Performance-enhancing substances in sport: An ethical study

Roger William Gardner, Purdue University

Abstract

Questions concerning whether current policies restricting the use of performance enhancing substances in sport are morally or ethically justified have not received the attention they deserve from philosophers of sport. The purpose of this study was to critically examine the conventional moral objections to the use of performance enhancers to determine if they could provide justificatory grounds for proscription. Two moral rationales were subjected to extensive philosophical analysis: (1) unfair advantage, and (2) unnaturalness. Neither the unfair advantage argument nor the unnaturalness argument could provide compelling grounds for prohibiting the use of performance enhancing substances in sport. There were two critical difficulties with both arguments. First, neither argument was able to establish a consistent, rational basis for its claims. Regardless of the morally objectionable property that was assigned to a banned substance, that same property exists within accepted substances and features of sport. Principled distinctions could not be drawn between prohibited and allowable substances. Second, the concepts of fairness and naturalness proved to be most ambiguous; it is not clear how they are to be defined in sport. Thus, it was not clear that compromising these concepts would result in an unethical or immoral action. That is, the presupposition that unfair and unnatural are morally bad in sport is far from self-evident.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Harper, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Philosophy|Sports medicine

COinS