David Papineau is Professor of Philosophy at King’s College London and City University of New York Graduate Center, and the author of Knowing The Score, a collection of essays exploring philosophical issues at the heart of sport.

Papineau began his academic career with a degree in mathematics at the University of Natal, South Africa, before returning to England to make the formal transition to philosophy at Cambridge. His philosophical interests cover issues in metaphysics, philosophy of science, and the philosophy of mind and psychology, which often sees him as a contributor to The TLS, Aeon and The Philosopher’s Magazine.

Following a landslide of technical issues, this conversation took place through a complex system of devices being held to microphones. Fortunately for this interviewer, David didn’t let any of it dampen his enthusiasm for our conversation.

—David Maclean

DM: What came first for you – sport or philosophy?

DP: That’s a good question! I guess it would have to be sport since I was a keen sportsman as a child—although not an especially good one, truth be told —and only came to philosophy after I had taken my first degree in mathematics.

DM: There are obviously quite a few notable examples of sportsmen turning their hand to philosophy. The French existentialist Albert Camus claimed that football had taught him what he needed to know about morality.

DP: From my own standpoint, I’m not so certain that sport is morally exceptional. I think that the lessons in morality that sport provides can also be applied elsewhere. However, it does highlight a whole lot of moral issues and I find it a very useful testing ground for philosophical theories. I think one issue it highlights is the way that people often make decisions as units. Economists, game theorists and quite a lot of moral philosophers assume that when people act, it’s the result of them each individually working out the best thing to do. But in a lot of contexts, especially sporting contexts, people come together to ask “what should we do”, and although that’s a very important part of life in general, it comes into focus more within sports.  The team will have a discussion about what’s the best way to play the other side, and everyone will accept the result even if it’s not necessarily what they would have wanted for themselves. Successful teams rely on thinking of themselves as one agent making a single decision.

DM: One of the ways that these moral dimensions manifest within sports is the rules. But how do these work as an applied set of ethics?