ABSTRACT
Discussions of competition and winning naturally lead to questions about the use of performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) as a response to competitive pressures. The issues may seem to be limited to contemporary sports because of developments in pharmacology, but athletes have long been attempting to enhance performance by using various substances. The central issue is primarily whether sports should have rules against the use of PEDs, although other relevant questions are empirical and conceptual as well as philosophical. J. K. lists ten important questions to guide the discussion of drugs and sport. The characters decide to restrict their attention to paradigm cases of PEDs, not borderline cases, and assume that using anabolic
steroids enhances performance but may harm the user. Given these assumptions, they discuss four central arguments against the use of PEDs: arguments from harm, coercion, unnaturalness, and unfair advantage. Should we prevent athletes from harming themselves, or should we respect their adult choices to use drugs in order to enhance their competitive success? J. S. Mill’s Harm Principle rejects paternalism, the attempt to protect individuals from themselves. Skylar argues that taking PEDs causes coercive harm to other athletes. The argument from unnaturalness fails to show why any sense of “unnatural” is the basis for wrongness, and the argument from unfair advantage ignores the central issue. J. K. believes that a deeper argument against the use of PEDs is based on Robert Simon’s appeal to the “Ideal of Competitive Sport.” Sport should be a competition between or among persons, not bodies responding to PEDs. Using PEDs dehumanizes athletes; sports should reinforce personhood, as Skylar argues. Pat argues that rules prohibiting the use of PEDs should be grounded in the judgments made by the practice community about the nature and integrity of the game. Finally, J. K. summarizes four perspectives on the relevant issues: the substance libertarian, the moralist, the sport essentialist, and the gamewright.
