Index 
Morality (sports doping)
Lance Armstrong who won 7 straight Tour de France, admitted today after many years of denial that he had indeed used and encouraged others to use "performance enhancing" drugs. Such drugs are illegal in sports organizations (they can deny participation in sponsored events) and often illegal civilly too. I believe this is because of a belief in an ideal of "fair" competition between equals, as applied here to athletics: physical tests of superiority and inferiority. If one is obviously better than another, the "game" is not fair; pro teams do not play high school teams. So drugs that "enhance" performance give unfair advantage. OK, so far so good, but what about diets that enhance health? Training regimens? Aspirin? ISTMRN the "ideal" that defines "performance enhancement" as bad in athletics is the same that defines "getting high" as bad for illegal drugs such as marijuana that I abundantly partake of. Of course both are associated with "bad" health effects as the most publically stated reasons they are "illegal", but I think it is deeper. I think the depths include ideas that "natural" is better and drugs that "enhance" somehow cheat or give someone unfair advantage. Of course it is not "drugs" that are bad in the public eye; drugs that "help" are good and are prescribed by doctors who are good and who care about our health. So it seems "repair" of "pathological" or "disease" caused conditions are to be pursued, "restoration" of normality, of being able to "fairly" engage life in "full" health. So if you are below normal, drugs are fine for "restoration" of health; but if you want to soar "above" normal, that’s not fair. Why not? Lets turn the drug industry loose on way to "enhance" human mind, being honest about health effects and letting people choose for themselves. Performance enhancing drugs seem to be a good thing, if better performance is a good thing. Fairness. Of course, just have "open" leagues where drugs are permitted, and "amateur" ones where they are not. I wonder where the public will pay more attention to the records, the higher "enhanced" or the lessor "normal" if both are legal? By the way, despite his lying and "cheating" and as one columnist put it today "His narcissistic soul won't allow him to feel for anyone else", but that boy could sure ride a bike. He won 7 Tours. He slaved on his bike like no other according to his peers. He overcame cancer and won again and then again. All very very honorable characteristics in the same public's "mind". Yet now he is disgraced because he "chose", god forgive him, to "enhance" his life, as I and many do with marijuana and alcohol, among others. |