The Ideal of Nature: Debates about Biotechnology and the Environment

10 Sport, Simulation, and EPO

This chapter addresses the morality of performance-enhancing drugs and modifications in sport. It is motivated by the belief that the decisions we as a public make about cyclists injecting synthetic EPO and weightlifters using genetic technology to make their muscles bigger will act as powerful moral precedents for the more dramatic revisions of human nature that may soon come. A variety of drugs and modifications can justifiably be excluded from elite sport. The interests of spectators are key to this exclusion. Put simply, spectators want to watch sporting performances that are not only exceptional but also produced by competitors similar to them in ways they care about. Performanceenhancing drugs and genetic modifications offend against this interest. This is what justifies banning them. Two Spectator Interests in Elite Sport There are many differences between elite sports and the amateur variety many people practice on Saturday mornings. One key difference is the presence of audiences . Elite sporting events are performances that could not exist in anything like their current form without audiences. Gone would be the endorsements, advertising revenues, cable TV subscriptions, and ticket sales that support elite sportspeople and their retinues. If sport is a performance provided for spectators, then it chapter Ten Sport, Simulation, and EPO Nicholas Agar, Ph.D. 150 Nicholas Agar seems appropriate to emphasize their interests. It is reasonable to ask what exactly we are paying for. A significant spectator interest directs against many performance-enhancing measures. Among measures that conflict with this interest are injections of the synthetic version of erythropoietin (EPO) that boost the oxygen-carrying capacity of blood; anabolic steroids that increase the capacity to train; certain stimulants that increase alertness, competitiveness, and aggression; and a variety of modifications of genetic material that may provide competitive advantage. Such a spectator interest justifies the current regulatory regime of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). That spectators’ needs justify restrictions on enhancements may be a surprising conclusion to those who attribute the proliferation of banned enhancers in elite sport to an audience demand for ever more extreme performances. Sport lies at the intersection of a variety of sometimes conflicting interests, some of which are compatible with, or even require, enhancement. We have an interest in extremes. We watch telecasts of the fastest humans with some of the same zeal that we watch documentaries about the deepest-diving sea mammals and about the migratory birds that fly the farthest. Performance-enhancing measures are not only compatible with this interest, they promote it. Many of the measures banned by WADA are incompatible, however, with an interest in identifying. When we watch sport we have the opportunity to experience exceptional performances “from the inside.” When the interest in identifying and the interest in extremes come into conflict, watchers of sport judge identification to be more important. Its priority among our values explains many of the judgments we make about sport. The interest in identifying generates our harsh assessments of those caught doping and the widespread disaffection with sports in which doping seems to be widespread. McKibben on the Tedium of Enhanced Marathons How might performance enhancers disappoint spectators? In his book Enough, Bill McKibben argues against the performance enhancements made possible by modifying marathoners’ genomes. He thinks that such enhancements would make marathons plain boring. According to McKibben, if marathoners genetically enhance themselves, “we won’t just lose races, we’ll lose racing: we’ll lose the possibility of the test, the challenge, the celebration that athletics represents” (2003, pp. 6–7). This is because genetic enhancement transforms the marathon Sport, Simulation, and EPO 151 from an event in which competitors are pushed to their physical and mental limits into one in which they perform according to their design specifications. McKibben says that running would become “like driving.” He allows that “driving can be fun” but insists that “the skill, the engagement, the meaning reside mostly in those who design the machines” (pp. 6–7). This last claim might be news to Michael Schumacher. The suggestion that there will be no challenges for genetically modified athletes confuses enhancement with omnipotence. Of course there will be challenges for genetically enhanced athletes. If we allow genetic enhancement, we won’t “lose racing.” We may lose some of the races that humans currently compete in. If 42.195 kilometers doesn’t offer genetically enhanced long-distance runners a proper challenge, then they’ll run it only as part of...