Since men have existed, they have been in
pursuit of the summum bonum. Bacon is
clearly no exception. The problem with such lofty goals is that the manner in
which each man defines the highest good differs almost to the man. What is
humanity’s highest good? Philosophers have offered a number of alternatives for
the highest good over the years and that is just the beginning of the problem.
The answers have ranged from hedonism to rational eudemonism to ethical
pluralism and many others. Bacon believes, as do many of his ardent students,
that science has or is the solution to man’s problems. Not only can science
define the highest good, it can carve out the path to this wonderful utopia.
In his book, “That Hideous Strength,” C.S.
Lewis uses a fictional novel to expose the naïve belief that scientific
materialism can actually deliver the utopia it promises. For modern readers, we
cannot help but envision the same experiment guided by communism. One of the
main characters of the novel, Mark Studdock, from the very beginning, is moved
about like a pawn without any regard for what he might hold as the highest
good. The arrangement at the N.I.C.E. is deliberately vague, slippery, and
impossible for Mark to quantify or understand. The leaders of the N.I.C.E.
clearly place little value on Mark as an individual. They only see him as a
means to an end. In time, Lewis reveals that this is how the N.I.C.E. operates.
This is their core philosophy. What matters is the ideal, not the person.
Individuals are depersonalized and valued only for their ability to achieve the
ideal. If they are deemed unhelpful, they are quickly disposed of in short
order. Additionally, the N.I.C.E. seems to operate upon a purely pragmatic
ethic. What is moral and just is that which promotes the ideal. If murder
promotes the ideal, then murder is moral. If lying promotes the ideal, then
lying is moral. If torture and false arrest and imprisonment promote the ideal,
then these things are moral. One does not have to read about the N.I.C.E. for
long before they realize that this utopia is indeed the strangest utopia one
could ever imagine.
What Lewis is getting at is that thing which
Bacon never seemed to consider. One man’s utopia is another man’s nightmare.
One man may consider unrestricted access to another man’s wife whenever he
pleases as utopia while for couple; such a scenario is much closer to hell. The
modern ISIS group is a perfect example. Recently, ISIS terrorists that do well
on the battlefield are rewarded with female slaves to do with them as they
please. For these godless terrorists, such an arrangement may very well
represent utopia. For the female slaves, it is sheer hell.
When man is the measure of all things the most
natural question in the world is, “which man?” Utopian thinking requires
criticism of the current state of affairs. One has to ask what the basis is for
such criticism. How does one man look at the world and see deficiencies? Where
does this idea that things ought to
be better, originate? It is the myth and folly of rational thinkers to suppose
that science can answer that question. It is not a scientific question. Moreover,
it seems equally implausible for one to consider that a rationalist could provide
a cogent answer. In that question, the question of the highest good, the summum bonum, is bound up a mystery, a
puzzle that neither science nor pure rationalism can solve. Indeed, the
solution rests someplace else.
The motives and values of the N.I.C.E. are
clearly a very different set of values held by those of St. Anne. Who is to
say, if man is the measure, which set of values ought to be preferred. How can
we appeal to science to settle such a dispute? How could we appeal to logic to
settle the matter? Indeed, an appeal must be made and that appeal must be made
to that which stands over humanity, that which transcends humanity. There is no
other way to address the riddle that is utopia.
