What with the English Premier League season starting this weekend it seems appropriate to go back to a few articles written during the World Cup. First of all Peter Singer takes Germany’s Manuel Neuer to task for unethical conduct against England. Is the only ethical imperative in a football match the will-to-victory? Of course not, avows Singer.
On the same tip, an excellent post over at Minus the Shooting on cheating, getting away with it, and transgressions (or not) of the moral law in another of the tournament’s infamous incidents, Luis Suarez’s goalline handball against Ghana. Dan’s post argues that whereas that other famous handball, Maradona’s Hand of God, illustrated the necessity of the moral law (i.e. football’s system of rules), Suarez’s illustrates the law’s impotence: unlike Maradona, he was caught and sent off as the law demanded, but his actions eliminated Ghana anyway and led to his own team qualifying for the semi-final.
More political is Terry Eagleton’s inflammatory call to arms, which echoes many ideas in George Orwell’s classic essay The Sporting Spirit. No need to discuss this one since Mark Fisher wrote an excellent response here; I can only add that Camus used to play in goal, so it can’t all be doom and gloom.
Finally, the existential nature of the French team, another blatant transgression of the moral law here, and this, obviously
Further reading:
The Duty to Obey the Law
By David Lefkowitz, University of North Carolina, Greensboro
(Vol. 1, October 2006)
Philosophy Compass
Singer, Peter (1946–)
Australian utilitarian moral philosopher, born in Melbourne, Professor of Philosophy, Monash University, …
From The Blackwell Dictionary of Western Philosophy
The Philosopher's Eye 