Issn 1983-8034 Ethics, bioethics and physical education

The potential of the sport

Moral education as virtue formation

This category includes the potential of sports as a means for moral development. The topic is composed by the findings of the following articles: Görgüt and Tutkun ⁶, Pezdek ⁷, Barker, Barker-Ruchti and Pühse ⁹, Costa, McNamee and Lacerda ^10,15, and Jones ¹⁶. Here, an expanded view of sport is attributed in a universal language to the potential for moral development, in addition to PE and sports as a social milestone for children and adolescents, as presented in the first category.
Sports contributes to health and well-being and has as its purpose the formation of the ethical subject. In this sense, the practice of sports, whether at school or clubs, as an element of culture in the professional sphere and in the soccer team of a country, provides a propitious space for
learning situations and different performance criteria that increasingly value the ethical content of sports ¹⁰. Hence, sports has a moral potential, materialized in a struggle for excellence, which requires deep respect for moral values such as fair play, equality, tolerance, and justice 15.
On this subject, Jones ¹⁶ points out that moral action in general and particularly in sports is composed of other concepts and constructions, such as virtue, motivational orientation, maturity, principles, judgment, reasoning, perception, emotion, and numerous situational factors. Moreover, the issue of the elements of sports ethics in the context of PE is attributed to this potential, which are used in the pedagogical sense, such as: regulation and normative structure of sport; spirit of sport and its internal values; the right to do sports; overcoming in sports; and sports as an opportunity for ethics that exceeds the fulfillment of duties ¹⁰.
For this reason, sports activities play an important role in personal development, as they can be done as a right for all, whether in school sports, in sports as leisure, and in performance sports. Furthermore, the content and meaning of sports are apprehended at both the behavioral and conceptual levels, as both are interrelated ¹⁵. It is understood that the popularization of sports among young people contributes not only to the improvement of the health condition of the society, but also to the growth of the ethical awareness of citizens in full exercise ⁷.
Sports activity contributes to the development of cognitive, affective, ethical, aesthetic, interpersonal-relationship, and social-inclusion skills. The distribution of roles, the interaction with the rules, the relationship established between victory and failure and, finally, rivalry and cooperation cultivate values and behaviors consistent with the very democratic bases on which contemporary society is founded ²⁵.
Three vectors related to sports could contribute to the ethical perspective: 1) the first contributes to the role of PE in the development of students’ sensitivity and respect for the internal goods and the constitutive characteristics of each sport; 2) the second refers to the cultivation of the responsibility of providing learning contexts that promote athletic overcoming and perfectionism among students in terms of sport performance; and 3) the third

Research
is related to the cultivation of the responsibility of promoting among students, through the sports pedagogical experience, respect for themselves and for others and for integrity by sports activities ¹⁵. Noleto ²⁵ points out the positive effects that sports activities have on the education of children and young people considering that, in addition to integrating them, the provision of sports, artistic, and cultural activities helps in the socialization and reconstruction of citizenship.
It its noteworthy that, in a phenomenological approach, sports can result in good or bad behaviors, which only depends on those individuals in particular, who give meaning to it and, sometimes, on entire societies. Thus, the intent and meaning of the sport were created based on the values through which each person defines their goals and makes decisions. These goals may be competitive in nature (agonistic values), involve body care (aesthetic values), signing a contract with a club (utilitarian value), pleasure (hedonistic values), worship (religious values), or becoming a good person (moral values) ⁷.
In addition to the perspective of sports ethics and values education in the context of sports practice (modesty, respect, honesty, equality, defense of rights, solidarity, and fair play) ^6,9, the issue of flexibility and space for pragmatism can be mentioned, without compromising basic values. That is, in the short term, PE proponents can point to moral development and/or health. In the long term, relational and humanistic values confer educational ideals with guidance and stability ⁵.
In this perspective, the ethical potential of sports surpasses legal, regulatory, and functionalist boundaries, as they also reproduce issues of ethical commitment and ethical awareness by its practitioners in the way of feeling and thinking, understanding and evaluating. Therefore, sports ethics is not limited to technical aspects and, naturally, it should be noted that some relevant aspects of sports ethics in general still need to be systematically investigated ¹⁰.
Although the articles address values and potentialities of sport, we observed that issues concerning the sports universe were not mentioned and they should be widely discussed, such as cooperative values in sport, the importance of defeat in sport and doping practices, which is a gap of scientific production.
In the literature, there is a debate on cooperative games in various contexts, and this study is based on the reflections of Brotto ²⁶, who discusses the importance of the cooperative games category. According to the author, games and sports are socio-educational principles that can enhance cooperation and solidarity among those involved in the process. In this perspective, knowing how to deal with the negative emotions arising from defeat in sports is deemed extremely important.
According to Nunes ²⁷, one of the main objectives of sports initiation is developing specific psychological skills such as knowing how to win and lose, play fair, and knowing how to control oneself in times of difficulty. To do so, it is necessary to develop emotional education, both in the family environment and in other environments, because in cooperative/competitive games there is a greater negative perception, due to competitiveness, as many negative emotions arise when one loses ²⁷. Lastly, a recurring topic in sports involves values such as fair play, respect, and honesty regarding doping in sports. Doping is understood as the use of illicit substances, drugs, or methods employed to improve sport performance. On this topic, Cardoso ²⁸ states that it is a problem of modern and contemporary sports, constituting a violation of the principle of formal equality between competitors, which is both unethical and illegal, in addition to being harmful to health and it may cause death,
a true contradiction to the sport ideal.
In this category, overall, favorable aspects or what is considered to be potentially positive for an ethical/moral development by sport were highlighted. Sports practice, in addition to contributing to health and well-being, enables its participants to experience the understanding of values and the reflection on everyday behavior. It is worth highlighting the gaps in the international literature pointed out in this review such as doping, cooperative values, and defeat in sports.

Ethics