A moral basis for prohibiting performance enhancing drug use in competitive sport

Abstract

A strong moral reason for prohibiting doping in sport is to be found in the bad choices that would be faced by clean athletes in a sporting world that tolerated doping. The case against doping is not, however, to be grounded in the concept of coercion. Instead, it is grounded in a general duty of sport to afford fair opportunity to the goods that are distinctively within sport's sphere of control. The moral reason to prohibit doping need not be balanced against any autonomy claim of athletes who would prefer to dope because, upon closer examination, such claims have no force. The moral reason to prohibit doping does, however, need to be balanced against the enforcement costs imposed on all athletes by effective prohibition.

Keywords:

• Performance enhancing drugs
• coercion
• fair opportunity
• autonomy

Notes

1. For discussion of some of these issues see D’Angelo and Tamburrini (2010). For skepticism that legalization will promote athlete health, see Weising (2011).

2. See Fraleigh (1985), Holowchek (2000), and Murray (1983).

3. See, especially, Veber (2014).

4. See Brown (1985), Simon (1985), and Veber (2014).

5. For a discussion that treats the distinction between elite and other sport as significant, see Tamburrini (2001). For some discussion of the difficulty of sorting levels of sport, see Veber (2014).

6. Dixon (2008) develops a quite different argument that also rests on the idea of opportunity. According to Dixon, the value of what I am calling victory and laurels depends upon their being achieved through merit. Opportunities must then be sufficiently open the ensure meritocracy and performance enhancing drugs threaten unequal opportunities. If Dixon is right, then a sporting world that tolerates doping fails to realize the genuine value of sport. The present argument eschews reliance on perfectionist assumptions about the value of sport; it assumes only that victory and laurels are important goods.

7. For the issue of gender equality see English (1978) and, for sport and disability see Fay and Wolff (2009) and, more generally, Depauw and Gavron (2005).