Sport and human potential: an ethical discussion

Introduction

In this paper I explore the idea that technology can be used as an efficient means to ‘releasing undiscovered potential’ (Rechnitzer, 1989: 68) of athletes. It is undeniable that technology and scientific research has had a profound impact on modern elite sport. Equally, it is clear that there have been benefits: safer equipment can allow athletes to develop new skills and techniques; and many areas of training and conditioning can also be performed both more effectively and more safely. Nevertheless, there is also a sense in which the athlete’s body has become a laboratory specimen, the structure and potential of which can be calculated in clear-cut quantitative terms. Because the typical scientific focus is on understanding the performance, the human is all too easily reduced to a set of data points on a computer spreadsheet. The human and the human aspect of sport are neglected.

Discussion / Conclusion

The aim of this paper is to challenge the dominant view that human potential is a given, to be exploited by scientists and technologists (physiologists, psychologists, biomechanists, engineers, and pharmacologists) alike. First, I outline and explore Scheffler’s (1985) Aristotelian-inspired account of the traditional misconceptions of human potential: (i) fixed potential, (ii) harmonious potentials, and, (iii) uniformly valuable potentials. I argue that sports scientists failure to recognize these misconceptions and damaging normative practices are powerfully at play in their approach to developing human potential in sports. Then, I reflect critically on the nature of human potential in sports in terms of a type of complex human activity as outlined in MacIntyre’s (1985) thesis, After Virtue, which is grounded in a virtue-based practice-tradition model. This includes reference to the place of the virtues in the concept of a practice, the narrative unity of a human life and the concept of a tradition. I conclude that technology and the practices and attitudes it encourages, obscures the proper focus on human capacities and skills given a particular shape by each sport. Rather, ethics and the notion of the good life ought to define the boundaries of what it means to develop human potential in sport. The focus will then be on the wholly human rather than on the reduced picture of physical potential.

References

1. MacIntyre, A. (1985) After virtue, London, Duckworth
   
2. Rechnitzer, P.A. (1989) Canadian Journal of Sport Science, 14, (2),68-73
   
3. Scheffler, I. (1985) Of human potential, London, Routledge