Post No. 143d: Is a Professional Athlete Justified in Lying about Performance Enhancing Drugs?

Earlier today, former professional baseball player Mark McGwire publicly admitted that he was using steroids at the time that he broke baseball's home run record in 1998. He said that he knew that this day would come.

During a Senate investigation into steroid use at the professional sports level, he chose to neither confirm nor deny his use. Other professional athletes have admitted their use, while others have denied it.

Is the use of performance enhancing drugs a form of cheating? Is the refusal of someone to respond to direct questions about their use tantamount to lying? Is cheating an implicit form of lying?

In the event that a teammate sees a colleague using such supplements, should he or she automatically disclose this information, only when asked, only when it adversely affects the team, only when it positively impacts the team, or keep the information to him or herself?

What if the questions are directed toward the use by someone else about that other person's use? Is the respondent justified in lying about the acts of another?

Is the use of such supplements purely a personal matter about which the public should not be concerned?

We previously generated a piece entitled, 27 Situations Where People We Respect Claim that "Lying" is Appropriate. Instead of simply re-posting the text of the original article, we are directing people to the original post and the comments made at that time regarding the concept and honesty and where it is really expected or demanded.

What's the standard for lying in our society?