IIIIIIIIIIIIAIIIIIIVIIIVYIIAIIIIIIIIIIIIW3]02]50393 THE ETHOS OF SPORTING GAMES: FAIR PLAY AND ELITE WOMEN'S CRICKET ANGELA J. PEARSON A thesis submitted to Cheltenham and Gloucester College of Higher Education in accordance with the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Environment and Leisure OXSTALLS LEARNING CENTRE UNIVERSITY OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE Oxstalls Lane Gloucester GL2 9HW Tel: 01242 715100 AUGUST 2000 Abstract The recent intellectual movement away from universalism towards particularism can be witnessed in most divisions of social philosophical thought. Such a paradigmatic shift has radically transformed a number of theories including feminist ethics. In contrast, however, philosophical analyses of fairness in sport have retained allegiance to universalist accounts in that conceptions of fair play remain enshrined in formalist accounts of the nature of rules and laws that govern sporting games. In this thesis, it is argued that universalist accounts of fair play in sport are incomplete in so far as they fail to consider that what constitutes fairness in sport is more than just the interpretation of formal rule structures. The richer analysis of fair play in sport offered here highlights the importance of individual experiences and the structures that shape those experiences. The ethical investigation is compatible with certain feminist ethical commitments. In order to evaluate whether a given sporting ethos is ethical, the thesis is committed methodologically to a mixed model approach. The aim is to find out the beliefs, values and ideologies of the people involved. Hence, a context-respectful methodology collecting and utilising thick descriptions is employed. It is argued that an ethical ethos has no room for intentional rule violation. For a given ethos to be ethical its game must be practised in a certain way with a certain attitude. The evaluation in this thesis concludes that the ethos of English elite women's cricket is unethical. It is hoped that a potential outcome of the thesis will be a different understanding of fair play that may shape new forms of ethical enquiry and challenge existing methodologies. Argument: (1) In sport philosophical literature fair play has been characteristically understood in one way: the formalist account of the nature of rules and laws. (2) While it is true that one can not talk about fair play without reference to the rules and laws of an activity, this account is incomplete since it fails to consider ethos. (3) Part of what an ethos means derives from the beliefs, values and ideologies of players themselves who have constructed agreements as to how the game ought to be enacted. (4) To understand fair play in elite women's cricket, therefore, one must understand the rules and laws but also, crucially, its ethos. 1 Author's Declaration I declare that the work in this thesis was carried out in accordance with the regulations of Cheltenham & Gloucester College of Higher Education and is original except where indicated by specific reference in the text. No part of the thesis has been submitted as part of any other education institution in the United Kingdom or overseas. Any views expressed in the thesis are those of the author and in no way represent those of the college. Signed Date..... uSt... ý'oý..... 11 Acknowledgements This philosophical endeavour developed partly from a growing dissatisfaction with analytical philosophy and from an extended reflection upon feminist ethics. It led me to the idea that a combination of conceptual and empirical research could be used to understand the ethos of sporting games. I'm relieved this idea is nearly past, but find with some regret that it has been barely investigated. First, I wish to thank all those people from Cricket Week and the England women's cricket team who agreed to take part in this research. Their insights, stories and reflections were invaluable. I wish also to thank Professor Celia Brackenridge and Professor Jim Parry for their suggestions, comments, and other valuable advice on earlier drafts of this work. In addition to the above my next thanks go to my supervisor, Dr. Mike McNamee. Without his help, encouragement and critical eye this thesis would never have been completed. I am indebted to him for many ideas and corrections, but am entirely responsible for the problems and weaknessesthat remain. Most importantly my special thanks go to Robert for his continued love and support. He has endured seven years of `philosophising' and has always offered me strength and confidence throughout. 111 Table of Contents Page No. Abstract I Author's Declaration ii Acknowledgements iii Table of Contents iv Chapter One: Introduction 1 Contextualisation of Study 1 2 The Research Problem 3 2.1 Research Questions 3 2.2 Objective 3 3 The Structure of the Thesis 4 Chapter Two: Historical Conceptions of Fair Play Part One 7 1 Introduction 7 2 Homeric Greece 7 3 Historic Greece 12 4 Mediaeval Society and the Middle Ages 15 5 Modern History: The Cult of Athleticism 17 Part Two 1 Introduction 22 2 The History of Women's Participation in Sport and Cricket 22 3 Summary 30 Chapter Three: Feminist Ethics 1 Introduction 31 2 Ethics 31 2.1 Deontological Ethics 31 2.2 Consequentialism 34 2.3 Contractarianism 35 2.4 The Impartiality Requirement of Traditional Theories 37 2.5 Virtue Ethics 39 3 Feminist Ethics 41 3.1 Feminine Ethics 43 3.2 Feminist Ethics proper 47 4 Feminist Morality 52 5 Context-Respectful Theory 54 6 Impartiality and Context-Respectful Theory 59 7 Summary 62 Chapter Four: Fair Play and the Ethos of Sporting Games Part One: Theoretical Foundations of Fair Play 63 1 Introduction 63 2 Rules, Laws and Fair Play 64 3 Formalism 66 4 Fair Play and Virtue Theories 72 5 Fair Play as Respect 73 6 Ethos -A Preliminary Understanding 79 7 Fair Play as a Social Contract 81 IV Page No. 8 Fair Play as Discourse Ethics 82 9 Summary 85 Part Two: Empirically Informed Theory and Fair Play 85 1 Context-Respectful Theory and Fair Play 85 2 Empirically Informed Moral Theory 87 3 Comments 88 Ethos - Some Further 4 Immanent Critique 95 5 Summary 102 Chapter Five: Methodology Part One 104 1 Introduction 104 2 Paradigmatic Authority and Rationalism 104 3 Moral Experience and Gender 108 4 Feminist Methodology 110 5 Understanding Moral Experience in Elite Women's Cricket 112 Part Two: Research Design 115 1 The Research Cycle 115 2 Elite Women's Cricket 115 3 Methods 116 4 Participant Observation 117 5 Interviews 118 6 Ethical Considerations 121 7 Construction of Analytical Categories 121 8 Summary 125 Chapter Six: Understanding Ethos'as an Ethical Practice Part One: Elite Women's Cricket 127 1 Introduction 127 2 Interviewees 128 2.1 M1J: Jane 128 2.2 C1M: Marie 129 2.3 C2A: Alexander 129 2.4 C3R: Robert 130 2.5 C4H: Harriet 130 2.6 P1L: Louie 131 2.7 P2V: Valerie 131 2.8 P3C: Charlotte 131 2.9 P4G: Gill 132 2.10 P5S: Shauna 132 2.11 P6R: Rebecca 133 3 Fair Play and Elite Women's Cricket 133 3.1 The Game of Cricket 133 3.2 Fair and Foul Play 139 3.3 The Role of the Umpire 146 3.4 England and their Opponents 148 Part Two: Application of Fair Play/Ethos within the Game 150 1 Laws and Ethos 150 2 Walking 152 3 Sledging 158 V Page No. 4 Appealing 160 5 Mankadding 163 6 Sportspersonship 167 7 Professionalism 170 8 Summary 171 Chapter Seven: Discussion 1 Introduction 173 2 The Rejection of Formalism 174 3 Empirically Informed Theory 176 4 Ethical Ethos 179 4.1 Permissible acts that are in accordance with the formal rules 183 4.2 Impermissible acts that break the formal rules 184 4.3 Acceptable acts that break the formal rules 184 4.4 Permissible acts that are in accordance with the unwritten rule 185 4.5 Impermissible acts that break the unwritten rule 186 4.6 Acceptable acts that break the unwritten rule 187 5 Summary 188 6 Conclusion 192 References 194 Appendices 1 Interview Schedule 207 vi Chapter One Introduction 1 Contextualisation of Study Recent decades have witnessed a profound challenge to the method and styles of theory that have guided the social sciences since their late 19th century origins. As a result, confidence in the ability to describe and explain social reality accurately has been undermined echoing this point. Marcus and Fischer (1986) state: in field is there ... every contemporary whose subject society, are either attempts at reorienting the field in distinctly new directions or efforts at synthesizing new challenges to theory with established programs for research (p. vii). It may be argued that this is the case in philosophy generally and more particularly in ethics. In a rapidly changing world, there are new controversies surrounding those problems associated with the representation of social morality. Moreover, it is important to recognise that it is not just the theories and ideas that are being challenged but the established methodologies and epistemologies that underlie them. Thus: This reassessment is more salient in some disciplines than in others, but its presence is pervasive. It is not just the ideas themselves that are coming under attack but the paradigmatic style in which they have been presented. Particularly in the social sciences, the goal of organising disciplines by abstract, generalising frameworks that encompass and guide all efforts at empirical research is being fundamentally challenged (Marcus and Fischer, 1986, p. 7). The contemporary debate on this reassessmentinvolves various academic disciplines `battling it out' as to who can represent a multi-cultural, diverse, post-modern world in the most efficacious way.