Ethics of Sport: Origins, Main Approaches, and Future Challenges

This chapter comprehensively surveys the principal philosophical currents and traditions in sport ethics. It traces the historical evolution of the schools of thought that shaped this emergent philosophical sub-discipline, critically analyzing their strengths and inherent limitations. Particular emphasis is placed on the three main normative theories of sport: formalism, conventionalism, and interpretivism (or broad internalism). The chapter commences by situating the origins of these normative accounts of sport within early scholarly examinations of the relationships between play, games, and sport (dubbed the “tricky triad”). Subsequently, from this foundation, it chronicles the progressive development of these normative frameworks, beginning with formalism and explaining how this theory gradually gave way to conventionalism and, later, the emergence of broad internalism as the most widely embraced normative theory of sport.