Performance-Enhancing Drugs, Sport, and the Ideal of Natural Athletic Performance

Abstract

The use of certain performance-enhancing drugs (PED) is banned in sport. I discuss critically standard justifications of the ban based on arguments from two widely used criteria: fairness and harms to health. I argue that these arguments on their own are inadequate, and only make sense within a normative understanding of athletic performance and the value of sport. In the discourse over PED, the distinction between "natural" and "artificial" performance has exerted significant impact. I examine whether the distinction makes sense from a moral point of view. I propose an understanding of "natural" athletic performance by combining biological knowledge of training with an interpretation of the normative structure of sport. I conclude that this understanding can serve as moral justification of the PED ban and enable critical and analytically based line drawing between acceptable and nonacceptable performance-enhancing means in sport.

Chips and Showmanship: Running and Technology

“…Another example of discussion around this sort of distinction is woven through the work of sport philosopher Loland, which refers to the dichotomy variously as the thin and thick theories of competition, the narrow and wide theories of sport, the physiologically inauthentic versus the natural performance, and the logic of quantifiable and qualitative progress [10][11][12][13]. In the last, the logic of quantification focuses on record-setting as a sign of progress in sport, while the logic of qualitative progress denies that athletic performances can be compared in such a way as to allow for quantification.…”

Unnatural Technology in a “Natural” Practice? Human Nature and Performance-Enhancing Technology in Sport

“…That is to say, they are not matters of human choice, but given. Drawing on David C. Malloy and his collaborators' notion of "physiological authenticity" [24] (p. 294), Loland argues that humans share a, "phenotypic plasticity of the human organism as developed in evolution" [25] (p. 10). This phenotypic plasticity is essential to the cultivation of physical talent.…”

“…For it is the basis of the processes "within the individual" that make enhancing performance possible [25] (p. 10). For instance, through training, athletes tackle and benefit from such processes by "expos[ing] the human organism to environmental stress, resulting in response and adaptation patterns from the molecular to the systemic level" [25] (p. 10). Performance-enhancing technologies, Loland points out, affect the body very differently.…”

“…Loland, in alignment with Murray, regards sports as meritocratic activities intended to measure, compare, and rank participants based on "rule-defined abilities and skills" [25] (p. 10). Game rules 5…”

“…To put it differently, for Loland, participants deserve to be recognized as better competitors than their opponents only when their performance results from their effort. According to Loland, athletes whose performance results from the use of performance-enhancing technology, "can no longer be identified clearly with the upper (and often decisive) edge of their performance" [25] (p. 12). If athletes cannot be identified with their superior performance, then they do not deserve to take credit for it.…”