Sport and Disability

In western culture sportsmen and women are usually admired. In the past I held the view that, even if all sport is equally good in delivering health benefits, that nonetheless we have less reason to admire Paralympic and disabled sportsmen and women in general. Admittedly I formed this view without much reflection. Perhaps I held this view because intuitively I viewed sport as purely some sort of competition in which a combination of physical prowess and skill was all important. However after some reflection I believe my view was mistaken and that able bodied and disabled sport give us the same reasons to admire the athletes involved.

In order to see why I changed my mind it is necessary to examine why sportsmen and women are admired. It seems clear my initial view that we only admire successful sportsmen and women because of their physical prowess and skill is flawed. Consider a sprinter who naturally has larger muscles than her competitors and as a result wins all her races with ease. Do we admire such a runner? The answer to this question depends on which of the two meaning of admire we use. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, to admire, has the following meanings. Firstly it means to regard with respect or warm approval and secondly to look at with pleasure. In my example of the sprinter we may indeed look with pleasure at her muscles or the speed at which she runs. It follows we admire her in second meaning of the word. Let us also consider a golfer who has a great natural ability for putting. This golfer does nothing to enhance this natural ability but nevertheless wins many tournaments because of it. Once again we may look with pleasure at the golfer’s skills and admire them but our pleasure with these skills gives us no reason to respect or to look at her with approval. These two examples suggest we only admire sportsmen and women’s prowess and skill in the second way by looking at them with pleasure. Indeed it might even be questioned whether we are actually admiring the sportsmen and women. It might be argued we are simply admiring their physical prowess and skills in much the same way as we would admire a mountain view. The above suggests that when admiring persons we can only really do so in the first way by respecting or approving of them. It is of course possible to respect a person by simply treating her as an end rather than as a means. However this is not what we normally mean when we say we respect sportsmen and women. For the above reasons I believe when we say we admire some sportswomen we mean we simply approve of her.

What reasons could we have to approve of sportsmen and women? It might be suggested that we approve of sportsmen and women because sport is instrumentally good in delivering health benefits. However consider someone who takes certain pills to lower her blood pressure. Taking these pills is instrumentally good in delivering a health benefit but the fact that someone takes these pills does not seem to give us a reason to approve of her as a person. We of course might expect her to take these pills. Expecting someone to do something is not the same as approving of someone doing something. It might then be argued by analogy that even if sport is instrumentally good in delivering health benefits this fact alone gives us no reason to approve of sportsmen and women. Prima facie it might be assumed there are no reasons why we should approve of someone for doing something that is purely in her own self interest. However such an assumption would be unsound. Consider someone who diets because she is overweight. Clearly the dieter is acting in her own health interests, in the same way as the person reducing her blood pressure, but nevertheless we may well have reason in this case to approve of the dieter’s character. Dieting is not easy and requires determination. The above suggests that when we approve of someone’s actions we do so because we approve of those parts of her character connected to these actions. The above leads me to conclude that when we admire sportsmen and women, using the first meaning of admire, we do so because of what sport tells us about their character.

Accepting my above conclusion automatically leads to two further conclusions. Firstly the taking of drugs to enhance an athlete’s performance cannot lead to an admirable performance. A drug enhanced performance is not admirable because of what it tells us about the athlete’s character. She is prepared to cheat. It might be objected that provided the rules governing a sport are changed to permit drugs that such a drug enhanced performance might then be regarded as admirable. Naturally the question might be asked why we should find such a performance admirable. It seems to me we would have no reasons to approve her character connected to her athletic performance, for a more detailed reply to this objection see Austin (1). The second further conclusion is that we have just as much reason to admire disabled sportsmen and women as we do to admire their able bodied compatriots. This follows because what we really approve of is their character as demonstrated by their athletic performance. Character demonstrated by athletic performance is not directly proportional to the actual performance but rather to the determination needed to achieve it.

I have argued that when we admire sportsmen and women we do so because of the things sport tells us about their character. What we admire about sportsmen and women are certain traits of character or virtues. I would further argue that we should approve of sport because it encourages these traits of character or virtues. Two objections might be raised to the approval of sport in this way. Firstly it might be objected accepting the above means that in general sport should be seen as non-competitive. It might then be pointed out such a pale wishy washy view of sport is at odds with our everyday ideas. I can see no reason why I should accept such an objection. Sport is concerned with someone’s will, controlling and channeling her will by determination, hard work and sometimes even courage. These are some of the traits or virtues we admire in sportsmen and women. These traits are fostered by competition. It therefore follows far from discouraging competition, if we admire sport, we should actively encourage competition. The second objection is that sport may lead to obsession. Let it be accepted sport fosters someone in controlling and channeling her will by determination and hard work. It might then be argued that in certain cases this determined channeling of her will causes her to neglect other important considerations such as family and friends. I am prepared to accept that in certain cases sport may well cause some people to become obsessed damaging both themselves and others. However I am not prepared to accept that this occurs in most cases. In most cases I believe the determined channeling of someone’s will helps her to become a better person. It therefore follows that sport is on the whole beneficial even if it does lead to some cases of obsession. Perhaps sport could lessen these cases of obsession by fostering the old fashioned attitude that what matters in sport is taking part rather than winning. What matters is doing one’s best not necessarily being the best.

1. Austin (2009) Magnanimity, Athletic Excellence and Performance Enhancing Drugs, Journal of Applied Philosophy, 26(1)