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Francis Bacon on the Political Dangers of Scientific Progress

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2009

Heidi D. Studer
Heidi D. Studer
Affiliation:
University of Alberta
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Abstract

Technological progress has brought some political difficulties: we have both too much power and too little control. Francis Bacon, a principal promoter of science and technology, was not naive about the uses to which the conquest of nature would be put; they may not all be good, humane and charitable. He was not uniformly optimistic about the result being “the relief of man's estate,” even though that is the overwhelming rhetorical thrust of his major writings. Bacon actually rejected many of our currently offered “solutions” for controlling science as being hopelessly impolitic and improvident. This is revealed in a little-known chapter, entitled “Daedalus,” in one of his most comprehensive political works, Of the Wisdom of the Ancients. He provides timely lessons for us to consider now, entering the twenty-first century.

Résumé

Le progrès technologique a engendré certaines difficultés politiques: nous avons à la fois trop de pouvoir et pas assez de contrôle. Francis Bacon, l'une des principales figures de la science et de la technologie, n'était pas sans connaître les différentes utilisations que la conquête de la nature pourrait amener; il se peut qu'elles ne soient pas bonnes, humaines et charitables. Il n'éait pas pleinement optimiste quant au résultat apporté au « relief of man's estate » même s'il s'agit là du thème rhétorique le plus important de ses principaux écrits. En effet, Bacon rejeta plusieurs des « solutions » proposées de nos jours pour controler la science, celles-ci étant jugées complètement apolitiques et imprévoyantes. Il en est notamment question dans un chapitre peu connu intitulé « Daedalus » dans l'une de ses oeuvres politiques les plus complètes De Sapientia Veterum. Il nous fournit des leçons que nous devont prendre en compte maintenant alors que nous entrons dans le 21e siècle.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 31 , Issue 2 , June 1998 , pp. 219 - 234
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 1998

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References

1 Bacon, Francis, De Sapientia Veterum (London, 1609Google Scholar); all translations in this article are mine, from a book in progress, a critical edition of Of the Wisdom of the Ancients, with a new translation, an interpretation and several indices.

2 That “Daedalus” has this subject matter partly explains why Bacon intended the book to be included in a volume of “moral and political writings” that was to be “interposed” between two volumes of his major project, The Great Instauration. Apparently it was to be interposed between The Advancement of Learning and The New Organon. See The Letters and the Life of Francis Bacon, edited by Spedding, James, Vol. 7 (London: Longman, Green, Longman and Roberts, 1861), 531–532.Google Scholar

3 Unlike Aristotle, Bacon puts techne together with scientific wisdom; it is acceptable for the wise to associate with technicians.

4 See Paterson's, Timothy H. excellent treatment of this in “The Secular Control of Scientific Power in the Political Philosophy of Francis Bacon,” Polity 21 (1989) 457–480CrossRefGoogle Scholar. He recognizes the importance of this chapter: “ ‘Daedalus’ constitutes a recognition by Bacon that the unlimited progress of the arts involves a serious danger to mankind, and that the assumed goodness of the philosophers who will further that progress is not an adequate defense against those dangers” (472).

5 See, among others, De Augmentis Scientiarum, Book II, chap. 13; Book VI, chap. 2; Book VIII, chaps. 1 and 3; The Advancement of Learning (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974), 197Google Scholar; and Essay 6, “Of Simulation and6 Dissimulation”; see also Briggs, John C., Francis Bacon and the Rhetoric of Nature (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989), 28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 White, Howard B., Peace among the Willows (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1968) 12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 One of the most famous examples of the optimistic gloss is from a book Bacon published a year after the second edition of Of the Wisdom of the Ancients: “Lastly, if the debasement of arts and sciences to purposes of wickedness, luxury, and the like, be made a ground of objection, let no one be moved thereby. For the same may be said of all earthly goods: of wit, courage, strength, beauty, wealth, light itself, and the rest. Only let the human race recover that right over nature which belongs to it by divine bequest and let power be given it; the exercise there of will be governed by sound reason and true religion” (New Organon I.129). Unless Bacon had a serious loss of memory by the time he wrote the New Organon, another explanation must be found for the apparent change of heart. We must not forget Bacon's oft-stated expectation that different readers would focus on different levels of his teaching.

8 See, for example, Thucydides The Peloponnesian War I.10.

9 See for example, Farrington, Benjamin, “The Refutation of Philosophies” and “Thoughts and Conclusions,” in The Philosophy of Francis Bacon (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966), 108, 83Google Scholar; New Organon 1.128, 71; and Bacon's Preface to The Great Instauration, in Anderson, Fulton, ed., The New Organon (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1960), 8.Google Scholar

10 Works of beauty and adornment, of course, are not immune from criticism, for poetry can be abused, and can be used to abuse men and women. They are, however, peculiar to human life. See Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, First Discourse (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1964), 47–58.Google Scholar

11 See Xenophon Recollections III.xi.1–18.

12 See New Organon I.129, 73, 110, and Farrington, The Philosophy of Francis Bacon, 90–93. Compare New Atlantis, para. 56.

13 Plato Euthyphro 11c and First Alkibiades 121a.

14 Her lust, of course, is more appropriately described as “zoophilia,” not “bestiality,” and Daedalus thereby caters to something even lower, to one who actually prefers the perversion, instead of “making do” with the perversion because of scarcity, or lack of opportunity.

15 The New Atlantis does not actually describe the workings of such a fellowship, or discuss the envy that could arise from the erection of a statue in the Hall of Statues. Several of the scientists seem to live, work and experiment in places widely separated from each other. Nor are they near the citizens. Nevertheless, what goes on in Bensalem is a far cry from Daedalus' life. But even in Bensalem, inventions and discoveries are often kept secret from the politicians and the public.

16 Especially in war and the military, as Aristotle points out in his Politics (Book 7, 1330b-133la; cf. 1259a, 1268b–1269a), it is stupid not to have the best technology available.

17 Bacon implies that rural folk may not favour foreign artisans. Perhaps they care more about people's characters, and thus would not overlook the character of a man or woman for the advantages of their skill. Perhaps, too, rural folk are more tied to their own land, and thus to their country. Consider rural and small-town reactions to scandals.

18 See, for example, Joravsky, David, The Lysenko Affair (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1970).Google Scholar

19 Tacitus Histories 1.22.

20 Aristophanes The Clouds 140–43. Consider also how many researchers stage “news conferences” and press releases to create an interest in their work, which often has the result of making the public clamour for a product; they become politically involved in lobbying governments.

21 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, Second Discourse (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1964), 174–175.Google Scholar