The Genealogy of Power: Historical and Philosophical Considerations about Doping

Abstract

The current paper tries to indicate the origin and genealogy of doping. It will be shown that the sport organizations only pretend to have humanistic reasons to prohibit doping, e. g. the health of the athlete, fair play etc.. The real reasons for the prohibition of doping and the way doping control is organized cannot be found in the purity of sport but in the maintenance of power. The norm of "purity" is deeply rooted in traditional Western metaphysics and develops itself into the norm of self-containment of the human body in a sporting context of a modern secular society in which sport has a quasi-religious function. Finally, this way of thinking is critically discussed.