The Proper Place for External Motivations for Sport and Why They Need Not Subvert Its Internal Goods

Abstract

ABSTRACTA major theme in both of Bill Morgan’s single-author books is that contemporary sport has become corrupted by an increasing emphasis on external goals, in particular money-making, at the expense of its internal values. My goal in this paper is not to contest Morgan’s contention that we need to protect the internal values of the practice of sport. It is, rather, to further analyze the concept of sport’s internal values and their relationship with its external values. First, a naive view, which I have elsewhere called ‘sporting exceptionalism’, denies that sport is a fit subject for moral evaluation in the first place, so any talk of its internal value is misplaced. Second, in recent years libertarian philosophers of sport have advanced more sophisticated arguments that sport’s moral worth arises largely or even solely from the voluntary agreements between participants, rather than any intrinsic value. For Morgan’s critique of instrumental approaches to sport to succeed, we must present a cogent response to this libertarian perspective. Third, it would be Utopian to deny any place at all to extrinsic motivations in the practice of sport. Instead, we need to discuss how much of a role motivations like the pursuit of money, fame, and entertainment can play in sport without diminishing the practice’s internal values. It is to this third issue that the lion’s share of this paper is devoted.