In a recent news analysis piece of The New York Times, David Ewing Duncan comments on famed cyclist
Lance Armstrong's tragic demise following his admission to using
forbidden performance enhancers and summarizes the growing tension
between anti-doping agencies and athletes that will undoubtedly
escalate during this century due to the improvement of sports
medicine and biotechnology in general. Perhaps the most interesting
part of the article was Duncan's analysis of the rules prohibiting
sports performance enhancers. Citing individuals who feel that the
current set of such rules involve arbitrary distinctions with little
scientific grounding, he mentions Dr. Andy Miah's proposal for
enhanced sports contests designed for individuals who wish to compete
without being bound by the various sporting regulations. Aside from
being arguably less arbitrary in its rules, such a system would also
allow athletes to use performance enhancing drugs safely and compete
in an environment where everyone would have the opportunity to take
advantage of these substances, thus allowing for a more even playing
field.
This part in particular caught my
attention because I have found all of the ethical arguments against
performance enhancing drugs (some of which are alluded to in the
article) to be rather weak. Claims centered around “protecting the
spirit of athletics” or “maintaining the purity of sports”
carry with them no sophisticated argumentation and are thus not
ethically interesting. The fact of the matter is that, as far as I
can see, there is no principled objection to the use of performance
enhancing substances under any major ethical theory. Consequentialism
clearly allows for it just in case the consequences of using such
substances maximize the good, whereas deontological theories such as
Kant's seem to permit it given that the decisions to use these
substances lie entirely within an individual's autonomy. Even virtue
theories and natural law perspectives appear to allow for such drugs
since they do not even harm the body but are instead intended to
enhance and strengthen its functions. Given the lack of a good
argument against their use, why do sports organizations (and the law
as well) prohibit their use?
I strongly suspect that the answer, in
addition to consisting of the types of arguments mentioned above,
also relates to the fact that many of these prohibitions are based
off of our presnet ignorance of the long-term effects of these drugs.
As Duncan points out, although we may be able to categorize some
substances as less harmful than others in the short-term, we simply
have not done enough research to know their long-term consequences.
It seems to me, however, that this is
not a good justification for outright banning the substances from
non-medical use, let alone athletic competitions. As it stands, we do
not know the long-term health effects of certain diets like the
Atkins diet (which has been criticized and even condemned as
dangerous by some researchers while praised by others), but that
fact, contra Mayor Bloomberg, certainly is not a reason to
prevent people from choosing to eat in accordance with them. This, of
course, is not perfectly analogous to the use of
performance-enhancing substances, but it at least should give a
critic of their legality and use in sports some pause before
immediately rejecting them. Even more, however, is the fact that
given the rapidly growing advancement in medicine that will transpire
within this century, we may well be able to determine the substances
that cause long-term harm and ban those, while leaving the harmless
ones more readily available. If this could be done, then it seems
that there would be no reason to ban them, either in the law or in
sporting events.
2 comments:
You are right to attack the arbitrary nature of certain sporting regulations. I should also state that I agree with your analysis of the ethical permissibility of performance enhancing drugs (PED) for the individual. But I would warn against your hasty condemnation of any regulations on such drugs in sports. It seems that, by discharging the moral questions, you leap to the conclusion that any ban on PED is silly. Given that so many of us experience an intuitive backlash against these drugs, though, I would urge a closer inspection of whether this backlash is justified. For most, the strong reaction against PED in sports is mainly out of concern for the state of the sport itself, irrespective of beliefs about the individual ethical permissibility of PED.
What are we seeking to protect? I believe the “purity of sports” (as you put it) is a simplistic attempt to reach out and grab at what we fear to lose. One obvious feature of sports that is valuable is their history. This timeless quality of sports must not be overlooked; the sense of constancy—that the game I am watching today is the same game I shared with my father in the early ‘90s and will be the same game that I share with my son, perhaps, in several decades—is of enormous value to many fans. Thus, a sport represents a tradition. Now, this tradition will not be lost immediately as a result of PED, but the progression of PED will eventually erode much of its contours. It is hard to imagine that, in a world where everything from medicine to laptops is hurtling forward technologically, PED will lag behind. No, its effectiveness will transform the abilities of athletes en masse such that the athlete of the next century will be fundamentally different from that of the past in terms of his physical limitations.
Why is this to be avoided? Well, another value of constancy in sports is comparison to the past. Every sport loves to compare its current athletes to its legends. It is a delightful pursuit for fans to squabble over whether, say, Michael Jordan has been surpassed by Kobe Bryant, or Maradona has been matched by Messi. Such comparisons will become meaningless with the advent of widespread PED use. The legends of bygone days will be apples to the oranges of today’s athletes. In sports that involve some kind of race, this becomes even clearer. A huge thrill of racing competitions is the struggle against that World Record time in the corner of the screen. For many viewers of events like the Olympics, the prospect of a record being broken is what draws us to watch. Take Usain Bolt, for instance (let’s assume for the purpose of this argument that he, or at least some human could have, reached his level of speed without PED). The world was in ecstasy upon his shattering of the world record. Do you think the same measure of excitement would have followed if he had been known to use PED? Where would the glory have been in defeating the giants of the past if he has the unarguable advantage of modern day drugs?
Sports is the one place where we can revel in nature (yes, there are exceptions; there are advantages modern athletes hold over past ones; but none so fundamental as PED would create) by reverting to a pre-civilized value system of physical capacity and escaping the complicating factors that constitute success today. The arena is where we can show our predecessors that we have outmatched them in every way, not just mentally. What will the 100 meter world record mean in track when the athletes are all on performance enhancers? That the winner was fast and full of effort? Or that the year’s advancements in PED were admirable? Maybe some combination of the two? The problem with allowing the use of PED in sports is that, while it levels the playing field for today, it absolutely shatters any equity of comparisons to the past. And looking at the reasons we are intrigued by sports, it seems clear that this connection is precious. We do not compete just with the other men physically present on the field; we compete with our ancestors.
austenm, thank you for your insighful comment. I certainly agree that the knee-jerk reaction people have toward lifting bans on performance enhancers should prompt us to inspect the issue in closer detail. The problem is, however, that even upon deeper analysis, the case against performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) is found wanting.
Part of this is, I suspect, to be attributed to what may be a more fundamental disagreement between us regarding the nature of human law and rules. As I see things, human law should be contoured to the moral law (whatever that may be is, of course, up for debate) as closely and feasibly as possible. Since you seem to agree with me that there is nothing morally wrong or objectionable to using safe PEDs in principle, so if this is the case, then most of the other considerations you offered, even if correct, will not be persuasive to me or those who share my view of the relationship between human and moral law.
That being said, we should further ask: are the considerations you gave correct? I think that the primary reason you offered against PEDs – namely that it erodes the constancy of sports – is very questionable at best.
First, you argued that the tradition of watching sports will lose its timeless quality if PEDs are permitted. Yet, it appears to me that this is based on the assumption that PEDs will change the nature of athletic competition drastically within a small amount of time – an assumption that you yourself concede is unlikely. If the rate of change in sports as a result of PEDs is gradual and slow, then this would allow for the tradition of sports-watching to evolve smoothly since one to two gaps between generations would not be enough to produce a substantial change in the sport. (Indeed, this is plausibly occurring already. For instance, it is likely that many of the world's top cyclists take some form of PED, yet this has not produced a change in the sport of cycling noticeable enough to break a tradition between older and younger fans.) So, I don't thin this argument is a good one.
Second, you focus on the thrill and glory that comes when modern athletes surpass previous records and then contend that PEDs diminish these. Again, though, I think that this relies on the weighty assumption that one's having and using natural talents are necessary for one to be a glorified athlete who has genuinely conquered his competitors of old. This assumption, though, seems to be false to me. While it is true that athletes using PEDs will be able to more easily defeat past records, they too will set their own records for others to break in the future. If the change in sports due to the advent of PEDs were to proceed slowly, then the rate at which previous records were broken would also proceed slowly, allowing for the tradition mentioned in your first argument to survive. But, more significantly, I think it can be argued that the entire emphasis on natural talents and gifts is completely unjustified. By putting more athletes on an even playing field, PEDs would shift the reasons we admire athletes from natural gifts to iron will and dedicated training, which I think is a better attitude to have toward sports (and life) overall. By praising one's effort instead of one's fortune in the genetic lottery, society's view of success may itself be changed for the better.
Hence, it is for these reasons I stand by the position expressed in my post and maintain that any reasonable society or athletic organization should eliminate restrictions on PEDs, which are arbitrary and unnecessary.
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