Sport, Philosophy, and Good Lives
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
Published: 2013
Language: eng
Number of pages: 288
ISBN-13: 9780803271531
Subjects: Sports, philosophy; Sports, moral and ethical aspects; Sportsmanship
Description: There's more to sports than the ethos of competition, entertainment, and commercialism expressed in popular media and discourse. "Sport, Philosophy, and the Good Lives" discusses sport in the context of several traditional philosophical questions, including: What is a good human life and how does sport factor into it? To whom do we look for ethical guidance? What makes human activities or projects meaningful? Randolph Feezell examines these questions along with other relevant topics in the philosophy of sport such as the contribution of play to a meaningful life, the various reasons for pessimistic views of sport, the various claims that celebrated athletes are role models, and the seldom-questioned view that coaches are in a position to offer advice to athletes on how to live or on leadership skills. He also discusses the way that non-Western attitudes found in Buddhism, Taoism, and the "Bhagavad Gita" might be used to address the vulnerabilities of sports participants.