Pandora Logic: Rules, Moral Judgement and the Fundamental Principles of Olympism

Abstract

This article is concerned with the role of moral principles, specifically the Fundamental Principles of Olympism, in the judgements of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) on matters of performance enhancement. The article begins with two pairs of distinctions, that between moral judgements and morally-laden judgements, and that between the moral judgement of cases and the ethical environment of a society. The article is concerned with working through the implications of those distinctions in the context of the IOC's judgements on performance enhancement.

The article favours a particularist account of the moral judgement of cases, while preserving a place for meaningful general moral statements as contributions to the ethical environment of a society, but not as general action-guiding statements or principles that can be applied to judgements in specific cases. The article illustrates the implications of this conclusion in the context of the decision-making of the IOC on performance enhancement (the case of Alain Baxter is considered). It is argued that there is a danger of the decision-making of the IOC suffering deep confusion over the difference between general and particular statements, the nature of reasons and the logic of what it is to apply a general action-guiding statement.

Resumen

Este artículo se hace cargo del papel que juegan los principios morales, especificamente los principios fundamentales del olimpismo, en los dictámenes del Comité Olímpico Internacional (COI) [IOC, siglas en inglés] en cuestiones de mejora de rendimiento. El artículo comienza con dos pares de distinciones, aquel entre los juicios morales y los juicios morales cargados, y aquel entre el juicio moral de casos [jurisprudencia moral] y el ambiente ético de una sociedad. El artículo trata de navegar entre las consecuencias de tales distinciones dentro del contexto de los arbitrios del COI sobre la mejora del rendimiento.

El artículo apoya un posicionamiento particularista del juicio moral de casos a la par quemantiene un espacio para declaraciones morales generales coherentes que contribuyan alambiente ético de una sociedad, y no como proclamas generales que guien la acción oprincipios que puedan ser aplicados a fallos de casos especifícos. El artículo ilustra las consecuencias de esta conclusión en el contexto de las decisiones que el COI toma conrespecto a la mejora del rendimiento (el caso de Alain Baxter es considerado). Se arguye que existe el peligro de que las decisiones del COI sean presa de una confusión grave en cuanto a la diferencia entre afirmaciones generales y particulares, la naturaleza de las razones, y la lógica sobre en qué consiste la aplicación de una declaración general que guíe la acción.

Zusammenfassung

Dieser Artikel behandelt die Rolle moralischer Prinzipien, insbesondere die grundlegenden Prinzipien der olympischen Bewegung, in den Urteilen des Internationalen Olympischen Komitees (IOC) bezüglich der Leistungssteigerung. Der Artikel beginnt mit zwei Unterscheidungspaaren, die zwischen moralischen Urteilen und moralisch aufgeladenen Urteilen sowie die zwischen dem moralischen Urteil über Fälle und dem ethischen Umfeld einer Gesellschaft. Der Artikel befasst sich mit Arbeiten über die Auswirkungen dieser Unterscheidungen im Kontext von IOC-Urteilen über Leistungssteigerung.

Der Artikel befürwortet eine partikularistische Sichtweise bei der moralischen Beurteilung von Fällen, unter Einbeziehung sinnvoller allgemeiner moralischer Aussagen als Beitrag zum ethischen Kontext einer Gesellschaft, aber nicht als allgemeine handlungsleitende Aussagen oder Prinzipien, die in bestimmten Fällen als Urteile angewendet werden. Der Artikel zeigt dieAuswirkungen dieser Schlussfolgerung im Rahmen der Urteilsfindung des IOC in Bezug aufLeistungssteigerung (unter Einbeziehung des Falls von Alain Baxter). Es wird argumentiert, dass beim IOC, aufgrund der großen Wirrungen zwischen allgemeinen und speziellen Aussagen,zwischen dem das Wesen der Begründung betreffenden und der Logik dessen, was als eine allgemeine handlungsleitende Aussage gilt, eine Gefahr bei Entscheidungsprozessen besteht.

Résumé

Cet article s'attache au rôle des principes moraux, en particulier les principes fondamentaux de l'Olympisme, dans les jugements du Comité international olympique (CIO) sur les questions de l'amélioration des performances. L'article commence par deux paires de distinctions, celle entre les jugements moraux et les jugements chargés de morale, et celle entre le jugement moral des cas et l'environnement éthique d'une société. L'article souhaite examiner les implications de ces distinctions dans le cadre des jugements du CIO sur l'amélioration des performances.

L'article privilégie une approche particulariste du jugement moral des cas, tout en préservant une place pour des énoncés significatifs généraux moraux comme des contributions à l'environnement éthique d'une société, mais pas comme des énoncés ou principes généraux guidant l'action qui peuvent être appliqués au jugement dans des cas particuliers. L'article illustre les implications de cette conclusion dans le contexte du processus de prise de décision duCIO sur l'amélioration des performances (à travers le cas d'Alain Baxter). Il est soutenu qu'ilexiste un danger dans le processus de prise de décision du CIO, qui souffre d'une profondeconfusion relative à la différence entre les déclarations générales et particulières, la nature des raisons et la logique de ce qui consiste à appliquer un énoncé général guidant une action.

KEYWORDS:

• Olympism
• principles
• rules
• moral particularism
• performance enhancement

Notes

 1. By ‘unconscious’ I simply mean unacknowledged. This is in no way meant to imply that there is some mysterious thing called ‘the unconscious’.

 2. This seems to me to be a version of what Morris (2004, 7), following Gordon Baker, was referring to when she said ‘the person behaves intellectually as if his picture represented the only possibility’. The root of this idea is to be found in Wittgenstein. For example Philosophical Investigations (hereafter PI) §115 – ‘A picture held us captive. And we could not get outside it, for it lay in our language and language seemed to repeat it to us inexorably’, and PI §112 ‘a simile that has been absorbed into the forms of our language produces a false appearance …’.

 3. Wittgenstein once claimed something to the effect that Alan Turing thought that Wittgenstein was ‘undermining mathematics, introducing Bolshevism into mathematics’ (see Wittgenstein 1976, 67). Wittgenstein was alluding to Frank Ramsey's reference to the ‘Bolshevik menace of Brouwer and Weyl’ in mathematics (see Ramsey 1978, 152–212).

 4. As I'm primarily concerned here with the Fundamental Principles of Olympism and the moral evaluation of cases, rather than interpretations and criticisms of rules in sport, I will confine discussion here to the IOC, despite the fact that some of the issues may also be of relevance in relation to WADA.

 5. Rogge made these comments in a BBC television interview. See http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2002/04_april/23/iocpresident_hardtalk.shtml

 6. It is for this reason that it makes no sense to argue about whether Baxter broke the rule– he clearly did. So it is not the practical matter (whether he broke the rule) that is my concern here, but the moral matter of whether in breaking the rule he did anything that might reasonably be regarded as morally reprehensible. The strict liability rule has a practical purpose (roughly to try to help maintain fair competition), but it doesn't follow from that practical purpose that breaking the rule is necessarily morally reprehensible. For example, if someone puts a banned substance in an athlete's drink in a deliberate attempt to make them fail a drug test, then the athlete has done nothing morally reprehensible. Baxter's case is different, and therefore more contentious, but the point remains that there is a relevant distinction here between breaking the strict liability rule and doing something morally reprehensible. Intent is neither here nor there in relation to strict liability, but as a consequence no moral conclusion necessarily follows. In cases where the action is morally reprehensible it is not so because the person broke the rule, but rather for other reasons.

 7. Slipping into particularism should be thought of as a ‘danger’ only insofar as it would mean that the position would no longer be a generalist one. So it is only a danger for someone who wants to defend a generalist position of some kind. As the context of the discussion here is the generalist/particularist debate, then it is appropriate to describe slipping into particularism as a danger in this context.

 8. There is a difference between a general principle and a principle where we know how that principle applies in a case. It is only when we know how the principle applies in a case that we can say that the principle has contributed to the judgement. The point here is that if we have to look to the particulars of the case to determine how the principle applies, then there is no difference between knowing how the principle applies and knowing how to judge the case; both were established by reference to the specifics of the case and it is hard to see how we might distinguish between them. This may be the basis of an argument that suggests that the generalist/particularist distinction collapses on close scrutiny, but this is not the place to explore that argument.

 9. All contracts are defeasible.

10. The moral dimension under those circumstances would be something along the lines of the fact that Baxter had failed to take appropriate care to abide by the conditions of the contract. That might be analogous to me having acted carelessly or in haste in the example above of spilling a drink.