Global Site Navigation (use tab and down arrow)

Faculty of Kinesiology
UNB Fredericton

Back to Kinesiology

Sport and Species: Call for papers

How games, sports, and physical culture affect other animals

Editors: Sam Morris and Gabriela Tymowski-Gionet

The lives of non-human animals have forever been intertwined with those of human beings. Such involvement is not without concerns, controversies, and paradoxes. In sport and recreation, horses, dogs, bulls, and other non-human animals have long been involved. Equestrian events are amongst the oldest sports dating back to the Ancient Olympic Games, and continue to be included on the modern Olympic programme today. Horse racing takes place around the world, as does greyhound racing. Dog sled races occur in northern climes in winter, but new sports such as canicross involve dog racing all year around. Dog fighting and cock fighting contests continue. Bull fighting persists in locations across the world, as do rodeo events.

This special issue aims to identify and address the fundamental ethical issues related to these sports and games. It seeks to address whether humans are at all justified in using and involving animals for their sporting and recreational purposes, should the acceptance of animals in these activities be unconstrained, or ought limits to be set on sporting use. What are the duties owed to animals before, during, and after their use in sport?

This special issue invites the submission of papers on this topic.

Examples of possible themes for consideration:

  • Racing sports (e.g., equine, canine, avian, etc.)
  • Blood sports (e.g., hunting, pit-fighting, Jallikattu, fishing, killing contests, etc.)
  • Olympic sports (e.g., equestrian, dressage, modern pentathlon, etc.)
  • Breeding for sporting purposes
  • Pharmacology for sporting purposes
  • Uses of animal products for sporting purposes (e.g., leather, dietary regimens of athletes, etc.)
  • Wild animal ethics and sports (e.g., the environmental impact of sports, defending animals from aggressors, etc.)
  • Responsibilities of those involved in these activities for animals before, during, and after sport

For those interested in contributing to the special issue, submit your abstract (300-500 words) directly to both Sam Morris (morrissp@miamioh.edu) and Gabriela Tymowski-Gionet (tymowski@unb.ca)

Abstracts will be reviewed and a selection of papers will be invited for full-length submission; full-length papers will then be blind peer-reviewed.

  • Abstract deadline: Jan. 15, 2022
  • Notification of decision: March 4, 2022
  • Deadline for submission of draft manuscript: August 15, 2022 through the SEP online platform.
  • Deadline for submission of full manuscript: Dec. 30, 2022
  • Length: 5000-7000 words (inclusive of references and notes)
  • Journal publication date: Early 2023

About the journal: Sport, Ethics, and Philosophy is the journal of the British Philosophy of Sport Association. The journal is open to essays of applied philosophy that engage with issues or practice, policy, and scholarship concerning the nature and values of sports. Fundamental essays in philosophy, as they inform our understanding of sport and related practices, are welcomed as are theoretical submissions from cognate disciplines.

Instructions for authors: See the journal and Author Services for guidance on how to submit.

Questions: Send any questions about this special issue to Sam Morris at (morrissp@miamioh.edu) or Gabriela Tymowski-Gionet (tymowski@unb.ca).

Bibliography

Campbell, M. L. H and M.J. McNamee. 2021. Ethics, genetic technologies and equine sports: The prospect of regulation of a modified therapeutic use exemption policy. Sport, Ethics and Philosophy 15(2): 227-250.

Campbell, M.L.H. 2013. When does use become abuse in equine sport? Equine Veterinary Education 25: 489-92.

Campbell, M.L.H. 2013. Ethical analysis of the use of animals in sport. In Wathes, C., Corr, S., May, S.A., McCulloch, S.P., Whiting, M. (Eds.), Veterinary and Animal Ethics: Proceedings of the First International Conference on Veterinary and Animal Ethics. UFAW, Oxford. 201-215.

Curnutt, J. 1996. How to argue for and against sport hunting. Journal of Social Philosophy 27: 65–89. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9833.1996.tb00238.x

Dickson, B. 2010. The ethics of recreational hunting. In Recreational Hunting, Conservation and Rural Livelihoods: Science and Practice, edited by B. Dickson, J. Hutton, and W. J. Adams, 59–72. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

Evans, R. and M.J. McNamee. 2021. Sports Betting, Horse Racing and Nanobiosensors – An Ethical Evaluation, Sport, Ethics and Philosophy 15:2: 208-226. doi: 10.1080/17511321.2020.1727946.

Gruen, L. 2021. Ethics and Animals: An Introduction (2nd ed., Cambridge Applied Ethics). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781108986304.

Humphreys, R. The Argument from Existence, Blood-Sports, and ‘Sport-Slaves’. J Agric Environ Ethics 27, 331–345 (2014).

Humphreys, R. 2010. Game birds: The ethics of shooting birds for sport. Sport, Ethics and Philosophy 4(1): 52-65.

Kagan, S. 2019. How to Count Animals, more or less. New York: Oxford University Press.

Korsgaard, C. 2018. Fellow Creatures: Our Obligations to Other Animals. New York: Oxford University Press.

Markwell,K. T. Firth & N. Hing. (2017) Blood on the race track: an analysis of ethical concerns regarding animal-based gambling, Annals of Leisure Research, 20:5: 594-609. doi: 10.1080/11745398.2016.1251326.

Marvin, G. 2007. English Foxhunting: A Prohibited Practice. International Journal of Cultural Property. 14(3): 339-360. Doi: 10.1017/S0940739107070221

McLean, MJ. and P. McGreevy. 2010. Ethical equitation: Capping the price horses pay for human glory. Journal of Veterinary Behavior: Clinical applications and Research 5(4): 203-09. doi: 10.1016/j.jveb.2010.04.003.

Morris, S.P. 2014. The ethics of interspecies sports. In Sport, animals, and society, J. Gillett, and M. Gilbert, edited by. New York, NY: Routledge: 127–39.

Morris, S. P. 2021. A moral defense of trophy hunting and why it fails, Sport, Ethics and Philosophy 15(3): 386-399.

Morris, S. P. 2014. The sport status of hunting. The International Journal of Applied Philosophy 28(2): 391-407.

Morris, S. P. 2018. Violence among beasts: Why it is wrong to harm nonhuman animals in the context of a game. The Philosophical Journal of Conflict and Violence 2(2): 383-394.

Neuhaus, C.P. & B. Parent. 2019. Gene doping—in animals? Ethical issues at the intersection of animal use, gene editing, and sports ethics. Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics. 28: 26–39. https://doi.org/10.1017/S096318011800035X

Nussbaum, M. C. 2006. Frontiers of Justice: Disability, Nationality, Species Membership. Cambridge: The Belknap Press.

Regan, T. 2004. The Case for Animal Rights. Berkeley: The University of California Press.

Rollin, B. 1996. Rodeo and Recollection - Applied Ethics in Western Philosophy. Journal of the Philosophy of Sport 23(1): 1-9.

Wade, M. 1990. Animal liberationism, ecocentrism, and the morality of sport hunting. Journal of the Philosophy of Sport 17: 15–27.