A solo run on a well-trodden path makes for frustrating reading

Pam R. Sailors
Missouri State University

As a philosopher who loves and has written about running, I was excited to read Sabrina B. Little’s The Examined Run, looking forward to hearing from another philosopher writing about the intersection of sport—specifically, running—and ethics. The reading experience was first puzzling and then progressively frustrating, not because of what’s in the book, but because of what is not. “Both running and philosophy, at their best, help us to learn something about ourselves, what is really valuable in life, and perhaps even something about the nature of reality itself.” This passage is not from Sabrina B. Little’s new book on running and ethics but from Michael W. Austin’s Running & Philosophy published in 2007. I could equally have chosen a passage from Mark Rowland’s Running with the Pack (2013) or from Douglas Hochstetler’s Endurance Sport and the American Philosophical Tradition (2020).

So when Little says her book was written “to welcome other athletes into a tradition of inquiry about character, flourishing, and suffering so that we can ask better questions together about our sport and ourselves and share a common vocabulary of virtue and vice” (xiii), I can only respond by pointing to the conversation about exactly these questions that philosophers of sport, many of whom are athletes, have been engaged in for many years. In fact, the International Association for the Philosophy of Sport (IAPS) was founded more than 50 years ago (1972), with its Journal of the Philosophy of Sport beginning publication in 1974. The British Philosophy of Sport Association’s journal, Sport, Ethics and Philosophy has been published since 2007. IAPS has held sessions at meetings of the American Philosophical Association for at least the past dozen years.

Even if Little had no knowledge of any of this, her publisher, Oxford University Press, certainly should have recognized the existing literature, having published several of the works cited in the Stanford Encyclopedia entry.

Further, an internet search for ‘sport and philosophy’ finds both of these journals, along with books and textbooks in the area, and a thorough Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on the philosophy of sport with a detailed and lengthy bibliography. Even if Little had no knowledge of any of this, her publisher, Oxford University Press, certainly should have recognized the existing literature, having published several of the works cited in the Stanford Encyclopedia entry. Instead, there is no acknowledgement that others have contributed to the topics Little discusses and there are no references to any of the relevant work. This is frustrating and deeply disappointing for a number of reasons, perhaps the most important being the missed opportunity to join, and potentially advance, an existing dialogue. Even so, Little’s book provides a solid introduction to how virtue ethics can serve as a resource for runners, so it is worthy of review.

Little begins with an introduction to the theory of virtue ethics and suggests how the theory may be profitably applied to running. Her focus is on distance running, but most of the connections work for shorter events as well. She then moves to discuss how virtues can be fostered through sport. Chapter three considers the primary positive emotions in sport. Chapter four illustrates Aristotle’s suggestion of imitation of an ideal model, by laying out four examples of good role models: sage, saints, heroes, and mundane exemplars (96-98). Chapter five discusses virtues that may benefit performance: resilience, joy, perseverance, and humor (125-133). Little argues in the following chapter that certain vices may also benefit performance: pride, intransigence, envy, and selfishness (153-172). Chapter seven examines three models of happiness—hedonic, desire satisfaction, and eudaimonic—and concludes that athletes aspiring to the eudaimonic have the best chance of the good life. In chapter eight, Little critiques the rhetoric around limits in sport, and makes a case against the common valorization of suffering, e.g., “no pain, no gain.” A brief concluding chapter recaps the preceding content and ends with this from Little: “The Examined Run is the beginning of a conversation about how to take our happiness seriously and live good lives in and out of the sport. I hope that my readers will continue to ask these questions and to live an examined run” (230).

Accepting Little’s invitation to continue the conversation, I suggest the discussion would be productively supplemented by looking at Schneider and Butcher on the “spirit of sport; ”McNamee and Reid on the historical connection between athletics and virtue; Brady on pain and suffering in sport; Hochstetler on running and friendship; Tarver on the relationship between character and other sports; Feezell on athletes as role models; Simon on character development through sports; Russell on the cardinal virtues essential to sport; and Morgan for the history and relationship of ethics and sport. This is far from an exhaustive list, but it would enrich the discussion found in Little’s book and truly begin to move the conversation forward. Little’s book, good as a solo run, would be enriched by joining others running the same route.

Copyright © Pam R. Sailors 2025

References

Austin, Michael W. 2007. Running & Philosophy: a marathon for the mind. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Publishing.

Brady, Michael S. 2019. “Suffering in Sport: Why People Willingly Embrace Negative Emotional Experiences.” Journal of the Philosophy of Sport 46 (2): 115-128.

Feezell, Randolph. 2013. Sport, Philosophy, and Good Lives. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.

Hochstetler, Douglas. 2025. “A Philosophical Look at Running Friendships.” Sport, Ethics and Philosophy 18 (5): 483-496.

Hochstetler, Douglas. 2020. Endurance Sport and the American Philosophical Tradition. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.

McNamee, Mike, 2008. Sports, Virtues and Vices: Morality Plays. New York: Routledge.

Morgan, William J. 2020. Sport and Moral Conflict: A Conventionalist Theory. New York: Routledge.

Reid, Heather L. 2011. Athletics and Philosophy in the Ancient World Contests of Virtue. New York: Routledge.

Rowland, Mark. 2013. Running with the Pack: Thoughts from the Road on Meaning and Mortality. New York: Pegasus Books.

Russell, J.S. 2020. “Striving, Entropy, and Meaning.” Journal of the Philosophy of Sport 47 (3): 419-437.

Schneider, Angela J. and Butcher, Robert B. 1995. “Why Olympic Athletes Should Avoid the Use and Seek the Elimination of Performance-Enhancing Substances and Practices from the Olympic Games.” Journal of the Philosophy of Sport 20-21: 64-81.

Simon, Robert L., Torres, Cesar R., Hager, Peter F. 2015. Fair Play: The Ethics of Sport (4th edition). Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

Tarver, Erin C. 2017. The I in Team: Sports Fandom and the Reproduction of Identity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.