This textbook, the first of its kind, makes it easy--and fun!--to teach an exciting new course on the "jurisprudence of sport." Unlike sports law, which treats sports as objects of regulation by ordinary legal systems, this course treats sports and games as legal systems to be studied in their own right. The book is appropriate not only for law students but also for undergraduates; it offers an introduction to legal thinking but requires no background in legal doctrine. Student-friendly and deeply comparative, the text draws examples from the world's most popular team and individual sports and games (including baseball, football, soccer, tennis, golf, gymnastics, chess, boxing, and esports) and also from less widely known competitions (competitive eating, cornhole, etc.). Chapters are organized in an intuitive sports-focused manner, covering such issues as scoring systems, penalties, league structure, player eligibility and assignment, amateurism, officiating, replay review, and cheating. The jurisprudence of sport is a fast-developing field of academic study. The authors, one of them a leading figure in the field and both professors at top law schools, maintain a high degree of analytical rigor and theoretical sophistication. Icons sprinkled throughout introduce students to fundamental concepts, some law-particular (such as rules vs. standards and prices vs. sanctions) and others from cognate disciplines (such as agency costs, the Coase Theorem, and psychological biases and heuristics). Richly filled with comments, questions, and exercises, the text facilitates a large variety of pedagogical approaches and is suitable for 2- to 4-credit courses.

While previous writing on the philosophy of sport has tended to see sport as a kind of testing ground for philosophical theories devised to deal with other kinds of problems—of ethics, aesthetics, or logical categorization—here Steven Connor offers a new philosophical understanding of sport in its own terms. In order to define what sport essentially is and means, Connor presents a complete grammar of sport, isolating and describing its essential elements, including the characteristic spaces of sport, the nature of sporting time, the importance of sporting objects like bats and balls, the methods of movement in sport, the role of rules and chance, and what it really means to cheat and to win. Defined as games that involve bodily exertion and exhaustion, sports simultaneously require constraint and the ability to overcome it. Sport, argues Connor, is a fundamental feature of modern humans. It is shown to be one of the most powerful ways in which we negotiate the relationship between the human and natural worlds. Encompassing a huge range of different sports, and enlisting the help of Hegel, Freud, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Adorno, Sartre, Ayer, Deleuze, and Serres, A Philosophy of Sport will inform, surprise, and delight thoughtful athletes and sporty philosophers alike.

This book discusses the intersection of law and sport and highlights its usefulness to both legal scholars and philosophers of sport. The book will be a valuable resource to Undergraduates, Postgraduates and for those working in the areas of legal philosophy, sports law, and philosophy of sport.

Sport, Law and Philosophy: The Jurisprudence of Sport discusses the intersection of law and sport and highlights its usefulness to both legal scholars and philosophers of sport. There is a general recognition that law and sports bear strong similarities. Both can be understood as systems of rules, with a judge/referee who has the power to adjudicate and to issue punishments/penalties. Divided into two parts, this volume presents an exploration of central philosophical issues arising from the intersections of law and sport and makes reference to current events and controversies. Experts from across the globe discuss a range of issues such as sports as legal systems, the game as a social contract, the role of the referee, including VAR, rule breaking, equality in women’s sport, justice on the sports field and in the court room, and issues surrounding the application of law to sports. The book will be a valuable resource to Undergraduates, Postgraduates and for those working in the areas of legal philosophy, sports law, and philosophy of sport.

Surfing and the Philosophy of Sport uses the insights gained through an analysis of the sport of surfing to explore key questions and discourses within the philosophy of sport. As surfing has been practiced dynamically, since its beginnings as a traditional Polynesian pursuit to its current status as a counter-culture lifestyle and also a highly professionalized and commercialized sport that will be included in the Olympic Games, it presents a unique phenomenon from which to reconsider questions about the nature of sport and its role in a flourishing life and society. Daniel Brennan examines foundational issues about defining sport, sport's role in conceptualizing the good life, the aesthetic nature of sport, the place of technology in sport, the principles of Olympism and surfing’s embodiment of them, and issues of institutionalized sexism in sport and the effect that might have on athletic performance.

This second edition of Philosophy of Sport: Core Readings provides an overview of core topics in the field, ranging from fundamental questions about the nature of sport to ethical issues at the forefront of discussions of what sport should be. On the nature of sport, readers will gain a solid understanding of fundamental theories of games, play, and sports, as well as sport epistemology, the esports controversy, and sport aesthetics. Topics in the ethics of sport include performance-enhancing drugs, cheating, gamesmanship, and sportsmanship. This edition has been updated and expanded to include sections on gender and race and to provide broader and deeper coverage of this rapidly evolving area.

Sports are more than just "games." They can unite countries, start wars, and revolutionize views on race, class, and gender. Through works from philosophy, sociology, medicine, and law, this collection explores intersections of sports and ethics, and identifies the immense role of sports in shaping and reflecting social values.