Question Aaron Meskin provided this as part of his response to a question about performance enhancing drugs: "...But there might be other sorts of reasons. Professional athletes are entertainers, and one of the things we value in entertainment is the manifestation of human skill at a very high level. Sport and other forms of entertainment are like art in that way. The use of performance enhancing drugs tends to undercut our sense that sport is valuable and enjoyable because it allows us to experience high levels of skill and human achievement." I think this is a reason IN SUPPORT of performance enhancing drugs! There are individuals who are biologically high on these same hormones, who no doubt enjoy enhanced performance over those who are naturally lower on these same hormones. Why not level the "playing field"? We would see enhanced performance from all players, but the highest from those who have perfected their technique. I don't see how use of these drugs "undercuts" our appreciation of sports. I fully support their use and believe that the reaction to prohibit them is just part of our society's "chemophobia". (Of course, we're not a fully chemophobic society- Starbucks on every block, prescription meds rampant, etc., but there is a large current of anti-drug sentiment, especially in America, that just doesn't exist in many other cultures.) Thanks- Dan

Accepted:
February 1, 2006

Comments

I think that you’re absolutely right– if a significant amount of thepleasure that we achieve from watching sports is “the experience ofhigh levels of skill and human achievement,” then anything that raisesthe levels of such skill and achievement, including enhancement drugs,should improve the quality of our experience. But in fact, it seems notto work that way. When we watch a gifted athlete perform an action ofextraordinary grace and prowess, we marvel at the act and at the veryexistence of a person who could perform such an act, and we feelpleasure. But when we learn that his heightened skills were due toperformance-enhancing drugs, we are no longer so impressed; in fact,many of us feel disappointed. There’s nothing special about thisathlete, we reason, since anyone who took these drugs might haveperformed just as well. All of this suggests that part of the source ofour pleasure in watching sports is not simply experiencing “high levelsof skill and human achievement,” but rather experiencing high levels ofskill and achievement that are serendipitous, that are extraordinaryand undeserved pieces of luck. Michael Sandel refers to this phenomenonas our appreciation of the “giftedness” of so much that we value in ourlives (see “The Case against Perfection,” The Atlantic Monthly (April 2004), which you can access here.)

I think it's not just that we take joy in "high levelsof skill and human achievement" that are the result of "extraordinaryand undeserved pieces of luck" but, perhaps even more so, in such performances that are the result of extraordinary dedication. Suppose it turned out that, shortly after he was diagnosed with cancern, Lance Armstrong sold his soul to Satan in exchange for the cycling skills requried for a sequence of Tour de France victories. (Obviously, I am not suggesting that any such thing might have happend.) Speaking just for myself, I'd regard that as a form of cheating, and I'd take no pleasure whatsoever in Armstrong's accomplishments. They wouldn't have been his accomplishments, in the relevant sense. What makes his story gripping is precisely the fact that he was able to return from death's door to dominate his sport because of his dedication to doing so and not because Satan was giving him an unfair advantage.

Now obviously, if Armstrong took "performance-enchancing" drugs (and, again, I am not suggesting that he did), then his dominance would hardly have been entirely the result of his doing so: Work was still required. But, speaking for myself, my admiration for his accomplishments would be diminished to the extent that his taking such drugs was a factor. And given the small margins involved, one would suppose it quite possible that they were a large factor indeed.

There also seem to me to be some false empirical assumptions here. The use of, say, amphetamines in baseball does not "level the playing field" in any plausible sense I can imagine, and I don't myself see why the use of human growth hormone does so, either. Were Mark McGwire and José Canseco just "leveling the playing field"? With whom? Hercules? In their drug-laden primes, the two of them hardly looked like people. The plain truth, I'm afraid, is that people who use such substances are not trying to "level the playing field". They're trying to gain an advantage.

The crucial question, to me, however, is whether someone who is not prepared to accept the significant risks the use of "performance-enhancing" drugs imposes ought therefore to be denied the ability to compete. And although I do not find it entirely easy to say why—obviously, some of the preceding is relevant, but hardly sufficient—I myself have a strong intuition that the answer is "No".