A podcast on ethics and political philosophy in sport
Beyond the Game begins with ultimate frisbee and moves outward into questions of character, responsibility, authority, freedom, equality, and community.
A foul call, a tactical system, or a self-officiated game becomes a way to think about character, responsibility, authority, freedom, equality, and community.
From Aristotle’s virtue ethics to Rousseau’s social contract and gender equality in mixed ultimate, each episode returns abstract theory to bodies, rules, and decisions under pressure. The show asks not only how we win, but what makes a game worth respecting—and what kind of order we are willing to build with others.
Aristotle on Purpose, Flourishing, and Character
A scoreboard can tell us who won, but not whether the game deserved our respect. This episode moves from results, rules, and character to Aristotle’s account of ends, eudaimonia, and the human function, asking why athletic excellence includes honesty, restraint, courage, and practical judgment—not only technical efficiency.
Aristotle on Habit, Choice, and the Mean
The right choice does not appear from nowhere under pressure. This episode examines how repeated action forms stable character, why Aristotle’s mean is not compromise or polite retreat, and how Spirit of the Game both tests and trains virtue.
Aristotle on Responsibility, Voluntary Action, Choice, and Deliberation
How should praise and blame be assigned when a call is shaped by pressure, incomplete information, or uncertainty? This episode moves from compulsion, ignorance, and mixed actions to choice and deliberation, showing why responsibility is rarely all-or-nothing and why practical wisdom makes an athlete trustworthy.
Aristotle in Ultimate Frisbee: Strengths, Limits, and Critiques
Virtue ethics explains character, habit, and self-government, but it may not resolve vague standards, unequal structures, or corrupted group norms on its own. Bringing in deontology, consequentialism, moral psychology, feminist ethics, and care ethics, this episode argues that a trustworthy sporting practice needs both character and procedure, individual and institutional responsibility.
Ultimate Frisbee, Spirit of the Game, and the Source of Legitimacy
A game without a referee is not a game without authority; it redistributes the work of interpreting, applying, and protecting rules to every participant. Beginning with ultimate’s history and dispute procedures, this episode compares refereed and self-officiated order and asks, through Hobbes, Weber, and Rousseau, why rules can still bind when external enforcement is absent.
Force, Slavery, and the First Agreement Behind a Community
Silencing someone or securing compliance does not create a right to command. Following Rousseau’s critique of force, slavery, and majority rule, this episode distinguishes power from authority and compliance from obligation, arguing that a community requires an earlier agreement placing everyone within the same relationship to rules.
The Social Contract, the Moral Community, and Being “Forced to Be Free”
Collective life requires constraints, but how can they avoid becoming another person’s private command? This episode examines equal alienation, reciprocity, the formation of the people and sovereign, and natural, civil, and moral freedom, before testing whether being “forced to be free” restores a shared practice or silences dissent.
The General Will, Sovereignty, Law, and the Limits of Self-Officiation
A community can speak in the name of “we” without truly representing everyone. This episode examines inalienable and indivisible sovereignty, the general will and the will of all, factions, general law, and the legislator’s paradox, showing both what Rousseau explains about self-government and what he leaves dangerously unresolved.
Why Mixed Division Is an Experiment in Participation, Power, and Excellence
Rules requiring different genders on the field secure formal equality, but substantive equality asks who touches the disc, organizes the offense, is believed, and has authority in disputes. Through participatory parity, structural domination, epistemic injustice, non-domination, and recognition, this episode treats mixed ultimate as an institutional experiment in shared agency and power.
How a Team Can Redistribute Space, Decision-Making, and Trust
Equality must enter movement patterns, touches, offensive structure, and the chain of trust in decisive moments. This episode examines barriers women face in mixed ultimate, then analyzes a tactical system that places women at the center of space, tempo, and decision-making—while also asking whether redesign can become a more sophisticated form of paternalism.