"Games and the Good" Hurka!1 Strategy Hurka argues that game-playing is an intrinsic good! He thinks game-playing as an intrinsic good is a "modern view value"! Hurka says he will "defend the value only of playing good games" (p. 23)!2
Suits's Definition of Games and Game Terminology Definition of Game (1-4) & Sport (1-5) Terminology 1. Goal directed activity Prelusory Goal 2. Rules limit the permissible means of goal attainment 3. Rules prohibit more efficient in favor of less efficient means" 4. Rules are accepted to make the activity possible! Lusory Goal Lusory Attitude 5. And, require the demonstration of physical skill and prowess!3 Value and Difficulty Hurka thinks playing "good games" has value! What are "good games"?! Good games are challenging activities! The rules of the game, according to Suits, are supposed to make achieving the goal more difficult! So, difficult activities are intrinsically good!4
Defending Difficult Games as Intrinsic Goods Two defenses! A. Achievements are valued relative to the difficulties overcome! B. "Rational connection to reality" (Nozick's Experience Machine)! 1. Theoretical connection to reality-having beliefs about the world that are both true and justified! 2. Practical connection to reality-the ability to achieve a goal given justified true beliefs about the world!5 1. Achievements Are Valued Relative! to the Difficulties Overcome In this first defense, Hurka is simply asserting that many people include in their list of intrinsic goods achievement! Since not all achievements are of equal value, Hurka claims that those achievements that are more difficult to achieve are more valuable than those that are easier to to achieve!6
2. "Rational Connection to Reality" Nozick's Experience Machine! Imagine a machine that could give one pleasure for any activity that person wanted to participate in! The experience machine is a counterexample to hedonism! Would you want to spend you life in the Experience Machine? If you did, what would you be missing?! If life in the experience machine is not ideal, it is because people are separated from reality and the challenges life brings! Hence, having a "rational connection to reality" is considered a good!7 Theoretical Connection to Reality A theoretical connection to reality is simply about how one goes about justifying one's beliefs about the external world! Having the ability to broadly justify a wide range of beliefs about the world is more valuable than knowledge focused on a few particulars! Hurka s main point is that knowledge of broad and robust principles will allow one to know more about the world than a narrow justificatory scheme.!8
Practical Connection to Reality A practical connection to reality is the ability to act and achieve a goal given one's knowledge about the external world! Beliefs and actions which enable a broad range of activities are more valuable than a small range of skills and abilities! Analogous to broad principles justify beliefs about the world! "Just as more complex explanatory relations make for more value in knowledge, so more complex means-end relations make for more value in achievement." (p. 25)!9 Aspects of Difficulty Found in Good Games See: "This model deepens the value of achievement." (p. 25)! Intellectual forms of difficulty: Hurka thinks that games like golf, hockey, chess, and basketball require one to maintain in one's mind complex and extended content.! The intellectual challenge constitutes one of the main difficulties of that sport! Physical forms of difficulty: games like boxing and weightlifting require physical forms of difficulty, but "do not instantiate the value of rational connection"! Since these types of games "do not instantiate the value of rational connection," Hurka is not sure what role they play in the good of game playing!10
Explaining the Good of Loving a Sport "...if difficulty is as such good, the prelusory goal and rules give it a good-making feature and the lusory attitude chooses it because of that good-making feature. This connects the lusory attitude to an attractive view that is been held by many philosophers, namely that if something is intrinsically good, the positive attitude of loving it for the property that makes it good, that is, desiring, pursuing and taking pleasure in it for that property, is also, and separately, intrinsically good." (p. 27)!11 The End-state Versus the Process Hurka thinks that what makes game playing an intrinsic good is the attitude of the player! The goals of games are trivial and have little to no value in and of themselves! (e. g., putting a little white ball into a little hole using a long stick is a pretty trivial thing)! What is not trivial is the attitude of the player to participate in an activity which demands overcoming obstacles in order to achieve a goal. Since achieving a goal is an intrinsic good, then it is the process of achieving that goal that is good.!12
Modern Value Hurka is arguing, contrary to Aristotle, that the good of gameplaying arises from the processes involved in achieving a goal! Aristotle thought that the end-state of some action was more valuable than the means to that end state! "But it is characteristic of what I am calling modern values to deny this assumption [that the products of action are more valuable than the process], and to hold that there are activities that necessarily aim at an external goal but whose value is internal to them in the sense that it depends entirely on features of the process of achieving that goal." (p. 29)!13 The Argument 1. Achievement is an intrinsic good.! 2. Some achievements are more valuable than others.! 3. Achieving a goal by overcoming obstacles is more valuable than achieving a goal with no obstacles.! 4. What makes some achievements more valuable than others depends upon the complexity and robustness of the difficulties overcome.! 5. Games are activities where the goals are made more difficult to achieve because of the rules.! 6. So, games have a good-making property.! 7. Playing games requires one to accept the rules of the game.! 8. So, playing a game for its own sake means one is fixing on the game's good-making property.! 9. So, the motive to participate in a game simply for the challenge of achieving a difficult goal is intrinsically good.!14
Problems and Questions Why assume that achievement is an intrinsic good?! Why are some games (rock, paper, scissors) not very good games?! Why is challenge essential to the goodness of a game?! Why is complexity important to valuing games? Might too much complexity be destructive? Might simple games be valuable?! Is the 100-meter sprint valuable?! Are more complex games necessarily more valuable?! Do judged events have value? The achievement seems external to the activity in judged events since achievement is judged.! What is the role of agent motivation in determining the value of gameplaying?!15