According to prominent Natural Law theories, the human good includes a number of basic non-instrumental goods, such as health, contemplation, truth, friendship and play. Now, there is a sense in which the inclusion of some items on the list of basic goods is more puzzling than the inclusion of others. There does not seem be anything deeply mysterious about the inclusion of health, but the inclusion of play is puzzling.
Yet there is an elegant metaphysical explanation of why these goods are included in the human good, and this explanation works just as well for play as for health:
- The human good includes play (or health) because it is a fundamental telos in the human form to pursue play (or health).
This explanation tells us what makes it be the case that play is a basic human good. But I think it leaves something else quite unexplained. Compare to this the unhelpfulness of the answer
- Because its molecules have a high mean kinetic energy
to the question
- Why is my phone hot?
Now, in the case of my hot phone, the reason (2) is unhelpful is because when I am puzzled about my phone being hot, I am puzzled about something like the efficient cause of the phone’s heat, and (2) does not provide that.
That’s not quite what is going on the case of play. When we ask with puzzlement:
- Why is play a basic non-instrumental human good?
we are not looking for an efficient cause of play being a basic human good. Indeed, it is dubious that there could even be an efficient causal answer to (4), since it seems to be a necessary truth that play is a basic human good, since this is grounded in the essential teleological structure of the human form. I think that when we ask (4), we are not actually clear on what sort of an explanation we are looking for—but if the puzzlement is the kind I am thinking about, the desired explanation is not the one given by (1).
We do become a bit less puzzled about play being a basic human good once it is pointed out to us how play promotes various other human goods like health and friendship. When we ask questions like (4), a part of what we are looking for is a story of how play hangs together with the other basic goods. If, as many Natural Lawyers think, there is a greatest human good (e.g., loving knowledge of God), then we hope that a significant part of the story will tell us how the good of play fits with that greatest good.
But now we have a curious meta-question:
- Why is it that telling a story about how play hangs together with the other basic goods contributes to an answer to (4), given that play’s promotion of other basic goods seems to only make play be an instrumental good?
Here is another part of the story that helps with (5). Not only does engaging in play promote the other goods, but engaging play as an end in itself promotes the other goods more effectively. Playing Dominion with a friend purely instrumentally to friendship just wouldn’t promote friendship as effectively as playing in a way that appreciates the game as valuable in and of itself. Thus, a part of our story is now that it would be beneficial vis-à-vis the other goods if play were in fact to be non-instrumentally good, as then it could be pursued as an end in itself without this pursuit being a perversion of the will (it is, I take it, a perversion of the will to pursue mere means as if they were ends).
But it is still puzzling why even this enriched story is an answer to our question. The enriched story might make us wish that play were intrinsically good, but it doesn’t make play be instrinsically good. How does the enriched story help with our question, then?
I think that here is one of those places where Natural Law needs theism. It is a good thing for God to make beings whose basic goods exhibit unity in diversity. Thus, amongst the infinity of possible kinds of beings that could have been created, God chose to create beings with the human form in part because the basic goods encoded in the teleological structure of that form hang together in a beautiful way. God could have instead created beings where play was merely instrumentally good, but the teleological structure of such beings, first, wouldn’t exhibit the same valuable unity in diversity and, second, such beings would not as effectively achieve the other basic goods: for either they would be perversely pursuing a means as an end, or they would be missing out on the benefits of pursuing play as an end.
In other words, the story about how the goods hangs together provides a genuine answer to questions like (4) given God’s wise selection of the natures to be instantiated. It is difficult to see a plausible alternative story (here's an implausible one: there are no possible natures where goods don't hang together; here's another implausible one: we live in the best of all possible worlds). Thus, answering questions like (4) seems to call for theism.
14 comments:
Alex
What does "playing a game as an end in itself" mean?
It seems to me that I play a game:
a) For fun
b) Because it has some educational value
c) Because it promotes friendship
d) For a combination of a), b) and c)
But all those cases seem to imply that play is instrumental after all.
The only way out of this is claiming that people play for no reason at all, as a kind of automatic behaviour due to the structure of their genes, e.g.
But even if that were so, the fact that gaming does, as a "side effect" seem to promote other basic goods, suggests another plausible alternative, namely evolution. That's exactly how evolution works. Some random genetic mutation is "selected" because it promotes other basic goods. People who "happened" to game were able to have closer relations, which helped them survive better than the ones that did not have the "gaming gene".
Typically, when you play for fun, I do not think the fun is something separable from the game. It's not like you're choosing the best means for tickling your brain's pleasure center. You're choosing a fun activity, an activity the skillful performance of which constitutes the fun. So I think the activity is not a means to the fun.
Think of what happens when you play a game. Normally, you are playing to win, not to maximize your fun. It may occur to you that some silly move would be more fun--it might, say, lead to all around laughter--but you pass by the move, because you are playing to win.
I could be wrong. If so, then puzzle shifts into the puzzle of why this particular kind of fun, or any kind of fun at all, is worth having for its own sake.
Alex
Maybe I am not consciously choosing the best means for tickling my brain's pleasure center, but nevertheless, playing a game is one of many possible ways of having fun. I could also drink a few beers, watch television, have a discussion with Alex Pruss, etc. A game is simply one means for having fun.
Fun isn't worth having for its own sake, fun is also instrumental to mental health.
So, no real puzzle at all. And not, I am afraid, a very convincing argument for God.
Walter: Why do you say fun isn't worth having for its own sake? Isn't that just to beg the question against Pruss' point? Friendship is good for our mental health, but that doesn't mean it isn't worth having for its own sake too? I think the whole point of this blog post was that these things hang together very neatly and cooperatively, despite not being pursued as instruments toward another thing. Indeed, pursuing a friendship (for example) because it is good for your own mental health would seem to me to be a bad thing. It is the wrong reason. You should not need any other reason to pursue and maintain and defend your friendships than... friendship itself.
Likewise, I should not need another reason to grab Domninion off the shelf than to enjoy it with a group; and, indeed, getting the group together and playing the game with some other reason in mind (to improve myself mentally, or whatever) would seem wrong-headed.
Michael
In fact "fun" is an aspect of mental health, so it makes no sense to say we pursue fun for its own sake. In pursuing fun one necessarily pursues one's own mental health.
So, grabbing Dominion off the shelf to enjoy it with a group always entails improving my own mental health because it is fun. The same holds for friendship. "Fun" and "friendship" and "mental health" are inseparable.
Indeed, these things hang together simply because they entail each other, not because they are separate things that are miraculously made to work together.
When I choose to do something for fun, I am not *aiming* at mental health, though I may in fact be improving my mental health (or not: sometimes a fun activity is bad for one's mental health). I am aiming for the fun for its own sake.
Alex
My point is that aiming at fun is aiming at mental health because fun is an aspect of mental health. The fact that fun doesn't always succeed in doing what it's supposed to do is not relevant here
Walter, this transitivity that you're assuming doesn't make sense. Imagine that pursuing protein necessitated the suffering of animals (it doesn't; but just imagine it). Obviously, I can pursue protein for its own sake (or for my own wellbeing) without pursuing the suffering of animals. One does not need to be pursuing something just because it is the necessary result of what they are actually pursuing.
Even if you say that "fun is an aspect of mental health", I could say that sex is an aspect of a healthy marriage. I might still pursue sex without pursuing a healthy marriage (even in a marriage context). It seems to me that it just can't be right to reason transitively like you're asking us to do about "fun".
Michael
I should have added that, to me, "fun" is a necessary aspect of mental health. It is not the only aspect, of course, but I believe that it is impossible to be fully mentally healthy in the total absense of any fun.
Fun, for its own sake, doesn't make any sense at all. It amount to saying fun isn't pleasant. Pleasant is another way of saying "contributing to ane's mental health."
Walter, I didn't think you meant it was the only aspect. Do you really not understand the point of the analogies I gave?
As to "pleasant" = "contributing to one's mental health", that is not at all what "pleasant" means. Do some people not find abuse of drugs pleasant? Or many other things that don't contribute to mental health? I'm sorry, but you seem to be reaching here.
Michael
You seem to confuse the effects with the intention. People abuse drugs because it gives them the feeling that their mental health is improved, even for a brief moment. That this kind of "pleasure" in the long run doesn't lead to an overall improvement of mental health is not relevant. But by pursuing pleasure or fun, people pursue improvement of their mental health. Obvioulsy, they don't always succeed.
"People abuse drugs because it gives them the feeling that their mental health is improved...".
What?? I'm sorry, but I definitely disagree. And there are many other practices I could have pointed to that people engage in for sheer pleasure, with no thought or feeling at all about their mental health. Indeed, some drug addicts are quite aware they may be acting directly against their mental health, but they enjoy the pleasure too much to stop.
Michael
The point is that "sheer pleasure" in and out of itself, is a (perhaps very brief and very short) improvement of mental health. "Having sheer pleasure" is the same as "having (a (brief moment of) improved mental health".
That's my two cents anyway, but I think it's time that we agree to disagree.
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