The Problem of Freedom and Moral Behavior in Thomas More's Utopia

The Problem of Freedom and Moral Behavior in Thomas More's Utopia T. A. KENYON ATTEMPTING TO TRANSLATE the conceptual assumptions of moral and political discourse from one epoch to another may result in two very different conclusions. On the one hand, it could be argued that conceptual discourse should not be analysed in isolation from its intellectual context. On the other hand, it might be supposed that discourse between ourselves and past generations is perfectly feasible because we share with our intellectual ancestors common appreciations of the meaning of certain ideas and concepts. These two possibilities are quite familiar to political theorists of our own day.' However, I want to suggest that a third, more sophisticated approach to the problem of conceptual apprehension over time may often be profitable. This approach involves an initial contextual exploration of the ideas, concepts and language employed by a particular thinker, followed by an operation in This is the revised version of a paper delivered to the Senior Political Theory Seminar at the University of Manchester. I should like to thank Geraint Parry, Alistair Edwards, Hillel Steiner and Robert Wokler ['ortheir helpful comments. My work on More has been encouraged enormously by J.J. Scarisbrick, Andrew Reeve and Robin Clifton. To the aforementioned and to a reader |br the Journal of the History.o]Philosophy I should like to register my heartfeh thanks. ' The limitations involved in confining political theory to the recovery of "meaning" by identifyingand isolating the linguistic contexts attending historical texts has been highlighted by the critical response to the broad similarities of approach sponsored by Quentin Skinner,J.G.A. Pocock, .John Dunn and others associated with the "Cambridge School." In this article I suggest that the recovery of More's "meaning" is fundamentally important. However, I also contend that once this is achieved, the critical response to what More intended will involve an analysis which is more obviously and directly "conceptual" in emphasis. Thus we ask two related but distinguishable questions. "What was More saying?" and "How successful was More in maintaining logical coherence in what he said?" To explain this approach with the economy of style dictated by a note is difficult. I hope to make myself clearer by eventually venturing a paper currently in preparation; "Vogue Talk: Concepts in their Contexts." [349] 350 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY which the logic of those ideas is extended into an analysis conducted in conceptual terms more familiar to ourselves. In this way I think we gain by being able to participate in some degree of debate with thinkers from the past, without risking the sort of distortion that is liable to occur if we simply assume that our own ideas and assumptions are discernible in writings from ages past. The issue I wish to explore, that of the nature of individual and social freedom posited in Thomas More's Utopia, illustrates some of the advantages of this more complex approach. J.C. Davis has recently argued that in writing Utopia Thomas More was fundamentally concerned with the problem of how social instability could be averted. Thus, according to Davis, More believed that by effecting the harmony of positive law and individual conscience, this end could be attained. 2 Social stability was therefore secured in Utopia through the thoroughgoing institutional restraint of individual action. This theme is not unfamiliar to students of More's work. a However, in assessing the Utopian achievement, Davis has spoken of "a discipline which is totalitarian in its scope and denial of human individuality." He goes on to argue that, "if we mean by moral behavior a free choosing of the good rather than the bad when both alternatives are available, the Utopian's area of choice is so limited that he is almost incapable of moral behavior. TM I think Davis's analysis entitles us to ask two questions. The first is whether More shared our (or at least Davis's) conception of moral behavior founded on a particular understanding of what is meant by freedom of choice. The second concerns the problem of whether More, failing his adherence to Davis's outlook, could ever have been persuaded to accept it. I intend to show...