I’ve said this many times, but I’ll say it again: I don’t understand cheating. To me, the rewards of participating in rule-governed activities such as sport or academics are internal, not external. How can you feel good about yourself if the only reason you prevailed over the competition is that you cheated (i.e., violated the rules)? I honestly don’t get it, and if I don’t get it at 51 years of age, I probably never will.

That said, I know that cheating takes place. There are people (evidently) who value external rewards, such as fame and fortune, more than internal rewards, such as pride and self-respect. As long as this is the case, there will have to be an enforcement mechanism. Let’s think about this. Cheaters, if they’re rational, believe that the benefits of cheating outweigh the costs. They know that there is a nonzero probability that they’ll be caught, and that the consequences of being caught will be dire. They must think, therefore, that the probability of punishment is low. The expected value (benefit) of cheating exceeds the expected disvalue (cost) of cheating.

Those of us who care about clean competition can work to increase either the probability or the magnitude of punishment for cheating. I believe professional cycling is doing both. When the expected cost of cheating approaches the expected benefit, the amount of cheating will decline. Will it ever drop to zero? I doubt it, for two reasons. First, cheaters are creative. They will try to stay one step ahead of the authorities. New drugs will be invented. As soon as a test is developed for those drugs, others will be invented. Second, there will always be people who think they’re smarter than the authorities, or who believe that, while the probability of being caught is high, it’s not so high as to preclude success. I believe that Floyd Landis knew there was a high probability that he would be punished for using artificial testosterone before that fateful stage of the 2006 Tour de France, but that winning the Tour was worth the risk. After all, he might just get away with it! Perhaps he rationalized his cheating by telling himself that everyone else was doing it, or had an opportunity to do it. That doesn’t mean he wasn’t cheating; it means he wasn’t the only one who was cheating.

To me, sport is first and foremost a test of willpower. It takes willpower to train, which is expensive (in the economist’s sense of opportunity costs) and painful. (No pain, no gain.) Look at how much suffering Lance Armstrong experienced during his training for the Tour de France. It’s mind-boggling. The rules of a sport are designed to reveal (to the world) which athlete has the greatest willpower. If someone cheats, we don’t get this valuable information. For all we know, the winner is the person who has access to the best drugs or doctors rather than the person who has the greatest willpower. As for what the rules should be, that’s a different question. Perhaps cycling should allow the use of artificial testosterone, or EPO, or steroids, or human growth hormone. But once the rules are set, everyone should obey them. The rules structure, and indeed constitute, the activity.