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ABSTRACT
The aim of this article is to present and critically discuss a game-theory-based argument in favour of the view that sports organizations ought to ban the use of performance-enhancing drugs in sport. After presenting the argument in detail, I try to show that the argument is not convincing. First, the argument cannot be used to argue in favour of WADA’s (World Anti-Doping Agency) current ban on doping, at least if it rests on the assumption, that doping use is always harmful. However, that in itself may not be a problem for adherents of the argument, and they can and should modify the harm assumption to cover only harmful use of doping. Second, even with this modification, it is argued that the harm assumption is flawed, for example, because it is not obvious why we should accept certain harms in sport but not harm to athletes caused by doping. Third, the argument is also flawed because it entails the non-competitive assumption: if all athletes dope, then no competitive advantages are gained by any athletes assumptions. The non-competitive assumption is challenged in view of the observations that doping can have some non-competitive advantages and is, so to speak, not only a positional good and because doping, due to unequal responsiveness, can give some highly responsive athletes a competitive advantage over less responsive athletes.
Acknowledgement
Thanks to Jesper Ryberg, Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen, Sebastian Holmen, Frej K. Thomsen, Ditte Marie M. Jurisic, and Sune Lægaard for valuable comments. Thanks als to the Danish Council for Independent Research Fund for financial support.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Correction Statement
This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.
Notes
1. There are several scholars who have criticized an argument in favour of banning doping in which one of the premises is based on game-theoretical reasoning. See e.g. Tamburrini (Citation2002), Brown (Citation2001) and Chwang (Citation2012), all three of whom make a few brief critical comments on a game-theory-based argument in favour of banning doping. However, as should become clear in Section 3, I will mention their comments as well as adding some new critical comments on their discussion.
2. At least if A and B adopt the dominance principle of choice according to which you should choose—among the actions available to you—the act that, whatever other people do, will maximize your well-being. See Nozick (Citation1969, 118–119) for a presentation and elaboration of this principle.
3. For evidence of the effectiveness of e.g. anabolic steroids, see e.g. van Amsterdam, Opperhuizen, and Hartgens (Citation2010).
4. For evidence of the cost of and market for doping, see e.g. Paoli and Donati (Citation2013).
5. For examples of how EPO can promote health in ways other than those mentioned above, see e.g. Bailey et al. (Citation2006) and Ninot, Connes, and Caillaud (Citation2006).
6. This is exactly Chwang’s point—‘to forbid athletes … from using a substance which only helps them and does not harm them in any way … strikes me as perverse’ (Chwang Citation2012).
7. See also Chomiak et al. (Citation2016) for figures close to Waldén, Hägglund, and Ekstrand.
8. For a critical discussion of different ways of trying to argue in favour of morally relevant differences between harm due to sport and harm due to doping, see e.g. (Petersen Citation2021, 21–23).
9. For an explicit proposition of the view that doping is a positional good, see Bostrom and Roache (Citation2008).
10. For a critical discussion of Lavazza (Citation2019), see Petersen and Lippert-Rasmussen (Citation2021).
11. See also Tamburrini (Citation2002) on this point.
12. According to Chwang (Citation2012), it is perverse to prohibit doping that is not harmful.