Ethics, Contingency and Solidarity in The Dream of Scipio by Iain Pears

In Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity Richard Rorty makes a case for the solidarity of humanity, a case that discards metaphysics and theology as providing the ordered universe necessary for such solidarity to exist. Instead, Rorty posits the "liberal ironist:" a person both capable of recognizing the "contingency of his or her own most central beliefs and desires" and that "cruelty is the worst thing we do." With this subject position in mind, one can see how Pears novel uses three historical timeframes to interrogate the reader's conception of ethical and moral choice in relation to human suffering and the impossibility of quantifying ethical/moral outcomes. The result of this interrogation highlights the impossibility of ethical choice in a world where every " 'ethical' decision violates some law or other, and violates it precisely because it is 'ethical.'" For Rorty, liberal-irony does not involve a "right" answer to ethical questions, but rather an open contemplation of ethical choices that brings human solidarity through an open acknowledgment of human suffering. As a result, ethical contingency still manifests an imperative to seek ways to stop the suffering of other individuals, given limited resources and abilities.

Geoffrey Harpham has described ethics as a reflective space of competing claims and choices. Morality represents the active choice, or that choice which is left after all others have been discarded. In combination, Harpham and Rorty provide a frame through which Pears points out the inherent futility of reflective ethical space to humanity by exposing the contingency of ethics over time. This ethical contingency reinforces the ethical problems of Rorty's subject, reifying an ethical imperative on one hand while discarding it with the other. The liberal-ironist seeks to assuage human suffering, knowing always that their own actions carry the possibility of causing more of it. To create this paradox, Pears presents ethical choices with seemingly clear dichotomies, only to problematize these dichotomies with conflicting ethical and moral interests.

At the same time as The Dream destabilizes comfortable hierarchies of ethics, it uses historical artifacts to map the perspective required to achieve Harpham's reflective ethical space. To do this, the novel begins with Macrobius' text of the same name to open a discussion about ethical contingency via Platonic philosophy. As an affirmed Platonist herself, Iris Murdoch uses philosophy to trace The Sovereignty of Good, or good as a manifestation of Plato's highest order of being. 3 For Pears, this and other historical artifacts serve two purposes: at the surface they stand for Plato's original thought of the divine as a static entity achieved through reflection, while at the same time, historical artifacts represent fragments through which "the Good" (as Murdoch's ideal) can be reached through that same reflection. In both instances, "the Good" comes via a negotiation between competing ethical claims, but for Pears, the reflection on our respective histories holds the possibility of yielding the most good, as it focuses our energy on solidarity through human suffering. Never does "the Good" make itself plain to us, nor does it quantify or insist upon any one choice. Instead, reflection upon our histories and ourselves can yield at best a shadow of the goodness toward which humanity strives, making it manifestly more important for us to struggle harder against the bounds of our own frailty.

As the Dream of Scipio opens with the fiery death of Julien Barneuve, Pears immediately presents the reader with competing ethical choices masquerading as fate. The first paragraph notes that Julien "had not known his life was going to end that day, although he suspected it might happen," followed by a false statement: "He didn't struggle, didn't try to escape; it could not be done." 4 Later, the reader learns that Julien has set the fire himself in a desperate attempt to reclaim an ethical purpose for his life. Indeed, Julien cannot escape the blaze, but not for the reasons that Pears would have the reader believe at the outset. This is not fate, it is an act of moral desperation and a profound choice in the direction of what Iris Murdoch calls "the Good," or an exemplum of the Platonic understanding of goodness.

That goodness comes as an epiphany to Julien, an epiphany that escapes him until he is himself placed in a universalizing moment of ethical dilemma. Like Olivier, who gains ethical clarity through the realization of selfless love for Rebekkah, Julien finally sees that "the immortality of the soul lies in its dissolution." 5 This phrase from his research on Manlius' version of the Macrobius text lifts him towards the "indefinable" good, levitating him towards Platonic divinity even as he realizes that his comprehension makes the literal dissolution of his body a necessary moral act. 6 There can be no mistake then that Julien comes to this momentous realization in the shadow of the image of Sophia, the ironically dubbed Saint. Her contemplative space now becomes that in which Julien's ethical battle must be fought and won.

Via Julien's reflection on Manlius' fragment and Sophia's image, Julien, Sophia, and Manlius have an unspoken ethical dialogue across time that universalizes the reflective and transcendental process of Platonic and ethical thought. As Julien sees the paintings in the chapel through Julia's eyes, he begins to see how the art "pierces the veil and gives sense to the notion of a reality which lies beyond appearance; it exhibits virtue in its true guise in the context of death and chance." 7 The art causes Julien to de-center his body and ego, allowing access to a brief interlude with "the sun" of "the Good." Or rather, via the power of "good art" and selfless love "the sun is seen at the end of a long quest which involves a reorientation...and an ascent." 8 Pisano's art reflects something of the eternal divinity identified by Sophia as one of the basic functions of Platonic thought. The recognition of this essential beauty, Murdoch notes, is the essence of "good art" and as such says that it "invigorates our best faculties and...inspires love in the highest part of the soul." 9 At this, Julien gains a flash of insight into his research on Manlius' text that allows him to see his best and only remaining moral action: his own self-sacrifice. Julien's experience grants him the perspective necessary to act to save Bernard, an act that represents the culmination of hundreds of years of thought.

This line of thinking establishes Platonic divinity and reflection as the final ethical authority over time, but without establishing any description of that divinity. Like the ethics that Pears espouses, divinity becomes contingent and ambiguous. Platonic divinity may become Murdoch's contingent "Good," which she claims as sovereign among virtues, but it maintains a hermeneutic openness despite its existence outside of time and space. The liberal-ironist relishes this openness, but still recognizes the Platonic requirement to reflect and act virtuously. The task of the Platonic individual to act virtuously never ends, just as the liberal-ironist must understand that human suffering can never be completely eliminated. In Murdoch's less dogmatic styling of Platonism, Rorty and Harpham's view complement the idea of goodness as contingent and fluid, unquantifiable but necessary.

From another perspective, history itself (and our relationship to it) becomes the embodiment of Platonic divinity. To Pears ethics may be contingent, but the "things" or artifacts of history continuously and infinitely insinuate themselves into our psyche, constantly changing our relationship to our environment. 10 In the end the reader may not be able to (or want to) fully grasp exactly what eternality Pears refers to, nor does he tell us outright, but Julien's relationship to these fragments of history do transform him into an active moral being. The question of this divinity and the quality of Julien's experience with the paintings opens up an aporetic space that forces us to construct Platonic divinity and transcendence for ourselves, all the while telling the liberal-ironist that each prospective option is as fluid and contingent as the next.

However divine or good this image appears to be, Pears always seeks to problematize efforts to neatly package the ethical decisions of his characters. A liberal-ironist perspective cannot ignore the casualties of Julien's moral act. Indeed, some would call the premeditated sacrifice of the villagers decidedly amoral. In saving his last personal friend from immediate capture, Julien refuses to quantify lives but also saves very few. This moral paradox opens up a field in which the liberal-ironist must grapple with some serious questions, after all "anybody who thinks that there are grounded theoretical answers to this sort of question - algorithms for resolving moral dilemmas of this sort...believes in an order beyond time and change which both determines the point of human existence and establishes a hierarchy of responsibilities" 11 Time and time again Pears resists such simplistic hierarchical models, models that also defy Murdoch's view that life "can be examined but it cannot be justified or totally explained. We are simply here." 12 For the liberal-ironist, the ethical life is contingent, indefinable, and based, not on Kantian hierarchies of duty and responsibility, but on what the individual is willing and able to do in a given circumstance.

While duty and responsibility-outside of the basic ethical imperative to do good- do not represent the basis of this argument, it does open up a discussion about a personal ethic, or an ethic that applies to those whom we love, and a public ethic that envelops all people. The liberal-ironist cannot see the distinction. After all, in a world where all people suffer, how can we truly choose who to save? Julien saves only Bernard, Olivier saves Gersonides and Rebekkah, and Manlius saves Gaul from encroaching invaders. However, as mentioned before, their actions have serious repercussions for themselves and others. Each of these characters experience the loss of friends, loved ones, personal virtues, and/or sacrifice innocent people. Pears poses the question directly when Manlius asks "can one act unjustly to achieve justice? Can virtue manifest itself through the exercise of harshness? ...All he knew was that his father had answered wrongly and paid heavily. Whatever virtue he had was dissipated in failure." 13 Manlius believes himself to be working for the public good in saving Gaul, and to that end he chooses to sacrifice his virtue by joining the Christian church, killing his stepson and heir, and finally murdering his friend Felix. Manlius does affect the safety of Gaul for a time, but at a profound personal cost. He pays heavily, much like his father. Pears asks the reader to contemplate these decisions, setting traps for those who seek to prioritize acts of good/evil in one of the hierarchies discussed above. Any definitive answer about Manlius' absolute goodness can be met with resistance on either side of the dichotomy, effectively establishing the impossibility of such ethical prioritizing.

Not surprisingly, Manlius sets the same traps for himself, and effectively ensnares his own ethical/moral frame within his own artificial hierarchy. Manlius' ethical problem stems from a lack of contemplation and an inability to understand the philosophies that he claims to espouse. As he says, he "exist(s) to take decisions, to make choices," whereas Harpham notes that "decisions achieved without a passage through what Derrida would call undecidability, and what a more traditional account would call the circumstance of free choice represent mere blindness and brutality." 14, 15 Manlius rushes to take control of a situation he deems to be wildly chaotic and bring it to order, thus completely sidestepping the process that his mentor Sophia espouses and which Julien eventually grasps through contemplating her image. Manlius lacks perspective because he refuses to seek it, running instead directly to self-sacrifice as a placebo for real virtue. In the end, he does harm to all those close to him, but saves a dying ideal of civilization for a hundred or so more years. The Dream may not quantify the suffering Manlius causes or assuages, but does argue the importance of contemplative space for the deciding of moral action. Like Julien, Manlius should have conversed with the artifacts of his own history to gain some perspective on Murdoch's Good. Perhaps then, he would not have "paid heavily."

By contrast, Olivier does come to follow the process of contemplation and action, even beginning to grasp Rorty's concept of solidarity through common suffering. While Manlius' text provides the impetus for Olivier to seek Gersonides, his love for Rebekkah transforms "a foolish, wasteful, and futile gesture" into a profound moral statement. 16 Here again, the text presents contradictory information, saying at once that "he did not want to even save the Jews" while showing his active response as one that reflects compassion for them, saying that Pisano "can't just run away" from the murder of De Fréjus because it will give the people of Avignon a reason to slaughter them. 17 Truly, Olivier's priority becomes the safety of his teacher and lover, but his actions bespeak a deeper comprehension of ethics than the learned Manlius. For while Manlius insists that "understanding is more important than movement," Olivier's performance of moral action indicates a concern for the Jews, even though it is overridden by deep concern for his personal loves. 18

All three of these instances of ethical paradox result in the strongest efforts being produced in service of what the characters perceive to be most important to them. This answers the question of personal/public ethics by noting that ethics necessarily acts in its own self-interest. The liberal-ironist, one who sees the universality of human suffering and who cannot quantify the disasters or virtues of saving one over the other, can also use the same philosophy to justify this self-interest. In this sense, our desires for the "things" of the past, present, and future supersede all broader ethical imperatives. No such public/private ethical distinction exists, because within the contingency of ethics, the reader can always hope to have the chance to "ma(ke) a protest against great ideas for the sake of a small humanity, and illuminate it with (their) own suffering." 19 Our lives with others, and our reaction to the suffering of those others may constitute virtue in Pears' eyes, especially if civilization is nothing more than "another name for friendship." 20 In a world where all acted with such an imperative, the liberal-ironist goal of reducing the common suffering of humanity would be easily met.

In this model, desire becomes sovereign over quantification, leaving the ironist with the broad ethical freedom that Harpham describes. At the same time, the question remains as to whether, like Julien's choice to stay in the burning building in order to save himself from ethical destruction, we have any other choice but to treasure and save what we desire or love most. In this case, our duty and responsibility, imperative and desire, all conjoin in the mere illusion of ethical choice. Yet again, Pears opens up a discursive problem for readers without any particular solution. Instead, the openness of the text seeks to problematize our urge to choose at all, and this choice says more about the way in which any individual grapples with such questions than any didactic answer.

However, even with the comfort that "the good man knows whether and when art or politics is more important...the good man sees the way in which the virtues are related to each other," and does so as a matter of instinct, Pears does not leave the question of our fundamental morals quite so cut and dry. 21 While on the one hand, our desire to save the "things" which we desire can arguably be called an anti-choice which compels us always to perform ethical and moral duty, the character's inability to do the most good for the most people calls into question our fundamental ethical and moral acts. Olivier understands this problem when he calls his small "protest" a "foolish, wasteful and futile gesture." Manlius realizes the dilemma when he sacrifices Felix, saying, "'we must not argue now,' he said sadly...too much is at stake for heated words...let us pause and think, and talk again later." 22 Julien realizes the notion even as his reflection on the image of Sophia compels him to save Bernard, and Bernard alone. With all this futility, Pears asks whether or not our desires cause us to be fundamentally amoral, unethical creatures incapable, in the end, of looking past ourselves and into "the Good."

Presupposing a Platonic divinity, and thinking back on the influence of Scipio's remarkable text, what is to keep the liberal-ironist from becoming disheartened by the implication that what an individual perceives as "the Good" may simply be the false reflection of the divine, or as also posited, the mistranslation of historical fragments? What if "the warmth and light of the sun" merely implicates us all in a lie of reflection, where all of our ethical and moral choices represent at least as much wrong as right (if not more)? 23 At the end of the day, the ironists may find themselves racked by "resentment, fantasy, and despair. The refusal to attend may even induce a fictitious sense of freedom: I may as well toss a coin." 24 Pears does not pretend to answer these questions, or the debilitating self-pity which accompanies it. Instead he presents three characters caught in a fragile ethical space, a location frequented by all those who suffer and wish to assuage the suffering of others, and shows the actions they perform with the resources under their command. As stated before, it is easy to judge these people at face value, showing them to be at best morally inept. However, they avidly resist such judgments, asking the reader what they would have done in their stead. It is this problematizing of virtue that presents our single best argument for seeing ourselves as ethical beings. Even as Manlius, Olivier, and Julien act wrongly, they all have limited resources to do what they set out to accomplish. As do we all. Murdoch puts it best:

Good is mysterious because of human frailty, because of the immense distance which is involved. If there were angels they might be able to define good but we would not understand the definition. We are largely mechanical creatures, the slaves of relentlessly strong selfish forces the nature of which we scarcely comprehend. At best, as decent persons, we are usually very specialized . We behave well in areas where this can be done fairly easily and let other areas of possible virtue remain undeveloped...the self is a divided thing and the whole of it cannot be redeemed any more than it can be known. 25

The resolution of all these dilemmas can be engaged through the contingency, not just of ethics, but also of ourselves. Hope does not lie in excusing the evil that people do, but for the liberal-ironist, it lies in realizing our limited capabilities to make the best of the ethical space afforded us. In this sense, Pears makes his romp through history simple, for how better to achieve reflective space than to present such long and information-rich perspectives. In this embarrassment of riches, it is easy to judge. However, the application of this interrogative to our own lives complicates matters, exposing our fragility and the fragility of goodness itself.

In this fragility, the Good becomes remarkable, and our hope for achieving goodness for those around us begins to illuminate the scope of our real freedom to perform such acts. Ethics may be informed by desire, but does not hold authoritarian sway over it. Our freedom to reflect may not end in what Murdoch and Plato call the divine, but it passes that occasionally we can see clearly. The actions upon which we eventually seize may have heavy casualties (not the least of which may be ourselves), but we may succeed in protecting that which we hold most dear, at least for a time. Our resources to affect change may be limited, but we will use those resources to do what can be done in the service of such change. In the end, the greatest glory we can have is the good that arises from this contingency, from the sparks of light that arise from a life so complex, so engaged in the interplay between "Death and Chance," that the Good can seem impossibly shadowed and mysterious.

The containment of such complexity within a novel such as The Dream brings to bear the final frame of Pears' ethical discourse. The novel finitely expresses concepts of the infinite and boundless nature of ethical and moral function. In physical form, the novel becomes the sign of that conversation, punctuation in the same discourse begun thousands of years before by Scipio himself. In a sense, the novel becomes another reflection of the eternal and Platonic, the successor to a never-ending historical conversation about ethical and moral life, and a symptom of the contingency that it espouses. The Dream of Scipio finally and most importantly becomes that indeterminate space whereby we decide to act. Not only espousing reflection and perspective, it seeks to become that which we have been seeking all along. In some sense then, The Dream of Scipio becomes "the sun" itself, and we the hapless wanderers from the cave, ever searching for "the unmistakable sign that we are spiritual creatures, attracted by excellence and made for the good." 26 Our great hope then, must be to keep wandering, to never be satisfied with the wall of the cave, the fire, or the brightness of the light outdoors. Our hope lies in the ethical, in the solidarity of our suffering, and in our inability and unwillingness to quantify the good. This is Pears' message- one that establishes the frailty of goodness and its dire necessity.

Rorty, Richard, Contingency, Irony and Solidarity. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989. (xv).

Harpham, Geoffrey et al., Critical Terms for Literary Study. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995.

(396)

3 Murdoch, Iris, The Sovereignty of Good. New York: Routledge, 1971. (75)

I do not cite a page number, as "The Good" appears as a concept throughout the lecture.

4 Pears, Iain. The Dream of Scipio. New York: Riverhead Book, 2002. (1)

5 Pears, 384.

6 Murdoch, 96.

7 Murdoch, 86.

8 Murdoch, 90.

9 Murdoch, 83.

10 Brown, Bill, Critical Inquiry, Vol.28, No. 1, Things (Autumn 2001), pp 1-22.

11 Rorty, xv.

12 Murdoch, 77.

13 Pears, 91.

14 Pears 305.

15 Harpham, 397.

16 Pears, 380.

17 Pears, 345, 380.

18 Pears, 381.

19 Pears, 385.

20 Pears, 377.

21 Murdoch, 77. As she describes the fact that our desire is at the first, to do good.

22 Pears 379. He does this at the same time as he is distracted by the tool of his friend's destruction, the long

handled axe.

23 Murdoch, 100. In the Allegory of the Cave, Murdoch says that each step toward virtue moves further outside of the cave until we can finally feel the "warmth and light" of the sun. However, until we can stare into that sun, we still only view reflections of it. At each step of the way, it is easy to fall into the notion that we have found that sun, when in reality, we have only been continuing to stare at the cave wall, or the fire, or the mouth of the cave.

24 Murdoch, 89.

25 97.

26 Murdoch, 100.