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ABSTRACT
In this article, we examine scholarly analyses of justice and develop a framework that can help assess the claims from the parties in the Russian state-led doping scandal, including, but not limited to, Russian athletes, non-Russian athletes, the World Anti-Doping Agency, and sport governing bodies. The two key components of this justice framework are pluralism and relationality/contextuality. We argue that a justice framework built upon these elements better captures the nature of justice. We conclude that no party in the Russian state-led doping case has exclusive access to justice. Rather, all the parties have legitimate calls for justice against one another. Thus, the administration of justice will fail to serve justice, in its different meanings, for all parties.
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers of the journal for their insightful comments on earlier versions of this manuscript.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. See Alexander et al. Citation2019; Altukhov & Nauright Citation2018; Ruiz Citation2016.
2. Postponed to 2021.
3. Per WADA’s RUSADA Non-Compliance Questions and Answers document (WADA Citation2020b, #18), WADA found RUSADA to be ‘effective in contributing to the fight against anti-doping in Russian sport,’ and thus not subject to any special monitoring nor ‘takeover of RUSADA’s anti-doping activities in the Four-Year Period’ (10).
4. What this right entails is unclear. As Duval points out, ‘The Olympic Charter is adamant that ‘[n]obody is entitled as of right to participate in the Olympic Games’’ (2016, 54). Rule 44 in paragraph 1 of the Olympic Charter states that the IOC may at its discretion, at any time, and without indication of grounds refuse to accept an entry. Any entry is subject to acceptance by the IOC.
5. We have limited the scope of our analysis to the parties that we mention throughout the paper, mainly WADA, the IOC, Russian athletes, and non-Russian athletes. However, as one of the anonymous reviewers rightly pointed out, many other parties could have legitimate justice claims regarding Russia’s state-led doping scheme. For instance, we might regard fans as one such party. If Russian athletes who benefit from doping are allowed to compete, fans may remove their support for sport competitions in which such athletes participate. The question on which parties to include in our analysis of justice claims raises a broader, underexplored philosophical question: ‘who qualifies as a member of the sporting community?’ A notable exception to this is William J. Morgan (Citation1994) analysis of what constitutes a sport community in Leftist Theories of Sport.
6. For an application of this framework to sport, see Paul Wetherly et al. 2017.
7. In alignment with the contextualist character of our justice framework, throughout the paper, we identify ways in which the different parties in the sporting communities evaluate justice claims based on their understanding of who deserves what, who is entitled to a specific treatment, and who has specific needs that the community must take into consideration.
8. This framework applies not only to the Russian state-led doping case but also to other justice-related cases in sport. Indeed, this article is part of a larger research project aimed at further developing a framework to adjudicate justice claims in sport. To do so, we will incorporate more aspects to our framework (e.g., who should count as a party with legitimate justice claims) and apply it to other controversial cases in sport (e.g., the inclusion of transgender athletes in competitive sport).
9. Of course, this is hardly the only plan of life they may pursue. For instance, a professional athlete may play a sport to gain social visibility and enact social change. Or an athlete may seek to gain social visibility to become a celebrity in their country.
10. Miller (Citation2003) cites these (42) as: perfect with independent fairness criteria, and certain fair distribution; imperfect with independent fairness criteria, and uncertain distribution; pure with no independent fairness criteria, and certain fair distribution.
11. Rorty (Citation1989) refers to this mutual constitution as ‘contingency.’
12. Miller also discusses moral rights, but this is distinct from Dewey’s use of moral and not to be confused.
13. For an analysis of the complexity of power relations connected to the scandal, see Harris et al Citation2021.
14. This raises the question concerning the utility of philosophy. One of us (Torres, Lopez Frias, and Martínez Patiño Citation2021), by drawing on Theodor W. Adorno’s views on philosophy, has addressed this question in a different place, arguing that philosophy’s main goal is to help understand the complexity of the problems people encounter, not provide solutions to them. Of course, a better understanding of an issue is crucial to achieving solutions to them.
15. A contingent phenomenon is one whose configuration depends on human action. Thus, its defining traits are always open to modification (Arcilla Citation1993).