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Trust, Competition, and Preventive Justice: Responding to Rule Violations in Sport

John William Devine Orcid Logo

The Journal of Ethics

Swansea University Author: John William Devine Orcid Logo

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DOI (Published version): 10.1007/s10892-025-09531-x

Abstract

Meaningful sporting competition rests on athletes complying with rules that they can easily violate undetected. From match-fixing, where players attempt to lose by illegitimate means, to doping, where players attempt to win by illegitimate means, sport is replete with trust-based rules. How should s...

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Published in: The Journal of Ethics
ISSN: 1382-4554 1572-8609
Published: Springer Nature 2025
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URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa67864
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last_indexed 2025-10-22T06:15:51Z
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spelling 2025-10-21T11:09:21.2471537 v2 67864 2024-10-01 Trust, Competition, and Preventive Justice: Responding to Rule Violations in Sport f0448bdf1ad9d83e029d9b49ed910e33 0000-0002-0037-6556 John William Devine John William Devine true false 2024-10-01 EAAS Meaningful sporting competition rests on athletes complying with rules that they can easily violate undetected. From match-fixing, where players attempt to lose by illegitimate means, to doping, where players attempt to win by illegitimate means, sport is replete with trust-based rules. How should sports authorities respond to the breach of such rules? I argue that trust-based rules pose a unique ethical challenge for sports authorities, and their violation requires a distinctive institutional response. Specifically, the principal response to such violations should be preventive rather than punitive. Sports authorities should mitigate the risk posed by violators of trust-based rules to the meaningfulness of future competition rather than punish violators for past wrongdoing. This paper develops a preventivejustice approach to the most routinely flouted, and widely discussed, variety of trust-based rule in sport – anti-doping rules. This argument illuminates the treatment of other types of trust-based rule in sport and trust-based rules in certain non-sporting rule-bound competitive contexts. Journal Article The Journal of Ethics Springer Nature 1382-4554 1572-8609 Competition; Preventive justice; Philosophy of sport; Sports ethics; Trust; Enhancement; Anti-doping 18 9 2025 2025-09-18 10.1007/s10892-025-09531-x COLLEGE NANME Engineering and Applied Sciences School COLLEGE CODE EAAS Swansea University SU Library paid the OA fee (TA Institutional Deal) Swansea University 2025-10-21T11:09:21.2471537 2024-10-01T09:49:06.3709049 Faculty of Science and Engineering School of Engineering and Applied Sciences - Sport and Exercise Sciences John William Devine 0000-0002-0037-6556 1 67864__35141__181afebd1cd647c0969e3d51f376ec4d.pdf 67864.pdf 2025-09-19T10:29:26.6278396 Output 1084043 application/pdf Version of Record true © The Author(s) 2025. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). true eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
title Trust, Competition, and Preventive Justice: Responding to Rule Violations in Sport
spellingShingle Trust, Competition, and Preventive Justice: Responding to Rule Violations in Sport
John William Devine
title_short Trust, Competition, and Preventive Justice: Responding to Rule Violations in Sport
title_full Trust, Competition, and Preventive Justice: Responding to Rule Violations in Sport
title_fullStr Trust, Competition, and Preventive Justice: Responding to Rule Violations in Sport
title_full_unstemmed Trust, Competition, and Preventive Justice: Responding to Rule Violations in Sport
title_sort Trust, Competition, and Preventive Justice: Responding to Rule Violations in Sport
author_id_str_mv f0448bdf1ad9d83e029d9b49ed910e33
author_id_fullname_str_mv f0448bdf1ad9d83e029d9b49ed910e33_***_John William Devine
author John William Devine
author2 John William Devine
format Journal article
container_title The Journal of Ethics
publishDate 2025
institution Swansea University
issn 1382-4554
1572-8609
doi_str_mv 10.1007/s10892-025-09531-x
publisher Springer Nature
college_str Faculty of Science and Engineering
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hierarchy_top_id facultyofscienceandengineering
hierarchy_top_title Faculty of Science and Engineering
hierarchy_parent_id facultyofscienceandengineering
hierarchy_parent_title Faculty of Science and Engineering
department_str School of Engineering and Applied Sciences - Sport and Exercise Sciences{{{_:::_}}}Faculty of Science and Engineering{{{_:::_}}}School of Engineering and Applied Sciences - Sport and Exercise Sciences
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description Meaningful sporting competition rests on athletes complying with rules that they can easily violate undetected. From match-fixing, where players attempt to lose by illegitimate means, to doping, where players attempt to win by illegitimate means, sport is replete with trust-based rules. How should sports authorities respond to the breach of such rules? I argue that trust-based rules pose a unique ethical challenge for sports authorities, and their violation requires a distinctive institutional response. Specifically, the principal response to such violations should be preventive rather than punitive. Sports authorities should mitigate the risk posed by violators of trust-based rules to the meaningfulness of future competition rather than punish violators for past wrongdoing. This paper develops a preventivejustice approach to the most routinely flouted, and widely discussed, variety of trust-based rule in sport – anti-doping rules. This argument illuminates the treatment of other types of trust-based rule in sport and trust-based rules in certain non-sporting rule-bound competitive contexts.
published_date 2025-09-18T05:23:55Z
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score 11.089386

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