The problem of pleasure

This post is a follow up to the previous one; or rather, a follow up to the dialogue which took place in the comment section of the previous post.

I want to explore an idea which is expressed in this quote from Philip Yancey, an evangelical Christian apologist:

It struck me the other day, after I had read my umpteenth book on the problem of pain (the theological obsession of this century, it seems), that I have never even seen a book on "the problem of pleasure." Nor have I met a philosopher who goes around shaking his head in perplexity over the basic question of why we experience pleasure.

Where did pleasure come from? That seems to me a huge question — the philosophical equivalent, for atheists, to the problem of pain for Christians. On the issue of pleasure, Christians can breathe a little easier. A good and loving God would naturally want his creatures to experience delight, joy, and personal fulfillment. We Christians start from that assumption and then look for ways to explain the origin of suffering. But don't atheists and secular humanists have an equal obligation to explain the origin of pleasure in a world of randomness and meaninglessness?

["The Problem of Pleasure" in I Was Just Wondering]

Yancey's point is that atheists cannot take pleasure for granted — they have to account for it. And I want to broaden the point. There is a whole series of things that atheists take for granted but which cry out for an explanation:  love, kindness, fairness, hope, goodness, beauty, etc.

We assume all of the above values uncritically:  beauty is better than ugliness, generosity is better than selfishness, justice is better than injustice, benevolence is better than malice, etc.

How do we know? We just know. These values are innate:  if not to every human being without exception, at least they are innate to the vast majority of us. And it's not just a societal consensus. Each individual knows in her bones that these values are right and true.

From a theistic perspective, this is not hard to explain. These values correspond to God's nature. Because we are created by God, and created in God's image, these values are deeply imprinted upon us. We know in our bones that these values are right and true because our Creator knitted them into our very being.

On that view, evil is the problem. For evil also exists in the human heart, and surely it does not have its origin in God. Christians are quite aware that the existence of evil and suffering cries out for an explanation, given our theistic assumptions.

Atheists are a little smug about the problem of pain, but Yancey is right. Atheists must account for the other half of the human equation:  goodness, beauty, love, etc. Those values are problematic given the materialist / mechanistic view of the universe to which atheists subscribe.

Atheists believe that the material universe is all that exists. As Carl Sagan famously put it, The cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be.

According to the theory of evolution, there is no need to posit the existence of a Creator or any transcendent realm from which the material universe was derived. The apparent "intelligent design" of the universe is an illusion. Darwinian natural selection provides an adequate account of everything as it now exists.

I don't want to get sidetracked into a debate over evolution. For my present purposes, I merely wish to point out the obvious — that evolution is an impersonal, mechanistic process. Thus atheists believe in a universe which is entirely material in nature; and its form was entirely determined by an impersonal process.

How then to account for love, beauty, hope, etc.? Such things are immaterial. Not in the sense, insignificant; we are all agreed on this point, that the values we are discussing are profoundly significant. But immaterial as in non-material. You cannot hold hope in your hand or put justice under a microscope.

On what basis does an atheist conclude that such immaterial concepts are right and true, the highest values in a purely material universe?

And where do these values come from? How can such interpersonal imperatives be the product of an impersonal, mechanistic process? (For the Christian, the interpersonal imperatives are grounded in the relationship between God — a personal being — and the "children" God has created.)

Mary P. and I discussed that question tonight. We identified one possibility:  that the values we are discussing are mere accidents of the evolutionary process.

I have read, for example, that sexual attraction can largely be explained by evolution. The evolutionary imperative is to ensure the propagation of the species. Accordingly (so the theory goes), we are attracted to partners whose physical characteristics suggest they can provide us with healthy children.

Perhaps other values can be explained in a similar way. Mary P. suggests, for example, a woman's willingness to make personal sacrifices to ensure the survival of her infant children.

But this explanation gives rise to two questions in my mind. First, does it explain all the values that we hold dear? Justice, for example. Why should I care if blacks living in an inner city ghetto receive an inferior education? Does the evolutionary imperative speak to that concern? — or is there some other explanation for the high value we (supposedly) place on justice?

Second, if our immaterial values are derived from the evolutionary imperative, why should I consent to be held to that standard? Why shouldn't I be selfish, for example, and shamelessly take advantage of others? We began with the observation that evolution is an impersonal process. Why should I respect interpersonal imperatives which are the accidental products of an impersonal process?

Perhaps you don't agree with the explanation Mary P. and I thought up. Maybe you have another explanation for placing ultimate value on love, beauty, fairness, hope, etc.

My point is, Yancey was right. Atheists cannot merely assume these values are right and true; they must account for them, one way or another.

The problem of pleasure is to the atheist what the problem of pain is to the Christian. Stated another way, the fact that these values are a constituent part of human nature is evidence of God's existence.