating participants into the social practice of sport and, as Arnold argues, this involves facilitating the enactment of sportsmanship, which he analyzes as “the exercise of such virtues as friendliness, generosity and compassion in the conduct of sport” (1997, 78). Virtues are feelings and actions that are on target between excess and deficiency, which is relative to the person and the situation. Virtues are therefore different from principles—for example, the guideline of trying to win. A virtue ethical perspective would add to this the manner in which participants try to win. This also carries moral significance. Contributing to a good contest by trying to win in a proper and desirable way cannot be studied in a textbook. In contrast with, for example, Kant’s account of moderation, it depends on the particular circumstances of the situation. So there can be no universal prescription, but that doesn’t mean that coaches should not be reflective about virtues in their pedagogical work. It requires that coaches have knowledge of, and are sensitive to, both people and the social practice. A few examples of social and individual virtues can illustrate the possible value, as well as the pedagogical implications, of this.
SOCIAL VIRTUES: FRIENDSHIP, TEAMWORK, AND HUMOR Within the philosophy of sport, a variety of social virtues in sporting communities have been highlighted, such as goodwill, fairness, magnanimity, collaboration, humility, commitment, loyalty, respect, contrition, and trust. All of these would deserve to be included in the pedagogical work of coaches, but given the limits of the present chapter, the following will focus on the social virtues of friendship, teamwork, and humor. Drew A. Hyland (1985) has argued that athletic competition is a mode of friendship by pointing to its etymological roots in Latin: com (together) and petition (“to strive” or “to question”). From this, he stresses how competition must involve an element of cooperation
because a good contest fundamentally depends on the presence of the other contesters; it involves a “shared striving or questioning toward something one lacks and which one could not achieve, or at least could not achieve as well, without the cooperation.” This points to a social dimension of human flourishing, which is important on the Aristotelian view as described, for example, in Aristotle’s account of “friendship of superiority.” As part of this view, Aristotle argues that “those who are friends for virtue are eager to benefit each other (this being characteristic of virtue and friendship), and there are no complaints or disagreements between people competing with each other in this way. For no one objects to another’s loving and benefiting him; if he has good taste, he will respond by benefiting the other” (2004, 1162b). This line of reasoning can inform contesters in youth sports about the shared benefit that can be enjoyed as an internal good of the competitive practice. It resembles Kretchmar’s (1975) classic description of how “testing families” can arise as we recognize other contesters as “like testers,” and how sport can thereby contribute to an experience of “contesting togetherness.” Awareness of this shared good can help avoid negative emotions, such as envy or schadenfreude (McNamee 2008). Conducted in a virtuous manner, competition thus becomes a friendly striving with one’s opponents.4 Nurturing this kind of attitude in participants should be a central pedagogical aim of coaches in youth sports. Another aspect of contesting togetherness in games, at least in team sports, is collaboration with teammates. Paul Gaffney has argued that teamwork is a virtue in sport. He provisionally defines teamwork in sport as the “commitment of individual players to one another and to a common purpose in the context of a shared athletic enterprise” (2015, 3). He argues that this is especially relevant in the moral context of sport and that it is particularly appropriate in youth sport education. Teamwork may not be a virtue in all sports, and instrumental relations between teammates—for example, in cycling teams—often are hard to avoid. But at least in youth sports, seeing teamwork as a virtue can teach participants that self-interests are better promoted by committing to group interests, and that it is by devoting oneself to the larger purpose and interest of the team that the internal goods of sport can be achieved. Thus conceived, youth sports
can teach participants important moral lessons about mutual responsibility, and this formative benefit can be facilitated if coaches see it as their pedagogical task to nurture a cooperative spirit in the sporting community and seek to make participants aware of the requirements for becoming a good teammate. Another social virtue that can be relevant for sports coaches is humor. Aristotle described humor as a virtue of social interaction that involves “saying, and similarly listening to, the right thing in the right way” (2004, 1128a). A good sense of humor requires practical wisdom, and the quick-witted (eutrapelos) person is able to be properly situated in the mean state between clownish buffoons who go too far in their humor and the boorish with no sense of humor. Through an existential analysis of this phenomenon, I argue that humor is a central virtue in youth sports (Aggerholm 2015, 146–169). It can play a constructive and edifying role in moral development as it involves practicing a mature eye for the many contradictions that can be found in sport. This can reveal, for example, dogmatic or overly instrumental approaches as comic by relating such particulars to the deeper meaning and values of sport. Being attentive to, and navigating in, the humorous waters of one’s social practice is, thus, no laughing matter for coaches (Ronglan and Aggerholm 2013; Ronglan and Aggerholm 2014). It can help working with the subtle negotiations of what is right and wrong in youth sport environments, and in indirect ways, can make participants attentive to fundamental values in their social practice.
INDIVIDUAL VIRTUES: RESILIENCE AND PRACTICING Authors in the philosophy of sport also have argued for more individual virtues, such as hard work, effort, courage, perseverance, and discipline. In addition to this, Russell has argued that we must “recognize some distinctive features of virtue in sport that are not well-captured by or wholly derivative of classical theories of virtue, and that may require us to consider extending those theories” (2015, 161). His suggestion for a central virtue in sport is resilience, understood as the ability to adapt positively to significant adversity, as a mean between being defeatist or obdurate when facing adversity.
Because competitive sport is a kind of practice that involves artificial obstacles, adversity, and challenging tests and contests, the opportunity to respond to and overcome adversity is an integrated part of meaningful activity in this field. This, Russell argues, implies that “sport exists fundamentally, if not exclusively, as an arena for testing resilience” (2015, 166). Furthermore, he argues that “recognizing the role of resilience and related virtues within sport deepens our understanding of the internal values of sport and shows the complex nature of success found within it” (2015, 176). The pedagogical task for coaches in light of this would be to help participants reveal and recognize a layer of meaning that transcends competitive aspects of winning and losing, to focus instead on more processual aspects related to self-knowledge and growing as a person. Learning to overcome adversity, in this sense, can play a constructive part of moral education in youth sports. Much in line with this I have argued that practicing should be considered a virtue in youth sports (Aggerholm 2015). This, like resilience, can help emphasize the quest or journey rather than the destination. The process of practicing virtue (askesis) is arguably an important and valuable part of participation in sport (see also Aggerholm 2016), and it is indeed a most central aspect of moral education.5 The true value of moral education in youth sports may not lie in the good acts themselves, but in developing the good habits on which such acts are grounded. In a peculiar way, this makes the process of practicing an end in itself, and such insights can broaden the pedagogical scope for coaches and inspire awareness of developmental values for participants in sport. If competitive youth sports are to be good for young people, they must not focus on specific acts or results. Participants in youth sports learn that to improve their skillful ways of throwing, kicking, collaborating, and so on, they have to make an effort and engage in active repetitions of that in which they wish to excel in (Aggerholm 2015). As Aristotle has argued, the same goes for learning virtues, and he used athletes as an example of developing character in general: “In each sphere people’s activities give them the corresponding character.
This is clear from the case of people training for any competition or action, since they practise the relevant activity continually” (2004, 1114a). This example is part of his argument for our responsibility for forming ourselves in virtuous or vicious ways. Both ways are in our power because our choice of activity is both rational and voluntary. In this light, youth sports can teach participants an elementary lesson about the responsibility of forming our character, and for this to be virtuous rather than vicious, at least part of the responsibility lies with good coaching. In this respect, the physical culture of youth sports might be a particularly relevant venue for experiencing this formative aspect of ethics. As Russell (2015, 170) argues, sport represents one of the few healthy and acceptable areas for developing resilience, because in this safe environment, the experience of adversity and setbacks comes with minimal consequences compared with other contexts in life. The challenges and tensions that competitive sports continuously provide for participants can be a safe and edifying vehicle for practicing resilience, as well as other aspects of moral conduct. Regarding this, and bearing in mind the Aristotelian doctrine of the mean, the pedagogical task for coaches would be to balance the process. Just as too much exercise leads to overtraining and too little results in atrophying bodies, the level of challenge and adversity must be balanced between too little and too much, to make it an edifying process for participants. In a similar fashion, practicing should be balanced between the vices of hyper- or omniperfection and indifference to excellence. Between excess and deficiency, practicing as a virtue concerns striving for excellence in a proper and balanced way. Focusing on, and facilitating, such balanced efforts in the process of building up good moral habits should be an important part of the pedagogical work of coaches in youth sports.
THE GOOD LIFE Finally and importantly, the virtues that enable young people to achieve the internal goods of sport must transcend the limited goods of practices and form part of the good of a whole human
life for participants. This requires that coaches see virtues in youth sports in a broader perspective, for instance, in terms of such virtues as integrity and constancy (MacIntyre 2007, 203). How can coaches nurture these virtues? The transference cannot be a one-to-one relation. Something considered a virtue in sport, for example, deception or aggression, might be considered a vice in ordinary life. Also, because practical wisdom is situated and contextual, it cannot simply be transferred. A clue to a meaningful way of seeing sport as part of a good life can be found in MacIntyre’s suggestion for nurturing narrative approaches to life. On the basis of this suggestion, Heather L. Reid has described how sport as a social practice should “provide a flexible but consistent moral framework for living a coherent and meaningful life story” (2012, 59). This transcends the pedagogical tools of discourse and debate described previously, as it involves being attentive to and cultivating the narrative unity embodied in the life of the participants. As part of this approach, Reid also highlights MacIntyre’s argument that this must involve an awareness of the participants’ experience of meaning in sport: Sport should do more than train us to do an action. It should foster an understanding of why we do that action.… To fit MacIntyre’s requirements for a valued social practice that cultivates virtues aimed at a unified, good life, sport must further promote an understanding of why we do sport as part of that life. (Reid 2012, 67, her emphasis)
In many cases, this would of course be too much to ask of coaches in youth sports. Often the relation to participants is only of short duration and many aspects—for example, the element of power in the coach-athlete relations—can prohibit coaches from knowing the personal lives of participants. That, however, doesn’t mean that it should not be an important pedagogical ambition to make participation in youth sports part of a good life. It can urge coaches to be what Loland (2011) has called “enlightened generalists” who seek to nurture understanding and responsibility in the participants and to take the moral significance of virtues in competition beyond the realm of sport by paying attention to not just sporting excellence but also human excellence.
Summary The moral status and value of sport is ambiguous. Instead of seeing sport as inherently good or bad, this chapter has presented a view in which the moral value of this field of practice depends on the way it is enacted and experienced by participants. To a large extent, this depends on the coaches, which implies that coaches have a responsibility to nurture moral conduct and development. Hence, if youth sports are to be good, it requires pedagogical work from coaches. On this basis, the chapter has considered two key positions in normative ethics, combined with normative theories in the philosophy of sport, to describe ways in which coaches can do pedagogical work to facilitate the moral education of participants in and through youth sports. First, deontological ethics was presented in relation to formalism and interpretivism to discuss issues of freedom, obligation, and duty. It was described how participation in sport, like moral development in general, must involve freedom and consent, on the basis of which moral development can be nurtured through complying with key principles and formal requirements, such as performing in accordance with the allowed means (constitutive rules) and pursuing the right ends (trying to win). It also was discussed how coaches should facilitate justice and fairness to promote and secure equal opportunity to perform. Ethical contracts and sports panels were suggested as concrete pedagogical tools that coaches could use as part of this work. Second, virtue ethics was related to understandings of sport as a social practice to discuss issues of excellence, virtues, and sport as part of living a good life. A central part of the pedagogical work of coaches was described as initiating participants into the internal goods and standards of excellence in the field of practice. It was discussed how this could involve exercising and practicing virtues, and examples related to friendship, teamwork, humor, and resilience were used to illustrate the relevance of this for coaches in youth sports. It was argued that this approach urges coaches to focus on the process of developing good habits in a balanced way and to be reflective of how participation in sport can form part of living a good life.
The two approaches to moral issues in sport and their pedagogical implications for coaches are indeed quite different, but rather than seeing them as mutually exclusive, this chapter has sought to highlight strengths and weaknesses to illustrate how they each in their own way can be relevant for coaches in youth sports. The analyses in this chapter, however, by no means have exhausted this intriguing topic. Moral issues in youth sports and the development of moral character are indeed complex and ambiguous matters. But through the ethical, sport philosophical, and pedagogical reflections presented in the chapter, it has described ways of thinking about ethics and youth sports that hopefully can help coaches and others involved in this field guide practice in morally defensible, sustainable, and edifying ways.
Endnotes 1. The focus on deontological and virtue ethics is merely due to the limited space available in this chapter. It does not imply that consequentialism, or utilitarian thinking, cannot be relevant and effectively applied by youth coaches. 2. This position is also sometimes referred to under the larger conceptual term of broad internalism. See, e.g., Simon 2000; Simon 2010. 3. I have elsewhere used the case of Andre Agassi (1970–), who was forced into playing tennis by his ambitious father, as an example of the possible existential dangers that can follow from a lack of free choice of participation in sport (Aggerholm 2015, 63–64). This element of mutuality more recently has been stressed by Simon as he argues for seeing competitive sport as “a mutually acceptable quest for excellence through challenge” (2010, 27). Because he presents it as a key principle rather than a virtue, I have not included it here. 4. This idea can actually be found as part of Kant’s ([1797] 1991, 211, 273–274) method for moral development, which he called “ethical ascetics.” He described this as the practical counterpart of conceptual exercising in theory (teaching ethics through moral catechizing). Hence, it appears to be one
aspect
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