Ethics in the Real World (Kindle highlights)

There is a view in some philosophical circles that anything that can be understood by people who have not studied philosophy is not profound enough to be worth saying. To the contrary, I suspect that whatever cannot be said clearly is probably not being thought clearly either. (loc. 132-135)
Articles in peer-reviewed journals are, according to one study, read in full by an average of just ten people. (loc. 141-143)
Moral judgments are not purely subjective; in that, they are different from judgments of taste. (loc. 147-148)
Nor is ethics just a matter of expressing our intuitive responses of repugnance or approval, even if these intuitions are widely shared. (loc. 151-152)
We must cherish our world because everything humans have ever valued exists only on that pale blue dot. (p. 4)
Russell himself was no nihilist. He thought that it was important to confront the fact of our insignificant place in the universe, because he did not want us to live under the illusory comfort of a belief that somehow the world had been created for our sake, and that we are under the benevolent care of an all-powerful creator. (p. 4)
If Parfit is right, there is much less disagreement between apparently conflicting moral theories than we all thought. The defenders of each of these theories are, in Parfit’s vivid phrase, “climbing the same mountain on different sides.” (p. 8)
Hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue, and the fact that racists and sexists must pay this tribute is an indication of some moral progress. (p. 11)
Words do have consequences, and what one generation says but does not really believe, the next generation may believe, and even act upon. (p. 11)
We can be sure that we do not live in a world that was created by a god who is all-powerful, all-knowing, and all good. (p. 12)
(Some say that we need to have some suffering to appreciate what it is like to be happy. Maybe—but we surely don’t need as much as we have.) (p. 14)
The evidence of our own eyes makes it more plausible to believe that the world is not created by a god at all. If, however, we insist on divine creation, the god who made the world cannot be all-powerful and all-good. He must either be evil or a bungler. (p. 14)
One problem is that we cannot, without lapsing into tautology, simultaneously say that God is good, and that he gave us our sense of good and bad. For then we are simply saying that God meets God’s standards. (p. 15)
A second problem is that there are no moral principles that are shared by all religious people, regardless of their specific beliefs, but by no agnostics and atheists. (p. 15)
The third difficulty for the view that morality is rooted in religion is that some elements of morality seem to be universal, despite sharp doctrinal differences among the world’s major religions. (p. 16)
Over millions of years we have evolved a moral faculty that generates intuitions about right and wrong. (p. 16)
These studies provide empirical support for the idea that, like other psychological faculties of the mind, including language and mathematics, we are endowed with a moral faculty that guides our intuitive judgments of right and wrong. (p. 17)
Why are some people prepared to risk their lives to help a stranger when others won’t even stop to dial an emergency number? (p. 19)
It seems plausible that humans, like rats, are spread along a continuum of readiness to help others. (p. 20)
But if our brain’s chemistry does affect our moral behavior, the question of whether that balance is set in a natural way or by medical intervention will make no difference in how freely we act. (p. 21)
Does a prisoner’s terminal illness justify compassionate release? (p. 24)
Do I have here an example of how, as Solon said, what happens after one dies does make a difference to how well one’s life goes? I don’t think you have to believe in an afterlife to give this question an affirmative answer. (p. 30)
HAVE YOU EVER THOUGHT ABOUT WHETHER to have a child? If so, what factors entered into your decision? Was it whether having children would be good for you, your partner, and others close to the possible child, such as children you may already have, or perhaps your parents? For most people contemplating reproduction, those are the dominant questions. Some may also think about the desirability of adding to the strain that the nearly seven billion people already here are putting on our planet’s environment. But very few ask whether coming into existence is a good thing for the child itself. (p. 31)
How good does life have to be to make it reasonable to bring a child into the world? (p. 31)
The nineteenth-century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer held that even the best life possible for humans is one in which we strive for ends that, once achieved, bring only fleeting satisfaction. New desires then lead us on to further futile struggle, and the cycle repeats itself. (p. 32)
Benatar also argues that human lives are, in general, much less good than we think they are. (p. 32)
If we think that this is a tolerable state of affairs it is because we are, in Benatar’s view, victims of the illusion of pollyannaism. This illusion may have evolved because it helped our ancestors survive, but it is an illusion nonetheless. If we could see our lives objectively, we would see that they are not something we should inflict on anyone. (p. 32)
Is a world with people in it better than one without? (p. 33)
Can non-existent people have a right to come into existence? (p. 33)
In my judgment, for most people, life is worth living. Even if that is not yet the case, I am enough of an optimist to believe that, should humans survive for another century or two, we will learn from our past mistakes and bring about a world in which there is far less suffering than there is now. (p. 33)
Or, difficult as it may be to accept, maybe it is not just a matter of communication: perhaps some humanities disciplines really have become less relevant to the exciting and fast-changing world in which we live. (p. 35)
Perhaps the growing interest in reflecting on the universe and our lives is the result of the fact that, for at least a billion people on our planet, the problems of food, shelter, and personal security have largely been solved. (p. 37)
Doing philosophy—thinking and arguing about it, not just passively reading it—develops our critical reasoning abilities, and so equips us for many of the challenges of a rapidly changing world. (p. 37)
I know from my own experience that taking a course in philosophy can lead students to turn vegan, pursue careers that enable them to give half their income to effective charities, and even donate a kidney to a stranger. How many other disciplines can say that? (p. 37)
Why is Europe so far ahead of other countries in its concern for animals? (p. 43)
The end of the battery cage in Europe is a less dramatic development than the Arab Spring, but, like that popular uprising, it began with a small group of thoughtful and committed people. (p. 43)
My father told me that he could not understand how anyone could enjoy an afternoon spent taking fish out of the water and letting them die slowly. (p. 44)
It would then be reassuring to believe that killing on such a vast scale does not matter, because fish do not feel pain. But the nervous systems of fish are sufficiently similar to those of birds and mammals to suggest that they do. When fish experience something that would cause other animals physical pain, they behave in ways suggestive of pain, and the change in behavior may last several hours. (It is a myth that fish have short memories.) Fish learn to avoid unpleasant experiences, like electric shocks. And painkillers reduce the symptoms of pain that they would otherwise show. (p. 46)
We need to learn how to capture and kill wild fish humanely—or, if that is not possible, to find less cruel and more sustainable alternatives to eating them. (p. 46)
Everything we get from whales can be obtained without cruelty. Causing suffering to innocent beings without an extremely weighty reason for doing so is wrong, and hence whaling is unethical. (p. 48)
Whaling should stop because it brings needless suffering to social, intelligent animals capable of enjoying their own lives. But against the Japanese charge of cultural bias, Western nations will have little defense until they do much more about the needless animal suffering in their own countries. (p. 49)
Going vegan is a simpler choice that sets a clear-cut example for others to follow. (p. 54)
There are important ethical reasons why we should replace animal meat with in vitro meat, if we can do it at reasonable cost. The first is to reduce animal suffering. (p. 61)
The second reason for replacing animal meat is environmental. Using meat from animals, especially ruminants, is heating the planet and contributing to a future in which hundreds of millions of people become climate refugees. (p. 61)
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization has acknowledged that greenhouse gas emissions from livestock exceed those from all forms of transport—cars, trucks, planes, and ships—combined. (p. 62)
Declaring a chimpanzee a person doesn’t mean giving him or her the right to vote, attend school, or sue for defamation. It simply means giving him or her the most basic, fundamental right of having legal standing, rather than being considered a mere object. (p. 64)
It is time for the courts to recognize that the way we treat chimpanzees is indefensible. They are persons and we should end their wrongful imprisonment (p. 65)
In 1992, Switzerland became the first country to include a statement about protecting the dignity of animals in its constitution; (p. 68)
Membership of the species Homo sapiens is not enough to confer a right to life on a being. Nor can something like self-awareness or rationality warrant greater protection for the fetus than for, say, a cow, because the fetus has mental capacities that are inferior to those of cows. (p. 75)
We have no obligation to allow every being with the potential to become a rational being to realize that potential. If it comes to a clash between the supposed interests of potentially rational but not yet even conscious beings and the vital interests of actually rational women, we should give preference to the women every time. (p. 76)
That is why, in making life-and-death decisions for premature infants born in the “gray zone” where survival is uncertain and the risk of serious disability is high, parents’ views should play a major role in the decision to provide life-prolonging treatment. (p. 80)
Bennett, in her eloquent statement, looked forward to the day when the law would allow a physician to act not only on a prior “living will” that bars life-prolonging treatment, but also on one that requests a lethal dose when the patient becomes incapacitated to a specified extent. Such a change would remove the anxiety that some patients with progressive dementia have that they will go on too long and miss the opportunity to end their life at all. The legislation Bennett suggests would enable people in her condition to live as long as they want—but not longer than that. (p. 95)
Taylor sees the law as offering her a cruel choice: either end her life when she still finds it enjoyable, but is capable of killing herself, or give up the right that others have to end their lives when they choose. (p. 97)
Like it or not, then, we face a future in which eugenics will once again become an issue. (p. 105)
The most common objection to organ trading is that it exploits the poor. (p. 111)
There are many places where savings can be made. Encouraging people to exercise, to avoid smoking, to use alcohol only in moderation, and to eat less red meat would help to reduce health-care costs. (p. 114)
Treating dying patients who do not want to go on living is a waste, yet only a few countries allow physicians actively to assist a patient who requests aid in dying. In the United States, about 27 percent of Medicare’s budget goes toward care in the last year of life. (p. 114)
GiveWell, which evaluates organizations working to save the lives of the world’s poor, has identified several that can save a life for under $5,000. (p. 116)
Against that background, spending $200,000 to give a patient in an affluent country a relatively short period of extra life becomes more than financially dubious. It is morally wrong. (p. 117)
Moreover, wherever health-care costs are paid by everyone—including the US, with its public health-care programs for the poor and the elderly—everyone pays the cost of efforts to treat the diseases caused by cigarettes. (p. 119)
Requiring that cigarettes be sold in plain packs with health warnings and graphic images is equal-opportunity legislation for the rational beings inside us. (p. 121)
Obesity is an ethical issue, because an increase in weight by some imposes costs on others. (p. 122)
Last year the Society of Actuaries estimated that in the United States and Canada, people who are overweight or obese accounted for $127 billion in additional health-care expenditures. (p. 123)
The same study indicated that the costs of lost productivity, both among those still working and among those unable to work at all because of obesity, amounted to $115 billion. (p. 123)
These facts are enough to justify public policies that discourage weight gain. Taxing foods that are disproportionately implicated in obesity, especially foods of no nutritive value like sugary drinks, would help. (p. 124)
Which medical breakthrough would do the most to improve our lives? If your first thought is “a cure for cancer” or “a cure for heart disease,” think again. (p. 125)
If we cure one of these diseases, those who would have died from it can expect to succumb to another in a few years. The benefit is therefore modest. (p. 125)
People in rich countries already can expect to live about 30 years longer than people in the poorest countries. (p. 126)
If our planet has a finite capacity to support human life, is it better to have fewer people living longer lives, or more people living shorter lives? (p. 127)
Globally, economic and population growth continue to be “the most important drivers” of increases in CO2 emissions from fossil-fuel combustion. (p. 131)
In the case of the incest taboo, our response has an obvious evolutionary explanation. But should we allow our judgment of what is a crime to be determined by feelings of repugnance that may have strengthened the evolutionary fitness of ancestors who lacked effective contraception? (p. 137)
If you did that in the real world, most of us would agree that you did something seriously wrong. But is it seriously wrong to have virtual sex with a virtual child? (p. 142)
When someone proposes making something a criminal offense, we should always ask: who is harmed? (p. 143)
Video games are properly subject to legal controls, not when they enable people to do things that, if real, would be crimes, but when there is evidence on the basis of which we can reasonably conclude that they are likely to increase serious crime in the real world. At present, the evidence for that is stronger for games involving violence than it is for virtual realities that permit pedophilia. (p. 144)
Since politicians ask us to entrust them with sweeping powers, it can be argued that we should know as much as possible about their morality. (p. 147)
But does the legitimate interest in knowing more about a politician extend to details about personal relations? It is hard to draw a line of principle around any area and determine if knowledge of it will provide relevant information about a politician’s moral character. (p. 148)
In the United States, at least, breaching sexual norms still brings with it a moral opprobrium that is unrelated to any real harm it may do. (p. 149)
(In fact, there is some evidence that having two lesbians as parents gives a child a better start in life than any other combination.) (p. 152)
Imagine further how, wherever homosexual relationships are lawful, the obstacles to gay and lesbian marriage would vanish if the state did not require the spouses to state their sex. The same would apply to adoption. (In fact, there is some evidence that having two lesbians as parents gives a child a better start in life than any other combination.) (p. 152)
We tend to think of charity as something that is “morally optional”—good to do, but not wrong to fail to do. As long as one does not kill, maim, steal, cheat, and so on, one can be a morally virtuous citizen, even if one spends lavishly and gives nothing to charity. But those who have enough to spend on luxuries, yet fail to share even a tiny fraction of their income with the poor, must bear some responsibility for the deaths they could have prevented. (p. 161)
We tend to think of charity as something that is “morally optional”—good to do, but not wrong to fail to do. As long as one does not kill, maim, steal, cheat, and so on, one can be a morally virtuous citizen, even if one spends lavishly and gives nothing to charity. But those who have enough to spend on luxuries, yet fail to share even a tiny fraction of their income with the poor, must bear some responsibility for the deaths they could have prevented. Those who do not meet even the minimal 1% standard should be seen as doing something that is morally wrong. (p. 161)
To give that amount requires no moral heroics. To fail to give it shows indifference to the continuation of dire poverty and avoidable, poverty-related deaths. (p. 162)
In the United States, individual donors give about $200 billion to charities each year. No one knows how effective that vast sum is in achieving the goals that donors intend to support. By giving charities an incentive to become more transparent and more focused on being demonstrably effective, GiveWell could make our charitable donations do much more good than ever before. (p. 166)
JESUS SAID THAT WE SHOULD GIVE ALMS in private rather than when others are watching. That fits with the commonsense idea that if people only do good in public, they may be motivated by a desire to gain a reputation for generosity. Perhaps when no one is looking, they are not generous at all. (p. 167)
According to evolutionary psychologists, such displays of blatant benevolence are the human equivalent of the male peacock’s tail. (p. 167)
We may well look askance at a lavish new concert hall, but not because the donor’s name is chiseled into the marble façade. Rather, we should question whether, in a world in which 25,000 impoverished children die unnecessarily every day, another concert hall is what the world needs. (p. 167)
Those who make it known that they give to charity increase the likelihood that others will do the same. (p. 168)
We need to get over our reluctance to speak openly about the good we do. Silent giving will not change a culture that deems it sensible to spend all your money on yourself and your family, rather than to help those in greater need—even though helping others is likely to bring more fulfillment in the long run. (p. 169)
In general, where human welfare is concerned, we will achieve more if we help those in extreme poverty in developing countries, as our dollars go much further there. (p. 173)
Thinking about which fields offer the most positive impact for your time and money is still in its infancy, but with more effective altruists researching the issues, we are starting to see real progress. (p. 174)
It’s obvious, isn’t it, that saving a child’s life is better than fulfilling a child’s wish to be Batkid? If Miles’s parents had been offered that choice—Batkid for a day or a cure for their son’s leukemia—they surely would have chosen the cure. (p. 175)
The answer lies, at least in part, in those above-mentioned emotions, which, as psychological research shows, make the plight of a single identifiable individual much more salient to us than that of a large number of people we cannot identify. (p. 176)
That is a flaw in our emotional make-up, one that developed over millions of years when we could help only people we could see in front of us. It is not justification for ignoring the needs of distant strangers. (p. 176)
If artists, art critics, and art buyers really had any interest in reducing the widening gap between the rich and the poor, they would be focusing their efforts on developing countries, where spending a few thousand dollars on the purchase of works by indigenous artists could make a real difference to the well-being of entire villages. (p. 181)
Nothing I have said here counts against the importance of creating art. Drawing, painting, and sculpting, like singing or playing a musical instrument, are significant forms of self-expression, and our lives would be poorer without them. (p. 181)
As for why buyers pay these outlandish sums, my guess is that they think that owning original works by well-known artists will enhance their own status. (p. 181)
In a more ethical world, to spend tens of millions of dollars on works of art would be status-lowering, not status-enhancing. (p. 181)
So far, surprisingly little work has been put into systematically understanding the risks of human extinction and how best to reduce them. (p. 184)
A reasonable first step toward reducing the risk of human extinction is to investigate these issues more thoroughly, or support others in doing so. (p. 184)
One very bad thing about human extinction would be that billions of people would likely die painful deaths. But in our view, this is, by far, not the worst thing about human extinction. The worst thing about human extinction is that there would be no future generations. (p. 185)
We believe that future generations matter just as much as our generation does. (p. 185)
More dramatically, people in Austria, France, Japan, and Germany appear to be no happier than people in much poorer countries, like Brazil, Colombia, and the Philippines. (p. 191)
Americans are richer than they were in the 1950s, but they are not happier. Americans in the middle-income range today—that is, a family income of $50,000–$90,000—have a level of happiness that is almost identical to well-off Americans, with a family income of more than $90,000. (p. 191)
In an article published in Science on June 30, they report that their data confirm that there is little correlation between income and happiness. On the contrary, Kahneman and his colleagues found that people with higher incomes spent more time in activities that are associated with negative feelings, such as tension and stress. Instead of having more time for leisure, they spent more time at and commuting to work. They were more often in moods that they described as hostile, angry, anxious, and tense. (p. 192)
For nomadic societies, there was no point in owning anything that one could not carry, but once humans settled down and developed a system of money, that limit to acquisition disappeared. (p. 192)
Accumulating money up to a certain amount provides a safeguard against lean times, but today it has become an end in itself, a way of measuring one’s status or success, and a goal to fall back on when we can think of no other reason for doing anything, but would be bored doing nothing. Making money gives us something to do that feels worthwhile, as long as we do not reflect too much on why we are doing it. (p. 192)
Buffett reminds us that there is more to happiness than being in a good mood. (p. 194)
Problems arise when we try to agree on a definition of happiness, and to measure it. (p. 196)
One important question is whether we see happiness as the surplus of pleasure over pain experienced over a lifetime, or as the degree to which we are satisfied with our lives. (p. 196)
to measure happiness defined in that way, one would have to sample moments of people’s existence randomly, and try to find out whether they are experiencing positive or negative mental states. (p. 196)
A second approach asks people: “How satisfied are you with the way your life has gone so far?” If they say they are satisfied, or very satisfied, they are happy, rather than unhappy. (p. 196)
It is not clear whether people’s answers to survey questions in different languages and in different cultures really mean the same thing. (p. 196)
DEPRESSION IS, according to a World Health Organization study, the world’s fourth worst health problem, measured by how many years of good health it causes to be lost. By 2020, it is likely to rank second, behind heart disease. Yet not nearly enough is being done to treat or prevent it. (p. 199)
A few years ago, a research team led by Vikram Patel reported in the British Medical Journal that depression is common in Zimbabwe, where it was often known by a Shona word that means “thinking too much.” (p. 200)
Perhaps we need to focus on aspects of living that have a positive effect on mental health. Many recent studies show that spending time relaxing with family and friends contributes to how happy people are with their lives, while long working hours, and especially long commuting times, contribute to stress and unhappiness. (p. 201)
Governments can’t legislate happiness or ban depression, but public policy can play a role in ensuring that people have time to relax with friends, and pleasant places to do it. (p. 201)
Although later research has cast doubt on the existence of such dramatic differences, there is little doubt that being in a good mood makes people feel better about themselves and more likely to help others. Psychologists refer to it as the “glow of goodwill.” (p. 204)
Compulsory voting is not unique to Australia. Belgium and Argentina introduced it earlier, and it is practiced in many other countries, especially in Latin America, although both sanctions and enforcement vary. (p. 220)
We cannot consistently hold that cartoonists have a right to mock religious figures but that it should be a criminal offense to deny the existence of the Holocaust. (p. 222)
If there are still people crazy enough to deny that the Holocaust occurred, will they be persuaded by imprisoning people who express that view? On the contrary, they will be more likely to think that people are being imprisoned for expressing views that cannot be refuted by evidence and argument alone. (p. 223)
History is full of deeply flawed people who did great things. In the United States, we have only to look at slave-owning Founding Fathers and early presidents like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison. (p. 245)
We cannot blame people for wishing to leave conflict-ridden, impoverished countries and find a better life elsewhere. In their situation, we would do the same. But there must be a better way of responding to their needs. (p. 250)
Affluent countries have a responsibility to take refugees, and many of them can and should accept more than they do. But as the number of people seeking asylum has grown, it has become difficult for tribunals and courts to determine who is a refugee, as defined by the Convention, and who is a well-coached migrant seeking a better life in a more affluent country. (p. 251)
Consumers have an ethical responsibility to be aware of how their food is produced, (p. 257)
Clearing tropical forests for grazing or palm-oil production releases large quantities of stored carbon into the atmosphere. (p. 258)
If a polluter harms others, those who are harmed normally have a legal remedy. For example, if a factory leaks toxic chemicals into a river that I use to irrigate my farm, killing my crops, I can sue the factory owner. If the rich nations pollute the atmosphere with carbon dioxide, causing my crops to fail because of changing rainfall patterns, or my fields are inundated by a rise in the sea level, shouldn’t I also be able to sue? (p. 266)
Cutting out meat would do more to help combat climate change than any other action we could feasibly take in the next 20 years. (p. 269)
A 2006 UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) report, “Livestock’s Long Shadow,” called raising animals for food “one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global.” (p. 269)
Right now, ending investment in the coal industry is the right thing to do. (p. 276)
That is why rich countries should aim at decarbonizing their economies as soon as possible, and by 2050 at the latest. They could start by closing down the dirtiest form of energy production, coal-fired power stations, and refuse licenses to develop new coal mines. (p. 279)
Another quick gain could come from encouraging people to eat more plant-based foods, perhaps by taxing meat and using the revenue to subsidize more sustainable alternatives. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, the livestock industry is the second largest source of greenhouse gas emissions, ahead of the entire transport sector. This implies great scope for emission reductions, and in ways that would have a smaller impact on our lives than ceasing all fossil-fuel use. Indeed, according to a recent World Health Organization report, a reduction in the consumption of processed and red meat would have the additional benefit of reducing cancer deaths. (p. 279)
Regulations to protect the environment and the health of consumers should be maintained. Caution is reasonable. What needs to be rethought, however, is blanket opposition to the very idea of GMOs. (p. 285)
In some environmental circles, blanket opposition to GMOs is like taking a loyalty oath—dissidents are regarded as traitors in league with the evil biotech industry. It is time to move beyond such a narrowly ideological stance. Some GMOs may have a useful role to play in public health, and others in fighting the challenge of growing food in an era of climate change. We should consider the merits of each genetically modified plant on a case-by-case basis. (p. 286)
Obviously, the release of any synthetic organism must be carefully regulated, just like the release of any genetically modified organism. But any risk must be weighed against other grave threats that we face. (p. 289)
In such circumstances, the admittedly very real risks of synthetic biology seem decisively outweighed by the hope that it may enable us to avert a looming environmental catastrophe. (p. 290)
But if the robot was designed to have human-like capacities that might incidentally give rise to consciousness, we would have a good reason to think that it really was conscious. At that point, the movement for robot rights would begin. (p. 294)
Microsoft founder Bill Gates has suggested that Internet access is not a high priority for the poorest countries. It is more important, he says, to tackle problems like diarrhea and malaria. I have nothing but praise for Gates’s efforts to reduce the death toll from these diseases, which primarily affect the world’s poorest people. Yet his position seems curiously lacking in big-picture awareness of how the Internet could transform the lives of the very poor. (p. 296)
If we can put a man on the Moon and sequence the human genome, we should be able to devise something close to a universal digital public library. (p. 300)
By making a solemn resolution and telling our family and close friends about it, we tilt the scales against succumbing to temptation. If we fail to keep our resolution, we will have to admit that we are less in control of our behavior than we had hoped, thus losing face in our own eyes and in the eyes of others about whom we care. (p. 308)
Thorstein Veblen knew the answer. In his classic Theory of the Leisure Class, published in 1899, he argued that once the basis of social status became wealth itself—rather than, say, wisdom, knowledge, moral integrity, or skill in battle—the rich needed to find ways of spending money that had no other objective than the display of wealth itself. (p. 311)
Of course, we all have our little indulgences. I am not arguing that every luxury is wrong. (p. 312)
We should celebrate those with modest tastes and higher priorities than conspicuous consumption. (p. 312)
A reluctance to tell a child what to do can go too far. (p. 314)
We should aim for our children to be good people, and to live ethical lives that manifest concern for others as well as for themselves. (p. 315)
It is reasonable to suspect that gold medals now go not to those who are drug-free, but to those who most successfully refine their drug use for maximum enhancement without detection. (p. 321)
Who knows what difference that example might have made to the lives of many of those watching? Neuer could have been a hero, standing up for what is right. Instead, he is just another footballer who is very skillful at cheating. (p. 327)