The Injury and the Injection
Darragh (17) is captain of his school's senior hurling team, which plays in an All-Ireland schools' final in twelve days. His teammate Cian (17) tore a hamstring six weeks ago. A private physio has supplied Cian with a growth-hormone-releasing peptide, which Cian says is 'not really a banned drug - it's just recovery'. The World Anti-Doping Agency's Prohibited List places such peptides in category S2. Cian asked Darragh to collect a package for him, so Darragh knows the details. Cian argues: 'One injection. I'm not a professional. The rules are for cheats and I'm not cheating, I'm healing. Do you want us to lose?' Darragh's older brother tells him to 'mind your own business'. Darragh also knows the school's anti-doping policy is 'zero tolerance', that the team could be disqualified, and that Cian has not told his parents or the coach. The final is the biggest game either of them will ever play.
1. Analyse Cian's argument using one consequentialist and one deontological approach, and state which you find more persuasive and why.
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Cian's argument. (i) It is a single injection. (ii) He is not a professional athlete. (iii) He is recovering, not cheating. (iv) The team benefits.
Consequentialist analysis (rule utilitarianism). Ask what rule produces the greatest overall good if generally followed. A rule permitting injured school players to use WADA-banned peptides would produce short-term gains for a few teams, serious health risks for adolescents whose endocrine systems are still developing, an arms race in schools, unfair outcomes for clean athletes and eventual scandal. The act-utilitarian calculation for this single case may look favourable, but it ignores precedent, probability of detection and disqualification. Rule utilitarianism clearly rejects the injection.
Deontological analysis (Kant). Universalise: 'Whenever I am injured before an important match, I may use a banned substance to recover.' Universalised, the anti-doping rule collapses - the very rule Cian wants the benefit of an exception from. Cian is also treating himself and his teammates as means to the school's glory rather than as ends. He owes a duty of fidelity to the rules he competes under. Kant would reject the 'not a professional' distinction as arbitrary: the WADA Code applies to all sport, and schools are bound by it under strict liability.
Which is more persuasive? Consequentialism captures the real-world stakes - health, fairness, reputation - and is easier to explain to a 17-year-old. Deontology captures why Cian's argument is incoherent rather than merely imprudent. In practice the two converge, which is a stronger ground for Darragh than either alone.
2. Explain the role of conscience in Darragh's decision, and evaluate the claim that 'loyalty to a teammate outweighs telling'.
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What conscience is. In the Catholic tradition, synderesis is the basic inclination to do good and avoid evil; conscientia is the act of applying moral principles to a particular situation. Conscience is therefore not a feeling but a judgement, and it must be formed - by education, by the moral law, by experience and by seeking advice. Newman described conscience as a voice that can be suppressed but not silenced; Freud described it more sceptically as the internalised superego; Fromm distinguished an 'authoritarian' conscience (fear of punishment) from a 'humanistic' one (loyalty to one's own best self).
Darragh's conscience. He already knows the facts and feels the pull of two goods: friendship and fairness. His conscience is not in doubt about the facts, but about the weight to give them.
Evaluating 'loyalty outweighs telling'.
- Strengths: loyalty is a genuine virtue; betraying a friend is a real harm; informing can be disproportionate; Darragh is not a police officer.
- Weaknesses: loyalty is not absolute. It is bounded by the common good and by the friend's own good. Concealing the injection is not loyalty to Cian - it colludes in a health risk and a rule breach that may disqualify the team. 'Mind your own business' confuses privacy with complicity.
- Virtue test: what would a person of phronesis do? Not a public denunciation, but a private, firm conversation, a deadline and, if refused, escalation.
Judgement. Loyalty requires Darragh to speak to Cian first, not to the principal first. But it does not license silence. The claim is true only as a claim about manner, not about outcome.
3. Recommend what Darragh should do, in order, and justify the sequence.
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Sequence.
- Private conversation with Cian (today). State plainly what he knows, that the peptide is on the S2 Prohibited List, that the school has zero tolerance, and that Cian is risking his health and the team's place in the final. Ask him to stop and to tell the coach himself. This protects Cian's dignity and gives him the chance to act first.
- Offer a route: go with him to the coach, the physio or the school's designated person.
- Set a deadline: 48 hours, before the next training session, so the decision is not deferred to the eve of the final.
- Escalate if he refuses: tell the coach and, if necessary, the principal. Darragh should say he is doing this, not do it behind Cian's back.
- Protect himself: record the dates and what was said; do not handle or store the package.
Justification.
- Harm prevention: an adolescent using an unregulated growth-hormone peptide is a medical risk, not a lifestyle choice.
- Fairness and rule-following: the team's place is at stake; other schools are competing clean.
- Manner matters: step 1 preserves the friendship and gives Cian agency; step 4 accepts that friendship does not extend to collusion.
- Limits: Darragh is 17, not an investigator. He should not confront the physio or police the whole team, and he should be told where to get support himself.
What would be wrong. Doing nothing, or going straight to the principal without speaking to Cian, would each fail one of the two values in tension.