Research
I’m broadly interested in non-state social structures, with a more particular focus on sport and, especially of late, work. Much of my research is on the variable nature of some social practices that are often viewed as monolithic yet where variation in their institutional structure can be constitutive of, rather than detrimental or corrupting to, the practice itself. I’m interested in this both with regards to ontological questions and with regards to the normative direction we can glean from such understanding. For example, sport is often misunderstood as uniformly and fundamentally about competition while ignoring the different social roles in which sport finds itself. Relatedly, labor unions – something central to engaging with work – is often misunderstood as uniformly and fundamentally about contracts. Further exploring the diverse ways in which sport, work, and other such social structures can be is needed not simply for better understanding the phenomena in question but also for normative guidance in the relevant domains.
Below you can fid some selected works in progress and publications. My CV can be found here.
Selected works in progress:
Beyond Contract Unions – Better Understanding the Diverse Union Landscape
There is a growing movement in the US of workers joining together in unions that don’t follow the typical National Labor Relations Board collective bargaining model, yet still making meaningful workplace changes. Despite this, the labor literature seems to largely focus on the more recognizable collective bargaining style unions, to its detriment and the detriment of those involved in the labor movement. In this paper, I offer a framework for better recognizing and understanding the diverse union landscape, both for the metaphysical question of identifying when something is a union and for the normative question of evaluating something qua union. This framework is made up of three dimensions: 1) democratic member control, 2) aim of improving workplace conditions, and 3) engagement in collective action. Once we better understand how diverse the union landscape can be, we can better engage with pressing questions in and around labor unions.
A Sporting Case for Inclusion in High School Sport
Some argue that high school sports should exclude transgender athletes from participating on the team that best matches their gender on the basis that allowing athletes to compete in the gender category that best matches their gender would undermine competitive fairness, thus undermining the purpose of high school sport. But this misunderstands sport. Sporting normativity must take into account not only competitive values but also others that are relevant to the particular sporting practice at hand. In this paper, I argue that this singular focus on fairness in arguments for exclusive participation policies is misguided from the point of view of high school sport, and, on the contrary, it is in the interest of high school sport to have inclusive gender categories.
Publications:
The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) positions itself as an institution primarily dedicated to the health and betterment of “student-athletes” across the country, but in reality it is not so virtuous. This paper will show how decisions made during the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 undermine the stated purpose of the current intercollegiate sports model in the United States. It will begin by presenting the claimed goals and values of the NCAA. Then, it will show how many decisions made during the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 are incompatible with these goals. In doing so, it will illustrate that there is one purpose that is far more in line with decisions during the 2020 pandemic: revenue generation through mass entertainment. Even for those who have long bought into the NCAA’s noble rhetoric, COVID-19 is mask off for the NCAA’s “collegiate model” myth.
Part of the draw of athletics is its straightforwardness. There are nuances to competitions to make them more sporting contests, but at the end of a long jump competition whomever records the longest jump should win. Unfortunately, a recent rule-change at the highest level of the sport – the “Final 3” format – undermined this simplicity for the horizontal jumps and the throws for some of the 2020 and much of the 2021 seasons. While fortunately this rule was largely reverted within days of the initial submission of this paper, it’s still valuable to critically evaluate why such a rule is problematic so as to better understand of the value of sporting competitions and give guidance on future rule changes, be they in athletics or other sports. To that end, we will be drawing from the literature on the purpose and value of competitions and coupling that with simulations based on data from actual top-tier long jump competitions to show that the Final 3 format makes for significantly worse competitions than the standard format.
Sport provides an arena for human flourishing. For some, this pursuit of a meaningful life through sport involves the use of non-human animals, not least of all through sport hunting. This paper will take seriously that sport – including sport hunting – can provide a meaningful arena for human flourishing. Additionally, it will accept for present purposes that animals are of less moral value than humans. This paper will show that, even accepting these premises, much use of animals for sport – including sport hunting – is unacceptable. Nonetheless it will show that there can be acceptable ways of using animals as part of a human’s meaningful life pursuits through sport, albeit in a more limited fashion than many sportspersons currently accept.
How should sport deal with prematurely ended seasons? This question is especially relevant to the current COVID-19 interruption that threatens to leave many leagues without champions. We argue that although there can be no winners, in certain situations there should be champions. Relevant to the current situation, we argue that Liverpool FC – currently with a 22+ point lead – should be crowned champions of the English Premier League. However things are not as simple as simply handing the championship to whomever was in the lead when a season is prematurely ended. Through analogy with a fictional decathlon competition – and with the understanding that sporting seasons are themselves a type of game – we identify three reasons why leading at the moment of cessation is insufficient to be crowned a victor (of an individual event) or a champion (of a season-long competition): doing so fails to respect some valuable skills, fails to allow for luck to play out in an interesting way that affects competitions, and fails to respect competitive strategies. This discussion can then inform determining what, if any, end-of-season accolades are relevant, such as championships, relegation, or promotion. No team can win in a league that has failed to be completed, but there can still be a champion.
"Rethinking Doping" in Fair Play (2020)
Despite the important role doping plays in the world of sport, insufficient attention has been given to understanding the concept of doping. In this paper, I argue that we should understand doping as a means of gaining a competitive advantage through the use of exogenous substances entering an athlete’s body, where such means undermine the relevant sporting institution. By focusing on sport as socially constructed institution, not merely as competition, we can have a unified explanation for many of our pretheoretic beliefs while giving the tools to understand doping in the ever-changing landscape of contemporary sport and society.
"On Being Part of a Game," Journal of the Philosophy of Sport. (2020)
Scott Kretchmar recently put forth a new definition of what it is to play a game. Unfortunately, it must be rejected. In this paper, I will show that this new definition is far too broad by discussing an activity that is not an instance of playing a game but is wrongfully ruled as one on this new definition.
"On Being Part of a Game" in Journal of the Philosophy of Sport
What is it for someone to be part of a game? While significant work has been done on the concept of playing a game, less has been done on the concept of being part of a game. This paper looks at how someone’s status of being part of a game can be distinguished from their status of playing a game, and then introduces a new taxonomy for the different ways in which someone can be part of a game.
"Pre-Game Cheating and Playing the Game" in Sport, Ethics and Philosophy
There are well-known problems for formalist accounts of game-play with regards to cheating. Such accounts seem to be committed to cheaters being unable to win–or even play–the game, yet it seems that there are instances of cheaters winning games. In this paper, I expand the discussion of such problems by introducing cases of pre-game cheating, and see how a formalist–specifically a Suitsian–account can accommodate such problems. Specifically, I look at two (fictional) examples where the alleged game-players cheat prior to a game-instance in such as a way as to cast doubt on whether the alleged game-players are truly playing the game. To escape the worries brought about by these examples of pre-game cheating, I appeal to the concept of nested games. This concept gives us the needed tools to explain how the alleged players are cheating and how the alleged players are players. On the whole, this discussion should help illuminate some important issues with regards to cheating and rules on a Suitsian account of game-play, and help give support for formalist accounts more generally.