Why Do Athletes Use Performance Enhancing Drugs In Sports

By taking an approach to this using rule based ethical framework we can see all the wrongs within steroid use in professional sports. Some people spend their whole life working towards becoming a professional athlete. They put in countless hours working towards their goal of becoming the best athlete they can naturally and when somebody goes against the rules and uses a drug that enhances performance it is very unfair, but performance enhancing drugs are banned which is the most important thing to consider. If something is not allowed to be used then there is most likely a good reason. When you do Performance enhancing drugs, you are giving yourself an very unfair advantage because you will be able to reach your goals more quickly than others who are not using performance enhancing drugs. On top of this every single sport has banned all performance enhancing drugs. There are many ways that we could fix the problem of athletes using performance enhancing drugs in sports. These athletes spend their whole lives working towards getting better and using an illegal substance to get better goes against every moral they have ever been taught as an athlete.

Looking at our issue with a consequence based mindset we can know right away
that the athletes are going to do what gives them the best benefit to harm ratio. At the time of using these drugs there may be little to no negative side effects. This might make it seem safe for some people because at the time they believe that what they are doing is more beneficial to their lives rather than harmful. This is completely wrong, they don't realize what they are doing is going to cause long term effects to their bodies in 20 years. The penalty for being caught using these drugs could be increased to something like a year long suspension or even lifelong suspension from their professional sport. This would give the athlete more of a reason not to use the drugs because of the long suspension period that may come from using them. In my opinion a consequence based theory would best support the reasons for why this drug should not be used. I believe that if we established something like a lifelong suspension and put that into effect then the use of performance enhancing drugs would start to decline. This would happen because there would be more negative consequences and more harm compared to the benefit they may receive.

There is a lot of character based situations involved in professional sports. Each player is supposed to have good character. By doing a performance enhancing drug an athlete can gain a reputation for having very bad character. They can be greatly effected by this and could even be the cause of their downfall. There are many kids who look up to these athletes, if an athlete does a performance enhancing drug then other kids may think that they are either safe or cool to do. Character is everything and athletes need to have good character. Athletes are very character based because they all looked up to a sports figure and that pushed them to get where they are today. They know how much of an impact the character of people can have.

There are many ways that we could fix the problem of athletes using performance enhancing drugs in sports.
We could initiate a stricter set of rules to try and help keep athletes away from these drugs. In my opinion we could easily help put a stop to this problem. For starters, the penalty for being caught using these drugs could be increased to a point where if the athlete was caught they would be heavily fined or even banned from professional sports. The league to crack down on steroid use could also begin to do bi-weekly drug tests. That may seem like a lot, but these drugs are very harmful to the user, they could potentially ruin their lives and a stricter set of rules could potentially shy these performance enchaining drug users away
.