Should Performance Enhancing Drugs Be Allowed

Should Performance Enhancing Drugs Be Allowed? Athletic competition is far more than just entertainment, it is part of our culture as well. The entertainment aspect of sports stem from the satisfaction of victory over one’s opponent with what one can do with their own body and mind. True skill has to be cultivated through rigorous practice, conditions, and diets that strengthen the athlete’s body and mind. Performance enhancing drugs take away from the honor of the sport by circumventing these things. Performance enhancing drugs should be banned from athletics on the grounds that they are harmful and they defeat the purpose of sports. W. M. Brown and Robert L. Simon both discuss this topic and its legitimacy. To begin, the point of an athletic completion is to best an opponent with developed skills, senses, strength, etc. that the human body allows for. A huge part of what makes athletics so fascinating is

To someone who adheres to Kantian ethics, performance enhancing drugs are essentially cheating. Those who choose not to use drugs have to work harder and longer to make the same gains as a drug user, thus creating an unfair advantage. For Utilitarians, this ordeal is more complicated. It can be argued that with performance enhancing drugs, sports might be more entertaining to watch but their costs outweigh the benefits. These drugs are possible detrimental to athlete’s health, and there’s hardly any information on them. Additionally, what does this say to children who idolize said athletes? Clearly the negatives outweigh the positives, so ultimately Utilitarians disagree as well. Athletic competition will always pose risks to the athletes involved, but drugs increase it. Performance enhancing drugs not only diminish the meaning and respect of a competition, but it takes away from the raw human achievement that sports are all