Robert L. Simon's Essay: The Point Of Athletic Competition

The point of athletic competition can be derived in many different perspectives. One view of athletic competition is the act of competing against one or more persons or teams in an event containing to athleticism in which there will be a winner. Robert L. Simon is a philosophy professor who believes that competition in athletics is about the search for excellence. Many athletes put in an abundance of hard work, time, money, and effort in order to be successful in competitions. A main reason why people get so involved in athletic competition is because they want to show off what they are capable of doing due to either being naturally talented, because they put in a lot of training, or both. Simon has one viewpoint on the assistance from performance enhancing drugs on competitions, which …show more content…
A Kantian believes that we have moral duties and obligations and that we do those because we know if they are right or wrong, and the consequences don’t play a role either. With the use of performance enhancing drugs, Kant would argue that is the wrong thing to due because of the fact you are making alterations to your skills and abilities with the use of drugs. On the other hand, Brown and a Utilitarian would have similar viewpoints. A utilitarian would want to see the greatest amount of happiness for the most people with the least consequences. This could happen by athletes taking performance enhancing drugs, winning, and getting a large number of people to watch, all subsequently being happy, with little consequences. More people would want to take the drugs to make them win, increasing their happiness, and those who watch athletic competitions would be more inclined to watch despite their viewpoints. In all, the use of performance enhancing drugs has been a controversy in athletic competition, and will continue to be with these polar