Abstract

In this paper, I address Bernard Suits’ notion of having a prelusory goal before playing a game or doing a sport and suggest that it needs rethinking. My focus is on sport. Before (pre) doing or playing a sport (lusory), we aim at the prelusory goal of sport, which Suits describes as a specific achievable state of affairs. I criticize Suits’ understanding of the prelusory goal of sport and argue that we need to leave it behind. Instead of the Suitsian way of understanding the prelusory goal of sport, we should instead think of the prelusory goal of sport as simply being the goal of having a sport event to partake in, experience, enjoy, etc. I show how this understanding of the prelusory goal of sport can explain certain kinds of behaviours both before doing a sport and when doing a sport. By understanding the prelusory goal of sport the way I do, we see how having the goal of having a sport event to partake in, experience, enjoy, etc. is both pre-sport and in-sport action-guiding.