Tag Archives: ethics and sport

2024 McNamee Student Essay Prize in the Philosophy and Ethics of Sport

Posted on May 16, 2024 | Leave a comment

The British Philosophy of Sport Association (BPSA) invites submissions to the 2024 McNamee Student Essay Prize in the Philosophy and Ethics of Sport. The Prize is named in honour of Prof. Mike McNamee (KU Leuven and Swansea University), founder of the BPSA.

Eligibility 

Candidates must be enrolled in a university undergraduate or graduate level course at the time of submission. There is no geographical restriction on eligibility.  

Submissions must be single-authored and the candidate’s own work, and they must address an issue in the Philosophy or Ethics of Sport.

IMPORTANT: the essay must be a new essay. Candidates are not allowed to submit essays previously submitted as coursework (turnitin system will check this is the case).

Criteria 

Essays may address any topic in the Philosophy or Ethics of Sport.  

In assessing submitted papers, the jury will place a strong emphasis on the following considerations: 

  • Originality of the essay topic and its treatment; 
  • Analytical rigour of the essay’s argument; 
  • Critical engagement with relevant philosophical literature

The jury reserves the right not to award a prize if submissions fail to achieve an appropriate standard. Candidates will not usually receive feedback on their submission. 

To Enter 

Submissions should be emailed in Word or PDF format to Dr Silvia Camporesi, Deputy Chair of the British Philosophy of Sport Association, with subject line ‘BPSA Essay Prize 2024’ by Monday July 15th, at midnight.

Candidates should submit two separate documents:  

  1. Cover sheet that includes the candidate’s information (i.e. name, email address, university, and essay title); and 
  2. Essay document that is anonymised so as not to reveal the identity of the candidate.  

Essay Format 

The word limit is 2500 words (excluding references).

Please use Harvard style of referencing. Please avoid footnotes/endnotes.

Prizes

Winner – £500 cash (by bank transfer)

Runner-up – £200 cash (by bank transfer)

Commendations x 3 – each of the three commended essays will receive £100 cash (by bank transfer)

The Winner and Runner-up will be invited to present their essays at a BPSA online work-in-progress seminar in the fall of 2024 and will be encouraged to submit their papers to the the Association’s journal Sport, Ethics and Philosophy: https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rsep20/current 
For any questions, get in touch with me, and have fun writing!

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Recording of keynote at T.M.C Asser Institute, The Hague, October 27th, now available

Posted on November 25, 2023 | Leave a comment

On 26 and 27 October 2023, the T.M.C Asser Institute in The Hague hosted the 2023 edition of the International Sports Law Journal (ISLJ) Conference. I delivered the keynote lecture on day 2 titled “Eligibility criteria to compete in the female category: Values, norms and evidence”.

Abstract

There is a fundamental tension intrinsic in athletics: human sex is not binary, and there are only two categories in which people can compete: men, and women. In the late 1990s, all forms of sex testing had been abandoned by the International Olympic Committee due to some high-profile false positive cases. After a brief interval, sex testing re-emerged in 2009 with the case of South-African runner Caster Semenya, whose gold medal at the World Track & Field Championship in Berlin was revoked on suspicion of an unfair advantage derived from a “male biological make-up”. Following an investigation, in May 2011, World Athletics (WA)  enacted ‘Hyperandrogenism regulations’ which require that female athletes with endogenous testosterone levels above 5 nmol/Lit take androgen suppressive therapy as a condition to compete in the female category.   Since the original formulation, the WA Hyperandrogenism regulations have undergone multiple iterations, the most recent one in March 2023, and have been at the centre of three high profile legal disputes, two at the Court for Arbitration of Sport also known as the “Supreme Court for Sports” (2015; 2019), and one at the European Court of Human Rights (2023). Another one is forthcoming at the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights in 2024. In this talk I review the evidence, values and norms underlying the World Athletics regulations to compete in the female category for athletes with DSD.

The recording is now available here.

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New paper out for Journal of Medical Ethics: “When does an advantage become unfair? Empirical and normative concerns in Semenya’s case”

Posted on October 23, 2019 | Leave a comment

I published a new paper for the Journal of Medical Ethics titled “When does an advantage become unfair? Empirical and normative concerns in Semenya’s case”.

jmeHere’s the abstract:

There is a fundamental tension in many sports: human sex is not binary, but there are only two categories in which people can compete: male and female. Over the past 10 years, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) regulations have been at the centre of two notable legal disputes. The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) reached two contradictory rulings: in the first case (Dutee Chand vs Athletics Federation India and IAAF), the IAAF regulations for the eligibility of athletes to compete in the female category were suspended (24 July 2015) on grounds of “discrimination against the female category”; in the latter (Caster Semenya and Athletics South Africa vs IAAF), the regulations were reaffirmed (1 May 2019) on grounds that although discriminatory, they are necessary to maintain a “level playing field” and to “protect” the female category. Although Semenya’s case has paved the way for questioning existing gender norms in sport, a new stable norm has yet to emerge from her case. The pharmacological solution put forward by IAAF to the tension between fairness and inclusivity of bodies non-conforming to two sexes is not, however, the only possible solution/resolution to the case, as I aim to show in this paper. Here I present some reflections on this topic and suggest how CAS should approach the case if it hopes to resolve it.

The full text can be accessed here:

https://jme.bmj.com/content/early/2019/09/15/medethics-2019-105532.full

Drop me a line if you don’t have access and would like to get a copy of the paper.

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Posted in Bioethics, Philosophy of Sport

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