Coercion limits freedom by manipulating a person into believing that he/she cannot refuse a choice they were offered (i.e has no other option but to make the choice imposed onto them by a manipulator), by means of societal pressure. In sports, many athletes feel compelled to take performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) like steroids. The use of PEDs is strictly illegal in professional sports, but many athletes use PEDs hoping to give themselves an advantage over their competition; and in the world of professional sports, the difference of a fraction of a second can be the difference in first and second place, setting a world record or not, and/or earning millions of dollars. The incentives to use PEDs in professional sports are especially high considering that …show more content…
Robert Simon, Ph.D., in his book The Ethics of Sports, reports that “world-class athletes are taking steroids at dosages so high that it would be illegal to administer them to human subjects in legitimate medical experiments” (Simon et al. 87). The pressure these athletes face is a type of coercion known as the coercion of unrefusable offers (Radcliffe-Richards 7). Coercion of unrefusable offers in sports occurs when an undesirable proposition (PEDs) has benefits that are so irresistible that element of voluntariness (i.e. consent) vanishes and the athlete has no choice but to accept that offer. Coercion limits the freedoms of athletes because they feel as if they have no choice but to take PEDs even if they do not want to take PEDS if they wanted to compete with other players of that sport: “either use steroids and risk harm, or cease to be competitive” (Simon et al. 97). The problem with the coercion of unrefusable offer in sports is that it makes competing in a sport unfair to the athletes who do not want to take PEDs because their naturally earned talents cannot compete with the chemically altered talents of athletes using
Many athletes are particularly trusting with regards to performance enhancers because many of them are eager to be the best in their respective sport. At the professional level, where athletes are expected to perform at high levels, many who are desperate to keep their jobs will do whatever they can to match the standard. In their book Death in the Locker Room, authors Bob Goldman, Patricia Bush, and Ronald Klatz discuss this immense pressure athletes feel to use PEDs. The authors explain how players often place this pressure on themselves because of an overwhelming desire to become famous, adored athletes.
The Intelligence Square U.S. held a debate about whether or not the government’s rules on performance enhancing drugs should be ban in professional sports. For the debate they had Radley Balko, Investigative Journalist, Norman Fost, Professor of Pediatrics and Bioethics at the University of Wisconsin, and Julian Savulescu, Uehiro Professor of Practical Ethics at the University of Oxford argue for the motion. They argue the fact that the medicines we take on a daily basis from the pharmacy are also performance enhancers. This goes back all the way to the Romans who once used herbs to improve themselves for battle, making them believe that the only exception that separates this from steroids is that it is illegal. On the other hand, you have
The use of steroids in sports has been a very common argument for so long because there has been arguments that it enhances performance. Why you should not use steroids! Steroids make you have mood swings and can damage your physical appearance. The more steroids you take has a bigger effect on your body. steroids should not be allowed because they cause health risk, behavior issues/mood swings,and they affect the brain.
While using prohibited substances gives athletes the chances to do better and makes competition exciting and pleasant, using banned substances such as PEDs should be illegal in professional sports because using performance enhancing is not only extremely hazardous for human body but also against the laws of sport. In addition, athletes are punished if they apply prohibited drugs to their bodies. Moreover, they may lose their medals after the competition, if their samples are positive. For example, Ben Johnson, who is the Canadian sprinter, was the biggest drug cheater in the history (“Doping in Sport”, 2015). After the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul, his samples were positive due to anabolic steroids (“Doping in Sport”, 2015). Even though, Johnson
Ben Johnson was one of the first superstar athletes to be caught using steroids and was stripped of his 100m gold medal at the 1988 Olympics. He was eventually banned for life in 1993 for testing positive again (Richardson 2010). Performance enhancing drugs have become widely used since the 1970’s and have only increased in the numbers of athletes using the drugs to up their endurance and perform to their greatest potential. Professionals such as Barry Bonds, Jose Canseco, and Hulk Hogan have all been humiliated and are now seen as cheaters after being caught using steroids. It is too late to stop these sports fuelled on drugs because of the large number of athletes using, so why not consider drug use as a
Do you feel that PED’s should be allowed in sport? The problem is that players use PED’s or Performance Enhancing Drugs to get an advantage over their opponents. Despite the advances in technology for discovering PED’s, there is still a great number of people who get away with PED’s. Many people continue to use PED’s and will continue to use them until they get caught, and even after they get caught. Performance enhancing drugs should not be allowed in sports, resulting in more fair competition.
These days it seems as society is constantly being faced with Ethical Dilemmas. Whether it is normal everyday citizens, actors, business executives, and even athletes. The way that every person deal with ethical dilemmas is by relying on their worldview. The world of professional sports is a very tough and competitive place. It is full of top level athletes that are masters in their respective sports and the struggle that they all face is to be better than everyone else. With all these athletes working hard and looking for new ways to better themselves, some take the easy way over the right way. In this paper, the ethical dilemma of performance enhancing drugs being used in sports will be addressed
In all areas of sports, professional, college, and even high school, there is widespread illegal use of performance-enhancing drugs. It seems like you can’t go more than a week without hearing about somebody’s PED problems. Although there are many reasons for athletes to choose to use these drugs, the cost of such use, both to the athlete and to society can be extraordinarily high. The question that many people must answer to themselves is “is it worth the risk”. Therefore, it is important to understand why performance-enhancing drugs are used, the consequences of their use, and then apply that knowledge to how they are represented in the media.
What is the best way to get big quick? Most would say to go to the gym or start a more intense workout program and eat right. It is contrary for some professional athletes that go against the correct way to maximize their strength and take steroids. Most your sport competitors participate in sports to have the opportunity to put their abilities against those of their peers. Many athletes are determined to win at all cost. They may use that determination to justify the use of steroids. Steroids are bad, there are many unfair advantages of athletes that use steroids to make gain in a game they love to play, athletes using steroids are not being good role models to the younger generation that looks up to them. , and many athletes have health risk from using steroids.
Steroids are a common drug in sports. Steroids should not be allowed for sports. They allow for athletes to become bigger and faster more rapidly. Many athletes over the years have used them, including Alex Rodriguez, Mark Mcgwire, and many more. There are also some downsides of using them and this is why the should not be used.
Famed writer Grantland Rice once wrote, “When the great scorer comes to mark against your name. He'll mark not won or lost but how you played the game” (World of quotes, 1). That buoyant attitude of selflessness and heart has slowly diminished throughout the course of time. Now, George Allen’s booming voice, former coach of the Washington Redskins, runs throughout head of America, “Only winners are truly alive. Winning is living. Every time you win, you’re reborn. When you lose, you die a little” (Harris, 67). It is with this frame of mind that athletes are pushed beyond the edge of reason. Although peer pressure and pressure from coaches are central reasons why one may use steroids, most users begin using in order to improve their self image or excel in sports. Ethics, integrity, and legality aside, some athletes will stop at nothing to attain “that extra edge”.
The final aspect of unethical behavior is drug-enhanced performance. Steroids give a few players an unfair upper hand over others. Competitors accept that by taking steroids it will have an advantage on their livelihood and advance them to the top of their perfomrance. Fans view steroid use as a noteworthy corruptiont in sports, and the competitors that utilize the medication. There may be a admisable purpose behind steroid utilization. One illustration would be that the medication helps the competitor overcome individual injuries. Steroids help the repair process, by rapidly repairing joint tissues permitting them to come back to the diversion quickly and to contend all the more aggressively. Steroids are particularly well known with senior
Anabolic steroids are quiet a big problem in the fitness industry, these drugs are a quick unsafe way to achieve lean muscle mass. They are used in many competitive sports such as football, baseball and Olympic type events it’s of course prohibited and players are tested but it’s not difficult for athletes to avoid detection. One of the most controversial sports that anabolic steroids is involved with is bodybuilding, the reason happens to be because of the drug testing policies which allow athletes to build there muscle with the drug then a couple weeks before the competition the athletes cycle off so that test results show that there clean. I think the reason that athletes are so obliged to take these performance enhancing drugs might be peer pressure from coaches, parents, fellow athletes and even family, for some people it’s the idea of winning that drives them into taking these drugs.
This is a material world promoting material values, thus meaning that it should not be surprising to see individuals being willing to do everything in their power in order to make profits. Or should it? The sports community today is troubled by a series of athletes who have yielded to society's pressures and abandoned their principles with the purpose of taking performance enhancing drugs. It is difficult to determine if it would be normal for the masses to judge these individuals, concerning that they are actually one of the reasons for which these people have come to consider taking performance enhancing drugs in the first place. However, the only ones who can judge them are other hard-working sportspersons who have stood by their principles and who respect the idea of sport in general.
In 2013, 12 Major League Baseball players each received fifty game suspensions without pay for using performance enhancing drugs. Big names such as Ryan Braun and Alex Rodriguez were on this list. Testosterone, an illegal substance, is what is found in the performance enhancing drugs. Testosterone increases male characteristics such as body hair, aggression, deepening of the voice, and of course massive muscle growth (“Steroids” par. 1). Some professional athletes claim to use performance enhancing drugs to recover more quickly from injury; others take them because they have not seen the positive feedback in working out, without the use of the steroids. Steroids may be referred to as 'roids', juice, hype, or pump and they are