MALICIOUS PHILOSOPHIES
55
hands with preachers and publicists in placing the blame for
contemporary-Fascism upon the demoralizing effects of positivistic
philosophy. And in language solemn and threatening Professor
Maritain warns his readers of the dreadful consequences which
allegedly flow from scientific naturalism:
Let us not delude ourselves; an education in which the
sciences of phenomena and the corresponding techniques take
precedence over philosophical and theological knowledge is
already, potentially, a Fascist education; an education in which
biology, hygiene and eugenics provide the supreme criteria of
morality is already, potentially, a Fascist education.'
Whatever may be the validity of the causal imputations con–
tained in such criticism, it cannot be denied, unfortunately, that
many of its characterizations of modern society are well founded;
it is certainly not the intent of the following comments to dispute
them. It must nevertheless be noted that the implied judgment,
according to which the quality of modern life is inferior to that
of earlier societies unburdened by an institutionalized natural
science, is based on a definite set of preferences or values in terms
of which human history is surveyed. But while it is clear that
there is nothing reprehensible in employing definite standards of
valuation (for example, such as are involved in Catholic Chris–
tianity), such standards need to be made explicit and should not
be assumed as self-evident and above criticism. For it is sheer
dogmatism to assume that only one conception of spiritual ex–
cellence is valid; and it is the height of discourtesy and paroch–
ialism to damn a society as immoral simply because its standards
of excellence differ from one's own. Moreover, comparative judg–
ments as to the happiness of men are notoriously untrustworthy,
unless they are based upon objective measures of well-being. And
if
the material conditions of life are discounted as indications of
"true" happiness, the critic's evaluations of different cultures are
a better guide to his own preferences and loyalties than to the
ostensible subject-matter of his judgment.
'In the essay "Science, Philosophy and Faith,"
op. cit.,
p. 182. Neo-Thomists have
no monopoly
in
the making of such casual imputations. Thus, in his essay "Fact
and Value in Social Science," Professor Frank Knight writes as follows: "In the
field of social policy, the pernicious notion of instrumentalism, resting on the claun
or assumption of a parallelism between social and natural science is actually one
of the most serious of the sources of danger which threaten destruction to the values
f
what we have called civilization.... It is a serious reflection that the unsatisfactory
state of affairs in social science has largely resulted from the very progress of
ecience.••."
Science and Man,
(edited by Ruth Nanda Anshen), pp. 325-6.
