Description
Book SynopsisThe breadth of our moral experience is more extensive than has been believed over the past several millennia. There is more to morality than being honest and good, or aspiring to universal principles. In fact, in many ways the morality of our distant ancestors bears a remarkable resemblance to the moral experiences of modern athletes. In A Moral Theory of Sports, ethicist Richard J. Severson brings together stories from today’s sports world and the moral practices of hunter-gatherers to shed new light on both sports and morality. Guided by anthropologists, biologists, neuroscientists, and others, Severson discuss what the moral life actually looked like for hunter-gatherer bands in the late Pleistocene epoch and argues that the championing of group success that was the epitome of their morality is the epitome of modern sports, as well. With fascinating analogies and anecdotes from football, basketball, tennis, cycling, and more, A Moral Theory of Sports offers a unique interpretation of human nature and our love affair with sports.
Trade ReviewThis is a remarkable and beautifully written book that conveys both a compelling evolutionary account of the origins of human morality, and a consistently insightful discussion of sport in relation to it. Players and fans, coaches and refs, competition and teamwork, winning and losing, fairness and cheating, ritual and play, authenticity and imitation—Severson’s book brings all of these into a sharper and more meaningful light, and does it with a style of storytelling that gives pleasure from start to finish. Anyone who loves sport, or loves thinking about it, will love this book. -- Walter Thomas Schmid, author of Golf as Meaningful Play
