Sunday, September 16, 2012

Lunch Chat (9/20): Is Enhancement Cheating?

I saw this column by Alva Noë in NPR's 13.7 blog called "Making Peace with our Cyborg Nature" stimulated by the Lance Armstrong doping controversy. He says of Armstrong:

He is a trailblazer. One of the greats. He didn't win races on his own. No, like each of us in our social embeddings, he created an organization, one drawing on other people, and the creative and effective use of technology, the mastery of biochemistry, to go places and do things that most of us never will, and that no one ever had, before him. That we now attack him, and tear him down, and try to minimize his achievements ... what does this tell us about ourselves?
What indeed? Assuming that Armstrong did dope, are his achievements diminished? Were his actions unfair? What ought to be allowed in sport? We'll chat about this on Thursday the 20th at noon, in the philosophy lounge (62 Coleman Hall).

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