A Shot In The Rear Why Are We Really Against Steroid

Bryan Arana
English 1C
Professor Breckheimer
10/20/15
Steroids in Sports Should sports be only about the performance? In the world of sport, competition is to be the number one reason why steroid use has become popular among athletes. This is a controversial issue because it makes the athletes get to the point of make the risk to using steroids. When an athlete performs extremely well at the Olympics many fans then start to become suspicious on whether or not that athlete is on some type of drug. In the following readings, “A Shot in the Rear: Why Are We Really against Steroids?” by L. Caplan, “The Science of Doping”, by Christie Ashwanden, “Genetically Modified Athletes” by John Naish, and “When Winning Costs Too Much” by John McCloskey,

With new drugs constantly advancing and becoming less detectable, that it’ll become almost impossible to know if the person is on some performance enhancer. In “A Shot in the Rear: Why Are We Really against Steroids?”, Caplan uses John Harris’s example which talks about Harris’s views which are for performance enhancements in sports and states that sometimes it may be morally obligatory. Harris’s defense was that it will give us performances to remember and states that is the point of sport. The spirit of sport is the celebration of the human spirit, body and mind, and characterized by the following values: ethics, fair play and honesty, health, and excellence in performance. Harris then states it is not about being lucky and explains, no one gets to be a great athlete simply by taking steroids. Steroids only supplies the person with the energy to continue working out, so from taking steroids people still have to train hard to obtain that they want, so even though athletes are caught for cheating, they probably didn’t have to work as hard as other but it still required some time and patience to achieve what they

In “Why we should allow performance enhancing drugs in sports” by Savulescu talks about how when big athletes take steroids and are caught, their penalty is nothing compared to the fame and billions of dollars that they gain from sponsorships and the prize money itself. She then states that the winner is not about who has the best genetic potential to be the strongest but the winner will be a combination of genetic potential, training, psychology, and judgment. “The reason of watching a sport is the appreciation of an extraordinary performance” (Savulescu 1). Meaning that the reason why we watch sports is for the performance. But that is in fact not the reason why we watch sports, part of it is also seeing your favorite team players. Fans state they would enjoy the game more when they know that the athletes are not on steroids, because for example if that player won gold medal and was later found using steroids the meaning of that competition is useless because someone