Category Archives: Books

December 11, 2025 · 6:55 pm

College Sports Ethics: Challenges, Questions, and Opportunities (Now Available)

I’m excited to announced that the latest in the Studies in Philosophy of Sport series is now published:

Pre-Order Today!

College Sports Ethics: Challenges, Questions, and Opportunities edited by Chad Carlson and myself can be ordered from Bloomsbury or from Amazon (sponsored link) and other booksellers.

Chad and I started working on this collection several years ago; our first conversations started back in 2021! We knew the landscape of college sports was changing and that new discussions about ethics in college sports were needed. Of course, there are many books that explore the different scandals that periodically erupt and plague college sports: but we thought what was needed were conversations about the nature of college sports and the relevant ethical principles. What makes college sport different from other sport domains and what ethical challenges and questions are unique to this domain? What opportunities does this unique domain of sport offer?

With that overarching idea in mind, we reached out to philosophers of sport and brought together a set of thinkers we think are perfect to get these conversations going. The table of contents is listed below.

From the back cover:

The first chapters examine college sports at a systematic level, considering the ways we can evaluate college sport as a whole, as well as how we ought to structure college sports in ways that are fairer and better tests of athletic excellence. The second section looks more closely at the interplay of the academic institutions and athletics, arguing that since college sports programs are part of institutions of higher learning, we need to consider the purposes of these institutions when evaluating college sports. Moreover, the well-being and protection of college athletes is central to an ethically defensible college system. The last section of chapters explores several controversial issues in college sports, including gender inequality and transgender participation.

Table of Contents:

Introduction (Chad Carlson, Hope College, USA, and Shawn E. Klein, Arizona State University, USA)

Part 1: The System
1. The Good, the Bad, and the Costly (Pam R. Sailors, Missouri State University, USA)
2. The Ethics of the Level Playing Field (R. Scott Kretchmar, Pennsylvania State University, USA)
3. Tournaments, Tests, and the Aims of Intercollegiate Athletic Competitions (Aaron Harper, West Liberty University, USA)

Part 2: Institutions and Academics
4. Taking College (and) Sport Seriously (Alex Wolf-Root, The Ohio State University, USA)
5. Holding Institutions Responsible for Student-Athlete Well-Being (Peg Brand Weiser, University of Oregon, USA)
6. Duty of Care: Non-traumatic Deaths and DI Collegiate Football (Nancy Kane, State University of New York, Cortland, USA)
7. The Professor as Fan (Adam Kadlac, Wake Forest University, USA)

Part 3: Controversies
8. Gender and Ethics in College Sport: Hegemonic Masculinity as an Underlying Problem (Colleen English, Pennsylvania State University, Berks, USA)
9. Sooner or Later: Changing Team Names and Mascots (Jeremy Fried, Auburn University, USA)
10. Caught in Transition: The Ethical Issues of Trans Athletes in Collegiate Sport (John Gleaves, California State University, Fullerton, USA)
11. Reflections on Muddy Waters, Marijuana, and Moving Goalposts: Against “Returning” Reggie Bush’s Heisman (S. Seth Bordner, University of Alabama, USA)

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December 8, 2025 · 3:30 pm

This Week: College Sports Ethics: Challenges, Questions, and Opportunities

I’m excited to announced that the latest in the Studies in Philosophy of Sport is now available for pre-order and will be published on Thursday December 11, 2025

Pre-Order Today!

College Sports Ethics: Challenges, Questions, and Opportunities edited by Chad Carlson and myself can be pre-ordered from Bloomsbury or from Amazon (sponsored link) and other booksellers.

From the back cover:

The first chapters examine college sports at a systematic level, considering the ways we can evaluate college sport as a whole, as well as how we ought to structure college sports in ways that are fairer and better tests of athletic excellence. The second section looks more closely at the interplay of the academic institutions and athletics, arguing that since college sports programs are part of institutions of higher learning, we need to consider the purposes of these institutions when evaluating college sports. Moreover, the well-being and protection of college athletes is central to an ethically defensible college system. The last section of chapters explores several controversial issues in college sports, including gender inequality and transgender participation.

Table of Contents:

Introduction (Chad Carlson, Hope College, USA, and Shawn E. Klein, Arizona State University, USA)

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Tagged as education, Football, NCAA, sports, writing

August 19, 2025 · 10:50 am

New Book: College Sports Ethics: Challenges, Questions, and Opportunities

I’m excited to announced that the latest in the Studies in Philosophy of Sport is now available for pre-order!

Pre-Order Today!

College Sports Ethics: Challenges, Questions, and Opportunities edited by Chad Carlson and myself is schedule to be published in December 2025. You can pre-order from Bloomsbury or from Amazon (sponsored link) and other booksellers.

From the back cover:

The first chapters examine college sports at a systematic level, considering the ways we can evaluate college sport as a whole, as well as how we ought to structure college sports in ways that are fairer and better tests of athletic excellence. The second section looks more closely at the interplay of the academic institutions and athletics, arguing that since college sports programs are part of institutions of higher learning, we need to consider the purposes of these institutions when evaluating college sports. Moreover, the well-being and protection of college athletes is central to an ethically defensible college system. The last section of chapters explores several controversial issues in college sports, including gender inequality and transgender participation.

Table of Contents:

Introduction (Chad Carlson, Hope College, USA, and Shawn E. Klein, Arizona State University, USA)

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January 20, 2025 · 12:17 pm

New Release: Martial Arts and the Philosophy of Sport by Mark Stone

I’m excited to announced the newest publication in the Studies in Philosophy of Sport series:

Martial Arts and the Philosophy of Sport by Mark Stone

Martial Arts and the Philosophy of Sport brings together martial arts and Eastern philosophical wisdom with the competitive world of sports as games. This exploration goes beyond the conventional view of martial arts as fighting skills and delves into their evolution as competitive Olympic sports and profound ways of self-cultivation.

Mark Stone reveals the philosophical underpinnings of both disciplines, which engage not only the body but also the mind, fostering a holistic mind-body experience. The book illuminates concepts like “no-mind” from Japanese philosophy and ”in the zone” as a mode of peak athletic performance and showcases how these practices transcend mere physicality to encompass aesthetic, competitive, and cooperative dimensions.

Martial Arts and the Philosophy of Sport argues that both martial arts and sports are forms of striving play—activities pursued for their intrinsic value and for the personal fulfillment they bring. In addition to its contributions to philosophy of sport, aesthetics, and comparative philosophy, the arguments explored in this book also offers martial artists and sports enthusiasts alike a profound understanding of their pursuits as integral to life’s enduring goals, and even to understand their pursuit of excellence as a path to enlightenment.

Available from Rowman, Amazon, and other booksellers.

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January 2, 2025 · 11:54 am

Book Review: An Examined Run

I’m excited to announce the publication of my review of Sabrina Little’s An Examined Run: Why Good People Make Better Runners (Oxford 2024). It will be in the March issue of the Journal of Philosophy of Sport and is available online now.

Here’s an excerpt from the opening:

As a philosopher of sport who takes a broadly neo-Aristotelian, virtue-ethical approach, Sabrina B. Little’s The Examined Run seems tailor-made for me. Little uses Aristotle, Plato, Aquinas, and other thinkers in the virtue ethics tradition to shed light on important questions like: What is the nature of the good life? How does sport fit into such a life? As she says in the conclusion: ‘In this book, I placed running in conversation with the classical tradition of inquiry about character and the good life’ (229).

…

It is disappointing, then, that Little (and her editors) have not drawn on this extensive body of literature. There is not a single JPS citation or any philosopher of sport in Little’s references. This is an enormous oversight. Little is an exceptional writer; her style is witty and clear. She effectively explains complex philosophic concepts in ways digestible for non-philosophers without sacrificing the rigor expected by trained philosophers. She uses her personal experience as an elite runner and coach to set the stage and to provide relatable concrete examples. All this in the service of understanding how the application of these ideas about virtue and character could help the readers make themselves better: both better athletes, and more importantly, better people. She is therefore well-positioned to contribute to ongoing conversations of how sports fit into a flourishing human life. But this opportunity is missed.

Although Little’s book has interesting things to say, it doesn’t engage the philosophy of sport scholarship and thus fails to connect with, and critically contribute to, that scholarship. This failing has the expected effects: arguments miss key objections already discussed and developed in the philosophy of sport literature; opportunities to comment on and contribute to issues raised in the literature are missed. Little and the philosophy of sport would have mutually benefited from an engagement with this literature: we both have missed out on the opportunity for a more insightful and richer work. After I briefly summarize Little’s book, I’ll explore a few examples of these missed opportunities.

And the last two sentences:

I hope Little takes these criticisms as the invitation they are: come and engage with philosophy of sport. I believe her contributions to our field could be exceptional and we would all gain by it.

Read the rest of the review at JPS.

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May 6, 2024 · 6:01 pm

Brief Review: Sports Spectators

Allen Guttman. Sports Spectators. Columbia University Press, 1986.

Noted sports historian, Allen Guttman, takes on the topic of sport spectators in this short volume.

The book is divided into two parts. The first part is “Part 1 From Antiquity to Modern Times” and it covers just that, though, in 123 pages, in no great detail. Most of the chapters in the first part focus on specific sports of the era and their spectators. Guttman highlights some of the demographics and what we know (or think we know) about how sport was spectated.

The second, and shorter, part of the book looks at spectatorship more analytically. It considers the impact that media has had on spectatorship, in short, but useless chapter, what academic critics like neo-Marxists say about spectatorship, and then closes the book with two of the more interesting chapters. The chapter on hooliganism tries to get at explanations of spectator violence; though Guttman’s analysis seems to end with few answers. None of the theories offered satisfy, though they all explain at least a small part of it. The last chapter on what motivates fans to be fans has a similar trajectory. There are several different theories and analyses offered, all of which seem to get at piece of it, without themselves being satisfactory. It’s an aesthetic experience, but not art. It’s kind of like worship, but also not religion. It’s a way of self-identification, but that’s also really complex and fraught. This chapter was the most interesting to me as a philosopher; and in part tis what draws me to the study of sport spectatorship both professionally and personally. Why do we watch? Guttman’s chapter isn’t an answer, but it is a good palace to find some questions to answer about why we spectate.

Published in the mid-80s, there is much that is out of date. Obviously, in the last 40 years sports spectatorship has continued to evolve. But Guttman identifies many of the trends that are still relevant today. I would imagine the media chapter would be much more substantial and the changes in in spectator violence would make the analysis of that chapter even more ambivalent. The role of gambling and fantasy would also have to be covered.

The book as a total is uneven. There are sections that offer interesting insights but others that are a bit pedantic. The historical sections condense a lot of material to provide a useful overview of the history, but is also too general to be that helpful beyond the general sense of things. The analysis/methodological sections are just too limited in scope, though as I noted above the last chapter raises some important questions about fan motivations.

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March 13, 2023 · 5:10 pm

Brief Review: Infinite Baseball

On one hand, I really rather enjoyed this book. The chapters are short and pithy. Noë’s musings about baseball are thought-provoking; and his love of baseball shines through out. His idea that baseball is all about deciding who’s responsible for what left me thinking about baseball from a new perspective. The relation of baseball to language and linguistics was intriguing. Anyone interested in baseball will find the book charming.

On the other hand, I found myself annoyed at times with the book. Clearly aware of the philosophy of sport literature, the author makes almost no mention or reference to it. So many of the topics he dives into he treats as novel and original, as if he’s the first to consider these topics philosophically, when they are well-trodden in the literature. Noe has some interesting insights, but these too could have been better had he engaged with the writings by philosophers of sport.

Noë is explicit that he’s not trying to write a philosophy of sport book; that his is more the musings of a philosopher obsessed with baseball. And there is much in the book that fits this vein. But much of the book is also engaged in philosophical analysis of arguments about topics central to sport. As such, it is, necessarily, a work in philosophy of sport. And on that front, one has to grade it down a bit because it doesn’t enter the dialogue where those conversations are taking place. To strain the metaphor, he’s swinging the bat, but not stepping into the batter’s box to face the pitcher.

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February 1, 2023 · 9:13 am

Book Review: Philosophy, Sport, and the Pandemic

My review of Philosophy, Sport, and the Pandemic, edited by Jeffrey Fry and Andrew Edgar, was published on the Nordic Sport Science Forum.

There are some excellent chapters in this new anthology on sport and the pandemic, but my overall assessment of the volume is mixed. There are some issues with it that prevent me from recommending this work without qualification.

Read the review: https://idrottsforum.org/klesha_fry-edgar230201/

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December 11, 2022 · 4:22 pm

Brief Review: Greek Athletics and the Genesis of Sport

This book is made up of two essays. The first essay focuses on the origins of sport in general, while the second focuses on Ancient Greek athletics in particular; and as instance of the general theory Sansone proposes in the first essay.

Sansone starts by discussing various accounts of where sport came from, dismissing them before offering his own. He argues the roots of sport are to be found in distant human pre-history: in particular, rituals and rites engaged in for hunting among Paleolithic hunters. He argues that sport is a form of ritual sacrifice of human energy. As human cultures moved away from sole reliance on hunting as source of food, the rituals used by hunters persist, evolving into various cultural features, including sport. The energy used for the hunt shifts away from the hunt into other ritual behaviors. While there are some very interesting descriptions of various rituals and different cultural rites across cultures from all over the world, the argument is unpersuasive. First, there are key assumptions of motivations and explanations of pre-historic and ancient peoples that seem impossible to know with any measure of assurance. Why did the hunter bath before the hunt? There are various possible reasons, but so far removed how could we possibly know with any confidence? Second, the links between the rituals and sport is too speculative to establish more than interesting possible connections.

The second essay focuses on Ancient Greek athletics and how these too are rooted ultimately in the hunting ritual. The focus is really on aspects of athletics: why the Greeks engaged in sport naked, why they anointed themselves with oil, etc. There is not much in the way of trying to explain the origin of sport as such (I supposed Sansone takes himself as having established that in the first essay). Like the first essay, I found the discussion itself very interesting, in particular some of the striking similarities in disparate cultures, but I don’t think the overall argument is all that persuasive. What Sansone takes as having established with confidence still seems far more speculative. I think Sansone is correct that sport contains much that is rooted in pre-historic rituals; and that many of these ritual behaviors have been repurposed to fill some new needs. But he doesn’t discuss these needs that sport is meeting; why adopt these ritual behaviors, why put them to these new uses? Moreover, I don’t think Sansone answers the main questions he takes himself to be answering: why do humans engage in sport? Why has sport persisted through time and cultures? I am not sure we can ever know the answers to these questions. At one point, Sansone says “But people engage in sport today for the same reason they have always engaged in sport, namely because they have always engaged in sport” (56). It’s not much of an answer, but it might just be the best we can get.

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August 10, 2022 · 2:07 pm

New Book: Sport Realism: A Law Inspired Theory of Sport

I’m thrilled to announce the publication of the newest book in the Studies in Philosophy of Sport Book Series.

In Sport Realism: A Law-Inspired Theory of Sport, Aaron Harper defends a new theory of sport—sport realism—to show how rules, traditions, and officiating decisions define the way sport is played. He argues that sport realism, broadly inspired by elements of legal realism, best explains how players, coaches, officials, and fans participate in sport. It accepts that decisions in sport will derive from a variety of reasons and influences, which are taken into account by participants who aim to predict how officials will make future rulings.

Harper extends this theoretical work to normative topics, applying sport realist analysis to numerous philosophical debates and ethical dilemmas in sport. Later chapters include investigations into rules disputes, strategic fouls, replay, and makeup calls, as well as the issue of cheating in sport. The numerous examples and case studies throughout the book provide a wide-ranging and illuminating study of sport, ranging from professional sports to pick-up games.

Table of Contents:

Chapter 1: Interpretivism
Chapter 2: Hard Cases for Interpretivism
Chapter 3: Legal Realism and Sport Realism
Chapter 4: Cheating
Chapter 5: Sport Realism and Ethics

About the Author:

Aaron Harper is associate professor of philosophy at West Liberty University.

Available now at Amazon, Lexington, and other book sellers.

Studies in Philosophy of Sport Book Series

Series Editor: Shawn E. Klein, Ph.D. (sklein@asu.edu // sportsethicist@gmail.com )

The Studies in Philosophy of Sport series from Lexington Books encourages scholars from all disciplines to inquire into the nature, importance, and qualities of sport and related activities. The series aims to encourage new voices and methods for the philosophic study of sport while also inspiring established scholars to consider new questions and approaches in this field.

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