Thomas More and Utopia

Republic of Plato VS Eutopia

• Society & citizens — Plato: hierarchy and necessity; rigid classes (rulers, guardians, producers). More: a society of equal citizens; equality as a dictate of justice.

• Who should rule — Plato: philosophers become kings. More: Utopia set apart from reality; no philosopher-king, and even the question of whether the wise should enter politics at all is left open.

• Truth and power — Plato: the philosopher can rule only in an ideal city, not in corrupted real kingdoms. More: split between Hythloday (radical — philosophy and power are incompatible, don't compromise) and "More" (pragmatic — engage indirectly, accept the lesser evil).

• Status of the ideal — Plato: a genuine model to aim at. More: ironic distance keeps it from being read as a literal blueprint; both a defense and an internal critique of Plato.

• Institutions — Plato: a detailed constitution with a clear ruling structure. More: politics deliberately thin — almost no central government, few laws, no lawyers; consensus over institutions (Venice the nearest parallel).

First and second part of Utopia

The book has two parts.

The first is a sociological investigation of the economic and social malaise of sixteenth-century England;

why does harsher punishment not reduce crime?the second describes the island of Utopia. Notably, More wrote the second part first, while in Holland, and only afterwards, back in London, composed the introductory section.

why does harsher punishment not reduce crime?

• More argues that law alone cannot explain human action. If a man will risk death to steal, it is because he has nothing to live for.

• The roots of crime lie in unemployment and poor working conditions, which themselves stem from private property, the pursuit of wealth, and the predatory wars of monarchs — wars that cost lives and impoverished populations through heavy taxation.

• This mentality of the rich, More argues, was spreading into a hegemonic culture.

• Two images sharpen the indictment: the way sheep have come to "consume men," as farmland is enclosed for pasture and labourers are thrown off the land; and the cruelty and absurdity of hanging the unemployed for theft, offering them in effect a choice between a quick death by strangulation and a slow death from starvation.

• More treats capital punishment for theft as both wicked and useless, since a starving man cannot be deterred by it.

Story against the Philosopher King of Plato

Giles proposes that Hythloday, being wise and learned, ought to advise kings, since rulers badly need prudent counsel (Philosopher as counselor)

Hythloday famously refuses. Counsel at court, he argues, is useless and even impossible, because rulers and courtiers do not want to hear the truth.

They want flattery, reinforcement of their desires, and clever strategies for what they have already decided.

Try to advise them on justice or on the true good of the commonwealth, and they will mock you or dismiss you as naïve.

He compares it to sitting at a feast where everyone is playing dice while you want to discuss geometry — it simply does not fit the setting. Philosophy at court, he says, is out of place.

• (Hythloday's position, close to the Platonic idea that the philosopher can rule only in an ideal city, not in the corrupted kingdoms of Europe.)

More pushes back: even if rulers will not accept pure philosophy, a wise man can still influence them indirectly by speaking persuasively and pragmatically.

Rather than bluntly declaring "your policies are unjust," one frames counsel in terms acceptable at court, nudging politics little by little.

This is what More calls indirect counsel, or philosophy adapted to circumstances.

For him the dialogue of counsel is not all-or-nothing: one may not be able to remake a kingdom into Utopia, but one can still temper its worst excesses.

The principle of the lesser evil

• More himself takes the pragmatic side. He accepts that absolute good is unattainable in politics, so one must embrace the principle of the lesser evil, remarking famously: "Only if everyone were good could absolute good be achieved, but I gave up that idea long ago."

Educating society, not just princes

• Where Erasmus's humanism had hoped to educate princes, More sees that the time has come to educate society as a whole: the old pedagogy of rulers must give way to transformation through the people themselves.

• Yet More is realist enough to know such change is not immediately possible.

• Utopia is therefore not a manual for action but an expression of need — a message to future generations that another society must be sought.

II book overview

• The second book describes Utopia itself, with the peculiarity of blending imaginative invention with realistic social description — geography, religion, politics — using Hythloday as the witness who claims to have travelled there.

• His solutions answer England's crises directly: everyone must work, money is to be avoided, the working day is capped at six hours, and education is universal.

• The book closes with a long speech by Hythloday against the tyranny of wealth and the misery of poverty.

 The economy in utopia

• The root feature, from which the rest follow, is the abolition of money.

• More's humour shows here: the Utopians make their chamber pots out of gold and let children play with precious stones until they grow out of it.

• The economy is communist — families draw necessities from a common store.

• More had no objection to compulsory labour; he had himself lived four years under Carthusian monastic discipline.

• His underlying logic is that since human beings must labour in any case, doing so under a just and secure system is plainly preferable to the cruelties of a money economy.

Punishment in Utopia

Thives sentenced to compulsory labour for life, possibility of parole for good behaviour

harsh with today’s standard, constructive justice in 16th century

Government in Eutopia

Almost no central government

there is a capital with a parliament

uniform towns with local councils

few laws, no lawyers

intellectuals that pursue liberal arts instead of plotting against neighbours

Religion in Utopia

Utilitarian like theism, their god is called Mythras, few shared beliefs and absolute ban on intolerance

Atheists tolerated, but distrusted and banned from public office and advertising beliefs

Eventhou he enforced laws of protestant heresy as a chancellor, violent attempts of conversion are treated as breach of peace rather than as blasphemy

The book ends with a twist: Utopia's one defect was missing the Christian message — but it has now been converted, an ending that may affirm More's Christian humanism or may quietly invite the reader to wonder whether conversion will bring sectarian strife.

war in Utopia

Utopians promote peace, but prepare for war in case of three reasons of just war: defence against aggression or allies, humanitarian intervention

They prefer bribery and deceit to outright war

they hire mercenaries to fight their war, priests accompany them to contain the destruction

The dark side of Utopia

• Read by modern eyes, Utopia also has unmistakably regimented features: citizens cannot travel without permission, premarital sex is punished by a lifelong bar on marriage, and everyone lives constantly under the eyes of everyone else.

• The remark that "my island is an island" signals that Utopia is not merely a fictional nowhere but a mirror of England — and indeed of the world.