We tend to hold individual athletes responsible for doping behavior. This makes it tempting to assume that if we are to fight doping in sports, we need to more efficiently identify these individuals and impose sanctions on them.
But what if doping is a phenomenon with many ramifications? What if doping isn’t invented by individual athletes, but is a social reality where practices and attitudes are formed also by (and with) other actors, such as leaders, trainers, doctors, sponsors… and through the unreasonable expectations of the audience?
Ashkan Atry recently defended a thesis focusing on the social and cultural dimensions of doping. You find his thesis here:
Without denying that individual athletes have responsibility or that sanctions are needed, Atry questions whether it is responsible to primarily hold individual athletes responsible for doping behavior. He argues that we won’t change the current doping culture if we don’t broaden the scope of responsibility to include also individuals and groups other than the athletes themselves.
The thesis develops a broader and more prospective notion of responsibility, to allow us to identify responsibility more responsibly than we far too easily are tempted to do.
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