ABSTRACT
When people talk of professions and professionalism, they most commonly refer to a limited number of occupations whose objects refer to the highest of civilized goods, such as education, health, justice, salvation and security. Currently, there appears to be a new move towards the establishment of a variety of codes and rules to govern conduct within these professions. Into these codes of conduct can be read a moral conservatism; a flight back to the language of moral certainty, of duties, obligations, principles and rules. The task of how we should understand these codes of conduct and what we may properly expect of them in the context of sport is the object of this chapter. In order to carry out this task, I will set out a caricature of professionalism that is partly at odds with the rule-based conceptions of ethics and, utilizing the concept of ‘trust’, I will offer a virtue-based account of moral life that underwrites the notion of sports coach as professional.
