The Centre for Ethics in Medicine is pleased to announce that Byron Hyde has been awarded the British Philosophy of Sport Association (BPSA) McNamee Essay Award, an international prize recognising outstanding scholarship in the philosophy and ethics of sport.
Hyde’s essay, “Athlete Autonomy at the Enhanced Games,” examines the Enhanced Games, a forthcoming international sporting event that permits performance-enhancing drugs and offers major financial incentives, including a $1 million prize and salaries for enhanced athletes. With Olympic medallists and other high-profile athletes committed to competing, the event raises ethical challenges not previously seen in sport.
Hyde’s analysis highlights a largely overlooked concern: that unusually high payments may coerce athletes into participation. Using established bioethical literature on participant payment, the essay argues that these risks merit serious ethical scrutiny – not only for doping-permissive events, but across elite sport more broadly. Hyde said:
“The Enhanced Games present a unique moment in sport history: it's the first even to condone and encourage doping. My goal was not to praise or criticise the event, but to ensure that, if it goes ahead, it does so in an ethical way that respects athlete autonomy. I found that the concerns I was raising about the Enhanced Games spoke to a wider problem: in professional sports where athletes are financially incentivized to risk harming themselves, athletes might make a decision that's against their preferences or best interests.”
The McNamee Essay Award is named in honour of Professor Mike McNamee (Swansea University; KU Leuven), founder of the BPSA, and is sponsored by the British Philosophy of Sport Association and Routledge. It is awarded annually to a single winner, accompanied by a runner-up and several commendations, and attracts submissions from early-career scholars worldwide. Assessment criteria include originality, analytical rigour, and critical engagement with relevant philosophical literature.
As part of the award, Hyde will be invited to present the winning essay at the BPSA’s online work-in-progress seminar in Spring 2026.
Hyde’s achievement follows earlier recognition this year in the European Society for Philosophy of Medicine and Healthcare Young Scholar Awards, marking a successful year for his contributions to bioethics and sport ethics.