Ethics in Sport: Socio-Political Point of View

Abstract

Sport is a natural medium for bringing together people of different backgrounds throughout the world. If grounded in ethics and if participants follow the rules and cooperate, sport can be a conduit for world harmony (Sport great for human bonding, 2010).As international relationships are developed through sport, those relationships can help support larger global endeavors in pursuit of a better world. If international sport based relationships are grounded in Mill’s utilitarianism that calls for actions resulting in the most long-term happiness for the most amount of people (Mill, 1863/1969) those relationships are well positioned to transition to the domain of governmental politics, where meaningful attempts to resolve large world issues can be addressed, under the same utilitarian premise. In pursuit of a better world, identifying common groundamong the many differences held by people throughout the world is a magnanimous challenge. Beauchamp’s (1982) practical suggestion that common sense, habits, and past experience are most helpful when attempting to select actions that will determine long-term happiness. Moving beyond sport and transferring the application of Beauchamp’s practical utilitarian approach to larger global conflicts, can help guide governments as they engage in the necessary politics, to move toward improving global problems in the interest of world harmony.