Jacques Monod argues that we should accept the contingency of our existence and seek a world based on scientific knowledge, and explains in his book why science cannot coexist with materialistic values. He sees the ethics of knowledge as the basis for resolving human anxiety and realizing our ideals.

Le Hasard et la Nécessité Chapter 9 The Kingdom and the Maw of Darkness

In the final chapter, titled “The Kingdom and the Kingdom of Darkness,” Jacques Monod argues that we should accept our situation as accidental beings, reject materialistic values, and build a world in which all our decisions and actions are based on scientific knowledge. He argues that modern people are caught in a deep contradiction because they enjoy the convenience of science while trying to quell their existential anxiety by pursuing materialistic values. However, he takes the rather extreme position that if the development of science continues in this state, it will eventually destroy our souls and lead us into the darkness.

Humans as cultural evolution

Initially, humans, like other species, were animals that evolved physically to survive, but at some point, we became the only species to open our eyes to the world of “ideas,” which are not only information related to survival, such as food and shelter, but also the reconstruction and expression of our own subjective thoughts. From then on, human mental evolution occurred at a very rapid pace, and the evolution of ideas and language led to the evolution of culture. This means that humans united to overcome their physical shortcomings and became an invincible species that dominated the environment. Rather than humans versus other animals, only human confrontations became significant, and this became an important factor driving human evolution. At the core of this are cultural conditions, such as group unity, rather than physical conditions.
This means that humans are evolving in a way that betrays Darwin’s theory of natural selection. Weaker and less intelligent individuals are no longer completely culled out. The conditions of natural selection that helped pre-civilized species survive and evolve have been rendered irrelevant in modern times under the names of culture and morality. This is potentially a “threat”.
In addition, humans are faced with the shocking idea that they must redefine their relationship to the world from objective knowledge gained from nature. This was a great crisis for humans, who had made no distinction between man and nature, endowed them with a soul, and were convinced of their meaning. Humans became anxious. In response, various ideas emerged and organized human thought. As with the evolution of species, ideas evolve through selection and culling, and perhaps the most powerful of these is the one that calms our inherent anxiety.

An essential explanation of existence and society

The aforementioned human anxieties include the question of why individuals should behave properly as members of society and follow norms. We have inherited the need to resolve these anxieties, and humans have sought to explain themselves and the world in a variety of ways to alleviate anxiety. This legacy is the foundation of culture: mythology, religion, philosophy, and science. These explanations, essentially in the form of stories, represent the sources of power that guide individuals and groups in different ways: the emergence of heroes or prophets, transcendent laws, and central concepts or ideas.

“Explanations” and science, an uncomfortable coexistence

Science was able to sprout among anxious humans because, since its inception, we have placed it under a framework of knowledge and practice. The development of science has allowed humans to enjoy the convenience of life and material wealth. However, the progress of science without fully digesting its implications and ideas has led to the crisis we are facing today. This is because science is fundamentally predicated on an attitude that denies materialism and allows only complete objectivity. Science is in fact at odds with many of our spiritual heritages, which have helped to eliminate individual existential anxiety and increase group cohesion. However, most modern people have chosen to ignore this fundamental message of science in favor of the conveniences it brings. On the one hand, they pursue many materialistic values that strongly bind them to the world in order to relieve their existential anxiety. However, events such as the degradation of the natural environment and the dropping of the atomic bomb have brought to the surface the potential destructive power of science that can no longer be ignored. The remnants of science breed rejection, and modern people have become morbidly devout in their spirituality, unable to completely reject its use. But science is not subject to any biased moral judgment. When confronted with the worldview of science, man will see that he is but a mere speck of chance in the universe, and that his values are also very anthropocentric ideas.

Values and knowledge

The author rejects the idea that values and knowledge are two different domains. This is because, first, it is impossible to separate the criteria of value and knowledge in behavior. In addition, the very act of defining what is true or false presupposes a value judgment. In stipulating the objective as the absolute standard by which knowledge is judged, the axiom can only be said to be the result of a value judgment, not of any prior knowledge. For this reason, the author considers the process by which the axioms that form the basis of knowledge are chosen to be ethical judgments, and defines them as the ethics of knowledge.
Unlike teleological values, which assume that nature imposes norms on humans, the ethics of knowledge is an anthropocentric ethics in which humans choose their own standards and act accordingly. This empowered the human spirit and laid the foundation for humans to overcome the limitations of nature and achieve scientific progress.

The ethics of knowledge

But can an ethic of knowledge completely replace materialistic faith? The author believes that if humans actively pursue true knowledge, they will be able to overcome individual and social anxiety. He also believes that the gap between animal instincts and lofty ideas can liberate humans who feel guilty to some extent. This is because it allows us to boldly acknowledge that we are animal beings, while also honoring the positive forces within us, such as creation and striving. Thus, Jacques Monod sees the human being who follows the ethics of knowledge as a being who affirms himself and strives to realize his ideals.
Furthermore, the author is convinced that the ethics of knowledge will ultimately play a role in the realization of a specific ideal: “socialism”. Jacques Monet’s argument that the realization of ideals leads to the realization of socialism is understandable when we recall that in the early 1900s, just before Monet was born, socialist parties were formed in many European countries and socialist ideas were popular in France. Despite the success of the Revolution, France had to go through many trials before it could establish a socialist party, and Mono seems to sympathize with the frustration of young people at the gap between ideals and reality. However, he is adamant that for socialism to succeed, only an ideology based on the ethics of knowledge can be valid, without the illusion of a watered-down version. He concludes the chapter by using the rather extreme language of “kingdom” and “darkness” to illustrate the reality of the crossroads that young people in France are facing.

My thoughts

Jacques Monod’s way of starting with the topic of the accidental origin of life and ending with a strong argument for human beings and society as a whole is very innovative. Despite being a scholar who studies science, it is remarkable that he is able to offer insights into a wide range of topics, including the fundamental insecurity of human existence, the rise of water activism, and the need for science to be grounded in the ethics of knowledge. However, I felt that the allotted time was about one-ninth of the total, and the ideas contained within were so grandiose that there were parts that were not fully explained.
First, the author’s use of the concept of “ethics of knowledge” is sometimes confusing. The ethics of knowledge is described as an independent worldview in contrast to the worldview of naturalism, in which values are adopted voluntarily by humans rather than being given meaning by nature. On the other hand, if we say that the ethics of knowledge follows the axiom of objectivity, the meaning is much more limited than the former. Taking the concept of an ethics of knowledge in the latter sense, it is not clear how an ethics of knowledge can coexist with subjective and personal records of experience, such as “art” or “poetry,” as the author claims.
I also don’t think the first half of the chapter is fully justified when it comes to the cultural evolution of humans and the possibility of genetic decline. Based on the first half of the chapter, I thought that Jacques Monod would later offer a solution to this problem, or at least a perspective on it, but I do not think that the ethics of knowledge or the socialist ideal, which he ultimately argues most strongly for, would prevent genetic decline. Rather, I wonder if the arguments for socialism might actually exacerbate the problems he presents by reducing the uneven playing field created by environmental and genetic differences.