ABSTRACT
The focus of the first part of the conversation is an essay by Nicholas Dixon, in which he examines “The Ethics of Supporting Sports Teams.” The central ethical issue isn’t simply questionable fan behavior; the issue is whether there is an “ideal” type of fan in terms of praiseworthy traits of character or virtues. Dixon distinguishes two kinds of fans, the partisan and the purist, and argues that partisan attitudes display the virtue of loyalty, while the purist fan is too emotionally detached. Both Skylar and Pat argue that Dixon’s defense of moderate partisanship depends on questionable analogies with friendship and loving relationships. Pat doesn’t think that there is one ideal attitude for a fan to have, but there is another defensible ideal that Dixon has failed to consider. The participants discuss three criticisms of partisanship: it entails bad attitudes and unsportsmanlike, even immoral, actions; it violates impartiality; and fervent partisanship is incompatible with the triviality of sport. Pat agrees with the third criticism and explains and defends the attitudes of the moderate purist, whose interest in sport is appreciative of athletic excellence and aesthetic value, morally sensitive, and may be deeply involved in the strategic details of a game as well as the dramatic narratives of sport. The purist may also have relatively mild partisan preferences, hence a moderate form of purist spectatorship. The conversation turns to other fan-related issues. Are celebrated athletes role models? Do celebrated athletes have special responsibilities to be role models? In order to answer the first question, we need to distinguish different senses of being a role model. Pat argues that we need to make the relevant distinctions between the narrow and broad senses of “role model” and the descriptive and normative senses of “role model.” In response to the second question, they discuss the “special responsibilities argument.” Skylar argues that celebrated athletes don’t have any special responsibilities. Pat argues that acting as if one is morally special is dishonest, and treating celebrated athletes as morally special may lead to cynicism when they fail to live up to our moral expectations. Finally, we usually don’t know famous athletes well enough to know whether they are worthy of guiding us.
