Topics Ethics

Question Anyone presently in college probably knows students who have take drugs like Adderall to help them study (I should add that whether all of these actually suffer from ADD is often doubtful). Should this be considered unethical? There's an obvious comparison between drug-use of this sort and steroid-use in professional sports, but I've always been suspicious of this analogy.

Accepted:
September 8, 2007

Comments

Let's set aside the case of people who really have ADD and who use properly-titrated doses of stimulant medication. It's hard to see what the ethical issue could be in those cases. What about people who don't have ADD, but use stimulants to boost attention?

There's an amusing old quote from Paul Erdös: a mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems. Erdös, I gather, drank a lot of coffee. He also proved a lot of theorems. Was that unethical?

I have the impression that in the short term, a good shot of caffeine has about the same effect as Ritalin on one's ability to focus. Add a bit of chocolate, and who knows? So we could ask: is it unethical to eat chocolate and drink coffee before an exam? I think we'd probably agree that it isn't.

What's different about Adderall and Ritalin? Intrinsically, the answer may be "not much." All the Adderall in the world won't help me pass a calculus exam unless I actually know the math. Adderall may help me concentrate, but I still have to master the material. Still, it won't do to stop here. There are good reasons why stimulant medications are controlled substances; there's a real potential for abuse .

All this said, your question is a good one: how is the case of drug use among athletes different? If you read around under the "Sport" heading in the list of categories to your left, you'll find some useful thoughts on drugs and sports. I don't think there's any simple answer. Part of the difference has to do with the fact that even thought there's an element of competition in exam-taking, that's not (or shouldn't be) in the foreground. Part of it has to do with what we're looking for when we watch sports. We take pleasure in our amazement at what people can teach their bodies to do "naturally," and even though the distinction between "natural" and "artificial" isn't very clear, bulking up on steroids offends against our sense of what we want the competition to be about.

Perhaps that helps us say why we don't see the ethical issues in the same way in the two cases, but there are interesting questions in the penumbra here. Suppose that Adderall really is much nore effective than coffee at boosting concentration. Suppose you can afford to pay a doctor to provide it to you. We may not want academics to be focused on competition, but scholarships, job prospects and a good deal else that matters may depend on how well you do compared to other students. We may have a sense that it's unfair if you end up reaping the benefits because you could afford extra help that I can't. But then this issue doesn't have anything in particular to do with drugs, does it? The fact that you could afford a tutor that I couldn't afford, or were able to go to a really good prep school might make every bit as much difference. And since we've now arrived at much broader issues of distribution and equity, it's probably a good place to stop.