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Who? Moral Condemnation, PEDs, and Violating the Constraints of Public Narrative

I began this paper shortly after the Union Cycliste Internationale stripped Lance

Armstrong of his 7 Tour de France titles, leading to his banishment from the sport and

separation from the Lance Armstrong Foundation. In January 2013, he made a televised

appearance in which he admitted to using a variety of performance enhancing drugs

(hereafter, PEDs) including Human Growth Hormone and anabolic steroids. With this he

joined the legions of athletes whose once inspiring careers have been tarnished by the

stigma of doping. These include baseball record-breakers Mark McGwire, Roger

Clemens, and Barry Bonds, track star Marion Jones, and fellow Tour de France winner

Alberto Contador.

1. Introduction

While the myriad controversies and inflated salaries of the last few decades have

disabused many of the belief that famous athletes merely compete “for the love of the

game”, we still exhibit great disapprobation when our sports heroes turn out to be users of

banned substances. This exists despite the fact that these users are stellar athletes

(independent of doping) whose achievements would be impossible for the vast majority

of the population. While this is partly due to the strong negative judgment associated with

“cheaters”, our disapprobation for those who use banned substances is profound, leading

fans to doubt whether these athletes are worthy of the esteem in which they were once

held. My aim is to identify the source of this condemnation. I believe that offering an

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analysis based in contemporary ideas of narrative identity will help us to better

understand the peculiar strength of the moral condemnation felt for dopers. At the same

time, my analysis aims to extend the scope of narrative theories by exploring the role

narrativity plays in our understanding of those around us.

In what follows, I will not to offer a defense of banning doping from use in

professional or amateur sporting, nor suggest that we are, in any significant sense, correct

in our moral assessments.1 Nor do I take a position on where the dividing line between

enhancement and treatment lies, except to note that we do make use of such concepts in

our folk analyses.2 Much has been written on these issues, and I aim to take a different

approach, focusing instead on the feelings of disapprobation and their origin. In essence,

this is a paper whose focus tends more to moral psychology than normative ethics. While

some sports ethicists and members of the public are in favor of loosening existing bans

on doping,3 a large number still find PED use morally problematic, evidenced by recent

backlash against players like Alex Rodriguez (Jones, 2013). My goal is to distinguish the

use of PEDs from other offenses and to suggest that our condemnation of PED users does

not derive solely from a general disdain for cheating or lying. The condemnation, I will

argue, stems from the fact that dopers are lying about an important aspect of their public

narrative, which accounts for the disdain we experience and our desire to separate dopers

from more “legitimate” athletes. Fundamentally then, my argument is that dopers are

1 We do frequently also attach negative judgments to casual or habitual users of illegal drugs, suggesting a general disdain for substances users. 2 I agree with William Morgan, who claims that this distinction is social and tracks nothing metaphysical or natural (Morgan, 2009). 3 See (Savulescu & Foddy, 2011) for an argument against current doping policy. A recent study offers an overview of attitudes about doping policy (Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport, 2011).

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misleading us, not about some particular action or series of actions, but about who they

are.

In the case of PED use, the central issue becomes apparent in the disconnect

between who we, understood as society, sports fans, referees, and others, believe the

athlete is, and the fact of their substance use. The problem of identity is linked to two

issues. First, dopers appear to be lying about a characteristic central to a particular social

role and thus fail qua athlete. If a person lies about having a quality that is generally

understood to be required for participation in a particular activity, we may question their

fitness to receive certain of those benefits associated with it. Second and perhaps more

importantly, a PED user lies about some central attribute of their public narrative.

My discussion of narrativity and identity owes a great deal to J. David Velleman’s

view that narrative is central for intelligibility, but generally fits into ideas of narrativity

taken from a tradition counting Velleman, Charles Taylor, Alisdair MacIntyre, Marya

Schechtman, and others among its proponents. However, I extend some basic ideas of

these works to reflect the role of narrative in our understanding of each other, with a

particular focus on public figures. I contend that insofar as narratives are necessary for

persons to make sense of each other, we are likely to feel moral disdain for those who

violate assumptions created by their own narratives. Thus, while my primary focus is on

athletes who dope, the same methodology can be used to interpret our experience of other

public and private figures. If I am correct about why we feel disdain for doping athletes,

this will help us to make sense of different forms of transgressions and why some are

more damaging than others.

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Importantly, I do not here defend our moral disapprobation, but merely seek to

offer an explanation for it. Further, I refrain from making claims about persistent

attributes of persons, but will focus on our expectations of those who enter and win

athletic competitions. In particular, I do not claim that the Lance Armstrong while doping

is metaphysically distinct from who he was or “might have been” had he not doped, or

the person he now is (assuming that he no longer dopes). I also take no position on

whether PED usage should be allowed in athletic competitions, a question that has been

carefully investigated by a range of philosophers.4 Instead, I hope to provide a diagnosis

that will help us to better understand the contours of the debate about performance

enhancement and the role that an understanding of “who” people are plays in our moral

analysis.

Section 2 examines the idea that our disdain for persons like Armstrong can be

reduced to lying or norm violation. Section 3 presents the primary examples taken from

US politics and athletics. Elliot Spitzer and Pete Rose compose the first set. Each has

committed a wrong for which he has faced public criticism, but I will argue that our

condemnation of these two is not thoroughgoing. With the second set of cases, involving

John Edwards and Mark McGwire, our ability to forgive infractions is much more

limited.5

I argue in Section 4 that we distinguish between norm violators like Rose and

dopers like McGwire because dopers have lied about central characteristics of their own

narratives in ways leading to a sense of condemnation. This, I argue in the final section,

4 For some of the philosophical discussion of whether we should ban PEDs see: (Chwang, 2012; Dixon, 2008; Gleaves, 2010; Kious, 2008; Savulescu & Foddy, 2011; Simon, 2010) 5 I have chosen four white males from the US and Democratic politicians in an attempt to lower the number of potential confounding factors.

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results from a worry that the athlete whose achievements result from the use of PEDs is

somehow not the person we took her to be. Finally, I will suggest that the moral

evaluation I offer may be applied to a wider range of cases, enabling us to make sense of

circumstances outside the realms of politics and athletics.

2. Cheating and the Norms of Sports

One very plausible explanation for our disappointment with PED users is that they

have broken rules or cheated in some way.6 First, I will distinguish PED use from

cheating that involves violations of constitutive norms, and then I will discuss cheating in

a broader sense. Ultimately, I believe, neither fully explains the condemnation associated

with famed PED users.

Constitutive rules are norms telling us 1) what a game is, and 2) how it is played.

In sports, these norms tell us what one needs to do in order to play a particular game, with

guidance ranging from specific pieces of equipment to the size of the field of play and the

number of participants allowed per team. As norms, they must be shared in order for

game play to move forward. It is my contention that our condemnation of PED users does

not reduce to violations of constitutive norms, although it may be a form of cheating.

While a constitutive rule might tell us something about the number of participants

allowed on the field of play at a given time, such rules seem to be more properly

understood as proscribing how the game will proceed.7 A person who takes anabolic

6 I do not have time to examine all of the potential dimensions of rule-breaking or cheating here, but will restrict myself to a couple examples. 7 Rules that restrict play along gender lines provide guidance by delineating what counts as “women’s basketball” and “men’s basketball”. Notably, transgender persons challenge such a distinction, but this extends beyond the boundaries of the current paper.

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steroids and plays softball is still clearly playing softball, and the assistance of a banned

substance in no way changes this fact.

On the other hand, we may believe that dopers are cheating because they gain an

unfair advantage against non-doping opponents, and this is certainly an argument that has

been much discussed by sports ethicists.8 There are many ways by which athletes can

work to gain advantage, and PED use may strike people as morally troubling form of

cheating because the advantage is gained in a way that is not available to everyone (for

financial or other reasons), or comes at such a high cost that it those unwilling to take the

risk will be unable to compete. PEDs clearly provide their users with certain advantages

due to their ability to increase strength, stamina, healing time, and a range of other

benefits. I will remain agnostic as to whether these benefits are in fact unfair, and instead

suggest that such reasons are not sufficient for the full range or strength of moral

condemnation. While a player might gain an unfair advantage by using a training facility

not available to opponents, the PED user has misrepresented herself and this seems

central to our disapproval.

My claim here is not that PED use is distinct from all other forms of cheating, but

that what elicits a strong sense of moral condemnation associated with PED use is not

cheating alone. As Craig Carr claims, using PEDs “is not tinkering with the competition

itself; it isn’t like running a shorter distance or putting a lighter shot” (Carr, 2008). In the

following section, I will focus primarily on lying and deception as a means for thinking

about this issue.

8 For a discussion of this argument, see: (Carr, 2008; Corlett, Brown, & Kirkland, 2013; Gardner, 1989; Lenk, 2007)

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3. Deception and Condemnation

While we may be angered or disappointed by rule-breakers, doping violations

may cause us to question who our heroes fundamentally are. We might think that they do

not deserve the accolades they have received or, as in Lance Armstrong’s case,

organizations may withdraw awards. Articulating this problem of “identity” in the use of

PEDs is the larger goal of this paper, but I will first provide an analysis of lying that will

help to distinguish the peculiar form of deception associated with the usage of

performance-enhancing substances from other forms of deception.

In articulating my position, I offer two different sets of examples taken from the

worlds of politics and athletics. First are cases where persons violate important norms,

but the deception does not lead us to question their identity. My examples are, from the

world of politics, former New York governor Elliot Spitzer and from the world of sport,

former MLB player Pete Rose. Second are cases in which there is a failure to meet some

narrative expectation and this changes our understanding of who the person is. In such

circumstances, we believe that the person has not only failed qua athlete or politician, but

has not met the expectations set by their own narrative. Here, I will discuss former US

Senator and Vice Presidential candidate John Edwards and former MLB player Mark

McGwire.

3.1 Deception Without Totalizing Moral Condemnation

I will begin my discussion with Eliot Spitzer. Spitzer began his term as Governor

in 2007 and famously resigned the following year after his visits to a prostitute became

public. While constituents clearly disapproved of his behavior, Spitzer went on to host a

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CNN program, then a program on Current TV, and recently made an unsuccessful run for

the position of New York City Comptroller.9

Although Spitzer was compelled to leave his job, we do not question whether he

indeed won the election, nor do we contemplate whether he “deserved” to play the role of

governor. The explanation for this seems two-fold. First, the affair was not causally

related to his political achievements. We do not doubt that Spitzer would have been able

elected governor of New York without visiting a prostitute, and there is no asterisk next

to his name noting that he was a governor, but that somehow this was improperly

achieved. Second, Spitzer’s misdeeds showcase a character flaw shared by many, but this

does not undermine our overall sense of Spitzer qua politician. We may prefer that

politicians remain truthful to their spouses, but this is not necessary condition for being a

good politician.10 Nor are we devastated because Spitzer has lied about himself. While he

certainly lied insofar as he was unfaithful to his spouse, being a really wonderful husband

was not a large component of his personal narrative, and although he ran on a platform of

“being tough on vice” his transgressions show him to have failed in a way that does not

cause us to question him as a politician.11

When sports heroes break rules, we seem likely to have a similar moral response.

As a manager, former MLB player Pete Rose famously bet on baseball games, even when

his own team was playing.12 As a result, he has been permanently barred from the game,

making him ineligible for admission into the Baseball Hall of Fame despite the fact that

9 He did not lose by such a considerable margin as to make his candidacy a total embarrassment. 10 History seems to support this claim, as many unfaithful politicians have been allowed to maintain public careers. Bill Clinton presents an obvious example. 11 In many ways, his is a form of political corruption that we’ve come to expect and so fits nicely into a story about what it means to be a political figure. 12 He never bet against his own team and later admitted to a gambling addiction for which he sought professional help.

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he possesses the record for all-time hits. Rose has continued to play a public role in

baseball outside the professional sport, appearing at events touting memorabilia and

starring in a short-lived reality television program (TLC, 2013).

Importantly, learning that he bet on baseball does not appear to undermine our

understanding of his abilities on the field. We see him as a flawed individual, but are able

to separate his behavior as a manager from his actions and achievements as a player. Put

bluntly, while his failures may make him worthy of condemnation, they do not cause us

to mistrust him totally or to question his ability as a baseball player.13 While we may

believe that baseball employees should not bet on the sport, this has no bearing on a

person’s fitness as a player or expert.

I argue then that our disappointment with Rose and Spitzer reflects a belief that

they have violated some norm, but does not issue in a total rejection of their value or

abilities. Before learning that Rose was gambling on the sport he had participated in for

his entire his adult life, we believed him to be someone who respected the rules of

baseball. Before learning that Spitzer was having an extramarital affair, we believed him

to be someone who respected laws prohibiting prostitution.14 In both cases what we learn

is something that does not change our understanding of who each is qua politician or qua

baseball player, and can be integrated into our understanding of each as a person. We

continue to trust their judgment and expertise in their respective fields, and while our

attitude toward their accomplishments may be changed, we still grant them these

13 Intentionally “throwing” a game presents a difficult issue. In some respects, it is a failure to play the game properly as a desire to win is generally assumed in competition. 14 In discussing “character” in this context, I take myself to be using a fairly non-controversial folk concept. For this argument, we need not believe that character is stable across time, but merely accept that we have expectations of public figures. Baseball players are supposed to love the game. Politicians are supposed to respect laws.

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accomplishments. Whether Spitzer will ever regain public office or Rose will return to

baseball remains to be seen. However, their persistence in public life and the public’s

continued interest suggests that they have not been whole-heartedly dismissed.

3.2 PED-Use and Condemnation

This intuition that we can be disappointed by public figures helps us to better

understand the peculiar moral dimensions of doping. The question here is not about how

someone performs on the field, but the person in a much broader sense. There are reasons

to think that someone like Roger Clemens or Barry Bonds has deceived us about who he

is. And, while Pete Rose’s gambling might lead us to reflect a bit on our respect for him,

PED use impacts our understanding of the entirety of an athlete’s career,

accomplishments, and position as a representative of the sport. It is difficult to imagine

Bonds appearing on ESPN to discuss baseball, and it’s unlikely that he will be greeted by

the standing ovations Rose continues to receive when he appears at games.15

Ultimately, the moral disdain we experience at the news that an athlete has been

doping reflects a concern that the person in question is simply not who we thought she

was. When we learn that Pete Rose gambled or that Eliot Spitzer was intimate with a

prostitute, we must adjust our understanding, but we do not question their fundamental

attributes. With this in mind, I will turn my focus to cases where the new information

seems to challenge fundamental beliefs. These are former US Senator John Edwards and

former MLB player Mark McGwire.

Edwards’s political life had a very clear narrative: he was a hard-working left-

leaning Southern politician with working class roots and a well-respected wife who was

15 A 2009 USA Today poll found that 75% of respondents believed that the use of PEDs constituted a much more severe infraction than Rose’s gambling (Dodd, 2009). Rose has defending himself by claiming that “Guys who took steroids cheated. I didn’t cheat. I didn’t cheat to get no hits.” (TLC, 2013)

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battling breast cancer. After a failed bid for the Democratic presidential nomination in

2008, it came to light that he had fathered a child with Rielle Hunter, the documentarian

working on his campaign. He used campaign contributions to keep the relationship quiet,

even requesting that a staffer claim paternity in his stead. In 2012 he was tried for

political corruption stemming from this improper use of campaign contributions. The trial

resulted in an acquittal on one count and a mistrial on four others (The New York Times

Company, 2012). He has largely retired from public life, which few seem to lament.16

His case seems distinct from Spitzer’s on two fronts. First, we might point to the

deep immorality of his actions. Edwards did not merely have an extramarital affair, but

fathered a child with another woman while his wife was undergoing cancer treatment.

Further, he covered his actions up using a combination of donated and public funds

designated for campaign use, flouting at least some of the constitutive rules of politics

and disrespecting taxpayers as well as his own supporters.

The second distinguishing characteristic, that our condemnation appears to be

globalizing, is perhaps more telling. Unlike Spitzer, we are so disgusted and angry with

Edwards that it is unlikely he will ever again have a role in political (and perhaps even

public) life, because the “truth” about who he is, as expressed in his actions, diverges so

greatly from what we previously thought. John Edwards seems clearly to not be the

person his supporters, or even detractors, thought he was.

As a parallel to politics, let me turn to a famous admitted PED user. Mark

McGwire’s career in baseball spanned the time now known as the “steroid era”, during

which PED use was institutionally discouraged but largely unregulated. At a highly

16 His failure to attend the 2012 Democratic National Convention in his home state is especially noteworthy.

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publicized 2005 congressional hearing, McGwire avoided answering specific questions

about steroid use, rankling his detractors as well as his supporters, and leaving little room

for doubt in many people’s minds. In 2010 he admitted to having used PEDs, including

during the 1998 season when he broke Roger Maris’s record by hitting 70 homeruns

during a fierce competition with Sammy Sosa (Kepner, 2010). This admission took place

very publicly and was accompanied by a private call to Maris’s widow and a tear-filled

long interview on NBC.

His detractors have cynically criticized this mea culpa, suggesting that the

primary motivation was a desire to be allowed to participate in the sport without

speculation. Shortly after coming clean about his PED use, McGwire became batting

coach for the St. Louis Cardinals, a role he now plays with the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Despite his return to baseball, working as a batting coach is a fairly minor role for

someone with McGwire’s record. Thus, while we may not totally deny McGwire’s

expertise as a hitter, his role as a representative of the sport (evidenced by admission to

the Hall of Fame and general recognition of his record) is, at best, uncertain. His former

team, the St. Louis Cardinals, commissioned a statue of him in 2007, but it was never

installed (Sandomir, 2014).

While his record was subsequently broken by Barry Bonds, who is widely

believed to have used PEDs, McGwire’s record-breaking season is noted at the Baseball

Museum, along with the caveat that he admitted to using PEDs (The Baseball Hall of

Fame and Museum, 2013). Bonds has also dropped out of the public sphere, and as no

one has come close to breaking his record, there has yet to be a debate regarding how,

precisely, to understand it. What MLB and its fans do when this happens will be telling.

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4. Diagnosing the Moral Problem

I believe that the severity of both Edwards’s and McGwire’s infractions can best

be understood by thinking about the characteristics that are central to their social roles

and individual narratives. Both have lied about some important aspect of themselves. Lies

about who we are seem importantly distinct from other lies, insofar as they are not about

some specific action but have a more radical dimension. I will focus my discussion here

on individual public narrative, as I believe it will help us to understand the degree of

moral condemnation we experience with PED users.

4.1 Narrativity and Identity

To begin, imagine a close friend who is an incredibly vocal and avid reader. Now

imagine that you learn something new about her. If you learn that she has not read Moby

Dick, you might think it a bit odd, but this need not undermine your sense of her as a

person. On the other hand, if you learn that she has not read any of the books she owns or

claims to have read, this may throw your entire understanding of her into question. In

part, we wonder whether a person who is capable of lying about such a thing could be

trustworthy at all.

I believe that the intuition that our bibliophile friend has done something

inexplicable reflects the foundational role that narrative plays in how we engage with and

understand others. Essentially, I am arguing that it is largely through narrative and

storytelling that we are able to make sense of each other, insofar as this enables us to

account for other’s actions in an intelligible way. My view here follows that of Alasdair

MacIntyre and J. David Velleman in acknowledging that narrative accounts of our lives

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help us become intelligible to others.17 While aiming at goals somewhat different than my

own, MacIntyre describes the value of narrative in terms of its ability to help us make

specific actions comprehensible. Thus, he claims that narrative “turns out to be the basic

and essential genre for the characterization of human actions.” (MacIntyre, 1981)

Velleman’s work on the self and intersubjective constitution helps to further

elucidate the role of narrative in social interaction. While many concerned with

narrativity focus on the individual as author, Velleman places great emphasis on the role

of the audience. He describes story-telling as something that “does more than recount

events; it recounts events in a way that renders them intelligible, thus conveying not just

information but also understanding.” (Velleman, 2003) For Velleman, intelligibility is the

shared aim of interaction, thereby creating the very possibility for self-understanding. He

suggests that our moral responses to violations like promise-breaking reflect a belief that

one party has broken with the aims of the collaborative endeavor, not that agents agree

that promise breaking is immoral (Velleman, 2009). While I do not wish to focus heavily

on metaethics, Velleman’s understanding of shared storytelling as constitutive of human

agency provides support both for my view about narrative identity as well as the moral

disdain associated with violations of the “norms” those identities create.18

Following MacIntyre and Velleman, I believe the particular virtue of thinking

about who a person is in terms of a narrative lies in the fact that such stories allow for us

to understand other person’s lives in ways that may not be achieved through other means. 17 There are, of course, critics of the narrative. Most notable is Galen Strawson, who argues against both its normative and descriptive dimensions. (Strawson, 2004) While Strawson’s work focuses on the narrative for self-understanding, I am concerned with intersubjective means of understanding, which I believe allows me to side-step some of his criticisms. 18 Marya Schechtman’s work also focuses on the value of narrative self-constitution for understanding agency. However, Velleman’s focus on the intersubjective nature of the narrative makes it especially valuable for my current work, while Schechtman is primarily focused on personal identity (Schechtman, 1996).

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While someone may state a series of facts about herself, these come to make greater

sense when organized into a coherent story. As we gain new information about others

(and perhaps even about ourselves) our narratives are fleshed out and given greater

substance. This is certainly the case in the context of romantic relationships and close

friendships, where one begins with a limited, and sometimes even faulty, understanding

of who a person is, and through conversation and experience comes to develop a picture

of a whole human life. This enables us to understand who they are and perhaps even

predict future behavior. While this narrative helps us better understand other persons, it

also creates certain constraints that have some normative content. For example, if my

normally patient spouse responds to a minor error with rage, this may strike me as

especially problematic because it is so unexpected. In such a case, he has departed from

my expectations, upsetting me and calling the expectations themselves into question.

Likewise, the stories we learn of public figures give us tools for understanding

who they are. With such persons, narratives are likely to be more carefully edited and

controlled by authors who have a vested interest in creating and preserving a particular

kind of narrative, whether this results in votes or the maintenance of a fan base. However,

persons, in both their individual and public lives, can only exert so much control over the

narrative. While MacIntyre and Velleman focus on authorship, some aspects of narrative

identity can take on existences independent of their owners. This seems to particularly be

the case with those who are lionized by the public in life, though is perhaps most

noticeable for those whose lives have taken on outlandish proportions in death. However,

narratives can take on a life of their own even for those whose lives are not the subject of

such lore. We can all be misinterpreted in our dealings with friends, colleagues, or

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strangers, and while we cannot control what others think of us, offering narrative

explanations for our lives and behaviors can help others make sense of who we are.

Given the significance of narrative identity for a full understanding of a human

life, deviations from that narrative challenge us deeply.19 Our bibliophile friend has

constructed a narrative of her life around the fact that she loves books. While this is not

the entirety of her existence, it is one of the strands that enables us to understand and

appreciate her. Because she has given us this story, it is no longer her own, but provides a

template for interpretation that those around her use. We can integrate the knowledge that

she has never read Moby Dick into this story and it still makes sense, but integration is

much more difficult if we find that she has lied about a major part of her identity. While

narrative can make a life or an action intelligible, significant deviations from the narrative

can make a person difficult to comprehend and, in the most severe cases, no longer

recognizable.

While I do not argue here that persons have a duty to make themselves intelligible

to others, or that we should expect that others “follow” the storylines we believe best

express who they are, I do believe that we are often upset when people fail to live up to

this quasi-normative expectation and may judge them harshly for it. Vladimir Nabokov’s

Humbert Humbert expresses this worry very nicely: “I have often noticed that we are

inclined to endow our friends with the stability of type that literary characters acquire in

the reader's mind. [...] Any deviation in the fates we have ordained would strike us as not

only anomalous but unethical.” (Nabokov, 1989) While I do not believe that any

19 Harry Frankfurt writes beautifully on these topics and notes that lies, particularly those told by close friends, are painful because they throw our world into disarray and cause us to question our own judgment. (Frankfurt, 1992) I agree that cases like those presented in this paper may cause worry about our own faculties, but this is not one of my primary goals.

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deviation poses a problem, I believe that there are specific deviations that, by virtue of

their relationship to the narrative, become a cause for moral concern.

4.2 Application to Cases

I will begin with John Edwards. I believe that he lied about who he is, qua

politician but more importantly, qua his own personal narrative. With regard to the social

role of “politician”, he has failed to meet a central expectation that we have insofar as he

lied and (allegedly) violated campaign finance laws. However, our condemnation of him

cannot issue solely from that deception, as politicians who lie, even when national

security is at stake, frequently maintain important governmental positions. The severity

of our moral condemnation appears then to issue from some other source.

Publicly, Edwards carefully cultivated a persona of being “decent and honest”;

traits intended to distinguish him from his opponents. He presented himself as the liberal

candidate who understood the lives of normal people facing the everyday challenges of

middle-class and blue-collar life. His wife was an extremely well respected lawyer who

supported his candidacy despite facing very serious health problems. Knowing that he

cheated on her and then lied about it so undermines this previous narrative that it taints all

of his past actions.20

To an even greater degree than the dishonest bibliophile, the news of Edwards’s

actions was such a radical departure from the accepted narrative that we cannot

incorporate this new information while maintaining the narrative’s integrity. Because we

cannot do this, the story breaks down and we are left wondering if we ever really knew

20 The recent election of Mark Sanford to the U.S. House of Representative following a massive scandal is interesting. However, Sanford’s political persona did not revolve around his relationship with his wife, and his claim that the woman with whom he had an affair as his “soulmate” impacts our response.

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him at all. As a result, Edwards has become something of a toxin, whose very presence

may infect those around him.21

Like Edwards, Mark McGwire has both violated an expectation linked to his

social role and his individual narrative. There appears to be an ill-defined but tacitly

accepted norm of athletics, roughly stating that professional athletes should compete

using only their natural abilities and without “unnatural” or external help. While I don’t

defend this norm or even fully understand it,22 it appears to be frequently operant in folk

conceptions of athletes and athletic competition, specifically the worthiness and

authenticity of their achievements. I suggest then that “not using PEDs” is a central

component in our understanding of athletes in the way that “having read multiple pieces

of philosophy” is central to being a philosophy professor. In violating this requirement,

McGwire has failed to meet our expectations of professional athletes.

However, the larger story of McGwire’s personal narrative, and his failure to live

up to it, is more compelling. McGwire’s 1998 home run competition with Sammy Sosa is

credited with re-energizing a failing sport and giving baseball fans something to be

excited about. As with Edwards, being a hard working “good guy” was always part of

McGwire’s story. The player fans supported was rookie of the year despite missing the

final games of his first season in the majors to be present for the birth of his first child.

He was an athlete deserving of our attention and respect, dedicated on the field, caring

and respectful of his teammates, and the sort of father who shared the glory of breaking

21 The existence of virulently anti-gay activists and politicians who are found to have engaged in homosexual relationships but eventually forgiven does not count against my view. In such cases, the primary narrative is frequently one about a commitment to Christian beliefs. Thus, while engaging in sexual activity and then lying about it might be in contrast to expressed views, the underlying commitment is maintained and the behavior may be interpreted as part of a narrative in which “backsliding” leads to redemption. 22 And, as many have noted, what counts as “performance enhancement” is deeply historical.

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Maris’s record with his young son. Also central to this narrative, like that of nearly all

professional athletes, is that McGwire did not use PEDs.

In a long-format interview with Bob Costas regarding his steroid use, McGwire

conceded that he understood why people might doubt his records, but claimed that his

accomplishments were “authentic”, “cus that was me”. Of particular significance is

McGwire’s unwillingness or inability to admit that his steroid use played a causal role in

his athletic achievements, saying only that it helped him maintain reasonably good health

during a time when he was plagued by injury (MLB.com, 2010). He further denied the

suggestion that steroid use was rampant in the profession and those claims, made most

vocally by Jose Canseco, that he had used steroids with teammates over the years (See:

Canseco, 2005).23

The McGwire case may appear less clear-cut than Edwards’s as the “non-PED

use” strand of his story was less central to his narrative than the “loving husband” strand

was for Edwards. However, being a “good” athlete clearly was. Further, my claim is not

that a person has necessarily lied about a very specific expressed character trait or value

in order to face the moral condemnation, but that they violate either the letter or the spirit

of the narrative. As with many social roles, being a sports figure involves having certain

components of one’s narrative “ready-made”. While athletes may tell their own stories,

those stories are interpreted and understood through the lens of what it means to be an

athlete. Included may be a variety of virtues including hard work, being a “team player”,

and the general idea of “sportsmanship”.24 And, independent of whether it is the case for

all or even most athletes, what we typically understand as “being an athlete” involves

23 Canseco corroborates McGwire’s claim that he did not use during his rookie year 24 In the US, this seems especially true for baseball, which partly explains why we may hold football players to slightly different standards.

20

achievement solely through one’s own labor. So, while being a non-PED user may not

have been the cornerstone around which McGwire composed his life’s story, his strong

commitment to his team and his hard-working nature suggest that he was an athlete for

whom the virtues of sport were valuable.25

Further, our response to McGwire is not mere disappointment with a specific

action, but revulsion at the person himself, tainting his every action. The repeated failure

to elect any players from the “steroid era” to the MLB Hall of Fame suggests some

support for this. In addition to McGwire, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Sammy Sosa, and

Mike Piazza have been on the ballot. Perhaps the most notable of these is Piazza, as he is

the only one who has never been linked directly to PED use. There is probable fear that

he may have used, given his proximity to users, but one might also argue that he is

polluted by simply having played at the same time as Bonds, Clemens, McGwire, and

Sosa.

This should not be seen to reflect a general prudishness on the part of The

Baseball Writer’s Association of America.26 It is not difficult to point to members of the

Hall of Fame who have engaged in unsporting conduct or whose lives off the field were

fraught with personal and public transgressions. George Herman “Babe” Ruth, one of

baseball’s greatest players, was also an alcoholic and a likely domestic abuser. Generally

speaking, we are willing to overlook his transgressions and still consider him one of the

greatest baseball players in history. Ruth is viewed as a flawed person with extraordinary

talent. Part of our willingness to overlook these negative attributes is that they are not in

25 Figures like Joe Paterno might offer a helpful illustration of cases where something might be a part of a person’s narrative without being stated explicitly. Even though “not protecting child molesters” was not a central piece of Paterno’s narrative, it is not unreasonable to assume that this is a part of most people’s identities. 26 The body responsible for electing players to the Hall of Fame.

21

contrast to any defining characteristic of his. His personal story involved being a good

baseball player and a hard drinker, but not a perfect human being. Despite his many

flaws, he remains a representative of many of the excellences we associate with baseball,

and will likely to continue to do so.

While it is difficult to speculate on what will happen in upcoming Hall of Fame

votes, there does seem to be a real aversion to allowing the names of those known to have

used PEDs to stand next to the likes of Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Ty Cobb, Hank Aaron, Mickey

Mantle, or more recent famous inductees like Nolan Ryan and Cal Ripken, Jr. We might

even wonder whether the very presence of such persons in the Hall of Fame would serve

to contaminate the legacies of those who “deserve” to be there.

5. The Value of Public Narrative

Thinking about moral responses to PED use through the lens of narrative identity

has considerable virtue. Most importantly, it helps to explain the feelings of moral

disapprobation that, for some, may even translate into feelings of betrayal. If my account

is correct, the anger we experience reflects the belief that we have been lied to in a

profound way about those very facts that enable us to identify person. And, when people

lie about who they are, we have difficulty understanding them and we may even worry

that they are not appropriately “like us”. Perhaps it is this worry that such persons are not

playing appropriately by the rules of interpersonal conduct that sparks moral outrage.27

Further, our attachment to athletes causes us to care deeply about who athletes are

and not merely what they do. We identify ourselves with athletes; we root for those who

27 Whether we justified in holding people accountable for behaving in accordance with their narratives is something I’d like to explore in a future paper.

22

express values we endorse or whose stories we find compelling. Anyone who watches

televised sports knows that a great deal of coverage focuses on attributes of athletes that

have little bearing on what occurs on the field of play. Stories of athletes and their lives

matter a great deal, and accomplishments and failures are integrated into, and understood

through, these narratives. Lance Armstrong’s narrative of illness, recovery, and success

fits this model perfectly, making him one of the most potent symbols of moral

disapprobation for PED users.

Although always an incredibly capable cyclist, Armstrong’s story has a clear

narrative arc; involving recovery from testicular cancer followed by a record 7 Tour de

France wins. Unlike McGwire, who largely retreated from public life after his retirement

and rarely addressed accusations of PED use, Armstrong went after his detractors, suing

those who accused him of doping. In conversation with Oprah Winfrey, he claimed that

this was because he was “trying to perpetuate the story and hide the truth” (Winfrey,

2013). Armstrong clung to his narrative with all his might, seeking to maintain the public

identity he had worked so tirelessly to cultivate.

There is something telling about the fact that Armstrong was such a tenacious

curator of his own narrative. To attempt to control one’s own public narrative fails to

recognize the sense in which we are all part of a web of social relationships that we may

never fully control. In attempting to do so, we run the risk of turning any deviation from

that story into an especially heinous moral error.

How then are we understand questions of identity and narrative in the context of

sport? Obviously, Lance Armstrong lied. Is the lie simply that he used PEDs in his

pursuit of cycling glory despite claiming that he had not? If this were the case, we might

23

be disappointed or displeased, but we could still make sense of Lance Armstrong and his

accomplishments. I believe that the lie was much more profound and causes us to no

longer believe that Armstrong is the person we previously thought. Someone won the

Tour de France 7 consecutive times, but according to the cycling community, that person

is not Lance Armstrong. Who was it then? Was it the same person who raised millions of

dollars for cancer research? Because we cannot integrate the information that Armstrong

doped into his carefully cultivated public identity, it is difficult to answer this question.

Perhaps we might merely say that Armstrong was not who we took him to be. While his

PED use disqualified him from winning, there are still numerous questions about the man

himself, and attempting to answer these questions challenges us to understand him.28

Ultimately then, thinking about PED usage in terms of who athletes are offers

valuable conceptual tools for making sense of why we are disappointed with athletes who

use PEDs, and the lens of narrative sharpens the focus. When a person participating in an

athletic competition cheats by breaking a constitutive rule, we might say that they are not

playing or that they are not playing properly. When a person dopes, we find them no

longer fit to represent the game. Finally, by violating or acting against what we

understand to be the central components of their narrative, we may find them

unintelligible, which may even compromise their worthiness to participate in the

community of moral agents.

6. Conclusion

28 There are many in the cycling community who never believed Armstong’s claims in the first place. I do think it plausible that different persons may stand in different epistemic relationships to specific stories and for this reason may believe or disbelieve parts of the narrative that are put forward as truths. What this suggests is the extraordinary complexity of narrative and how we come to understand one another.

24

I would like to close by offering a few brief thoughts about my view and its

potential for other applications. While the idea that “lying about oneself” helps us to

make sense of our moral condemnation of PED users, it may also offer insight in other

areas. I utilized a series of cases taken from both the athletic and political realms to

suggest the usefulness of a narrative orientation. While I do believe that athletes may be

special in part because we come to care deeply about their stories, this does not entail that

narrative concerns do not play a role in our understanding and adjudication in different

contexts. We generally do care about who the people in our lives are, and this involves

stories that offer both explanatory and predictive power. And, whether they are personal

friends or personal heroes, we experience anger and even pain when we find out that we

are wrong. Our disdain seems likely to mirror the degree to which we care about the

person or identify with the story they have told. While the transgressions of strangers

may cause us little pain, the strength with which we identify with our sports heroes makes

their lies difficult to bear.

Violating the arc of one’s own narrative might appear, at first blush, to be morally

troubling only insofar as it involves a lie. While I agree that the issue of lying is central to

all of the cases I put forward, I believe that there is something distinct about McGwire,

Edwards, and Armstrong. When we lie about our actions, we may be misleading others

into thinking that we have done things that we have not or have some attribute that we do

not. Such lies, when discovered, will disrupt how others view us, but can ultimately be

integrated into a picture of who we are. However, if the departure is too severe, such

reintegration may not be possible, either because the new information is so troubling that

we can no longer respect the person (Edwards) or so incongruous with our previous

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understanding that we can no longer make sense of them (the dishonest bibliophile). In

both such cases, while we may be able to write a new narrative that takes this information

into consideration, relationships risk being severed and beliefs about the person in

question must be discarded. What is especially significant about a person like Edwards is

that what we discard is nearly every part of the story through which we understood his

life.

There are, however, cases where time and explanation may allow us to rewrite

narratives without dispensing of the entire history. Mark McGwire may be such a case.

Unlike Lance Armstrong, he has not been banned from his sport, and while his admission

of guilt has received a great deal of both positive and negative feedback, his continued

participation in MLB suggests that he has been able to salvage something of who he once

was, bringing it into alignment with a slightly different narrative than the one he appeared

to endorsed in the 1990’s. And while MLB may not be totally confident in

acknowledging the significance of his earlier accomplishments, the person he is today

still retains some of that former glory.

26

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