You must have missed it, there was a massive 10,000 page flamefest basically debating that exact question.
Here it is:
If you foul, but your opponent doesn't see it, should you call it on yourself?
It's actually sort of 2 questions.
One is: do the rules expect you to call fouls on yourself, or is it someone else's job?
The other is: should you call it on yourself regardless?
It's a lot to go through but I remember some highlights...
Some of these deal with 'mushy' issues, and not strictly with what the rulebook implies.
Arguments that the shooter should call it:
• It's just the decent thing to do. If pretending it didn't happen makes you feel guilty, it's probably wrong. And if money is involved, it's arguably like stealing from the other guy.
• The rule writers probably didn't spell it out because it's assumed you don't need to be explicitly told to obey the rules by some third party.
• There's a sportsmanship section in the rulebook, implying they expect you to behave with good sportsmanship. Not calling your fouls is arguably bad sportsmanship.
• If you don't, then it's a slippery slope that may tempt you towards intentional cheating.
• If you get caught pretending it didn't happen, your reputation suffers (including possible lost action).
• You don't get the full satisfaction of your victory, knowing you got away with a foul that might have changed the course of the game.
• The rulebook says both players are responsible for knowing the rules and equipment specs. Arguably this implies both players should be responsible for calling fouls.
• A ref is ideal but it's not practical to have one watch every single game. So it's necessary to use either the player or the seated opponent. Both of them are biased, so forget arguments about bias. Going strictly by who's better qualified to call the foul, the shooter is in the best position to call fouls. He's closer to the action than the seated player. He can feel e.g. double hit vibrations with his cue. He can feel when he taps it on his warmup stroke, or his body brushes a ball that's out of view.
Arguments that it's someone else's job:
• In other professional sports, only refs call the fouls. The players are inherently biased. So it should be a third neutral party. Just because pool is too poor to afford that third party, doesn't mean it's not the correct way to handle fouls.
• In other sports, players do actively try to get away with whatever they can, as long as they don't get caught (holding in football, lane violations in basketball).
• The fact that the books don't explicitly tell you to call fouls on yourself, arguably implies the rule writers don't expect it. They were pretty thorough in other areas, you'd think they'd have included this.
• The seated player is expected to watch the shooter anyway.
• In some rule sets, if there's any doubt, the call goes to the shooter. Arguably this implies that the seated player must 'prove' a foul occurred before he can penalize you for it.
• There's a provision that if you don't call a foul before the next shot occurs, the foul is considered to have never happened, and play continues normally. While I think the intent is to prevent someone from calling 'retroactive fouls' after you sink more balls, arguably this could be interpreted as "if you can get off the next shot before someone calls a foul, then the opportunity to call it is gone." This implies that keeping silent about your foul and continuing to shoot is a valid option.
• Off the table, we don't obey every minor rule or law, we only honor them after we get caught... for example speeding, jaywalking. If you don't "call a foul on yourself" for something like speeding or a rolling stop (which has potentially serious consequences) then why do it in a meaningless pool game?
I think one guy actually tried to argue in some convoluted lawyerlike way that calling a foul on yourself was unsportsmanlike
...I believe that dude is currently banned though.
Oh, to answer your question:
Yes. They should add a line either under sportsmanship or at the beginning that says:
"either player may call a foul, but it is good sportsmanship for the shooter to notify his opponent of a foul if the seated player didn't see it.
Or maybe they should word it more strongly... "either player may call a foul, and the shooter is expected to notify his opponent of any foul he commits."
