Ortega y Gasset III, Action, External and Internal Good

I want to make another approach to the nature of hunting and its relation to diversion in Ortega y Gasset’s work. To do this I must introduce some background, so hang with me.

Philosophers often make a distinction between two kinds of activities. We engage in some activities for the sake of their outcome or their product. These activities we would not take up without the reward promised at the end. Most people find exercise odious, but will pay money for the space and equipment in order to claim the reward: chiseled abs or at least lower blood pressure. Some rewards get artificially attached to activities in order to entice us into them. Most of us would not seek employment were it not gainful.

On the other hand, we sometimes do things just for the sake of doing them, sometimes even in spite of the consequences. Children play for the sake of playing, even if their parents have called them to dinner “for the last time.” We eat for the sake of tasting, though we will have to run an extra mile tomorrow. And though some may worry that dancing may lead to sex, we do both for their own sake, and not for their outcome. Likewise, we worship for the sake of worship, and not for the benefits that might accrue to the worshiper.

The examples betray themselves, however. Some people love to exercise and would do it for its own sake; professional athletes play for a paycheck; worshipers sometimes try to manipulate God. All activities have outcomes; all activities have their own inner integrity which we can learn to enjoy. There are not two types of activities; there are two dimensions of all activities – or, rather, the domination of one dimension over the other determines the type. The dimensions define the activity; the activity does not define the dimension. The line between the two types of activities not only blurs … it moves. We may initially learn to cook out of an obligation to our family, grow to love the act of cooking for its own internal goods, and then become a professional chef cooking, most of the time, for the sake of a paycheck.

Josef Pieper, writing on the nature of “festivity,” which we do for its own sake, suggests the difference between the two types of activity lies in the quality of attention with which we accomplish the act: “the field of vision widens, concern for success or failure of an act falls away, and the soul turns to its infinite object; it becomes aware of the illimitable horizon of reality as a whole.” Festivity “is a kind of expectant alertness.”[1] Allowing the concern for success or failure to fall away is, simply, to move out of a perspective in which we act for the sake of results. From that perspective, this move may feel like a loss of focus. It may feel like “giving-up.” If I run the race only to win, then why should I keep running once it is clear that I will not win? (Coaches, take note.) However, if we no longer evaluate an activity by its results, if we allow our “field of vision” to widen, it keeps us from giving up on the activity itself. It allows us to take in the nature of the activity, to appreciate its intricacy as we perform it, and so develop an “expectant alertness,” a consciousness of the act guided by the act.

Ortega y Gasset draws on this framework for his analysis of hunting.

[1] Josef Pieper, In Tune With The World: A Theory of Festivity. St. Augustine’s Press, 1999, p. 17.