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+--- Thread: Sports ethics: Why is doping wrong? (/thread-3461.html)
Sports ethics: Why is doping wrong? - C C - Mar 12, 2017
Why is doping wrong anyway?
EXCERPT: Revelations of doping typically provoke moral outrage. The received view is that doping is morally wrong because it’s cheating, and those caught doing it should be punished. The rhetoric of the media, the World Anti-Doping Association (WADA) and sporting officials – and, in the Rio Games, some athletes themselves – all embody this idea. But why is doping morally wrong? Would it be morally wrong if it wasn’t against the rules?
Athletes who dope are seeking to gain a competitive advantage over their rivals. But athletes seek to gain competitive advantages in numerous ways and many of these are not banned. If it’s wrong to enhance your performance by doping, why is it not also wrong to enhance your performance by taking dietary supplements, for instance, or carb-loading, or by training at altitude? [...] To remain competitive, athletes have to submit themselves to harsh training regimes and controlled diets that potentially cause long-term harm. If such measures produce better results, then all athletes have to adopt these measures. Yet no one suggests there’s anything wrong with this kind of coercion in sport.
[...] The moral outrage points to a simpler reason for the wrongness of doping. Doping is cheating because it’s against the rules. But why is it against the rules? Because it’s cheating, of course! This argument moves in an embarrassingly small circle....
MORE: http://www.lse.ac.uk/philosophy/blog/2016/08/17/why-is-doping-wrong-anyway/
RE: Sports ethics: Why is doping wrong? - Zinjanthropos - Mar 13, 2017
Why is smoking wrong? Perhaps an adverse effect like a horrible death might qualify as a reason. Sure, Tobacco companies know this and as a result they're often found responsible and then have to deal with many a lawsuit. I don't think the large sport organizations want to deal with that eventuality. On that basis, banning dopers is better than being sued which means the real reason it's wrong is not cheating but money.
RE: Sports ethics: Why is doping wrong? - Syne - Mar 13, 2017
Sports have a large role model component, which prompts things like morals clauses in contracts. Even if doping were within the rules, the intended example is that hard work, not artificial shortcuts, is the best way to succeed.
RE: Sports ethics: Why is doping wrong? - Leigha - Mar 25, 2017
Carb loading, protein supplements, training, etc...those things are natural. Probably because doping takes a person's performance and enhances it in an unnatural way, that causes the ''unfair advantage?''
RE: Sports ethics: Why is doping wrong? - Zinjanthropos - Mar 26, 2017
Being from Canada I do remember 100m SPecialist Ben Johnson's losing the gold medal in Seoul because he took PED's. Caused a major stir here. For a few days he was the darling of the nation but later, once the dust cleared, he was a nobody. A joke circulated at that time, went something like this:
When asked about taking Steroids, Johnson replied" Stereos, I don't know nuttin' about no stereos"
Anyway, he lost all his sponsors and went from potential millionaire to street urchin. All about the cash.