Abstract

The purpose of this study was to develop an account of sport to assist sporting communities in improving the normative conditions of their sports. The examination begins with a look at the moral problems plaguing elite sport today. At the root of these is the instrumental reasoning used by community members to justify the use of sports as vehicles to fame and fortune and the failure of these members to act on behalf of their sports as social practices. Three accounts of sport---formalism, conventionalism and anti-formalism---lack the normative strength to protect sports from corruption because they do not give community members guidance concerning which changes or actions will be beneficial or harmful to their sports. A fourth theory, broad internalism, provides internal principles that offer such guidance, but does not give community members a deliberative space in which to discuss the best interests and problems of their sport. ;As a theory that creates just such a space, Alasdair MacIntyre's theory of practical reasoning is a strong candidate to be fashioned into a complete version of broad internalism. This Aristotelian theory establishes the internal goods of social practices like sports as their ultimate ends or teloi . A sport's internal goods thus form a foundation from which community members can deduce the virtues and actions that are best for that sport. ;The normative strength of the MacIntyrean theory of sport is established through its application to two contemporary scenarios from elite golf and figure skating. In both of these cases, the deliberative space and normative guidance of the MacIntyrean approach offer assistance to community members in solving problems within their sport that formalism, conventionalism and anti-formalism cannot offer. In the final analysis, the theory requires sporting communities to be communities of inquiry, in which members act as vigilant caretakers who critically examine their own actions and the goods and virtues in which they are grounded, to insure that they are reasoning in the best interests of their sports