I've previously linked Arnold Schwarzenegger's disgraceful attack on a "troll" who questioned the Special Olympics, which was the textbook definition of an ad hominem attack and yet was widely applauded.
Although teleology may be thought of as "stupid" and "evil", examining the issue of the Special Olympics can clarify the issue of competitive divisions in sports.
Whether the Special Olympics is justified comes down to what you think the spirit and purpose of the Olympics and, more broadly, sports is.
The original motto of the Olympics was "Faster, Higher, Stronger". It should be uncontroversial to say that this is true for sports in general.
They are about celebrating and rewarding the peak of human achievement.
Yet, the Special Olympics are restricted to a subset of people who, almost by definition, are not going to be able to achieve as much as others.
Of course, you could say that the Special Olympics celebrate the participants' indomitable spirit, or how hard they try.
Yet, in sports, the criterion for winning is your performance, not how hard you try. If I am a cancer patient who runs the 100m as hard as I can and do it in 30 seconds, someone in perfect health who does it in 29 seconds while barely breaking a sweat is going to beat me despite trying much less hard and not facing the same obstacles as me.
Of course, one could say that we already have divisions in sports today. The biggest of these is sex - men and women compete in different divisions, because we recognise that they have different capabilities and so it would be unfair for women to have to compete with men. Similarly, some sports like weightlifting have weight categories so someone who is 90kg won't stomp on someone who is 50kg.
But then, not all categories are accepted as legitimate. We don't have sports events restricted to people from poor countries, the obese or people who have limited training/experience. And immutable characteristics cannot be the defining criterion deciding category legitimacy, since people largely don't choose to come from poor countries.
Furthermore, one could extend this logic even within the Special Olympics itself. According to the Special Olympics, if your IQ is below 70-75 you could qualify. Is it "fair", though, for someone with an IQ of 69 to be competing with someone with an IQ of 50?
Whatever it is, one could indeed make a case for why the Special Olympics are valuable based on factors other than pure human performance. But sadly I see no one trying to do that. Instead everyone is just taking for granted that the "troll" is "stupid" and/or "evil" and is just jumping on the bandwagon to bash him.
This whole discussion also has contemporary relevance with the issue of trans women in women's sports, and the unfortunate side effect of some intersex women being excluded since testosterone level is now being used as a way to qualify participants (to try to mitigate the risk of unfairness to cis women).
Perhaps a normal athlete should try to identify as intellectually disabled and then compete in the Special Olympics. He would surely have a high chance of winning more medals.
