Good Sport: Why Our Games Matter -- and How Doping Undermines Them

by Thomas H. Murray

Overview

Why are fiberglass vaulting poles and hinged skates accepted in sport - while performance-enhancing drugs are forbidden? Are the rules that forbid them arbitrary? Should we level the playing field by allowing all competitors to use drugs that allow them to run faster or longer, leap higher, or lift more? In this provocative exploration of what draws us to sport as participants and spectators, Thomas Murray argues that the values and meanings embedded within our games provide the guidance we need to make difficult decisions about fairness and performance-enhancing technologies.

Good Sport reveals what we really care about in sport and how the reckless use of biomedical enhancements undermines those values. Implicit in sports history, rules, and practices are values that provide a sturdy foundation for an ethics of sport that celebrates natural talents and dedication. You see these values when the Paralympics creates multiple level playing fields among athletes with different kinds of impairments. They appear again in sports struggles to be fair to all when an extraordinary woman athlete emerges who appears to possess a mans hormone profile and muscles. They are threatened when the effort to assure athletes a fair chance to win without doping is subverted by cheating or by corruption, as in the case of Russias state-supported doping operation.

Performance-enhancing drugs distort the connection between natural talents, the dedication to perfect those talents, and success in sport. Explaining the fundamental role of values and meanings, Good Sport reveals not just what we champion in the athletic arena but also, more broadly, what we value in human achievement.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780190687984
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	01/02/2018
Pages:	216
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.30(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Thomas H. Murray is President Emeritus of The Hastings Center. He served as Presidential appointee on the National Bioethics Advisory Commission and as chair of its Genetics subcommittee. He has been president of the Society for Health and Human Values and the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities, and chaired the Ethical Issues Review Panel for the World Anti-Doping Agency. He is currently a member of the Independent IAAF Ethics Board.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1: The Slippery Slope to Doping
Chapter 2: What Sprt Values - Natural Talents and How We Perfect Them
Chapter 3: Rules and Meanings
Chapter 4: What's Fair - Aristotle, the Paralympics, and the Pursuit of Excellence
Chapter 5: What's Fair - Geography and Opportunity
Chapter 6: Gender, Fairness, and Meaning
Chapter 7: Using—and Misusing—Health and Safety
Chapter 8: Is Anti-Doping Possible? What Are the Alternatives
Chapter 9: On the Meaning and Future of Sport

Bibliography

Editorial Reviews

"A must read for anyone who works in anti-doping, but readers from disciplines such as bioethics and public health ethics may find it equally interesting. Doping is not restricted to sports. The growing demand by the healthy for cognitive and performance enhancement, for example in education and at work, presents similar challenges for society. Some of Murray's ethical considerations and lessons around doping might, in his own words, "help us deal sensibly and wisely with promises of technological enhancement in other realms of human life." — Canadian Journal of Bioethics

"Murray uses elite athlete's voices and case studies along with other evidence to create a well-sourced and referenced, accessible text that will be of interest to a wide range of scholars. ... Recommended. All readers." — A. Curtis, Choice

"Mr. Murray is second to none in his knowledge of sports doping, and he does an excellent job of exploring the many challenges it raises." —David Papineau, Wall Street Journal

"By focusing on what we really prize in athletics, Good Sport provides a framework for how to think about sports and artificial enhancement that celebrates achievement and identifies shortcuts as what they are: tools for undermining our values." —John Feinstein, author of A Season on the Brink, and A Good Walk Spoiled

"This is just the book one might expect from Tom Murray, who shows that sport is rich in values and meanings that are worth preserving. It is thoughtful, incisive, clearly written, and does not shy away from any of the difficult issues affecting sport." —Dick Pound, former President of the World Anti-Doping Agency

"Murray adeptly distills the complex art and science that has shaped the anti-doping program's determined pursuit of fairness. Through the adroit use of tangible examples in sports history, he connects the dots between anti-doping and pro-humanity arguments. By the conclusion of this journey, Murray's authoritative voice helps us discover that they are indeed one and the same." —Doug Glanville, Baseball Analyst, Author, Speaker, and Former MLB Player

"Tom Murray is one of the world's leading sport ethicists. His work has been admired and used by many engaged in sport integrity. This book weaves together his vast experiences into a work of significance. The first of its genre to be published, it is a wonderful book which will be hugely beneficial internationally." —David Howman, former Executive Director, World Anti-Doping Agency

"A tour de force on sports performance enhancement and how to think about it. Sorting through fundamental questions like 'What is natural?' Murray gives the reader a field guide in science and ethics that is required reading for anyone with an interest in the potential of the human body." —Sally Jenkins, author and columnist, Washington Post

"Good Sport is a moving exploration of issues involving doping and the deeper meaning of sports. The book combines facts, real-life examples and a passion for what we love and appreciate about sports, in order to mount a powerful argument for clean sport. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in sports doping or who cares about sports in general." —Gary Green, MD, Medical Director, Major League Baseball

"Tom Murray confronts the growing nihilism about sports doping with an exceptional appeal rooted in the value of sport itself. To the question of, 'Why not just let them all dope?' he answers with reason and a moral clarity that has been missing from the public conversation." —T.J. Quinn, reporter and anchor, ESPN

"[It] offers a flowing defence of anti-doping values grounded in examples designed to test and develop our intuitions on certain key questions. It achieves its key aims of clearly articulating a defence of anti-doping policy and of encouraging us to engage with central questions as to what we admire in elite athletes. It will be of general interest as these questions are so central to sport and its rules and regulations today."
— Nordic Sports Studies Forum

From the Publisher