philosophical differences between equipment and peds

one of the arguments you will often hear is that taking performance enhancing drugs is just like training or racing with new, updated and technologically advanced equipment. it is true that both provide an athlete with a competitive advantage over a field of equally matched individuals without either the drugs or equipment, so why is one tolerated and not the other?

this is a question i asked a friend, a great athlete in his own right, and we eventually arrived at some very interesting conclusions. going into the discussion, we both recognized intuitively aside from sporting body regulation, taking peds was unacceptable and constituted cheating, whilst upgrading equipment was not. what we didn’t understand is why we thought this, and so sat down to try to find the philosophical basis for our intuitions.

our first thought was that athletes all have access to the best equipment, but not access to the same drugs. i contend that this argument is completely inverted; worldwide, it is more likely that an athlete would have access to inexpensive drugs (stimulants) that would enhance performance, whilst not being able to afford thousands of dollars to upgrade equipment. moreover, in equipment-required-for-entry sports such as golf, it is clear that using clubs made in 2016 would yield far superior performances compared to using clubs from the 70’s, relative to the use of beta-blockers in a round of golf. so it can’t be access.

our next thought was that drugs provide a shortcut to better performances, whereas equipment does not. well this is just untrue. a lot of peds, in order for them to be affective, require the athlete to still complete heavy training for adaptations to occur (think anabolic-androgenic steroids). however, if you took a triathlete who is riding a road bike for the cycling leg of their competition, and gave them a tri-bike for the next competition, it is likely they will see an instantaneous improvement in their performances, with no extra work required. that is the definition of a short-cut. so that can not be the differentiating factor here.

by the end of the conversation, we had narrowed our intuitions down to two key factors: the super human, and internal vs. external advantage.

1. the super-human

the most obvious difference between performance enhancing drugs and advancements in equipment use is in whether the performances granted are considered to be ‘super-human.’ if we consider an individual to be reflective of their genetic potential, that is, that their phenotype matches their genotype to a certain degree, then all technologically advanced equipment allows for, is an optimization of human potential. another potential way of viewing this, is that inferior equipment, is preventing the full expression of an individuals physiological talents. this is in stark contrast of course to peds, which not only only for an individual to reach genetic potential, but surpass it. if we imagine an athlete that has optimized their genetic potential, they will still benefit from the administration of peds. therefore, peds allow for super-human performances. in a world where we expect ‘sport’ to be a competition between humans, peds allow for non-human performances, negating the fundamental basis of sport.

1. internal vs. external advantage

the other potential factor that plays into our intuitions about peds, is the observed nature of sport. enhanced equipment is external to the athlete, therefore in plain sight and easily observable. peds on the other hand, influence an individuals physiology, an internal change. since this change isn’t clearly observable by spectators, there is an inherit sense of being deceived, and therefore we associate the use of peds as ‘cheating.’

the recent ‘motorized doping’ scandal an interesting intersection of these two components. outside of the motor found in femke van den driessche’s bicycle being against established cycling rules, on a fundamental level, the motor both allowed for super-human performances and was hidden from the regular spectator.

this may be an over-simplification; if you agree or not, please join the conversation and let’s work through these tough questions together!