O Captain! My Captain!: leadership, virtue, and sport

Journal of the Philosophy of Sport 48 (1):45-62 (2021)
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Abstract

There is a crisis of leadership in sport. Leadership as an athletic excellence is under threat from the deepening influence of coaches on in-game decision- making. To appreciate what is being lost in this shift of responsibility, it is necessary to understand the challenge of athlete leadership. Captaincy is the quintessential on-field leadership role. However, the role of captain, and athlete leadership more widely, remains philosophically untheorized. This paper initiates a discussion of leadership in sport by providing the first normative account of captaincy. Rugby union is used as a case study, as this sport preserves an especially demanding and complex form of captaincy that may provide a rough template for the revival of athlete leadership in other sports. A virtue theoretical analysis of the role is developed based on a functionalist conception of virtue. It is argued that discharging the responsibilities of such captaincy requires two key virtues: ‘sporting judgement’ and ‘responsibility’.

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Citations of this work

Elements of excellence.John William Devine - 2022 - Journal of the Philosophy of Sport 49 (2):195-211.
Sport in an Algorithmic Age: Michel Serres on Bodily Metamorphosis.Aldo Houterman - 2023 - Sport, Ethics and Philosophy 18 (2):126-141.
Boredom, sport, and games.J. S. Russell - 2024 - Journal of the Philosophy of Sport 51 (1):125-144.

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References found in this work

The Grasshopper: Games, Life and Utopia.Bernard Suits & Thomas Hurka - 1978 - Peterborough, CA: Broadview Press.
The Concept of Representation.Hanna Fenichel Pitkin (ed.) - 1967 - University of California Press.
The Concept of Representation.Hanna Fenichel Pitkin - 1967 - University of California Press.
Virtue Ethics and Professional Roles.Justin Oakley & Dean Cocking - 2001 - New York: Cambridge University Press. Edited by Dean Cocking.

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