Conference Announcement & Call for Abstracts:

*Sport & Technology: Philosophical Dimensions*
Friday, May 29, 2009 - Sunday, May 31, 2009

Keynote Speakers:
Dr. William J. Morgan, University of Southern California
Dr. W. Miller Brown, Trinity College

Hosted by Continuing Studies & the Department of Philosophy Langara College Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Conference Information:
The world has witnessed the breaking of world and Olympic records in unheralded numbers in recent years. Advances in training, equipment, doping substances and methods, and potentially even genetic engineering have apparently changed sport from its historical origins. These events invite philosophical discussion and analysis of the ethical dimensions of the use of these new technologies and, also, of their broader implications for the conception of sport itself. Some questions that should be asked include: What role does technology play in sport, and what role ought it to play? What responsibilities do sport governing bodies have over the regulation of technology in their individual sports? Ought cutting-edge technology be available to all competitors, or is the design and utilization of technology a legitimate component of strategy within sport? Is some technology acceptable, and other not? What is the threshold for acceptable technological advantage? What is the moral difference, if any, between the use of technology to aid performance in sport and the use of performance enhancing drugs? The conference aims to open philosophical dialogue on these and other topics related to technology and sport.

We invite participation on any topic that addresses the philosophical dimensions of technology in sport. Papers on other topics related to philosophy of sport will also be considered and will be accepted if there is room on the conference agenda.

Articles submitted in full by April 15th will be considered for publication in a special fall 2009 issue of The Journal of Philosophy of Sport.

Please submit abstracts (250 – 400 words) electronically to all listed below:
Dr. John S. Russell, jrussell@langara.bc.ca
Dr. Gabriela Tymowski, gabi@unb.ca gabi@unb.ca
Dr. Angela Schneider, aschneid@uwo.ca aschneid@uwo.ca

Abstract Deadline: March 1st, 2009 (note extension)
Notification of Acceptance: By March 15th, 2009

Registration: Form available at http://www.langara.bc.ca/cs/media/pdfs/register.pdf . Conference fee is $100 Cdn. ($65 Cdn for students enrolled in a post-secondary program). Indicate under "Course" that you are enrolling in "Sport and Technology: Philosophical Dimensions." The course code is 60580. See www.langara.bc.ca for information about Langara College. The conveners will send further information to registrants, including plans for a golf tournament (the College adjoins a golf course), seawall runs and/or a hike up Grouse Mountain, and a dinner.
Accommodation:

A block of rooms has been reserved at the Plaza 500 Hotel, which is a short bus trip to Langara College and close to downtown. Call 1-800-473-1811. Room rates are $139 Cdn/night. (The Canadian dollar is currently $.81 US.) http://www.plaza500.com/

For further information:
Dr. John S. Russell
Chair, Dept. of Philosophy
Langara College
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
V5Y 2E4
604-323-5453

100-0, with Honor?

The coach of a Texas high school basketball team that beat another team 100-0 was fired Sunday, the same day he sent an e-mail to a newspaper saying he will not apologize "for a wide-margin victory when my girls played with honor and integrity."

Given that I didn't witness the contest, I can't say a lot beyond speculation about the ethics of this particular scenario. However, it does seem to me that playing with honor and integrity would involve not taking 3 point shots in the 4th quarter of such a lopsided game. Sport philosophers Nicholas Dixon and Randolph Feezell have offered arguments about this type of situation. Dixon argues against a received view concerning sportspersonship that he calls the Anti-Blowout thesis:

It is intrinsically unsporting for players or teams to maximize the margin of victory after they have secured victory in a one-sided contest.

One of the strongest points in favor of his view raised by Dixon is that it is not true that those who suffer lopsided defeats have been humiliated or diminished as humans. The only cause for shame in such a situation would be giving up, if one is on the losing side. And in a competitive game, when part of the purpose is a determination of athletic superiority and excellence, there is nothing immoral about running up the score. (For more, see Dixon's "On Sportsmanship and Running Up the Score'," Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (1992): 1-13).

On the other side of this issue, Feezell argues that even if it isn't always wrong to run up the score, it usually is and strong overriding factors must be present if the following Revised Anti-Blowout Thesis is to be overridden:

It is prima facie unsporting for players or teams to maximize the margin of victory after they have secured victory in a one-sided contest.

For more, see Randolph Feezell, "Sportsmanship and Blowouts: Baseball and Beyond," Journal of the Philosophy of Sport (1999): 68-78. Both papers are also reprinted in Sports Ethics, edited by Jan Boxill.

Given the above principles and the ESPN account, was it wrong to run up the score?

Can Straight Shooters Use Beta Blockers?

What if some athletes were prevented from performing to their full potential because they were abnormally nervous in front of big crowds? Mastering the mental aspects of competitive sport is integral to being a true champion, but what about uncontrollable nervous reactions, like sweaty palms or nervous twitches? Carl Elliot asks whether Beta Blockers, which were used by two North Korean pistol shooters at the recent Olympic Games, can be classified in the same way as steroids or human growth hormone in this piece in The Atlantic:

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200808u/beta-blockers

What do you all think?

14th annual Congress of the European College of Sport Science

ECSS Congress in Oslo, June 24-27 2009
From June 24 to June 27 2009, The Norwegian School of Sport Sciences will organize the 14th annual Congress of the European College of Sport Science in Oslo, Norway. This is a multi-disciplinary congress that gathers between 1500 and 2000 scholars from all sport science fields and from all over the world.


Please check out the Congress home page on
http://www.ecss-congress.eu/OSLO2009/
Dead line for abstract submission is February 15th 2009.

2009 Institute for Athletes in Retirement and Transition Conference

"Life after Sport: Athletes in Transition," May 29-31 in San Diego.
The main page for the conference is here.

British Philosophy of Sport Conference

The 2009 BPSA Conference will be held from 26 – 28 March in the historic Dudhope Castle in Dundee, Scotland The castle forms part of the campus of the University of Abertay Dundee, and is ideally situated for visitor attractions such as golf at St Andrews, Carnoustie or Rosemount; whisky tasting tours; and visiting the Cairngorms National Park.

Abstracts are welcome from within any area of philosophy of sport including metaphysics, epistemology, aesthetics, and ethics, and from any relevant theoretical approach, including analytic, continental philosophy or critical theory. Submissions in related areas such as philosophy of the body; philosophy of health, philosophy of coaching; philosophy of Physical Education are also welcomed. Newcomers to the association may wish to consult the web site to see full details of previous conferences and books of abstracts: http://philosophyofsport.glos.ac.uk.

Abstracts should be 350-500 words long (including references). The deadline for submission is 12 December 2008. Abstracts must be submitted electronically to BPSA Vice-Chair Dr Andrew Edgar edgar@cardiff.ac.uk. Preferred format is MS Word. Contributors will be notified about the acceptance or rejection of their abstracts no later than 26 January 2009. Abstracts will be published in a booklet distributed at the conference and will appear before then on the BPSA website. Authors whose work is accepted for the conference are invited to submit their papers for review to the Association’s Journal, Sport, Ethics and Philosophy, edited by Dr McNamee m.j.mcnamee@swansea.ac.uk.

Further information about the conference programme, location, travel arrangements, etc. will be posted on the BPSA website as it becomes available. The local organisers will be Professor Steve Olivier and Ms Claire Morton, at c510586@abertay.ac.uk; telephone 0044 (0)1382 308727.

And Penthesilea Wept

I have always loved mischief-makers.

In their paper “The genetic design of a new Amazon” Claudio Tamburrini and Torbjorn Tannsjo (or perhaps Pan and Loki?) claim that the fact that men and women are prevented from competing against each other means that women are sexually discriminated against in sporting arenas. Ergo, as such discrimination is unacceptable, women should be allowed to undergo genetic modification (when such procedures are safe) to allow them to compete with men, because “In sports it is crucial that the best person wins”. While I am very interested in what the readers of this blog think on the matter, I’m going to nail my colours to the mast right away.

Tamburrini and Tannsjo claim that (A) “If a female athlete can perform better than a male athlete, this female athlete should be allowed to compete with, and beat, the male athlete.” And (B) “If she cannot beat a certain male athlete, so be it. If the competition was fair, she should be able to face the fact that he was more talented. It is really as simple as that.” I agree fully with (A); of course, whether women would want to compete with males, or should be made to, is another question.

(B), though, hints at a problem that Tamburinni and Tannsjo seem to obfuscate. If female athletes are genetically enhanced, any competition against unmodified male athletes simply isn’t fair anymore. In what sense is a victory by an enhanced female athlete over an unmodified male athlete a victory for equality? Presumably, Tamburrini and Tannsjo are either going to allow male athletes to modify themselves in a similar way (so they too can try to be the “best person”), or they are not. If they do, the modifications of the two sexes would seem to “cancel each other out” in a kind of biotechnological arms race (har har), as each athlete attempts to be that best person. And if they don’t, that would seem to be… err… sexual discrimination. (In the background I can hear Derek Zoolander screaming: “Merman pop! I’m a mer-MAN!)

I do hope, though, that in my lifetime genetic enhancements eventually allow one to drastically and safely alter one’s body shape. I have always thought that forcefully preventing me from running in the Grand National was speciesism at its most extreme. How can they separate me from those magnificent thoroughbreds, while farmers and locust swarms compete for the lands produce? While apartment dwellers and foxes see who can squeeze into each other’s living spaces, and humans, dogs and squirrels run together unfettered in Central Park? I don’t enjoy the fact that the market assigns very little value to my present long-distance running and hedge-jumping times, and I would be quite prepared to risk any of the possible side-effects of equine semi-transformation. My hope is that after a few good races, I am put out to stud in a vineyard.