Coaching Ethics and Performance Enhancement

In this chapter, the authors offer a critical summary of the existing philosophical literature that focuses on the use of banned doping products and processes in sport; theirs is a broader account of the concept of performance enhancement. They highlight the tension of performance enhancement in sport where the coach finds him or herself, on the one hand, striving to improve the performances of their athletes through the most efficient means possible, and, on the other hand, accepting that these means must reside within certain acceptable limits. They discuss the coach&s;s role in relation to the use of illicit performance-enhancing drugs, the use of permissible supplements, and physical and psychological abuse in training.