A Modern Day Ring of Gyges – Performance Enhancement (Part 1 of 3)

In the first of this three part series, doctor Dean takes us to school and challenges us all to use our critical thinking skills to really weigh the philosophy of doping. This is an exploration of modern morality that many swimmers and athletes face in their careers, which can be as uncomfortable of an inspection from the outside as it is from the inside, using the backdrop of ancient storytelling as his muse and metaphor.

2500 years ago, in one of the great masterpieces of western philosophical tradition called The Republic, the ancient Greek philosopher Plato proposed a now famous, and still very relevant thought experiment.  His characters, one of them being Plato’s famous teacher Socrates, are worrying about the question of why we should be good.  Why be moral rather than immoral?  After all, morality doesn’t always seem to be particularly advantageous.  Then, as now, when we look around us, doesn’t it sometimes seem to be the case that immoral people are rewarded for their bad behavior and moral people get the short end of the stick for their good behavior?   And if that’s the case, does it really make sense to be moral?

Plato’s thought experiment makes the question even tougher, and more personal.  Suppose, he proposes in the Republic, that there was a magical ring that could make you invisible – In ancient Greek myth, there was such a ring, called the Ring of Gyges (yes you Lord of the Rings fans, this is where Tolkien got his idea, he was a great reader of Plato).  The story goes like this:

Gyges was a Sheppard.  One day there was a terrible earthquake and the earth opens up.  Gyges happens to be walking by the chasm.  He peers in and sees a statue of a horse and what appears to be a corpse.  Being rather fearless, Gyges heads into the chasm.  Once inside he sees a ring on one of the fingers of the corpse.  So he takes it.  After Gyges heads back up to the real world, he’s fooling around with the ring and he discovers something extraordinary.  That is, if he turns the collet of the ring toward himself, he becomes invisible.  If he turns the collet away from himself, he becomes visible again.  And this pleases him.  So what does he do?

Gyges makes himself invisible and he sleeps with the queen.  He rapes her.  And then he kills the king.  And then he takes over the kingship with a new queen at his side.  So this lowly Sheppard, armed with this magical ring is now the king.  In fact, he’s a tyrant.

I suspect many of us have had this fantasy at different times of our lives.  What if we could be invisible?  What would we actually do if we were possessed of this beautiful, powerful, seductive ring?

The reason why the Ring of Gyges example is so effective is that raises the question of why we are being good (assuming that we are).  Is it just because we know other people are watching?  Is it because we are afraid of the consequences of bad actions?  Is it because we want to be thought of as good people?  Or is it, as Socrates thought, that some of us have really thought the questions through and come to the realization that being good actually benefits us and the people around us?

Buried under the sheer ancient weight of 2,500 years of telling, the story of the ring of Gyges has a remote, antiquated, and fanciful feel to it.  But I suggest the story, and the questions it raises, is not so farfetched at all.  In fact, it may be more relevant today than it was in Plato’s time.  A modern day version of the Ring of Gyges may already exist among us:

Imagine a swimmer who has always loved the caress of water across her skin, and she has dreamed of swimming in the Olympics since the first time she dove in a pool.  If not the Olympics, maybe just qualifying for the Olympic Trials so that she can at least have one opportunity to take her best shot.  Or perhaps earn a college scholarship.  But despite a youth spent staring at a black line, pushing herself to her limits every day, forgoing social events, and not so much as indulging in a French fry in favor of her pursuit of excellence, it’s clear she’s going to come up just short.

And one day someone she knows, and even trusts, walks up to the young woman and  says:  “I’ve got a little something in this vial that the governing bodies will never be able to detect.  It’ll give you enough of a boost to get you into the Olympics…”

Should she take the vial?  Why or why not?

We know for certain that the temptation exists.  Just about every month, SwimSwam publishes an article about somebody being accused of taking performance enhancing drugs.  January’s example can be found here.  And, while by definition one can never really “know” such things, there are plenty of circumstantial reasons to believe that others are partaking in enhancement and getting away with it.  So why shouldn’t our hypothetical young swimmer?

Judging from the comments, SwimSwam readers are strongly opposed to performance enhancement, but it isn’t always clear why.  While I share the same moral intuition as many of the commenter’s, I also find the argument against performance enhancement is much tougher to make than it first appears.  Swimming is all about performance enhancement, so when does it spill over from legitimate means to illegitimate ones?  There is more gray area than bright line.  What would you say to the young lady who has worked so hard all of her young life, pursuing her dream?  I invite reader comments.  What are the arguments?

With the strong caveat that I’m not an expert in either the dark art of performance enhancement (other than a broad outline of what may be possible) or of moral philosophy, in the next two installments I’ll try to muddle through some of the debate in the hopes that we can all come away with a better moral understanding of this modern predicament (after all, most of us are not experts about most things, yet we must muddle through our daily lives as best as we can).