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Conceptual Problems with Performance Enhancing Technology in Sport

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 August 2013

Emily Ryall
Emily Ryall*
Affiliation:
University of Gloucestershireeryall@glos.ac.uk
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Extract

The majority of – usually moral – problems inherent in elite sport, such as whether athletes should be able to take particular drugs, wear particular clothing, or utilise particular tools, arguably stem from a conceptual one based on faulty logic and competing values. Sport is a human enterprise that represents a multitude of human compulsions, desires and needs; the urge to be competitive, to co-operate, to excel, to develop, to play, to love and be loved, and to find meaning in one's existence. From the perspective of an amateur athlete, this pluralism is possible. When one is involved in athletics at the lower echelons, the values that one holds in relation to sport are fluid and flexible; they are prioritised according to a myriad of other influences that are contingent to a particular situation. As such, the reasons that the general population participate in athletic activities and the values they consequently ascribe to it are complex and wide-ranging and thus fall into the sociological realm. The philosophical problem with value in sport is found at the highest level, the professional platform, where discordant values are espoused, particularly the value of ever increasing quantifiable performance. The athletic events at the Olympic Games are the archetypal manifestation of this Citius, Altius, Fortius (faster, higher, stronger) aphorism and yet when taken to its logical conclusion becomes evidently absurd.

Type
Papers
Information
Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements , Volume 73: Philosophy and Sport , October 2013 , pp. 129 - 143
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy and the contributors 2013 

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8 Heidegger actually calls the way we conceive and relate to the world ‘enframing’ but the term ‘technological attitude’ is a helpful indication of what this means. Heidegger, Martin, (trans. & intro. Lovitt, William). The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays (New York: Harper Row, 1977)Google Scholar 12.

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30 Whether the faster pitching action is a result of the surgery itself or attention to a reconditioning programme and other factors is disputed.

31 Suits maintained that sport was a sub-set of game-playing but with the additional criteria of physical skill and stability (to set it apart from ‘fads’ or ‘crazes’ such as hula-hoop).