11 Working towards a conclusion
If you have studied with The Open University or written assignments at another university, you will know that a good written argument works towards a conclusion, drawing on the evidence that has been presented. A further skill in drawing an argument together is careful use of language to convey that there are often uncertainties in claimed facts or arguments. For example, you have already heard how ‘claims’ can be a useful term. Also, use of hedging words (such as ‘maybe’, ‘appear to’, ‘perhaps’, ‘indicate’, ‘suggest’, ‘sometimes’, ‘often’, ‘mostly’ ‘partly’ or ‘probably’) can ensure your writing recognises that evidence may not always be clear-cut.
You will now hear a group of academics from Loughborough University begin to pull together their discussion about doping in sport.
Activity 11 Pulling together a discussion
Timing: Allow about 20 minutes
For context, immediately before this clip, the discussion featured some arguments for the use of doping, such as:
- Sport is part of the entertainment industry: we don’t regulate drug use in rock music or in acting/film-making.
- Fairness – poor countries don’t have access to computer analysis or expensive cycling/rowing/sailing equipment or high-altitude training camps, which maintains rich countries’ dominance in the Olympic Games medals table. For some, doping represents a cheap science.
- While harm reduction arguments against doping are often used, in contact sports we avoid saying, ‘don’t play rugby’, or, ‘don’t box’, because they’re dangerous. How can we legitimately say ‘avoid some drugs’ because they could be dangerous?
Listen to this audio and identify the following.
- What are the main moral and commercial arguments for strongly supporting anti-doping?
- What other complexities are raised in this attempt to conclude a discussion about doping?
Download this audio clip.Audio player: Working towards a conclusion
Transcript: Working towards a conclusion
PROFESSOR BARRY HOULIHAN
So there are a number of arguments which would say that there is an inconsistency underpinning the anti-doping regulations. I should say despite all that I still think that we need to defend the anti-doping code and the work that WADA does and it comes back to this notion, this slippery vague notion of the spirit of sport, that sport is not just entertainment there is something distinctive about it. It does have a set of qualities and a sort of moral underpinning that makes it different from simple entertainment. It is the sort of examples that James gave about would you want to encourage members of your family to takes these risks, but would we want to consume sport as spectators if we knew that it was routinely underpinned by doping. I think one just marginal comment to this is that although many families would withdraw their children or discourage their children from participating in sport if it involved taking drugs there are plenty of examples of parents doing the exact opposite. I remember reading a paper some years ago about the number of parents who came to, this was in the United States, to doctors asking for their children to be usually male children to be given human growth hormones because they were going to be six foot two but if they were going to continue to be good at basketball they needed to be six foot six or six foot eight and there are a number of examples of parents who are quite willing to take that risk on behalf of their children, or getting their children to take those risks. It’s a highly controversial area but I think when it comes down to what sport is, we do have to come back to this awkward notion of the spirit of sport, that sport is something special and we need to defend it and that is what the code is trying to do and what WADA is trying to do.
MARTIN FOSTER
Barry, I think that’s an outstanding articulation of some of the controversial pros of legalising doping that underpin very nicely with the spirit of sport and the moral side of things and why actually I think we’re all saying no but it’s a very great point there that people could probably touch upon and talk about.
Daniel, do you have something to add there?
DR DANIEL READ
Just to echo really what James and Barry have said already that I also kind of disagree with the argument that it should be legalised and I think very much building on what they’ve already said. When we look at sports like American football right now in the US that are going through a concussion crisis, and we see adults actively pulling their children out of that sport. For a lot of sports legalising doping could spell the end of it in terms of the commercial and popular success because once a sport does become associated with a stigma of doping, so James’ example of his daughter there is a real potential that is not often mentioned in this discussion that everyone thinks that legalising doping in a sport would be, well everyone’s going to turn and watch it because we’ll see the most fantastic athletes, but for a number of sports it could actually have the reverse effect in the long term and see their ultimate demise because parents don’t want their children involved in these sports and that point often gets lost but I think it very nicely rounds into what James and Barry have said.
PROFESSOR BARRY HOULIHAN
From the point of view of those organisations who are making huge sums of money out of spot, what is the unique selling point of sport and I think there are a number of points here. One is that it’s youthful, it’s exciting but it’s also seen as relatively clean. Dan’s exactly right, you then put at risk this golden industry which is generating so much money for broadcasting companies and for international sport federations and the IOC. So, there are a number of commercial as well as moral arguments for trying to strengthen and support the work of the World Anti-Doping Agency.
PROFESSOR JAMES SKINNER
And this is where the tension lies as well, I think because the commercial underpinnings of professional sport in many cases leads to sport organisations not wanting to be transparent about doping. They don’t want to embrace the code fully or they don’t want to embrace anti-doping practices. They want to protect the brand. And sometimes what that means is the challenges for WADA as a consequence become complex because organisations see the commercial value of sport that it is bringing in and if you tarnish that brand as Dan alluded to then your broadcasting numbers can fall, your attendance numbers may drop, so your revenue suffers as a consequence.
There’s numerous examples of sporting organisations failure to recognise or acknowledge the extent perhaps to what doping was going on within their sports for commercial reasons.
Working towards a conclusion
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Discussion
- In their discussion the academics came to a clear conclusion about why anti-doping is so important. The main moral argument is about sport having distinctive qualities and moral characteristics (i.e. the ‘spirit of sport’). A commercial argument was expressed about the unique selling point of sport being its youthful and relatively clean image. They claimed this image needs to be protected in the mass media and among parents.
- The complexities include the inconsistency of some parents being happy to risk their children taking human growth hormone drugs to develop for particular sports. Possible inconsistencies exist in sports organisations not always robustly policing their sports for fear of harming its commercial image. This opens debate to how effectively sports are governed, which has been deliberately kept out of scope to help keep the argument focused.
Although you have only scratched the surface of the doping issue, here is an example of what could be summarised as a tentative conclusion in our short doping example.
- Continued collaboration around the world is important to help tackle doping, and the establishment of WADA has been key to this.
- It is difficult to talk about drug-free sport since, as history shows, sport has never been clean and eliminating doping is virtually impossible, just as a crime-free society is unlikely. Instead, sport should aspire to reduce doping to the lowest levels it can.
- Sports being removed from the Olympic Games for continued doping offences may provide a good incentive for organisations to act robustly to preserve the spirit of sport.
Next you will look back at some of the main learning points from the course.