Benchmark Assignment: Ethical Dilemmas

Benchmark Assignment: Ethical Dilemmas

In the last twenty-five years, more than 240 cyclists at the elite level were found to have used performance-enhancing drugs. Admitting that the only way to succeed or win at that level of competition, professional cyclists contend that ‘doping’ was a necessity and an inevitable practice to stay competitive (Wang, 2015). Performance-enhancing drugs, or PEDS, are illegal at all levels of sports competition, yet many athletes are willing to take the risk in order to be the best. Legal, physical, and ethical issues no doubt play a significant role when athletes are faced with the decision to dope or not to dope. In this paper I will be summarize the ethical dilemma Paul, an athlete, is faced with, present

Because atheists contend that there is no spiritual influence or ‘ultimate reality’ in the world, they do not see the body as representative of the image of God (Hiles and Smith, 2015). Purely based on the assumption that God does not exist, the idea of the body as a temple would have no significance for them. Their belief is that there is nothing beyond the physical universe, focusing on the science and not the spiritual realm. Their view of the body, then, would be solely from a science perspective. What does science say about the effects of performance enhancing drugs? What are the ramifications of taking them? Atheists would consider the same questions as Christians but base their decision-making process on a completely different set of criteria. Their conclusions would consider health alone with no spiritual consideration. Likewise, atheists would also consider the implications of the legality of using these drugs. Right or wrong, legal or illegal, those considerations would certainly be in the forefront. However, their reasoning would not be derived from living in accordance to God’s design for humanity (Pasley, 2015), but instead they would be influenced with experiences and present interactions with others that would shape their ideology. Once again, they would not look definitively at a superior being (God) for answers because in their belief system, it does not exist. Ultimately, their decisions to use or not use performance-enhancing drugs could parallel that of the Christian, but the basis for their reasoning would be from opposite ends of the