A main purpose of this paper is to reconsider “the logical incompatibility thesis” which has claimed many adherents among scholars of philosophy of sport since 1970’s. In respect to this thesis that asserts that cheating and game-playing are logically incompatible, it is Kreider that suggests a very important argument. According to Kreider’s argument, rule-following is not the necessary condition of game-playing. It is sufficient for game-playing to commit conforming one’s behavior to the rules of the respective games.
This argument seems to be the most serious one against the logical incompatibility thesis until now and suggests that it is impossible in principle for game-players to damage the identity of a particular game. In order to maintain the identity, it is required that not the identity of the player’s play but the institutional identity is retained.
But the commitment to rules in this sense does not always involve the commitment to winning. In other words, it is obviously possible for a player to commit rules and at the same time commit defeat (e.g. the player who “throws” a fixed game). Though, of course, even in such a game the institutional identity of the game is maintained, we may well think that something important has been lost. If so, what is it?
We should consider that the end of the game or contest in question has not been accomplished. That is, in such a game it has not been decided which player is superior even if a winner is determined, and it is indispensable for all players to commit winning substantially in order to accomplish that end of the game.
The logical incompatibility thesis, in fact, has not referred to that end of a game but we tend to misunderstand as if it would do. Although, as stated above, the thesis is literally wrong, its persuasiveness seems to stem from our natural misunderstanding about it.