@OU_Philosophy, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy.
Political philosophy, and the ethics and metaphysics of sport.
Convenor @OU_GCRN
(Like/RT ≠ endorsement, obvs)
2 subscribed
Apr 7 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
I'm grateful to @stephenwhittle for replying to my post, and I hope Prof Whittle won't mind me QTing for space.
Prof Whittle's response is helpful because it shows either the sleight of hand, or, more charitably, the depth of misunderstanding here...
... Because, notice, I *don't mention* trans people in my tweet. Check out the tweet and the reply, and the slippage is obvious.
Now, I *do* allude to a GC movement and to 'our opponents' so it is fairly obvious what Prof Whittle is doing: taking the 'opponents' to be ...
Nov 22, 2023 • 13 tweets • 2 min read
Some different types of *inclusion* in sport: between *inclusion* in sport (thread)
Keep in mind the image of a dot and a circle. Is the person inside or outside the circle? If the person is inside, they are included. If outside, they are excluded.
1) Inclusion into a particular sports practice - is there a way for the individual to play that sport?
Can X play football or not?
X will be excluded if there is no one within 100 miles, and they have no football.
Nov 9, 2023 • 11 tweets • 2 min read
There *is* an assault on academic freedom today, and it *is* serious. It's manifested in multiple ways. One way is the issue over UKRI, censuring academics because of their tweets. Another is the attempt to stop a book launch at Edinburgh...
...a third was an attempt to get me and @JoPhoenix disciplined for signing a letter to the Sunday Times. There are threats to exclude Israeli scholars from the academic community
Of these four different threats, - and there are many more - the last three *come from* the UCU ...
Oct 31, 2023 • 13 tweets • 2 min read
So this is a pretty extraordinary document from Victor Madrigal and Co at the UN. Let me count the ways ...🧵 ohchr.org/sites/default/…
... First, there is a sort of 'shadow' account of sport as a human right. This rests not on an argument but just on the *citing* of declarations to this effect. That's because any *argument* would have to be *precise* about the sense in which the practice of sport is a HR...
Aug 19, 2023 • 24 tweets • 3 min read
Since @billybragg has honoured me with a response, I'm going to indulge in a long 🧵 to give me the space to argue that he is dangerously wrong about free expression. Here goes:
...first, I don't think free speech is absolute; I accept the standard three restrictions of defamation, incitement to violence, and shouting 'fire' in a crowded cinema. ....
Aug 13, 2023 • 13 tweets • 2 min read
It might be worth spelling out clearly why a non-binary category in marathon is unfair and sexist. Here's how I see it 🧵:
... In general, fair competition requires that categories are based on body-relevant properties, like sex, age, and sometimes weight. Gender Identity is not a body-relevant property, so there's not much of a case for categories based on it...
Jul 10, 2023 • 13 tweets • 2 min read
Here's a supposed gotcha, that bugs me, and deserves a 🧵: on 'policing women's bodies' as a criticism of arguments for fair sport for women...
... the objection is presumably Foucauldian in inspiration, derived from Discipline and Punish and the with bio-politics. ...
Jun 5, 2023 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Stonewall has gone quiet on sport in response to the @BritishCycling policy change, but their public position is likely to remain 'no to blanket bans, yes to case-by-case'.
But this is misleading. To see this, ask how you might apply a 'case by case' approach 🧵...
... will this be arbitrary, a 'your face fits/yours doesn't' process? This would be radically unjust.
So, it's obvious that a general rule/set of rules must be applied to each case that comes to the 'Trans-Eligibility Working group'
The question is: what set of rules?...
May 24, 2023 • 14 tweets • 4 min read
This is a 🧵on arguments for exclusion. Particularly those of the trans rights activists who want to exclude the voices of women in general, and female athletes in particular from this discussion...
... Assuming you've been paying attention, you will have noticed a pattern by now. TRAs consistently oppose surveys, questionnaires, polls, research and consultation with female athletes.
And you can speculate as to *why* there is this opposition...
May 14, 2023 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
What's the truth about the @ucu and @DrJoGrady? Here's my take:
We are in the middle of a very difficult and important dispute with the employers. There's been some progress, but it's not going brilliantly and there have been several missteps by the leadership...
... and @DrJoGrady in particular - misjudging the mood and misrepresenting a proposed settlement.
Nevertheless, the union provides an indispensable insurance policy for members in day to day conflicts with management. Many union people know this and are excellent
May 12, 2023 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
I expect @cyclingweekly and @Cyclingnewsfeed to run sanctimonious pieces about 'toxic conversations' in the next few days. They will justify closing comments on the pieces as a result of 'abuse'. So let's get this right...
... the two pieces by @amrook and @pippa_york were *terrible journalism*. Each piece contained *abuse* of female cyclists that was not even thinly veiled, falsely attributing prejudice and bigotry to identifiable people - @ithompsonfdn and the signees of the UCF letter ...
May 11, 2023 • 16 tweets • 4 min read
So @pippa_york has written a piece for @Cyclingnewsfeed and it's worth taking a look. I don't think you'll find it persuasive, but I hope some cycling journos check it out...
... Let's look for some points of agreement. I agree that people need education on the realities of trans athletes. And I agree that the science is not hard to track down - but you won't find it in the CCES paper that Pippa links to...
May 11, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
The latest edition of Sport, Ethics and Philosophy @BritPhilofSport has hit my doormat. For completists, there are two papers that continue the conversation on my "Safety, Fairness and Inclusion" in JPS @IntPhilofSport
I cannot properly express how good I think this is!
"We need to be more critical about narratives of inclusion. It's just not true that inclusion is always good and exclusion is always bad... sometimes
... exclusion is a tool that can be used in the service of inclusion, and that will sometimes mean excluding men in order to further women's inclusion."
... there are different approaches, different pitches here, but they represent a *body of work* all published in the last 2-3 years, and I think that's important. There are two routes through which this is, and will be, manifested: the publishing industry and academia...
Dec 11, 2022 • 12 tweets • 3 min read
I'm reading, and re-reading this book, and I'll share snippets as I go along. This thread is about the piece by Madeleine Pape. Pape is employed by @iocmedia to promote the IOC framework document...
books.emeraldinsight.com/page/detail/ju…
... and her piece is quite odd. It tries to do quite a lot, in a very short space. It is eight pages long. Most of this is an account of the very big 2019 meeting, which was a joint @fairplaywomen @Womans_Place_UK effort - You remember the one with @FondOfBeetles ...
Dec 9, 2022 • 14 tweets • 4 min read
If you've got a dodgy argument to push, there are several rhetorical tricks and bits of sophistry that you can put to use.
Here are a couple, illustrated by means of a case study from that friend to charlatanry, the soi-disant *Honest Broker* @RogerPielkeJr...
... in an argument which will be presented in a book that's just been published...
In view of @sharrond62's courageous tweet earlier, and Coe's statement, I think it is important to be as clear as possilbe about the ethics of competiton with respect to Seyni, Masilingi and Mboma. So here is a thread...
... let's accept that there are three accounts of 'what sex is' - a chromosome account, a gamete account, and a homeostatic property cluster account...
Jul 1, 2022 • 12 tweets • 3 min read
🧵In order to identify fairness in sport you need, as @noelplum points out, to compare apples against apples, not oranges...
...To do this proplerly you need a relevant category. Since sport is about bodies, they should be categories that are body-relevant...
Jun 30, 2022 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Often advocates for inclusion of male bodied athletes in female sport emphasise friendship, bonding, being part of a community or team as key features of sport that TW will lose out on, and they prioritise the costs of exclusion...🧵
...on this line of argument, the 'meaning' in sport arises from such values. 'Meaningful competition' then, is competition that generates these sorts of values. I think this is a mistake...
Jun 29, 2022 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
i) The ‘meaning’ in ‘meaningful competition’ seems to depend on the purpose of a competition.
ii) Plausibly that purpose is to find out who is the best at doing a certain rule-defined thing...
iii) Meaningful *competition* depends, then, on *success* at finding the best person in a certain class, at doing a certain rule-defined thing...
2 subscribed
