The Ambiguity of Science
Ethical Responsibilities in the Acquisition of Knowledge
Today’s educator is in a quandary and may not even realize it. The same is true for the student. Both are in real danger of eternal damnation. Ever since the democratization of learning in the 19th century where we made education commonplace and compulsory, western society has given little consideration to the moral and eternal implications of knowledge acquisition. But that has not always been the case.
Lest you think me an alarmist or that I’m catastrophizing—or worse, that I’m crazy—take a moment to consider the historical ambiguity of science (scientia = knowledge). Up until the Enlightenment, science was understood for what it was: both a divine gift and forbidden knowledge.
The polytheistic Greeks wrestled with the ambiguity of science through their myth of Prometheus and Zeus. Prometheus steals fire from the gods and brings the sacred spark to man. Zeus punishes Prometheus for his impious deed by having him chained to a rock on Mount Caucasus, where an eagle comes every day to eat his liver. Over night his liver regrows and the process repeats itself, subjecting Prometheus to eternal inordinate torment. Meanwhile, such useful arts as fire become essential to man’s ability to flourish while simultaneously remaining unpredictable and dangerous.
The monotheistic Hebrews also mythologized the ambiguity of science. In the Judeo-Christian account, a serpent in the garden of eden tempts the woman (Eve) to eat the fruit from the forbidden tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; and, she gives to her husband (Adam) who also eats. Presumably, since they walked with God in the garden by day, they already possessed a knowledge of the good. Their eyes now opened to evil—knowledge’s other side—exile from paradise is their reward. Although instead of eternal torment, their redemptive end is promised, and that to be better than their original state, the ambiguity remains unresolved for man as he continues his pursuit of knowledge, trying to avoid sin while simultaneously striving to improve his condition.
Christian thought carried this ambiguity into the Middle Ages with Dante Alighieri’s Divina Commedia, “that great panoramic poem depicting the full sweep of medieval thought and imagination.” Dante, the poet, places a high value on knowledge itself, particularly as it leads one closer in proximity to the Godhead. Dante, the pilgrim, must continue to learn at each level of his journey. Nevertheless, along the way, the pilgrim encounters characters whose knowledge brought them to eternal ruin. For example, Brunetto Latini, Dante the poet’s own teacher, is relegated to the circle of Sodomites because “his adulation of the humanities above all things is unnatural, akin to his perversion.” And, what can be said of Ulysses (Odysseus), who is relegated to the eighth circle of Hades, where the evil counsellors reside. Ulysses is joined with the evil counsellors because his love of knowledge was not only “an inordinate quest for experience and a restless curiositas,” but sought out primarily as a means for deception.
In the second chapter of his book, Unbinding Prometheus: Education for the Coming Age, Donald Cowan raises many of the questions about the ambiguity of science that I have here, those questions that also gave many medieval educators cause for pause. In doing so, he suggests that Christopher Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus “has become the great modern myth affecting our view of science and technology.” Cowan says,
Dr. Faustus stands at a highly charged nexus, a meeting place of three ages: it draws upon medieval thought in treating the theme of sin and damnation, upon that of the Reformation in the theme of a contract with the devil and a resultant inability to repent, upon an incoming modernity in the theme of misused knowledge. Later, science would come to be identified with that tripartite concern; but in the Renaissance mind, before science had achieved its dominance, an awakening sense of inordinate desire and rebellious purpose gave the Faust legend its prophetic authority.
Cowan determines that Marlowe's Dr. Faustus stands in modern history as the preeminent myth for the “chilling exemplum of man’s perversion of knowledge.” It is a cautionary tale for the modern age. As I have attempted to demonstrate following Cowan’s lead, mankind has consistently featured, through his myths, his ambiguous relationship with science as both a gift and a curse. Power and peril are the inevitable ends of man’s inordinate pursuit of knowledge. And, herein lies the rub.
What Cowan argues for in his renouncement of the Faustian myth is that it is not knowledge, per se, that creates trouble for man. It is the inordinate pursuit of that knowledge that is the problem. For the Greeks, it was the hubris of Prometheus that was problematic. For the Judeo-Christian, it was Eve’s dissent and sedition and Adam’s high-handed rebellion against God’s mandate forbidding them from eating from the tree that was the trouble. In Medieval Christian culture, it was the leveraging of knowledge for power and deception that was the issue. In Cowan’s estimation, none of our historical myths portray knowledge itself as ever being problematic. It is the motive from which man pursues the knowledge of ideas that inevitably leads to his damnation.
“Ideas do have consequences,” Cowan admits. But, “should we for this reason throttle them in their cradles?” His rhetorical response? “Such slaughter of the innocents is obviously not to be tolerated.” Yet, one may ask the question that haunted Robert Oppenheimer, the director of the Los Alamos Project, who wondered whether the blame for Hiroshima lie at the door of science? Oppenheimer, after witnessing the explosion of the first A-bomb, reportedly said, “We have known sin.” A similar consideration can also be extended to numerous other discoveries in the medical sciences, like that of contraceptives, the charting of the genome, or the cloning of DNA.
To such ends, Cowan asserts,
The possibility for lethal use is present in any discovery…[but] in refusing to examine the question of stifling possible dangerous knowledge, we are dodging a serious political responsibility, an evasion in the near future prove lethal…the actual promotion of an idea…lies in the moral and practical sphere—in the political world, where restraint is a necessary virtue.
But that is a problem of its own isn’t it? In a time where fact has been the myth of the age, virtue has had little value or influence. Virtue really only ever enters the conversation when it is disguised as pragmatism or efficiency—or most recently as equity.
In what remains of his second chapter, Cowan judiciously dismantles the Faustian myth arguing three claims. First, what is made possible by science is not made inevitable by technology. In the gap between idea and deed lies a decision. Societies and individuals are responsible for those decisions. Second, science is not reserved for some elite position beyond good and evil. “The scientific pursuit of knowledge is truly liberal, free of covert self-seeking, a genuinely generous intellectual inquiry.” In other words, true science is not segregated from other modes of knowing and it further acknowledges social and moral commitments. Finally, science does not require that we abdicate moral judgment in the face of scientific facts, nor does it require our passive determination of ends (i.e., its telos). Again, just like any human activity, all choices are moral and such choices are ultimately political in nature, also—begging the question, will it serve the common good?
Cowan concludes that “Faust is, ultimately, a phantom objectification of our own fear of knowledge.” In other words, “we have demonized the quest to know, which though it may be distressingly complicated, is the most challenging and in the end most laudable work we can do.” For Cowan, the Faust myth is “as psychic manifestation of an age that is past.” And, while Cowan believes “it is time, after four centuries of bad conscience about science and technology, to renounce Faust,” I would argue that while we might ultimately step past it in favor of the pursuit of knowledge, it should ultimately stand to remind teachers and students alike of their ethical responsibilities in fostering intellectual growth.
I agree with much of what Cowan argues—we should not thwart the pursuit of knowledge because some will be tempted to use it for personal advantage or power—but in an age such as ours, it is good to be reminded that a liberal education is knowledge sought for its own sake. Those who seek it for power will have their reward.
And in that vein, Faust stands to remind educators that they must guide students toward wisdom and virtue, not merely help them accumulate knowledge that could lead to hubris or moral ruin. Further, Faustus has a message for the student as well. He underscores the danger of pursuing knowledge without proper ethical grounding or spiritual discernment. Faustus exemplifies the manner in which unchecked ambition and intellectual pride (i.e., hubris) can result in a tragic misappropriation of one's gifts and potential, ultimately leading to destruction and—as everyone prior to the Enlightenment intuited—eternal damnation.