The Oxford Handbook of Sports Ethics

Sport affects the lives of billions of people around the world. Many are athletes themselves and even more spend a considerable part of their free time rooting for their teams or casually following sporting events through the media. Still others are involved in sport through their professions, such as coaches, judges, journalists, sports physicians or sports managers. This handbook presents and discusses some of the many ethical topics that arise in the world of sports. It probes questions such as: Are e-games a sport? Which disciplines should be included in the Olympics? Should female and male athletes receive equal pay? Should child athletes be allowed to get paid? Is it morally permissible to use AI in sport in order to detect doping fraud? How should we treat animals and the environment in sport? Should adult athletes be allowed to use performance-enhancing drugs? And should doping be criminalized by the state? The book also includes ethical discussions on how we ought to handle the issues of: trash-talking; match-fixing; sports betting; sexist, racist and ableist discrimination; boycotting of states and persons; as well as corruption and nationalism in the world of sport. How decision-makers within the sports world respond to such ethical challenges can have significant impacts on the well-being of those of us who, in one way or the other, are engaged in or affected by sport. This book, with its 45 chapters, will provide a central reference point in discussions of sports ethics, a field whose importance is only accelerating.