Ethics Finder

Sport / Play

These are sometimes thought of contrasting with work, and associated with relaxation and leisure. But a professional sportsperson is someone for whom sport is a form work and for such a person leisure would involve not doing this. A better way then of trying to understand the nature and value of sport and play is to see them as activities that are not directed towards the production of a separable product, as say is manufacturing, but which are structured around internal aims and satisfactions. Work can then be contrasted with these as something done to achieve some independently specifiable state or product. This makes sense of the idea that this purpose might be achieved in different ways that are more or less speedy, or efficient and effective. By contrast, it is at odds with the idea of sport or play that doing it in less time, or with less effort, or with less cost, is preferable. In other words, there are intrinsic goods and pleasures involved in the very pursuit of these activities for their own sake. This indicates why some fear that the move of a sport from being an amateur to a professional activity risks damaging it, because players may no longer see it as something to be engaged for its own sake but instead come to see and value it simply as a means to an end. In fact, however, sport and play can be both good in themselves and good as means to something else, e.g. reducing stress or promoting mental health, but there remains the risk that in seeing them as instruments to a further end they lose their intrinsic value.

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