Doping is allowed in other segments of the entertainment industry

The argument

Professional sport is part of the entertainment industry. Millions tune in every weekend to watch sport because it provides entertainment. It should, therefore, be treated in the same way as other entertainment industry sectors. Doping does not detract from the entertainment aspect of the sport. If anything, it enhances it by improving performance, pushing the limits of human ability, and thereby providing a better spectacle. In the same way the musician takes beta-blockers to coax out a better performance or a writer may consume drugs to produce their best work, athletes should be permitted to dope to improve their physical performance.

Context

A musician is free to take beta-blockers to control stage fright. These drugs function in the exact same way as performance-enhancing drugs in sport. They lower the heart rate and blood pressure and allow for a better, more measured performance.

Premises

Counter-arguments

The analogy breaks at the point that matters. Sport is not merely watched; it is a contest under rules, and what it produces is a comparison between competitors under conditions held equal. A musician's beta-blocker alters no one else's performance and costs no rival anything, because a concert has no losers — which is precisely why the other entertainment sectors named have nothing to police. An enhanced athlete changes what every competitor must do to remain competitive, so the cases are not parallel. The claim that doping does not detract from the entertainment also assumes what is disputed. A substantial part of the audience's interest lies in the authenticity of the achievement, as the reaction to doping cases in cycling and athletics suggests: performances regarded as chemically assisted lose much of the value that made them worth watching, and records so obtained are treated as tainted rather than as better spectacle. Permission is not neutral either. If enhancement is allowed it does not stay optional — competitors face the choice of doping or losing — so a permission functions as a requirement, and the health costs fall on athletes who would rather not accept them, including juniors copying professional practice. The entertainment premise finally proves too much: fixing outcomes for drama or removing safety rules would also raise the spectacle, and are excluded because sport is constituted by its rules rather than licensed to abandon them.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Sport is a rule-governed contest whose product is a comparison between competitors under equal conditions, unlike concerts or writing, where no rival's performance or standing is affected — which is why those sectors have nothing to regulate. [Rejecting P2] Whether enhancement improves the spectacle is exactly what is disputed, since much of the audience's interest lies in the authenticity of the achievement; and permitted enhancement becomes effectively compulsory, imposing its health costs on competitors who would rather not accept them.