ABSTRACT
In the previous chapters I have sketched an initial account of sport and presented a critical account of personhood that will serve as the foundation of the argument that good sports and sportspersons are to be conceived in virtue-ethical terms. The basis of the explicitly ethical conception of sports I want now to develop is based on another philosopher who has attacked the modern liberal worldview: Alasdair MacIntyre. Like Taylor, he is uncomfortable being labelled a communitarian but many of his writings sit comfortably under that banner. Discussion of MacIntyre’s arguments surrounding his notions of ‘practices’, ‘institutions,’ and ‘virtues’ have been taken up by many philosophers of sport1 who have used them to articulate the inherently ethical nature of sports and their apparent recent decline. While I am persuaded by much that is central to MacIntyre’s brilliant analysis of morals in modernity, I argue that applying his general account to the particular case of modern sports is not without difficulty.
