PHIL205: Are Sports Ethical?

Harjit Bhogal

Course Summary

Think of the last time you watched a sports game: perhaps it was a Baltimore Ravens game, a Terps basketball game, or the USA competing in the World Cup. Whatever it was, it is likely that lots of the things that you saw would seem morally unacceptable if they were outside the context of a sports game. There might have been violence between the participants, even violence that’s not allowed by the rules. Some of the participants might have been attempting to trick or mislead the referee. The people watching might have been hoping that some of the participants performances were an embarrassing failure. And they might have verbally abused the participants in hopes of increasing the likelihood that they would fail. And sometimes, especially when the participants represent countries, the people watching might feel anger and resentment towards whole nations. All of this seems much more reasonable, and perhaps even justifiable, when we consider these actions within a sporting context.

So, the ethical nature of sport is very different from that of ordinary life. In this course we will investigate the ethical structure of sports, and what it tells us about the ethics of everyday life.

We will start out by getting a grip on the preliminary question -- what are sports? Then we will look the interaction of rules in sports and morality -- looking at issues such as the nature of sportsmanship, what types of violence in sports is acceptable and drug use in sports. After that we will consider being a fan -- why, for example, is loyalty to your team valuable? And finally we will consider how our view of sports interacts with our view of gender and of nations. Is it appropriately patriotic to support athletes from your country? Or is it inappropriately nationalistic? Is it wrong to separate men's and women's sport?

By the end of the class you should have gained familiarity with a variety of ethical concepts. And you should have gained a sensitivity to the ethical issues in sports, being able to identify them as they arise, and being able to use philosophical reasoning to analyze them. Further, you should be able to clearly express this reasoning in writing and verbally.

Course Information

Instructor Harjit Bhogal TAs Finn Genz, Jeremy Schlanger, Chenhao Lu Class Room SKN 0200 Lecture Time Mon/Wed 11-11:50

HB Office Hours Friday 10-12pm on Zoom, or by appointment HB Zoom ID 663 599 6109 HB Email bhogal@umd.edu

FG Office Hours Monday 1-3pm, or by appointment FG Office FG Email fgenz@umd.edu

JS Office Hours Tuesday 10-12pm, or by appointment JS Office
JS Email jschlang@umd.edu

CL Office Hours Wednesday 2-3pm, or by appointment CL Office
CL Email clu12348@umd.edu

Course related questions, requests for meetings, documentation of absences, and so on, should be via email.

Texts

The readings with be posted on ELMS/linked to from here.

Assignments

3 in-class writing assignments: 20% each (60% total)
Participation: 15%
Final Exam: 25%
One optional in-class presentation. If you choose to do this you can replace your lowest in-class assignment grade with this grade.

Each of the assignments, and the final exam, will be done via lockdown browser or will be handwritten.

In-class writing assignments

The writing assignments will be on 3/2, 3/23, and 4/8. We will have one practice writing assignment (which does not count towards your grade) on 2/11 followed by a review session about that practice assignment on 2/16.

Participation

Class participation is designed to measure evidence that you have done, and thought about, the reading and the topic more generally. Coming to discussion sections ready to engage with the material is most relevant for the participation grade. To be clear, you don't need to be loud, or constantly talking in class to get an A on class participation, but some contribution and engagement is required.

Other forms of engagement with me or the TA about the material, e.g. in office hours, can count towards participation.

Please let your TA know, as early as possible, about any excused absences. Typically this will be before the class you are absent.

Final Exam

The final exam is Wednesday, May 13, 10:30am-12:30pm. It will be a short answer exam. There are 10 questions but you'll only have to answer 5. You should write around 2 medium paras for each question.

Optional in-class presentation

The presentations will be 4/17 and 4/27 and 5/4. The presentation on 4/27 will be about nationality and eligibility for the Olympics. You will have to suggest and defend a set of rules for deciding who is eligible to compete for which country in the Olympics. In the other presentation you will have to identify some moral problem in some sport you are familiar with and suggest a way to fix it.

You can do the presentation on your own or in groups of up to 3. If you do it in a group you will all get the same grade.

If you choose to do the presentation you will have to email me by 3/11 saying which presentation you want to do and who will be in your group.

Grading

Here are the grade ranges: A+: 100-96.67, A: 96.66-93.34, A-: 93.33-90

B+: 90-86.67, B: 86.66-83.34, B-: 83.33-80

C+: 80-76.67, C: 76.66-73.34, C-: 73.33-70

D+: 70-66.67, D: 66.66-63.34, D-: 63.33-60

Written assignments/presentations/the final exam will be graded along 4 dimensions

Clarity: This is clarity both in the small-scale -- It's clear what your sentences mean and how they fit together -- and on the large-scale, it's clear what the point of your paper is how you argue for that point.
Accuracy: The paper should be accurate in its discussion of the relevant philosophical topics, the terminology, the relevant literature, etc.
Reasoning: The paper should provide plausible reasons for its conclusion, avoiding logical errors and avoiding mere rhetoric.
Originality: This doesn't mean that you have to develop a view that no one else has ever thought of -- in fact, it will probably be a bad idea to do that. Rather, it's to do with there being some evidence that you've developed ideas about the issues independently. Giving a new, improved version of an objection we considered counts as originality, as does setting up and presenting the issues in a new way. Of course, though, originality doesn't count for much if you don't also do well on the earlier dimensions -- an original, but inaccurate paper is not good. You can get an A with very little originality, as long as you do very well on the previous dimensions.

Grades will be posted on ELMS.

Policies

Policies relevant to Undergraduate Courses are found here. Topics that are addressed in these various policies include academic integrity, student and instructor conduct, accessibility and accommodations, attendance and excused absences, grades and appeals, copyright and intellectual property.

Late assignments will be penalized a third of a letter grade, that's 3.33 points, for each day late, starting as soon as the deadline passes. Weekend days count.

The use of AI writing tools like ChatGPT is not allowed.

If the university is closed (e.g. for Snow) I'll be in touch via ELMS