ABSTRACT
One possible focus of attention in considering issues relating to the welfare of athletes is the things that are done to, or done by, athletes; another is the structures and systems within which those things are done; yet another is the ways of seeing things (pictures or conceptions), reasoning (logic), values and ideologies that motivate or sustain the aforementioned practices, systems and structures. The focus of this chapter is the third of those sets of options. More precisely, it is concerned with some of the ways in which scientism in some prominent views of the relationship between minds, brains and persons, and of the body, genes and athletic performance, seems to contribute to the development and perpetuation of a conception of performance enhancement in sport that frequently seems to be to the detriment of the welfare of athletes. The reductionism evident in scientistic conceptions of the athlete not only paves the way for pictures, reasoning and values that might justify performance enhancement practices (prohibited or otherwise) that may be detrimental to the health and welfare of the athlete, but it creates conditions that render any apparent ‘achievement’ hollow, and the realisation of that should surely negatively affect the welfare of the individual person long beyond the point he or she ceases to be an athlete.
