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Introduces students to philosophical issues surrounding sport. Topics may include: the nature and value of sports, paying college athletes, the use of performance enhancing drugs, the moral responsibilities of fans, the moral downsides to the Olympics, public subsidizing of professional sports teams, athlete protests, sports gambling, gender equity and sports, and transgender athletes, among others.

Learning Objectives

• Recognize the logical features of a philosophical argument—premises, rules of inference, types of argumentation, counter examples, etc.;
• Differentiate between a descriptive claim and a normative claim, and between a philosophical argument and a debate over a matter of taste;
• Examine various claims according to nuanced and sophisticated standards of evidence, and in a way that recognizes and corrects for various biases;
• Summarize the competing positions on the given topics clearly and concisely, based on a firm understanding of those positions;
• Analyze philosophical arguments—this involves recognizing their various components and the interrelations between those components;
• Evaluate competing philosophical views on each topic—this involves providing critiques and/or justifications for the various claims and inferences that comprise each argument.

In this course, you will

   Cover a wide range of topics in sports, discovering just how many philosophical questions confront us as fans, students, athletes and citizens; 

   Discuss the ethical issues surrounding current events- e.g., the Olympics, legalized sports betting, NIL and compensation for student athletes, etc.;

   Discuss your own philosophical reflections with your fellow students, utilizing your personal sports related experience and values;

   Return throughout the semester to philosophical questions that go back to the ancient Greeks: Do sports provide something deep and important in our lives, more than just entertainment, more than mere activities?

Meet Your Instructor 

Benjamin Kultgen 

  Benjamin.Kultgen@Colorado.EDU

I received my PhD in philosophy from CU and my BA from Harvard University. I grew up in Colorado Springs, but lived on the east coast during and after college. I have a 5 year old son, Hudson, who’s named after Bill Paxton's character Private Hudson in James Cameron's 1986 masterpiece "Aliens". I'm a very serious skier and snowboarder, so I have maximum Colorado-street-credibility. I road bike a lot and mountain bike a little. I was once a musician and I still collect guitars and vinyl records.