New course gets philosophical about sport
The role sports play in life and society will be explored from a philosophical angle.
By Kara Nelson
Spring 2015 will bring a new special-topic philosophy course to the University of Hawai‘i at Hilo: Philosophy of Sport. The role sports play in life and society will be explored from a philosophical angle, and topics to be addressed will include sports equality for women, leadership ethics, sports fandom, the ethics of artificial enhancement and doping, sports in the context of Hawai‘i, football’s morality, and the phenomenology of sport.
The course was developed to meet the needs of the ever-expanding kinesiology major and the popular philosophy major.
“The kinesiology major is the College (of Arts and Sciences) fastest growing major in raw numbers, and the philosophy major is its fastest growing in terms of year-over-year percentages,” says Christopher Lauer, an assistant professor of philosophy who will teach the course. “We wanted to find a way to meet the upper-level needs of both departments without taxing our limited resources. A meeting of the two departments revealed that there was a lot of interest among students of both departments in questions concerning sports and the meaning of life, and a major need to expose students to alternative visions of bodily excellence.”
Lauer came to UH Hilo in 2011. His foremost research specializations are ethics of recognition and German idealism. He received his doctor of philosophy from Pennsylvania State University in 2007 and has taught a variety of philosophy courses at UH Hilo, including ethical theory, social ethics, and philosophy of law. Before coming to UH Hilo, he taught at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Clarion University, and Penn State University.
Lauer is especially qualified to teach the course because he has experience with phenomenology, which he defines as “the philosophical study of lived experience,” and experience in bioethics, which he defines as “the study of the ethical implications of how we define life and physical excellence.”
“Over the last twenty years, there has been a major movement in the discipline of philosophy toward a greater appreciation of the role of the body in human life,” explains Lauer. “The dualistic conception of mind and body as separate substances is generally seen as old-fashioned, and philosophers have begun to rethink age-old questions about the meaning of life to incorporate diverse experiences of philosophical embodiment, ranging from the flow of an athlete perfectly in tune with her environment to the social pressures that lead us to label some bodies disabled. I have a background in both phenomenology and bioethics, so the Philosophy of Sport seemed like a natural fit.”
Lauer expects the majority of students who take the course will be either kinesiology majors thinking about careers in physical training or physical and occupational therapy, or athletes who want to think more about why sports take up a large part of their lives. “For the former, the class will give them greater appreciation of the diversity of human body types and experiences of the body, and for the latter it will help them think more deeply about their priorities in life and mine their experiences as athletes to become better leaders,” he says.
The new course shows UH Hilo’s dedication to providing students with relevant and meaningful courses. A course flier promises some questions to be explored will include, “Does competition inspire greatness or entrench selfishness?” “When does an advantage become unfair?” and “. . . why do we care about sports anyway?”
The Course
Special Topic: Philosophy of Sport
Mondays and Wednesdays
3:00-4:15 p.m.
Edith Kanaka‘ole Hall, Room 128
PHIL 394
3 Credits
Writing Intensive
CRN: 13096
Prerequisite: Previous work in philosophy
For more information, contact Assistant Professor Christopher Lauer.
About the author of this story: Kara Nelson is a senior at UH Hilo double majoring in English and Communication. She is an intern in the Office of the Chancellor.
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