Doping and Moral Disapprovals

Abstract

This paper explores variance in how people morally disapprove wrongs related to doping. The variance may pertain to what type of moral disapproval a person uses or to what they disapprove of. Our exploration is both conceptual and empirical. Conceptually, we distinguish between four types of moral disapprovals that we call blame, judging blameworthy, condemnation and sadness. We elaborate these four moral phenomena through a conceptual scheme that we call the matrix of moral disapprovals. The matrix is the central conceptual innovation of our paper. It depicts how the four moral disapprovals relate to each other and characterises their typical instances. In the empirical part of the paper, we use the matrix of moral disapproval to examine how decision-makers in Finnish elite sport organisations talk about doping. The empirical examination is based on 31 interviews with decision-makers from Finnish elite sport organisations. Although we distinguish between the conceptual and empirical approaches in our paper, they are not fully separate, but support and inform each other.