Should Performance Enhancing Drugs Be Accepted in Sports?
Should performance enhancing drugs be legal in sports?
Background
Anti-doping advocates assert that drugs undermine the spirit of sport, which is about pushing natural human limitations and playing within the rules. However, as sport becomes increasingly high-tech, what is 'natural' becomes harder to define. Defenders of doping also dispute the efficacy of drug enforcement, suggesting that anti-doping rules foster the opposite of fair play.
Agree
Experts In Philosophy :
Bennet Foddy Bioethics Researcher
Julian Savulescu Philosophy Professor
Agree
We will argue that performance enhancement is inevitable and unpoliceable, that it is not against the spirit of sport and that we should remove anti-doping legislation to permit safe performance enhancement. We should focus more on testing athletes’ health and fitness to compete.
Edit
01 Jan 2007 Source
Experts In Sports :
Lincoln Allison Professor of Sports
Mostly Agree
The most pressing arguments for abandoning the present policy are that it doesn't work and probably catches the (relatively) innocent more than the guilty. As Michael Johnson puts it: "All the organisations involved here are guilty of having rules that don't work." And genetic engineering is probably going to make drugs seem trivial in their impact on our ideas of fairness and performance.
Edit
09 Aug 2004 Source
Disagree Experts In Sports :
Dick Pound Former Head of the World Anti-Doping Agency
Disagree
...You respect the rules, you respect your opponents, you respect yourself. You play fair. I think that bleeds over into life as well. I don't want my grandchildren to have to become chemical stockpiles in order to be good at sports and to have fun at it. ... It's a completely antithetical view to what sport should have been in the first place. It's essentially a humanistic endeavour to see how far you can go on your own talent.
Edit
19 Jan 2003
Background
Anti-doping advocates assert that drugs undermine the spirit of sport, which is about pushing natural human limitations and playing within the rules. However, as sport becomes increasingly high-tech, what is 'natural' becomes harder to define. Defenders of doping also dispute the efficacy of drug enforcement, suggesting that anti-doping rules foster the opposite of fair play.
Agree
Experts In Philosophy :
Bennet Foddy Bioethics Researcher
Julian Savulescu Philosophy Professor
Agree
We will argue that performance enhancement is inevitable and unpoliceable, that it is not against the spirit of sport and that we should remove anti-doping legislation to permit safe performance enhancement. We should focus more on testing athletes’ health and fitness to compete.
Edit
01 Jan 2007 Source
Experts In Sports :
Lincoln Allison Professor of Sports
Mostly Agree
The most pressing arguments for abandoning the present policy are that it doesn't work and probably catches the (relatively) innocent more than the guilty. As Michael Johnson puts it: "All the organisations involved here are guilty of having rules that don't work." And genetic engineering is probably going to make drugs seem trivial in their impact on our ideas of fairness and performance.
Edit
09 Aug 2004 Source
Disagree Experts In Sports :
Dick Pound Former Head of the World Anti-Doping Agency
Disagree
...You respect the rules, you respect your opponents, you respect yourself. You play fair. I think that bleeds over into life as well. I don't want my grandchildren to have to become chemical stockpiles in order to be good at sports and to have fun at it. ... It's a completely antithetical view to what sport should have been in the first place. It's essentially a humanistic endeavour to see how far you can go on your own talent.
Edit
19 Jan 2003