Utopia 1516-2016: More's Eccentric Essay and its Activist Aftermath 9789048532926

Citation preview

Utopia １５１６-２０１６

Utopia 1516-2016 More’s Eccentric Essay and its Activist Aftermath Edited by Han van Ruler and Giulia Sissa

Amsterdam University Press

All articles in this book have been published in the journal Algemeen Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Wijsbegeerte 2016, Vol. 108, No. 3. Cover illustration: Saint Jerome in his study, follower of Joos van Cleve (b. ca 1485-d. ca 1540) Cover design: Coördesign, Leiden Lay-out: Pre Press Media Groep, Zeist Amsterdam University Press English-language titles are distributed in the US and Canada by the University of Chicago Press. ISBN

978 94 6298 295 6

E - ISBN

978 90 4853 292 6

DOI

10.5117/9789462982956

NUR

730

© Han van Ruler & Giulia Sissa / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2017 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book.

Table of contents

Introduction

７

PART 1 THE BOOK A praise of pain Thomas More’s anti-utopianism Giulia Sissa

２５

Bodies, morals, and religion Utopia and the Erasmian idea of human progress Han van Ruler

７１

PART 2 ORIGINAL RECEPTION Realism vs utopianism The problem of the Prince in the early-modern Netherlands Erik De Bom

１０９

From Thomas More to Thomas Smith Utopian and anti-utopian understandings of economic change in sixteenth-century England Guido Giglioni

１４３

PART 3 PHILOSOPHICAL CRITICISM Reflections on the utopian mind Arnold Burms

１７１

Utopianism in today’s health care Herman De Dijn

１８５

PART 4 PHILOSOPHICAL ACCLAIM Utopianism and its discontents A conceptual history Julien Kloeg

２０７

The integrity of exacerbated ambiguity More’s Utopia as an evaluative thought experiment Tim De Mey

２２５

Index

２３９

Introduction Han van Ruler & Giulia Sissa

Five hundred years after its first publication, Thomas More’s Utopia continues to raise intellectual controversy both as a book and as a concept. Originally written as a traveller’s report about a far-away island, the book gave a new name to a classic genre of political fiction and challenged future moral and political thinking with its notion of an ideal society. Alluding to the newly discovered lands that lured explorers and captivated the imagination of readers around Europe in 1516, More placed his ‘Nowhereland’ on the other side of the ocean. Acquiring wide fame and notoriety not as a fantasy place, but as a real example to be followed, the island of Utopia was to become a model for future political constellations, investing the concepts of ‘utopia’ and ‘utopianism’ with the temporal dimension of the belief in a dreamworld to come. The present collection of articles will explore both the original book and its historical aftermath. Utopia is one of the rare works of Renaissance literature still widely read today, yet it is also a book that even specialists have difficulty to interpret. As so often, many of the articles in this volume emphasize the uncertainties and ambiguities in More’s text. Should we see the book’s description of a political alternative to Renaissance European society as a serious recipe for a golden future, or are there further layers of interpretation to be uncovered, and other motivations hidden in More’s project? Past and present scholars have tried to relate the political ideas put forward in Utopia in a consistent way to the complicated biography of the Man for All Seasons. Some have chosen for a literal interpretation, and see the book’s recommendations as serious suggestions for altering society’s rules and social arrangements, including, for instance, the introduction of community labour and communist law. Others, however, have noted that Utopia is in fact a dialogue between friends, which would offer More lots of opportunity for experiment, and his readers a certain flexibil-

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ity of interpretation. Wayne A. Rebhorn, for instance, argued that the dialogue form offered More a welcome chance for dissimulation: By writing a dialogue, More could hide behind his characters, claiming that this or that idea was not his, but merely belonged to one of them (...).１

Thus, he was able to avoid the ‘risk of reprisal by authorities, both secular and religious, who might feel that what he said was subversive.’ Rebhorn adds that the name of Utopia itself, which means ‘Noplace’, as well as the name given to its main spokesman, Raphael Hythlodaeus, or Hythloday, meaning ‘speaker of nonsense’, offered More even more elbow room, and allowed him to put ‘further distance between himself and his ideas’.２ Utopia’s radical ideas would in this case still be More’s, but one could also go a step further and claim that, as in the case of Plato’s Republic, which was More’s main example,３ the dialogue form in fact gave a provisional character to the book’s recommendations themselves. With respect to Plato, it has been said that the ‘main lines of his philosophy’ might well be considered as ‘thought experiments that Plato took seriously but expressed playfully in fictional dialogues instead of asserting as doctrines.’４ May More’s Utopia be seen in a similar light? J.H. Hexter, one of the editors of the standard 1965 edition of Utopia by Yale University Press, has suggested that, whilst ‘the Dialogue of Counsel’ (the passage in the first part of Utopia in which the question is raised whether a philosopher should accept a political office and enter into public service) is a genuine dialogue, ‘the Discourse on Utopia’ presented in the second part is a ‘discursive’ text. Only in the first part does More really talk ‘to himself, as it were,’ and he does so in order to settle the problem ‘most immediately before him’,５ namely whether he should accept the offer of entering the Court of Henry VIII. More would indeed soon decide to do so, and he became a ‘councillor attendant’ upon the king in the spring of 1518.６ It is such decisions that are

1 Rebhorn (2005: xxviii). 2 Rebhorn (2005: xxviii). 3 Plato’s book is referred to right at the start of Utopia in the verse that plays on the Utopia / Eutopia, ‘No-Place / Good-Place’- theme, as well as in Peter Giles’ letter to Jerome Busleyden only a few lines later, and in the main text of Utopia itself. More (1965: 20/21, 86/87 and 100/101). For other references to Plato, see More (1965: 102/103 and 104/105). 4 Press (1999: 46). 5 Hexter (1965: xxxiii-xxxvii; quotation from xxxvii). See, on the distinction between demonstrative and deliberative genres, also Erik De Bom’s remarks, on p. 127, below. 6 Ackroyd (1998: 187).

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best dealt with in a dialogue, according to Hexter, since this is the format in which one can freely offer arguments for and against a certain position, and it is indeed in the first part of Utopia that More prominently stages himself – ‘I’, Morus – next to Utopia’s main character, the exotic philosopher-traveller Raphael Hythlodaeus. As for the second part, one may follow another of Hexter’s ideas and compare Plato’s and More’s recommendations one by one. Doing so, one is most likely to conclude that More apparently liked certain things in Plato, such as the abolition of private ownership, and rejected others, such as Plato’s abolition of the nuclear family.７ Yet it is doubtful whether More ever envisaged giving a systematic commentary on Plato’s political views. Even in the first part of Utopia, where we find the main reference to the Republic, More in fact lets Raphael, not Morus, speak out on behalf of Plato’s idealism. The way, moreover, in which Raphael sets apart Platonism and Christianity as two equally idealistic traditions that may have no effect on ‘those who go headlong by the opposite road’ since both proliferate unwelcome truths, makes the passage even more ambiguous.８ Yet there is another way of reading Utopia that may explain More’s references to Plato, a way of reading Utopia only recently put forward by Giulia Sissa, one of the editors of the present volume. Sissa claims that Utopia should not be read as a statement of More’s political views. Nor does More align himself to Plato. The references to Plato in the first part of the book, for instance, do not present the Greek philosopher as an example Morus would like to follow, but as ‘your’ – that is, Hythloday’s – ‘favourite author’. According to Morus, Plato’s recommendation that ‘philosophers become kings or kings turn to philosophy’ should make Hythloday, a fan of Plato, less opposed to the idea of entering into public office, and do what More himself was on the point of doing in 1516. Hythloday, however, the philosopher with no attachments, will not hear of it. Whom is More addressing here? Giulia Sissa has argued that More is addressing his friend Erasmus. Furthermore, the whole character of Raphael Hythloday, according to Sissa, ‘is a friendly parody of the author of the Moriae Encomium’ – that is to say, of Erasmus, the author of The Praise of Folly (1511).９ Utopia has often been seen as More’s literary reply to Erasmus’s book, but never before were the moral and political views propounded by Raphael Hythloday in his story about the island of Utopia 7 8 9

Hexter (1965: xli-liv and clvi-clx). See also the index, More (1965, 617). More (1965: 100/101); G.C. Richards’s transalation. Sissa (2012: 133).

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attributed to Erasmus instead of More. Like Utopia, Erasmus’s Praise of Folly is itself a text that is both exceptional for its ongoing popularity five centuries after its first publication and difficult to interpret. With Lady Folly herself taking the floor and singing the praise of folly, there was a deep ambiguity to begin with as to the seriousness of what Erasmus’s book advocated. Yet if we take Hythloday to represent Erasmus, many aspects of Utopia immediately become clear. If, in ‘the Dialogue of Counsel’, the figure of Morus distances himself from Plato, he also distances himself from Hythloday’s impractical Platonico-Christian idealism. Why not work for Princes, as More would do? There is every reason that More was not talking to himself here, but to his Dutch friend, who preferred to keep a distance from the practical matters of politics. Erasmus was perfectly willing to offer philosophical advice to kings and princes himself, but he would do so only from the side line, and, like Raphael, refused to subtract from either Plato’s idealism, Christ’s doctrines, or his own. Erasmus did not care whether the views he proposed were deemed unwelcome or impractical. Like Hythloday, he would not compromise. In the very same year that Utopia was published, whilst More was preparing for a new political position, Erasmus published his Platonico-Christian views on politics in The Education of a Christian Prince. In Utopia, More gets back at his idealist friend. Do the discussions and disagreements between More and Erasmus form the background to the rest of the book as well, including the description of the ideal state of Utopia? This might certainly explain the uneasy acknowledgement of humanist self-doubt with which More referred to his own book when, on 3 September 1516, he sent Erasmus his final text in order for it to be published in Flanders: ‘I am sending you my Nowhere, which is nowhere well written (...).’１０ But there is no reason to suspect that Erasmus himself was in any way embarrassed. Erasmus had left London only a few weeks before, and he must have been fully aware of the text and of More’s plans with it.１１ He also knew how the second part of the book, with its description of the fantasy island of Utopia, had originally been conceived in Flanders in the summer of 1515, when More had spent some time in Antwerp with Pieter Gillis, or Peter Giles (1486-1533), a friend of Erasmus – and now More’s friend, too. Giles was to figure prominently in Utopia as 10 More (1961: 73). 11 As J.H. Hexter has argued, More had nothing much to explain to Erasmus, since only a few weeks earlier both friends will certainly have talked, in London, about how to proceed towards publication once More had drawn up a final version of the text. Cf. Hexter (1965).

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one of the eye-witnesses who, besides More and More’s pupil John Clement, had heard the story of the far-away island straight from the mouth of the exotic philosopher-traveller Raphael Hythlodaeus, or Raphael Chattertalk. In the autumn of 1516, Erasmus and Giles quickly saw Utopia through the press, so that half way December, More was already eagerly awaiting the arrival, in London, of the book in its first edition by Thierry Martens of Louvain.１２ Erasmus waited with publicly giving his judgement for some time. As he put it himself, he did not wish to let his ‘very close friendship’ with More come between himself and a justified verdict on the book. Only when, on his own initiative, a new edition of Utopia appeared with Froben in Basle, a year later, did Erasmus share in the widespread praise for More’s genius.

The book Is Erasmus himself Utopia’s main protagonist? Two contributions to the present volume will develop the Sissa Thesis in various ways. First, Giulia Sissa herself will offer an abundance of new arguments in favour of the thesis she first presented in 2012. Where the reader will have to search for the positive evidence for seeing Hythloday as an impersonation of Erasmus in her previous work,１３ the present article focuses more particularly on the question of the abolition of private property in Utopia, as well as on the fact that the combination of virtue and pleasure is an Erasmian theme wholly alien to More. Starting out from the tension in Utopia’s combination of Platonic and Epicurean ideals, and Erasmus’ advocacy of the Platonic Utopia of Kallipolis, Sissa works towards an assessment of Thomas More’s own political views. It appears that Erasmus, not More, was the communist. Whereas Erasmus read the Adage ‘All is common among friends’ according to the collectivist interpretations Pythagoras and Plato had given it (and Aristotle, Epicurus and Cicero had criticised), Thomas More, in both parts of Utopia, opts for the Aristotelian view, dismissing Hythloday’s position as absurd. In other works, More shows himself to be even less of a follower of 12 Only a fortnight after sending the final text to Flanders, while Peter Giles and Erasmus were preparing the first edition for the press, More was asking Erasmus to seek recommendations from men well-versed in politics. Within a month and a half, he expressed his delight with the people Erasmus had gathered. For details about the correspondence between Erasmus and More regarding Utopia in the autumn of 1516, see Hexter (1965). 13 Sissa (2012).

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Hythloday. While Erasmus interpreted pleasure along Platonic lines as a divine reward for virtue, More, in the Dialogue of Comfort, produced what Sissa calls a ‘relentless panegyric of pain’. Thomas More, in fact, argued time and again that we should be grateful for our sufferings and tribulations, since they bring us closer to God. Apart from this, More further attested to the absurdity of Hythloday’s viewpoints in other works besides Utopia, by showing himself to be diametrically opposed, both on social and on religious grounds, to the idea that personal wealth should be abolished. The conclusion that the historical More was neither a classical Platonist or a classical Epicurean, nor a Platonist or an Epicurean in the Erasmian sense of the word, and that he developed his moral and political views not on the basis of philosophical views, but on the religious values of suffering, and the desire either to leave this world or to prepare himself for it, is a view that also emerges from Han van Ruler’s comparison of the dissimilar ways in which Erasmus and More put to use their religious convictions. Arguing that Hythloday’s praise for the moral philosophy of the Utopians, though formally giving support to a Platonic and Epicurean stance, does not show any signs of the kind of arguments Erasmus himself would have given to defend these positions, Van Ruler suggests that even when playfully presenting Erasmus as Hythloday, More shows no real interest in Erasmus’s moral philosophy. One of the most crucial aspects of Erasmus’s moral theory is its relation to mind-body dualism, which prompted Erasmus to use a philosophical line of argument according to which the human body is of neutral value to morality at most. This, again, is a theme wholly lacking in More. Van Ruler draws a comparison between More’s and Erasmus’s writings on Christ’s suffering as an illustration of the way in which Erasmus might make use of Biblical testimonies to make a moral point on the basis of his anthropological views, whilst More shows an interest in spiritual meaning rather than in morality, and employs the duality of flesh and spirit only to emphasize the idea that Holy Writ is full of hidden meaning. Paradoxically, Erasmus’s indifference to the physical part of man was motivated by moral and social aims, whilst More’s interest in man’s physical side was inspired by the body’s presumed spiritual significance. Seen in this light, Utopia presents us with views that seem ultimately to belong to neither author, but rather to express the way in which More read, or at least was able to tease, Erasmus. Did Thomas More not endorse any of the positions Utopia takes up? Defending the two humanists against charges of inconsistency as well as against present-day bias to the things Renaissance men may have held dear, Van Ruler does not rule out the possibility that More may at least

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have sympathised with some of the effects he imagined might be intended in Erasmus’s call for a cultural transformation in the direction of reason. If so, More’s parody may have been charitable, yet both Sissa’s and Van Ruler’s contributions reinforce the idea that Utopia offered a subject-matter in many ways unconventional, not to say wholly alien, to Thomas More himself. Thomas More himself has to be taken very seriously. And yet, this exceptionally coherent personality belongs to the environment of intimate friendships, intellectual exchanges, and on-going conversations. On the one hand, Van Ruler’s and Sissa’s contributions corroborate the scholarly imperative to place Utopia in the context of Erasmian humanism. On the other, they do justice to the difference between Morus and Erasmus. Over the years, all major scholars have systematically read the dialogue on the best state of a commonwealth precisely in the shadow of Erasmus’ ideas and works. This contextualization works only too well. It proves much more rewarding than to try to reconcile Utopian features with Thomas More’s own values. Hence various interpretations that rely on the supposed existence of irony, ambivalence, contradiction, or a change of heart on the part of Thomas More. Recent studies, however, such as those of Marie-Claire Phélippeau, Gerard Wegemer and Travis Curtright place Utopia not only in this Erasmian context, but also in that of Thomas More’s other writings. As Travis Curtright writes, ‘the pendulum of More studies returns to less eristic analyses of his work.’１４ Centuries of interpretation have nevertheless built on the idea that Utopia in one way or another contains More’s political philosophy. Nor are readers to be blamed if they cannot trust the name by which someone presents himself as the author of a book. Consequently, the book and its author, Utopia and Thomas More, acquired an array of different faces over the years – and indeed, in a way, another Thomas More was born in 1516. For despite the Sissa Thesis, there is no sense in denying the existence of a Thomas More who is the author of a fiction called Utopia, and who, for over a period of five hundred years, has been read, hailed, and criticized, for what he made others believe he believed, even if he did not believe himself in the ideal society it presented. To honour this more traditional More and his legacy, the present volume has collected a number of essays that, besides the book itself and the personal history involved in its making, discuss issues of relevance to the traditional Thomas More by examining Utopia’s early reception and by weighing arguments for and against the 14 Curtright (2012: 10). See also Wegemer (1990: 288-306) and Phélippeau (2016).

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utopian way of thinking that More – not Erasmus – created, with his book on the ideal society and with the contribution he thereby made to the history of political theory.

Original reception Questions of realism, idealism, practical steering, and the nature of man, are also addressed in the contributions to this volume that do not concentrate primarily on a comparison between Erasmus and More. Next to the two initial studies of Utopia itself, the reader will find two historical essays on the early reception of More’s book. Covering both sides of the Channel More had crossed to meet Peter Giles – and, presumably, Raphael Hythloday’s archetype – in Antwerp, Erik De Bom concentrates on Utopia’s early reception within sixteenth-century political theory in the Netherlands, whilst Guido Giglioni offers a comparison between More’s classic and A Discourse of the Commonweal of This Realm of England, a lesser known dialogue by Thomas Smith (1513-1577), who, like More, was an Englishman in high public office with a literary interest in philosophical and economic theory. In his article on the reception of Utopia in the Netherlands, Erik De Bom addresses the question in what way More’s draft for an ideal society differs from contemporary alternatives by Erasmus and Machiavelli. Arguing that More did not share Erasmus’s optimism about the perfectibility of man, but still believed society might be changed in positive ways by changing the way in which society was organised, De Bom characterizes Utopia’s political theory as a reaction to the misguided idea of trying to change citizens or princes. Utopia proposes to change the institutional set up of society instead. A certain sense of realism thus drew More towards the idea of forcing citizens to comply with moral standards. As De Bom shows, however, Utopia had relatively little impact on early-modern philosophical debate in the Low Countries. It was rather Machiavelli’s type of realism that set the new standard and posed a challenge to new contributions in political theory. As De Bom explains, Justus Lipsius (1547-1606) would follow Machiavelli in his realism, whilst at the same time adding arguments taken from historical sources to underline the positive value of checks and restrictions on what a prince might do. Leornardus Lessius (1554-1623), by contrast, developed a further type of political realism by combining ethical concerns with legal rules in a manner reminiscent of the Flemish lawyer Nicolaes Everaerts (c. 1462-1532), another acquaintance

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of Erasmus, whose Topica had appeared in the same year, and with the same publisher, as More’s Utopia. Whereas, in Erik De Bom’s article, Utopia accordingly figures as a book that drew attention away from the perfectibility of man towards the idea of changes to be made to society, a new type of idealism in Utopia comes to the fore in Guido Giglioni’s contribution, an idealism which, rather than being concerned with mental conditions, is focused on the material conditions of life. Comparing More’s work with that of Thomas Smith, Giglioni stresses the way in which the issue of agricultural production led More to endorse a positive belief in the ability to ensure a society without want. In Giglioni’s reading, Utopia, with its extensive discussion of enclosures, hunger, the need to steal, and the hangings that result from this, bears More’s personal stamp especially in its way of arguing for taking away ‘the fear of want’ by utopian economic measures. Indeed, according to Giglioni, ‘Utopia is first and foremost about hunger.’ Through its systematic deployment of physical labour, Utopia’s laws were designed to offer economic solutions and to rescue its inhabitants from being trapped in a Faustian grip between greed and fear. As Julien Kloeg proposes in this volume with respect to the equal distribution of goods in Utopia, ‘there are similarities’ here, ‘to the modern welfare state.’ More’s emphasis on the corporeal side of human well-being, as well as his preoccupations with agricultural and economic questions, may accordingly be read as evidence of a rather down-to-earth, or even ‘materialist’, type of idealism in More. At the same time, Giglioni’s comparison of More and Smith may serve to indicate to what extent More held on to an uncompromising enforcement of moral codes and collectivist consequences. Smith, by contrast, accepted the idea that there might be socially constructive effects to a yearning for profit, thus, as Giglioni writes, presenting the ‘self-acquisitive nature of man’ as a ‘positive trait’. Giglioni’s article shows that even in its sixteenth-century setting, the debate on political utopianism might foreshadow modern debates on the negative and positive evaluations of human appetites, and on the necessity either to curb these or to set them free. Countless debates in economics and politics have since added to More’s and Smith’s discussion of the relative weight of collectivist and individualist approaches to the organisation of society, and it is in the context of such political debates that the legacy of Utopia is arguably most often referred to. Complementing the four historical studies in the first part, the articles in the second part of this volume will debate the pros and cons of visionary political thinking as such, and thereby offer a variety of views on utopian-

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ism rather than on Utopia. Instead of continuing the discussion between communism and free trade, between capitalism and the planned economy, these four contributions will bring together two critical as well as two constructive essays on the concept of an ideal world. The two critical essays will cast doubt on the idea of a utopia, the first from a theoretical standpoint and the second in the form of a critique on current applications of the utopian view in questions of health care. Lastly, two favourable appreciations of utopian thinking will address its ongoing value in political thought, as well as the fruitful manner in which More’s way of presenting his ideal society links up with epistemologically effective ways of applying thought experiments to reality.

Philosophical criticism In the wake of twentieth-century political experiments no longer trusted and in the light of famous literary warnings against totalitarian control, the notion of a political Paradise has come to worry us today. Thomas More does not figure in Karl Popper’s famous condemnation of totalitarianism, but Utopia would be an obvious candidate to be added to Popper’s list of intellectualist expectations that may lead to authoritarian rule. More might thus easily be counted amongst the enemies of the free society, but it is not the intention of the two critical essays here presented to read Utopia simply as a follow-up to Plato or as a preamble of Soviet politics. Rather, both contributions question the possibility that one might meaningfully design a future state of affairs in which human beings are relieved from some of their most troublesome needs and aspirations. If Utopia is the expression of a desire to overcome aspects of human existence that keep us in a state of emotional instability and wavering happiness, utopian thinking, according to the philosophical criticisms here voiced by the two Louvain philosophers Arnold Burms and Herman De Dijn, is mistaken in its way of imagining ideals that do not in fact fit the human condition. Burms notices that utopianism has no regard for two basic human needs: the need to make sense of things we cannot control and the need to attract the positive attention of others. With respect to the first, Burms points at the examples of honouring the dead and of punishing criminal behaviour. Honouring the dead is something human beings are deeply committed to, but it is an obligation that cannot be understood in terms of rational justifications. With respect to the example of punishment,

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Burms introduces the concept of ‘symbolic restoration’ and argues that blame and punishment are expressions of a ‘deeply ingrained attitude’ that does not correspond to any utilitarian goal. The second basic human need, the need to attract the attention of others and to get their recognition, has the typical characteristic that it can never be fulfilled if it is not accompanied by the belief that there is indeed a true ground for the recognition itself, or if it is not accompanied with a recognition of the symbolic significance of specific social roles in the public sphere. Forms of utilitarian thinking, according to Burms, habitually disregard such elementary truths. Human beings do not simply wish to be helped by seeing others fulfil all sorts of conditions. Rather, they have ‘the desire to be appreciated and to be engaged in significant activities.’ The utopian dilemma that results from this is especially transparent in transhumanist ideals, Burms argues, since although these futuristic visions of post-human existence carry the promise that they will ameliorate things for us, they actually introduce the problematic desire to become something we are not. Although utopian thinking may be useful in so far as it expresses a desire for self-transcendence, the notion to become self-creators can only make us ‘aliens to ourselves’. Whereas Burms criticizes the utopian dream from the viewpoint that it ignores deeply embedded human desires, Herman De Dijn criticizes recent developments in society that are nevertheless aimed at an effectuation of the utopian dream, and warns against the loss of moral sensitivities that may result from this. Drawing a sharp contrast between the conventional practice of providing aid to someone in physical distress and the fundamental inability to relieve the unfulfilled desires for happiness or recognition in others, De Dijn sets the stage for a critique of the current tendency to medicalize and therapeutize spheres of human experience and behaviour that, although they were previously not considered to be part of medical science, are nowadays delegated to the domain of health care. The interest in securing both the health and the happiness of individuals has in fact given a new meaning to the concept of health itself and has set new standards for human goals in life, both of which are based on the notion of ‘the quality of life’. De Dijn critically discusses these developments, along with the accompanying changes in the relationship between (medical) professionals and those searching for help. Dispensing with the traditional ‘paternalistic’ interpretation of the respective roles of caretaker and patient, and giving way to transhumanist ways of thinking, both the new views on health and the altered relationship between consultant and client are set into an ideological perspective of self-empowerment and

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customer demand, and it is here that, according to De Dijn, a new utopianism comes to the fore. De Dijn sees the kind of ‘managerial rationality’ apparent in contemporary health care as a form of ‘soft utilitarianism’. Contrary to the old, totalitarian, forms of political utopianism, this new type of utopian thinking is fully adapted to liberal-democratic ideals, but it is no less characterized by a mistaken desire for what De Dijn calls the ‘elimination of insecurity’, and a desire for complete control. More importantly, according to De Dijn, this new utopianism is marked by a total incapacity to understand or even to recognize evil, as the ideology of perfection leaves no place for ethical sensibilities and thus no room for moral boundaries or transgressions to be conceptualized. Whether this new utopianism is simply to be accepted as a fact of present-day life, De Dijn wishes to leave to the reader, but he does note that a certain malaise is actually being felt within certain sectors of health care today, and suggests that, against the despair inevitably brought about by the quest for utopian happiness, a case should be made for hope as the ‘truly “utopian” attitude’.

Philosophical acclaim Of the two favourable appreciations of utopian thinking that complete this volume, the first is a partly historical, partly philosophical, essay on the concept of ‘utopia’ in political thought; the second an appraisal of the logic of utopian thinking as a philosophical technique. If Utopia did not figure in Karl Popper’s attack on Plato, Julien Kloeg’s article ‘Utopianism and its Discontents’ offers a fine selection of the most important works in political philosophy in which it does. Despite its bad historical reputation and the problematic fit of the concept of ‘utopia’ in such intellectual developments as the empirical turn in political thought prompted by David Easton (1917-2014) and the suspicion against ‘grand narratives’ in post-modernism, utopian types of thinking still survive today. Kloeg first analyses the ambiguous relationship between Marxism and utopianism on the basis of Marx’s and Engels’s criticism of utopian socialism. This ambiguity persists in twentieth-century political philosophy. Kloeg examines the element of utopianism introduced in the work of John Rawls, and discusses its relevance in the light of twentieth-century denunciations of utopianism. Rawls’s contribution may be read as a restatement of the need for normativity besides scientific examination. Rawls himself, however, was attacked by Amartya Sen for having endorsed a

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wholly contingent interpretation of justice. On the basis of Pablo Gilabert’s reaction to Sen, Kloeg discusses to what extent the concept of utopia may still offer a useful tool within political philosophy today, on account of its effectiveness for identifying problems, its criticism of the status quo, and its motivational strength. If More’s intellectual strategy may still be expedient for political reasons despite the widespread intellectual and historical distrust of utopianism, it may even be crucial for epistemological reasons. As Tim De Mey argues in the final contribution to this volume, More’s approach actually enables a fair assessment of different positions with respect to the political future. De Mey takes up the defence of More’s integrity by suggesting a reading of Utopia that acknowledges its role as an evaluative thought experiment that leaves it to the readers to form their own opinion and decide between a variety of positions. Agreeing that the reader of Utopia has to make ‘crucial interpretative decisions for himself’, De Mey explains More’s strategy as a functional deployment of an ‘exacerbated ambiguity’ that adds to its value as a thought experiment. Although this ambiguity works differently in the case of Utopia than it does in the case of counterfactual or conceptual thought-experiments, De Mey argues that More’s similar way of magnifying the effects of social measures and political choices not only serves to verify Thomas More’s intellectual integrity, but adds to the concept of ‘utopia’ on epistemological grounds.

Ideas and skeletons Whether or not it was Thomas More’s intention to tease Erasmus, or to provide ideas and arguments, or even solutions, in political theory, is again a question the editors would like to invite the readers to form their own opinion upon, in the hope that the many options for reading Utopia and for evaluating the concept of utopianism presented in this volume will contribute in new ways to the broad spectrum of historical interpretations and philosophical views that Thomas More’s book has provoked over the past five hundred years. If Utopia’s message may seem elusive, part of its elusiveness is the effect of a certain duplicity in Renaissance forms of expression, in which practical matters of morality and politics might lay hidden in high-minded notions of spiritual growth, just as purely idealist anticipations might be cast in the language of down-to-earth material progress. Indeed, pre-modern articulations may evoke modernist viewpoints as much as they may conceal

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utterly pre-modern motivations – and this is so not only because our language differs from More’s, but also because human expectancies and beliefs have developed greatly over the past five centuries. In order to meet the enigmas still hidden in Utopia’s text as well as in More’s motivations, and to acknowledge the problems we encounter in trying to decide on the right evaluation of utopianism, the editors have chosen to enliven the outward appearance of this volume with no less ambiguous an illustration. There are many Renaissance depictions of St. Jerome in his study, but the painting by an anonymous Flemish artist in the style of Joos van Cleve which presumably dates back to the 1530s or 1540s and is now in the possession of the Rotterdam Boymans van Beuningen Museum, is especially suggestive of the topics presented in this volume. In this picture, we see St. Jerome, the exemplary scholar and Church Father who was, in many ways, Erasmus’s model theologian, looking somewhat desperate, but still reasonably unconcerned, even faintly amused – indeed, the whole painting is rather amusing. Depictions of the Church Father in his philosopher’s cell were as common as the lion that traditionally accompanied St. Jerome. Other elements in Renaissance depictions of the learned Saint were equally standard, but it is not always easy to establish their intended meaning. Candles and skulls, for instance, have been interpreted in the case of Jerome as symbols of spiritual rebirth and divine illumination, yet such was the volatility of Renaissance symbolism that outside Jerome’s cell, these skulls and candles (either burning or extinguished), along with other signs of temporality and finitude such as hourglasses and dead flowers, would soon acquire notoriety as still-life reminders of the medieval motif of Memento Mori within the Renaissance tradition of Vanitas paintings. In the case of St. Jerome, these symbols of vanity may have functioned as figurative contrasts to the Church Father’s religious aspirations, or to the eternal wisdom he was dealing with, but in the case of our anonymous painting, with its HOMO BVLLA (‘Man is a bubble’) inscription on the wall, there can be little doubt that the whole scene leans towards a Vanitas interpretation. The friendly face as well as the gesture of one of Erasmus’s favourite Church Fathers in this picture may well serve to epitomize Utopia’s purpose, if part of what More wished to communicate was to question the ephemeral and all-too-human idealism of his friend, but it may equally symbolize a form of irony with respect to the notion of ‘utopia’ as such. With its township in the background and St. Jerome pointing downwards to the skull, the picture in fact suggests a questioning of political hopes and expectations tout court.

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It also forms an interesting counterpart to the map of Utopia in the woodcut that, probably at the request of Erasmus, Ambrosius Holbein (c. 1594after 1519) made for the frontispiece of the 1518 Froben edition of More’s book. It is this image that has developed into the standard illustration of Utopia. Pointing upwards to his political dreamland, Raphael Hythloday in the lower left hand corner of this picture illustrates an enthusiasm that is the exact opposite of the irony implied in the portrait of the Saint on the cover of our book, and if St. Jerome’s message of human bubble-status may serve as a rejoinder to Hythloday’s utopian Babbletalk, both images are also a reminder of the way in which intellectual idealism had been associated only a few years earlier with pointed fingers up and down in Rafael’s Italian namesake’s picture of The School of Athens. Not only does Plato, the classic representative of reasoned utopianism, point upwards in Raphael’s fresco just as Hythloday does in Ambrosius’s woodcut – he is also confronted with a downward gesture that, just like St. Jerome’s finger, served typically as a way of tempering intellectual arrogance. And yet, if St. Jerome’s gesture put a cautious question mark to human philosophical aspirations, its symbolism may provide an emblematic reference to Utopia in an even more literal sense. Irony has it that, with a dentist’s eye to x-ray revelations of the anatomical features of the human cranium, Malcolm Bishop in 2005 revealed that Ambrosius had hidden a skull in his map of Utopia, just as his younger brother Hans (c. 1497-1553) had added a skull to the famous picture of The Ambassadors (1533) that is now in the possession of the London National Gallery.１５ Offering a mirror-image of the picture of the island that had occurred in the original 1516 edition, Ambrosius skillfully added the pointing figure of Hythloday as the neck part to an inclined human skull, the teeth of which are camouflaged in the boat on the foreground, as much as the eye sockets are hidden in two mountainous areas on the island. Dentists and nondentists alike who detect for themselves the image hidden in the 1518 woodcut will henceforth fail to be able to overlook the emblem of death concealed in the standard illustration of Utopia. As Malcolm Bishop argued, the idea of hiding a skull may have been just another pun, possibly envisioned by Erasmus, upon More’s name, since, in the eyes of the joker, Memento Mori (‘Remember you must die’) is exchangeable for ‘Think of More’. Yet there may also have been other reasons to link More’s Utopia to a Memento Mori-theme. In fact, all Erasmus’s own moral and social idealism was impregnated with a religious motivation that may 15 Bishop (2005).

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remind us of the vanitas-type of symbolism traditionally linked to St. Jerome as much as it reminded Erasmus himself of a Platonic indifference to the world on the basis of which life itself was seen as a preparation for death. It is quite possible that the problems of interpretation with regard to Utopia, as much as the tension between realism and idealism and the varying appreciations of utopianism itself, were all too clear even to our humanist masterminds themselves, who knew how to read Renaissance emblematic representations such as the anonymous Jerome, or Ambrosius’ woodcut. In their way of combining the image of faraway vistas filled with heavenly expectance with the hidden, or even material, presence of tokens of disaster and death, both of these illustrations give expression to the hope invested in new trials, as much as they warn against the calamities that are to be expected from human hubris. As if to say that there are always two sides to a coin, both images associate human aspirations with the possibility of doom. And all of them, not only the Flemish St. Jerome and Holbein’s woodcut, but also Thomas More’s Utopia itself, no doubt did so with an ominous undertone as well as a meaningful wink.

Bibliography Ackroyd, P. (1998) The Life of Sir Thomas More. London: Chatto & Windus. Bishop, M. (2005) Ambrosius Holbein’s memento mori map for Sir Thomas More’s Utopia: The meanings of a masterpiece of early sixteenth century graphic art, British Dental Journal 199, pp. 107-112. Curtright, T. (2012) The One Thomas More. Washington: The Catholic University of America Press. Hexter, J.H. (1965) Introduction, in: T. More, Utopia, ed. E. Surtz, S.J. and J.H. Hexter, The Complete Works of St. Thomas More, vol. 4. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. pp. xv-cxxiv. More, T. (1961) Selected Letters, ed. E.F. Rogers. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. More, T. (1965) Utopia, ed. E. Surtz, S.J. and J.H. Hexter, in: The Complete Works of St. Thomas More, vol. 4. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Phélippeau, M.-C. (2016) Thomas More. Paris: Gallimard. Press, G.A. (1999) Plato, in: R.A. Popkin (ed.), The Columbia History of Western Philosophy. New York: Columbia University Press. Rebhorn, W.A. (2005) Introduction, in: T. More, Utopia, ed. W.A. Rebhorn, transl. R. Robinson. New York: Barnes & Noble. Sissa, G. (2012) Familiaris reprehensio quasi errantis. Raphael Hythloday, between Plato and Epicurus, Moreana 49 (187-188), pp. 121-150. Wegemer, G. (1990) The Rhetoric of Opposition in Thomas More’s Utopia: Giving Form to Competing Philosophies, Philosophy & Rhetoric 23, pp. 288-306.

This article has been previously published in Algemeen Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Wijsbegeerte 2016, Vol. 108, No. 3, with DOI: １０.５１１７/ANTW２０１６.３.INTR.

Part １ The book

A praise of pain Thomas More’s anti-utopianism Giulia Sissa

Abstract In his incarnation as ‘Morus’ in Utopia, Thomas More asserts his profound disagreement with his fictional character, Raphael Hythlodaeus. Whereas Hythlodaeus extols the merits of commonality and the moral value of pleasure, Morus dismisses the whole project as absurdity, or hopeless wishful thinking. This divergence has been variously interpreted, but mostly played down. This paper argues that the civilized, amicable, and yet genuine discord between Raphael Hythlodaeus and Morus is the key to Utopia. We can appreciate its importance only if we understand who Hythlodaeus is, and what the purpose of the dialogue is. We also have to do justice to Thomas More’s politics, which were grounded on the authority of the Christian tradition, in the Old and the New Testament. Over the years, Thomas More maintained a very clear and consistent line of thought on the legitimacy of worldly wealth, the responsibilities inherent in its management, the imperative to curb their enjoyment, the temptation of ‘business’ and greed, the duty of charity, and the value of penance, remorse, prayer, and other kinds of selfinflicted suffering. In A Dialogue of Comfort against Tribulation, Anthony, the wiser character, conveys Thomas More’s relentless praise of pain. Anthony has the last word. So, too, does Morus. Keywords: pleasure, pain, commonality, property, wealth, poverty, charity, business, greed, pride, friendship, civility, disagreement, original sin, absurdity, wish, hope, nowhere, never, always, anxiety, security

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Introduction Utopia is excellent. Its excellence is political, moral and emotional. Under the enlightened government of their elected kings, the inhabitants of this new island conduct an existence that is virtuous and minimally anxious. Nature inspires them ‘to lead a life as free of anxiety (quam licet minime anxiam), and as full of joy as possible and to help all one’s fellow men towards that end’.１ Neither vices, such as greed and pride, nor troubling passions, especially fear, have a place in the ‘optimal state of a commonwealth’.２ The Utopians enjoy full security in their livelihood (victus illa securitas) at home. The anxious care of thinking about the future of one’s family (anxia cogitandi cura) is eliminated. Whereas ‘that sort of concern (solicitudo) often breaks the most generous spirits,’ securitas renders the Utopian soul sublime and disdainful of being defeated.３ What makes possible this morally superlative, and yet blissfully tranquil, life-style is neither a spiritual privilege nor a divine grace, but an arrangement that is, first of all, economic. The causes of Utopia’s exception are a strictly egalitarian division of labour, a centralized mode of production of material goods (especially food), and their collective distribution. The personal ownership of land, farms, factories, houses, shops and commodities is banned. Commerce is non-existent. Money does not circulate. This is primordial, since the overall condition of human beings hinges, precisely, on the absence of property rights. This is the general premise of the Utopian thought-experiment. ‘As long as private property remains’, Hythlodaeus prophetically laments, ‘by far the largest and best part of mankind will be oppressed by an anguishing and inescapable burden of poverty and misery (egestatis et erumnarum anxiam atque inevitabilem sarcinam).’ ４ Following a coherent line of thought, the discoverer and admirer of Utopia, Raphael Hythlodaeus – whose Hellenic-sounding name means 1 More (1965: 162): ‘Secundum id commovet atque excitat nos ut vitam quam licet minime anxiam ac maxime laetam ducamus ipsi’. I will quote the Latin text, from this edition. The translation (occasionally modified) I am using is: More (1995). 2 More (1965: 138). 3 More (1965: 210): ‘Quippe victus illa securitas quae cuique domi est, ademptaque de posteris anxia cogitandi cura (nam haec solicitudo generosos ubique spiritus frangit), sublimen illis animum et vinci dedignantem facit.’ Cf. More (1995: 213). 4 More (1965: 104) : ‘Adeo mihi certe persuadeo, res aequabili ac iusta aliqua ratione distribui, aut feliciter agi cum rebus mortalium, nisi sublata prorsus proprietate, non posse. Sed manente illa, mansuram semper apud multo maximam, multoque optimam hominum partem, egestatis et aerumnarum anxiam atque inevitabilem sarcinam.’

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‘Idle-Talk’ – insists that poverty is not just an uncomfortable and measurable lack of material goods. It is rather the primary source of a qualitative and subjective condition: anxiety. This is why its obliteration is indispensable to an optimal society. Freed from the need to make a living for themselves and their dear ones, thus from a constant apprehension about their livelihood (victus), the Utopians have nothing to worry about.５ For the same reason, they have no reason to accumulate riches, therefore to compete with each other. Greed and pride become unnecessary. There is plenty of everything and no reason to fear that anyone will claim more than he needs. Why would anyone be suspected of asking for more than is needed, when everyone knows there will never be any shortage? (nam cur supervacua petiturus putetur is, qui certum habeat, nihil sibi umquam defuturum?) Either fear of want (timor carendi) makes every living creature greedy and avaricious (avidus ac rapax), or pride alone (superbia) renders man such that he glories in putting down others by a superfluous display of possessions. But this sort of vice has no place whatever in the Utopian way of life!６

The Utopians are safe and secure, they feel well and, as a consequence, they do not need to be bad. They are consequently good. Evil just does not make sense, for them. The logic of economic determinism, and of its moral/emotional effects, implies that vices are predictable responses to objective conditions. They are neither the subjective failures of ill-disposed individuals, nor the manifestation of the sinfulness engrained in humankind. Since superbia is nothing less than the cause of original sin, these human beings are absolutely unique.７ From a Christian standpoint – that of Thomas More, as the narrator and the authorial voice in the dialogue – 5 More (1995 : 137). See p. 241, where the argument also includes the fear for the members of the family: ‘No man is bothered by his wife’s querulous complaints about money, no man fears poverty for his son, or struggles to scrape up a dowry for his daughter. Each man can feel secure of his own livelihood and happiness, and of his own family’s as well’. Cf. More (1965: 241-243): ‘Non de suo victu trepidum, non uxoris querula flagitatione vexatum, non paupertatem filio metuentem, non de filiae dote anxium, sed de suo suorumque omnium (...) victu esse ac felicitate securum.’ 6 More (1965: 38): ‘Quum et omnium rerum abunde satis sit nec timor ullus subsit ne quisquam plus quam sit opus flagitare velit? Nam cur supervacua petiturus putetur is qui certum habeat nihil sibi umquam defuturum? Nempe avidum ac rapacem aut timor carendi facit in omni animantum genere, aut in homine sola reddit superbia quae gloriae sibi ducit superflua rerum ostentatione ceteros antecellere, quod vitii genus in Utopiensium institutis nullum omnino locum habet.’ Cf. More (1995: 137). 7 On the crucial importance of pride in Utopia, see White (1982) and Phélippeau (2012).

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this can only sound amazing. All by themselves, without Revelation and without Christ’s help, the Utopians have allegedly succeeded in pre-empting the consequences of the Fall.８

Pleasure and care The two ideas that make up the Utopian way of life, tranquillity and communality, have a classical, not a Christian, provenance: Epicurus’s ethics of pleasure, and Plato’s vision of a paradigmatic, heavenly city, ‘no-where to be found on earth’.９ Plato’s ‘Beauty City’ (Kallipolis) takes shape in the lengthy discourses of the Republic, and is mentioned again in the Laws, as the very best political order.１０ The Epicurean city is far less detailed. It appears, in a brief sketch, from a fragment by Diogenes of Oenoanda: For all things will be full of justice and mutual love, and there will come to be no need of fortifications or laws and all the things which we contrive on account of one another. And with regard to the necessaries derived from agriculture, as we shall have no farm-labourers – for indeed we shall all plough and dig and mind flocks and divert rivers and watch (...) – and such activities will interrupt the continuous study of philosophy for needful purposes; for the farming operations will provide us with the things which our nature wants.１１

Utopia is meant to be Platonic (in its economy) and Epicurean (in its tranquillity). The combination of these two ideals, however, is by no means obvious. In Platonic Kallipolis, the egalitarian, collective life of the citizens who really matter, the Guardians (phulakes), consists of shared poverty, abstention from pleasure, and earnest concern (kedesthai) for

8 9 10 11

On the non-Christian character of Utopia, see Bradshaw (1981). Plato, Republic V, 592 a 6-7. Plato, Laws V, 739 a-e. Smith (1977). See Barigazzi (1978); Long (1985: 314-315); and Fowler (1989: 149).

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each other, and for the city.１２ For Epicurus, on the contrary, the good consists of pleasure, hedone/voluptas. It is felt as absence of pain, be it physical illness or psychological distress, i.e., anxiety. Ataraxy lies at the core of individual and social life. As a hybrid of busy, worried and austere Kallipolis, on the one hand, and of a leisurely, peaceful, carefree Epicurean life, on the other, Utopia embodies an oxymoron. Nobody owns real estate, means of production, assets or commodities, but whereas, for Plato, this meant the renunciation of luxury, thus poverty for all, for the Utopians it creates, literally, a common wealth. ‘Among them virtue has its rewards yet everything is shared equally, and all men live in plenty (omnia abundent omnibus).’ １３ More to the point: everybody is rich, which implies that nobody is poor. In other places (alibi), men talk very liberally of the commonwealth, but what they care about is simply their own wealth (de publico loquentes ubique commodum privatum curant); in Utopia, where there is no private business, every man zealously pursues the public business [...]. In Utopia, where everything belongs to everybody, no man needs fear that, so long as the public warehouses are filled, he will ever lack for anything he needs (nihil quicquam privati cuiquam defuturum). Distribution is not one of their problems; in Utopia, no men are poor, no men are beggars, and though no man owns anything, everyone is rich (et quodcum nemo quicquam habeat, omnes tamen divites sunt).１４

By abolishing private property, therefore, the Utopians have not eradicated prosperity, affluence, abundance (and the enjoyment thereof), but their exact opposite: scarcity, privation, hardship, and the painful neediness 12 Plato, Republic III, 415 d: every single member of the polis must be brought to believe a false story. They were born from the earth, endowed with a more or less valuable metallic soul, which determines their qualifications to rule, to fight or to do business and manual work. This ‘noble lie’ will make them ‘care for the city and for each other’ (tes poleos kai allelon kedesthai). The warriors and rulers, i.e. the so-called Guardians, share a communal life, being prohibited from owning land, building elegant houses, buying fine furniture, or accumulating gold and silver. They are also deprived of distinctive honors, and may not enjoy traditional forms of extravagance such as parties, travels, sumptuous sacrifices, generous presents, expensive garments. This is the kind of gratification (apolausis) rich people would spontaneously pursue (Plato, Republic IV, 419 a-420 a). But this is precisely the kind of selfish pleasure that must be banned from Beauty City. Pleasure brings about disconnection, distraction, and diversion from the care of the city. It acts as the most abrasive cleanser of the citizens’ souls (Plato, Republic IV, 429 d-30 b). 13 More (1965: 102; 1995: 101) : ‘(...) et virtuti pretium sit, et tamen aequatis rebus omnia abundent omnibus (...)’. 14 More (1965: 238; 1995: 241).

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that derives from that condition. Wherever all are rich, there can be no poor. At odds with what happens everywhere else (alibi), something unique occurs there (ibi), and only there, in Utopia. It is the negative – ‘no one is poor and no one is a beggar, there’ (neque inops neque mendicus ibi quisquam) – that captures the Utopian paradox. It is the abolition of poverty that deserves Hythlodaeus’s praise. But this, I will argue, is also the reason why Thomas More finds Utopia, literally, absurd.

His own mind, his own pen The point I would like to make is this: Thomas More did not share the condemnation of private property, as the cause of all evils. On the contrary, he explicitly disapproved of the arguments in favour of its eradication. And he did so, for substantial reasons, deeply rooted in his Christian convictions. The economic and moral vision enacted in Utopia – common wealth, as opposed to spread misery; abundance, satiety and security for all; the elimination of all the pains that burden human life, from indigence to anguish; the disappearance of fear, greed, and pride; the cultivation of a natural, pleasurable and comfortable life-style – this entire agenda clashes with Thomas More’s own views on the matter. In his incarnation as ‘Morus’ in Utopia, More asserts his profound disagreement with his fictional character, Raphael Hythlodaeus. This divergence has been variously interpreted, but mostly played down. Among the most significant interpretations, some take for granted that a certain side of Thomas More speaks through Hythlodaeus, whereas another side ironically criticizes him.１５ Other scholars argue for an open-ended, uncertain, thought-provoking ambivalence.１６ I disagree with both, for reasons that I hope to make clear. 15 See Hexter(1952); Surtz (1957); White (1978); Logan (1983); Skinner (1987); Grace (1989); Wootton (1998). Elton (1990/2013); Allen (1976), one of the rare interpretations I agree with. 16 Bradshaw (1981: 25) offers a thoughtful refutation of John Hexter’s and Quentin Skinner’s interpretations of Morus’s famous last words at the very end of Utopia as ironic. ‘Now, since (for Skinner) Utopia as a whole is devoted to exposing the illusory nature of these so-called glories, Professor Skinner argues that More’s objection is not intended as an objection at all but as a way of ironically endorsing the Utopian system which discards such illusions. The difficulty with this explanation is that it ignores the rest of the passage in which the observation about communism is made. More’s remark occurs in the course of a long reflexion in which he indicates reservations about quite a number of features of the Utopian system: the method of waging war, ceremonial, religion, institutions. If the objection to Utopian communism is ironic then all the other objections must be ironic also. But there is no indication of this in the text. It seems more reasonable to interpret the passage as a whole, therefore, as an indication of More’s serious reservations

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The civilized, amicable, and yet genuine discord between Raphael Hythlodaeus and Morus is the key to Utopia. But we can appreciate its importance only if we understand who Hythlodaeus is, and what the purpose of the dialogue is. We also have to do justice to Thomas More’s politics, which were grounded on the authority of the Christian tradition, in the Ancient and the New Testament.１７ Over the years, Thomas More maintained a very clear and consistent line of thought on the legitimacy of worldly wealth, the responsibilities inherent in its management, the imperative to curb its enjoyment, the temptation of ‘business’ and greed, the duty of charity, and the value of penance, remorse, prayer, and other kinds of self-inflicted about the ideal system which Hythloday has just outlined.’ This is right, but Broadshaw’s conclusions that the dialogue is open-ended, and just interrupted, simply to be continued, are not. Morus claims that many features of Utopia are absurd, and he anticipates more entrenched disagreement, should the debate go on, or be resumed. On a similar line, see Baker-Smith (1991: 211): ‘A major source of disagreement over the nature and purpose of Utopia arises from the haste with which its readers opt for one voice rather than another, deciding for instance that the final words of Morus are silly and insincere, or that they represent a perfectly reasonable response to Raphael’s inflexible idealism.’ Baker-Smith intends to correct this misapprehension by arguing that Morus’s last words ‘conjure up a whole range of human aspiration only to leave it hovering in an uncertain state of potentiality’ (Baker-Smith, 1991: 210). This perception is based upon Morus’s acknowledgement that he would ‘wish rather that hope’ (optarim verius quam sperarim) to see some, unspecified Utopian features realized in Europe. By admitting to his hopeless desires, Morus allegedly betrays a modification of his ‘own complete dismissal of the Utopian practices’. I take the point, but this nebulous, indefinite, conditional sentence is not the only conclusion. Again, at the end of the dialogue, Morus affirms also that Utopian institutions, related to war, and religion – and, above all, the economy, i.e. the fundamentum of Utopia’s optimality – are nothing less than absurd (absurde instituta). There is no uncertainty whatsoever about that. Sylvester (1968: 277) offers a comparable invitation: ‘Utopia, as we have it, begs us to continue the discussion, to confront Hythlodaeus for ourselves so that, as Thomas More puts it at the end of Book II, we may have another chance ‘to think about these matters more deeply and to talk them over with him more fully’. This idyllic perspective requires that we take Morus’s sentence out of its context. Morus does not anticipate an open conversation here, but announces that he would counter-argue against Hythlodaeus’s vision (contra sua sententiam), an attack that Hythlodaeus might not be able to bear (ferre). Better go to dinner, instead... More (1965: 244). The dialogue is to be continued, therefore, but in view of a polemical round! Sylvester’s analysis of Hythlodaeus’s dogmatic and self-centred character is illuminating, however. And his acknowledgement of the dramatic discord between the authorial voice and the fictional creature is very clear: ‘More and Hythlodaeus agree about ends. Men should find, if they can, the best state of the common-wealth. Yet they disagree sharply on the question of means. Where Hythlodaeus advocates a complete demolition job on the hierarchical society of Western Europe, with communism taking its place, More is unwilling to advocate such a tremendous upheaval. He doubts Hythlodaeus’s wisdom here, just as, at the end of Book II, he has many doubts about the validity of Utopian practices in war, religion, and social organization’ (Sylvester, 1968: 281). ‘We must believe Hythlodaeus, if only for a time’, Sylvester enthuses (Sylvester, 1968: 289). Yes, I respond, if we believe Erasmus.

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pain. The Passion of Christ stood as the true paradigm of human life. More was neither an Epicurean, nor a Platonist. If any classical philosopher could be seen in tune with his beliefs, it is Aristotle, via Thomas Aquinas.１８ From the Life of John Pico to A Dialogue of Comfort against Tribulation, John Pico (in his letters) and Anthony (the wiser character in A Dialogue of Comfort) convey Thomas More’s relentless praise of pain. Anthony and John have the last word. So, too, does Morus. Whereas Raphael Hythlodaeus extols the merits of commonality and the moral value of pleasure, he dismisses the whole project as absurdity, or mere wishful thinking. And we should listen to him. Thomas More was never a pale, ambiguous, elusive authorial figure.１９ In dialogical and epistolary works, he develops his arguments through the voice of intellectually superior, painstakingly educational, and unmistakably righteous characters. In the Response to Luther (1523), Thomas More uses a pseudonym, Guillelmus Rosseus, but we are left in no doubt that the vehement polemist and dialectician, who takes up the defence of Henry VIII against Luther, is anyone other than the author himself. In A Dialogue on Heresies (1530), Chancellor More projects an elaborate image of himself, in his own home in Chelsea, as the gracious host of a Messenger, who comes with a letter of credence from a friend. He engages with his guest in a passionate debate on Luther’s ‘pestilent sect’, which he has now put in writing, and even re-written, he says, as an epistle to his friend. More goes out of his way to make his addressee believe that he speaks his own mind through his ‘own mouth’, and that the transcript comes from his ‘own

17 As Gerard Wegemer tersely put it, interpreters who argue for a schizophrenic, bi-polar, or versatile Thomas More ‘do not generally try to reconcile their interpretations with the corpus of More’s work, or with the author’s reputation as prudent statesman, orthodox philosopher, and canonized saint’. See Wegemer (1995: 135-136). 18 Bradshaw (1981: 16): ‘Morus’ objections to Hythlodaeus must be set in the context of ‘an intellectual tradition more immediate to the early sixteenth-century humanists. The tradition in question is the scholastic one, which derived from St Thomas’s adaptation of the philosophy of Aristotle. (...) Thus, scholasticism derived from St Thomas a theoretical justification for private property as an ordinance of positive law, devised by the wit of man for the common good, and grounded in reason and experience.’ See also the footnotes in More (1995: 247-249), and passim. White (1976) argues for a similarity between a virtuously hedonistic Utopia, understood as expressing Thomas More’s own political views, and Aristotle’s eudemonistic, and self-sufficient polity. This reading misses the Epicurean/Platonic components, and conflates Hythlodaeus’s and Morus’s ideas, but the comments on Morus’s defense of private property (White, 1976: 670-674) are interesting. On the importance of Thomas Aquinas, see Duhamel (1955: 108 and 114). 19 For a reassessment of Thomas More’s intellectual, moral, and religious coherence, see Curtright (2012).

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pen’.２０ And, through that scenario, reminiscent of Plato’s dialogues, we do believe the words of Chancellor More. In Utopia, Morus casts himself in a similar setting: a lively conversation, followed by an epistolary report. And we, together with Peter Giles, the recipient of the report, are meant to take Morus’s interventions as coming from his own mind, his own mouth, and his own pen.

Among friends, in amiable conversation In order to build this case, we have to start from the counterintuitive combination of Plato and Epicurus. Only by sharpening our vision of the contrast between the classical sources of Utopian perfection, can we place Hythlodaeus in his own distinctive and eccentric perspective. Only then we will be in a position to identify the equally unconventional scholar whom Raphael Idle-Talk might represent, and, by examining his eclectic, hybrid, audacious philosophy, we will be able to gauge the magnitude of his discord with Thomas More. We will then place Utopia in a context that is rarely given much consideration by scholars of Utopia: Thomas More’s own political theory. For Plato, communality was a remedy for the inclination toward worldly pleasures, such as leisure, luxury and external goods, which people tend to indulge in, whenever they can, and whenever they are left to their own wits.２１ Kallipolis had to be happy as a whole, for its own good, and not as the result of the well-being of its individual citizens.２２ The Guardians 20 More (1981, 26); Spelling standardized, punctuation modernized, and glosses added by Mary Gottschalk, thomasmorestudies.org, 2015 (I quote from this text): ‘I suppose in myself that if we had might conveniently come together, ye would rather have chosen to have heard my mind of mine own mouth than by the means of another, I have since, in these few days in which I have been at home, put the matter in writing, to the end ye may not only hear it by the mouth of your friend, but also (which better is than suddenly once to hear it of mine own mouth) read it (if ye list) more often, at your best leisure, advisedly, from mine own pen’. 21 On what would be the personal preferences of the Guardians, see Plato, Republic III, 417 a-b; IV, 420 d. On what the farmers and craftsmen would rather like to do, if only they could, see Plato, Republic, 420 e: ‘We could clothe the farmers in robes of state and deck them with gold and bid them to cultivate the soil at their pleasure, and we could make the potters recline on couches from left to right before the fire drinking toasts and feasting with their wheels alongside to potter with, when they are so disposed, and we can make all the others happy in the same fashion, so that the entire city would be happy’. But this is not, Socrates argues, the happiness to be achieved in Kallipolis. On the crucial importance of wealth and material goods, in Plato’s thought, especially the Republic and the Laws, see Helmer (2010). 22 Plato, Republic IV, 420 b.

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owned nothing but their bodies. They shared their pleasures and their pains. They were unable to distinguish ‘mine’ from ‘not-mine’. Raphael Hythlodaeus, on the contrary, makes Utopian happiness compatible not only with communality, but also with the full enjoyment of all honest delights, including those of the body. In an unmistakably Epicurean language, the Utopians are said to follow nature, and pursue pleasure as long as it does not cause pain, for oneself and for others.２３ The acclimation of Epicurean voluptas within a communal economy, which was, for Plato, an antidote to hedonism, is not to be taken for granted. It is unexpected, and ought to be elucidated. In Utopia, Plato and Epicurus come together as the theoretical references of the only fictional character involved in the conversation: the discoverer of the new island, a worldly man, appropriately called Raphael Hythlodaeus, a telling name that means Idle-Talk. It is Raphael Idle-Talk – not Morus, the Author in the text, and not his friend Peter Giles – who extols the Utopians, for their prosperous and tranquil communism. Morus replies that nothing seems to him more absurd, ‘absurde instituta’.２４ This trenchant judgment condemns Utopia to incongruity. To make sense of such a pitiless verdict, without attributing to Saint Thomas More either recondite intentions, or a split personality, elsewhere I have argued that More had in mind a particular, and very special, person: his dear and venerable friend, Desiderius Erasmus.２５ On questions of the highest importance, such as government, equality, justice, peace, and the political role appropriate to a scholar, Erasmus

23 More (1965: 166; 1995: 167). Among the scholars of Utopia, Father Edward Surtz offered the first detailed, and now canonical, discussion of the ‘praise of pleasure’ (Surtz: 1957). His intent was, firstly, to rationalize the Epicurean component of Utopia within a Platonic framework, and, secondly, to attribute a plausible political theory to Thomas More himself. For Father Surtz, whereas Hythlodaeus is the mouthpiece of a young, idealistic, and literary Thomas More, later works, such as A Dialogue of Comfort against Tribulation (which we are going to discuss in the last section of this paper) convey realistic and disenchanted views on private property. The difficulty with this reading is that it obliterates the incongruity of Hythlodaeus’s philosophical montage, erases the textual, dialogical discordance of Morus and Hytholodaeus, and attributes to Thomas More a divided self. 24 More (1965: 244; 1995: 247): ‘When Raphael had finished his story, I was left thinking that not a few of the laws and customs he had described as existing among the Utopians were really absurd (absurde videbantur instituta). These included their methods of waging war, their religious practices, as well as other customs of theirs; but my chief objection was to the basis of their whole system, that is, their communal living without any exchange of money (sed in eo quoque ipso maxime quod maximum totius institutionis fundamentum est)’. 25 I have developed this argument in Sissa (2012).

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thought exactly like Hythlodaeus, but unlike Thomas More himself.２６ Furthermore, Erasmus had created for himself a highly idiosyncratic, counterintuitive, paradoxical mixture of Platonic and Epicurean ideas. The Adagia, and one of the Colloquia, the Epicureus, bear witness to this intellectual synthesis, or, at least, to the idea that Plato’s commonality and Epicurus’s hedonism were compatible. These diverging thoughts could also be made to agree with the teaching of Christ. Contrary to current, contemporary opinions, which he regretted, Erasmus argued that these classical sources of wisdom converged on the core of Christian morality. If Utopia is an earthly, pre-Christian paradise, therefore, it fits Erasmian commitments and values. Thomas More could not possibly feel at home in such a world. Consistently, Morus, the narrative and authorial voice of Utopia, disagrees on the essential principles that underpin the Utopian state. The dialogue on ‘the best state of a commonwealth’ can only be understood as a courteous banter, ‘among friends in amiable conversation’ (apud amiculos in familiari colloquio).２７ In such company, substantial disagreement may occur, but is never allowed to cross the boundaries of civility.２８ This is the reason why, in the end, Morus abstains from rebutting his guest’s arguments: Hythlodaeus might not like to be contradicted, he points out, and he is visibly tired.２９ It is not unreasonable to speculate that the dialogue could be a remake of the actual conversations in which Thomas More and Erasmus must have engaged, during More’s diplomatic mission to the Flanders, in May-October 1515 – a long trip, which offers the narrative frame of Utopia. In a letter to Erasmus of February 17, 1516, More reminds his friend of various discussions they had in Bruges. Peter Giles was also involved, since Erasmus was his guest.３０ In the fictional Antwerp sketched in the first book of Utopia, a good-humored skirmish among intellectuals results in a friendly parody. Morus has the last word, at the expense of a 26 I have argued at length on this point, in Sissa (2012). Schoek (1986) takes issue with Richard Marius (Marius, 1985) on the solidity of the two men’s friendship. He argues for a difference in philological endeavours, however. But their friendly dissimilarity is a matter of commitments, responsibilities and priorities. Erasmus’s regret that his friend was too busy to spend time on scholarship, was a friendly, but straightforward criticism aimed at a life-style he never wanted for himself. On Thomas More’s indefatigable and highly successful public life, see Curtis (2011). On Thomas More’s political achievements and consistent line of thought, see Wegemer (1998). 27 More (1965: 98; 1995: 95). 28 On civility in Utopia, see Wegemer (1990b). 29 More (1965: 244; 1995: 249): ‘Because I knew that Raphael was tired with talking, and I was not sure he could take contradiction in these matters (quoniam defessum narrando sciebam neque mihi satis exploratum erat possetne ferre ut contra suam sententiam sentiretur).’ 30 More (1967: 66; 71).

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politically misguided, probably prickly, and certainly weary, Hythlodaeus – who cannot possibly be Morus’s alter ego. Utopia, for him, is a piece of absurdity. Hythlodaeus is not the caricature of a generic Erasmian humanist, I have argued, but a playful incarnation of Erasmus himself. One of the most compelling arguments in favour of this interpretation is the fact that Erasmus not only endorsed, but took very seriously, the Pythagorean and Platonic maxim that ‘all is in common among friends’. On this fundamental issue, Hythlodaeus agrees with Erasmus, but could not be more at odds with the author of Utopia.

All in common among friends Erasmus places the motto ‘all in common among friends’ at the beginning of the collection of Adagia. The importance of this text cannot be exaggerated. For John Olin, over the years, and in the multiple versions of the Adagia, the exhortation to commonality ‘took on greater thrust as a reform concept’. More’s Utopia, Olin points out, could be considered as ‘a dramatic commentary on this adage’.３１ For David Wootton, if Utopia’s ‘close relationship to one Erasmian text in particular is recognized, its communism and radicalism become much easier to understand’.３２ This uniquely Utopian text is, precisely, the proverb on commonality. Much more than provide a comment, Erasmus reconstructs the intertextual tradition that transmits this foundational maxim to modern readers. In a miniature history of philosophy (and of literature), he tells how these few, precious words came to be quoted again and again.３３ It is a highly selective account, which will allow us fully to appreciate Erasmus’s commitment to communality. What was at stake, for him, was nothing less than the possibility of justice and happiness. Erasmus ascribes to Pythagoras the invention of the proverb, and the origin of this tradition. ‘If anyone more diligently and deeply analyses that saying of Pythagoras, “Friends have all things in common”,’ Erasmus writes in the ‘Preface’ of the Adagia, ‘he will certainly find the sum and substance of human happiness expressed in this brief remark.’ ３４ Erasmus knew Dio31 32 33 34

Olin (1994: 60). Wootton (1998: 30). On the history of the motto, see Eden (2001). Erasmus, Adagia 1, 6. Cf. Olin (1994: 61). I am quoting Olin’s translation.

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genes Laërtius, and very probably used The Lives of Philosophers, as a source.３５ Following Diogenes, Pythagoras was the first to claim that everything is common among friends. The reason was that friendship is a form of equality. The members of his school, as a consequence, had to share all their belongings. It was part of their ascetic training, during which they had to spend five years in silence and poverty, just listening to the master who used to lecture at night, without even seeing him.３６ Their austere existence included vegetarianism, so that they might be able to eat as simply as possible, with no need for a kitchen. For the same reason, they used to drink nothing but water.３７ Erasmus draws extensively from Diogenes’ description of the Pythagorean community. He aligned a sequence of other maxims from the Pythagorean school, including Amicitia aequalitas. Amicus alter ipse.３８ The purpose of communism was, obviously, the creation of a perfectly egalitarian community. By the same logic, Erasmus fails to mention another enthusiastic supporter of the mot d’ordre ‘all in common among friends’ (who appears in the Lives of philosophers, and whom Erasmus knew well): Diogenes the Cynic, the most famous champion of an unadorned life-style. Diogenes the ‘dog’ went as far as to recommend sharing women and children promiscuously, without marriage.３９ This double ideal of commonality was consistent both with a vision of sex as a purely physical exercise to be performed in public, and with an extreme contempt for any form of comfort or cosiness. Diogenes was famous for his unabashed exhibitionism in all aspects of life: he would masturbate in front of everyone and hang about day and night in the open air, eating raw seafood and sleeping wrapped up in his lined cloak. No private property, no privacy, no luxury: instead, a shameless endurance, worthy of Heracles. This was the model of the Cynic wise man, this provocative citizen of the world: an outsider in his own city.４０ His collectivism was not meant to cement a community, but to undermine the very idea of a polis. Erasmus’s attention is focused above all on Plato. For Plato, the idea of holding everything in common is a truly serious matter. Neither individual, 35 Erasmus, Adagia 1, 6: ‘(Ad quot res utilis paroemiarum cognitio): Praeterea Timaeus apud Diogenem Laertium tradit hoc dictum primum a Pythagora profectum fuisse.’ On Erasmus’s familiarity with Diogenes Laërtius, Lives of Philosophers, see: Meer (2010). 36 Diogenes Laërtius VIII, 10. 37 Diogenes Laërtius VIII, 13. 38 Erasmus, Adagia 2, I, I, 2. 39 Diogenes Laërtius VI, 72. 40 Diogenes Laërtius VI, 63.

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subversive asceticism nor a sectarian way of life, reserved for a minority of cohabiting philosophers, the motto assumes instead the proportions of a visionary political project. The Pythagorean device offers to Socrates the pretext for unfolding his most ambitious plan: the entire Republic can be read as a monumental variation on that short maxim.４１ The purpose of the community (koinonia) is the unification of the body politic, more precisely, the collectivization of pleasure and pain. Individual pleasure, and specifically the spontaneous enjoyment (apolausis) of those who would spend their life in luxury and leisure, will have to be abolished. Care for the common good and for each other must absorb the continuous, strenuous attention of each and all citizens. In the Laws, the Athenian recapitulates the qualities of this exemplary city, the only politeia truly unmatched in its pre-eminence (hyperbole).４２ It does not matter ‘whether it is anywhere now, or ever will be’.４３ But this city requires that all feel joys and sorrows in the same situations; that all praise and blame the same things, unanimously; that all share wives, children, and material goods. Whatever we call ‘private’ (idion) is rooted out. The laws render the State as one as possible.４４ In sum: ‘The city and government are first, and the laws are best (aristoi), wherever the old saying comes to be the case, as much as possible, throughout the whole city. It is said that, really, “all is common among friends”‘ (esti koina ta ton philon).４５ For the Athenian, this is the only political paradigm. ‘For a model of government (paradeigma politeias), one does not need to look elsewhere, but once we hold this one, we have to search, within our means, for one that is of such quality, as much as possible’.４６ Erasmus quotes verbatim from the Laws. In the latter passage (the Laws) Plato attempts to show that the best state of the commonwealth consists in the sharing of all things. ‘The first society then’, he declares, ‘the one with the best constitution and laws, is where the old saying will be observed as far as possible throughout the whole society. I mean the saying that friends have all their possessions in common.’ He also says that a society will be happy and blessed where the words ‘mine’ and ‘not mine’ are never heard. But it is amazing how displeasing, yes, how hateful that commu41 42 43 44 45 46

Plato, Republic 424 a ; 449 c. Plato, Laws 5, 739 b-e. Ibid., 5, 739 c. Ibid., 5, 739 c-d. Ibid., 5, 739 b-c. Ibid., 739 e.

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nity of Plato’s is to Christians, although nothing ever said by a pagan philosopher is.４７

Erasmus turns next to Aristotle who, however, could not be more critical of the koinonia of the Republic. Aristotle begins with the community of wives and children, which he rejects in the name of natural bonds and of moral dispositions. The latter argument culminates in a specific response to Plato on the point of care and pleasure. ‘What is common to the greatest number gets the least amount of care. People pay more attention to what is their own: they care less for what is common; or at any rate, they care for it only to the extent to which each is individually concerned.’ ４８ He insists, adding a consideration of the ‘liking’ of one’s beloved, which is an obvious allusion to pleasure as affective motivation. ‘There are two things which particularly move people to care for and love an object. One of these is that the object should belong to yourself: the other that you should like it. Neither of these motives can exist among those who live under a constitution such as this.’ ４９ Care for the self and pleasure are the egoistic sources of human motivation, which any viable political regime must take into account. The discussion about private property revolves around them. You put more effort into working for what you own, Aristotle claims.５０ You take pleasure only in those activities that imply a certain love for yourself. Self-love extends to money and to all those gratifying things you are able to do thanks to affluence, such as offering presents and entertaining your friends.５１ Pleasure is not narcotic, it is a component of activity. It is even its principal cause. It is thus reconciled with occupations and preoccupations, projects 47 Erasmus, Adagia I, 1, 1. ‘Citatur et ab Aristotele libro Moralium octavo et a Platone De legibus quinto. Quo loco conatur demonstrare felicissimum reipublicae statum rerum omnium communitate constare: Πρώτη μὲν τοίνυν πόλις τέ ἐστι και ̀ πολιτεία και ̀ νόμοι ἄριστοι, ὅπου τὸ πάλαι λεγόμενον ἅν γίγνηται κατὰ πάσαν τὴν πόλιν ὅτι μάλιστα· λεγέται δὲ ὡ ς ὄντως ἐστι κοινὰ τὰ ϕίλων, id est Prima quidem igitur civitas est reipublicae status ac leges optimae, ubi quod jam olim dicitur, per omnem civitatem, quam maxime fieri potest, observabitur. Dictum est autem vere res amicorum communes esse. Idem ait felicem ac beatam fore civitatem, in qua non audirentur haec verba : Meum, et non meum. Sed dictu mirum quam non placeat, imo quam lapidetur a Christianis Platonis illa communitas, cum nihil unquam ab 10 ethnico philosopho dictum sit magis ex Christi sententia.’ Note that the expressions ‘the happiest state of a commonwealth’ (felicissimum reipublicae statum), and ‘the best constitution and laws’ (reipublicae status ac leges optimae), appear as a literal echo of Utopia’s complete title, in Latin: de optimo rei publicae statu. 48 Aristotle, Politics II, 1261 b 32-35. 49 Aristotle, Politics, II, 1262 b 20. 50 Aristotle, Politics II, 1263 a 28. 51 Aristotle, Politics II, 1260 a 40.

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and concerns. Furthermore, by making kedesthai and hedone compatible, Aristotle harmonizes private interests and the public good. Individual, selfserving, profitable business – such as managing with gusto your own estate, for instance – contributes to the well-being of the city. The best form of democracy encourages the property of land, allows the farmers to mind their business and counts on their assiduity in working at home, at some distance from the city, so that they should not be able to spend too much time in the agora.５２ Investment in real estate – and more precisely in the countryside – reinforces the middle class and keeps it busy. It is exactly what wise democratic rulers should support with grants and loans, instead of distributing free food to the poor.５３ The same kind of personal pleasure that, for Plato, created the danger of neglecting the general good is for Aristotle the best incentive to participate in the preservation of that good. Consistently, Aristotle criticizes the idea that the city as a whole could be happy, whereas its members, taken individually or class by class, should not. A collective ‘happiness’ – which would mean identity of feelings for everyone – is simply not possible. It is impossible for the city to be happy unless its parts are happy. ‘And, if the rulers are not happy’, Aristotle asks, ‘who else could be?’ ５４ Aristotle defends the legitimacy of personal apolausis not only on behalf of a natural entitlement to pleasure, but also in view of the common good. A politeia is a complex structure, composed of multiple layers specifically useful to the general interest. This is why the family should be preserved. This is why, by unifying a city excessively ‘Socrates’, in fact, destroys it. There is a point at which a city, by acquiring more and more unity, ceases to be a city.５５ In the course of such a polemical refutation, our familiar proverb – panta koina ta ton philon – again plays a role. In order to reinterpret it correctly, and to diminish its meaning, Aristotle claims that, indeed, everything should be held in common among friends, but only in respect of usage, not of possession. In well-ordered cities, people have to own houses and land, but they will share slaves and animals of burden with their neighbours, just as they offer free food and drink to unknown travellers.５６ If there is ‘communality’, this is the result of an act of generosity or hospitality, the gracious and more or less durable transfer of an object from a possessor who gives, to a receiver in need. It is a sort of

52 53 54 55 56

Aristotle, Politics VI, 1319 a 5-b 1. Aristotle, Politics VI, 1320 a 28-b 1. Aristotle, Politics II, 1264 b 10. Aristotle, Politics II, 1263 b 29. Aristotle, Politics II, 1263 a 30.

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loan without interest. It has nothing to do with sharing all, among the members of a group. Aristotle did have a clear and distinct vision of what an optimus rei publicae status should have been. The best form of government, ariste politeia, has to provide a good life, both for the state and for its members. Good life means happiness. Happiness consists in a compound of various kinds of goods (the goods of the soul, the goods of the body and the external goods), with an obvious priority of the goods of the soul, i.e. virtues, over all the others. As a matter of fact, ‘happiness, whether consisting in pleasure or excellence, or both, is more often found with those who are most highly cultivated in their mind and in their characters, and have only a moderate share of external goods.’ ５７ Happiness can be solidly anchored only in the personal ability to do the right things. The conclusion is thus that the best life is secured by excellence, arete; whereas factors such as nobility, prosperity, social connections or physical beauty are necessary and desirable, insofar as they help do the right things.５８ This is true both for the individual and for the city or, more precisely, the city has to be organized in such a way as to make possible the achievement of this end, for each individual. ‘That form of government is best in which every man, whoever he is, can act best and live happily.’ ５９ Logically, the requirements of a fine republic include public wealth and private property, those external goods which are instrumental to acting best and living happily.６０ Material well-being, Aristotle thinks, is an aspect of the superlative goodness of the best state. Without being desirable for its own sake, it is nevertheless functional to that excellence. Indeed. But how do people act for the best and live happily? What is the good life that an ideal city allows you to enjoy? Now, since we are speaking of the best form of government, i.e. that under which the state will be more happy (and happiness, as has been already said, cannot exist without excellence), it clearly follows that in the state which is best governed and possesses men who are just absolutely, and not merely relatively to the principle of the constitution, the citizens must not lead the life of artisans or tradesmen, for such a life is ignoble and inimical to excellence.

57 58 59 60

Aristotle, Politics VII, 1323 b 1- 3. Aristotle, Politics VII, 1323 b 39-a 2. Aristotle, Politics, VII, 1324 a 22-23. Aristotle, Politics VII, 1325 b 36-37; 1329 e 36-1330 a 2.

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Neither must they be farmers, since leisure is necessary both for the development of excellence and the performance of political duties.６１

This is a society founded upon inequality, where citizenship, war, priesthood and government would have been the exclusive privilege of the rentiers, owners of property; whereas the farmers would have been slaves or ‘barbarian country people’, to be considered – along with the artisans and traders – ‘ignoble and inimical to excellence’.６２ Aristotle’s political ideal could not be more at odds with any communistic fiction. And the contrast is particularly striking because, in this seventh book of the Politics, Aristotle raises the question – which was Plato’s and will be Thomas More’s – of what ‘should be the features of the ideal or perfect state’: ‘we must presuppose’, he prefaces his fantasy, ‘many purely imaginary conditions, but nothing impossible’.６３ Aristotle’s idea of the optimus rei publicae status is no utopia. It is a realistic sketch of a possible world. It is a plausible project for a sustainable achievement, to be taken as an alternative, precisely, to the rêverie of an ephemeral and unnatural perfection, in the Republic. Erasmus nods to Aristotle, but he glosses over his principled, systematic, detailed rejection of the Platonic project. ‘Aristotle in Book II of the Politics modifies the view of Plato saying that ownership and property belong to specific individuals’, Erasmus points out. ‘But otherwise for the sake of use, virtue, and civil fellowship’, he goes on to say, ‘everything is common according to the proverb.’ ６４ ‘Everything is common’, for Aristotle – except for material goods, such as land, the collective tenure of which brings about the happiness of the Guardians, in Kallipolis, in the first place. Erasmus conveniently fails to acknowledge that economic communism is essential to the meaning of the proverb, and that the proverb is politically significant precisely because of its causal implication. Private property determines injustice. Its abolition must be implemented, otherwise a community will be unequal and unhappy. Panta ta ton philon, ‘all is common’ means literally what it says: all must be held in common. Erasmus’s account of Aristotle’s criticism is misleading. Later, in the confrontation between Stoics and Epicureans, we keep encountering the question of commonality. The asceticism of the former culminates in the idea that among wise men, women should be held in 61 62 63 64

Aristotle, Politics VII, 1328 b 33-1329 a 1. Aristotle, Politics VII, 1328 b 3-26. Aristotle, Politics VII, 1325 a 35-38. Erasmus, Adagia 1, 1; Olin (1994: 59).

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common and money should not be used for commerce or travel. Friendship is to share everything useful to life.６５ This rigorist position may derive from a Cynic inspiration. But other Stoics, such as Chrisippus and Epictetus, criticize communism. An analogy says it all. As in a theater the whole audience watches the same spectacle, but everyone occupies his own seat, so in the world we all share a communitas and a societas with our fellow human beings, but we do so from our individual and private place.６６ Two positions coexist. The ‘Cynic’ Stoics do not revert to the Republic, because they consider a mixed regime (aristocratic, monarchic and democratic) to be ideal, but, like Plato, they seem to incline towards a powerful association of ideas between justice, austerity and common wealth. We shall not be surprised to find that Epicurus rejects the idea of holding everything in common, even among the members of his philosophical community, let alone the entire city. Epicurus thought that such an attitude was somehow mean and suspicious, especially unworthy of friends. According to Diogenes Laërtius, ‘Epicurus did not think it right that their property should be held in common, as required by the maxim of Pythagoras “all in common among friends”. Such a practice in his opinion implied mistrust (apistia) and, without confidence, there is no friendship.’ ６７ What should be common among friends is pleasure. And friendship is one of the most delightful pleasures in life, because it is a constant exchange: a movement of goods that transit from one person to another, and reciprocally. Like Aristotle, Epicurus sees generosity as a joy. But if everything is already and fixedly in common among friends, what will circulate? The reception of the proverb continues in Rome. Cicero is viscerally anti-Epicurean. But he also loathes any threat to purchased or inherited property and to the principle that everyone should sua tenere.６８ Such a principle seemed exposed to constant danger in Roman politics, from the lex agraria of the Gracchi to the expropriations by Caesar. Confiscations, the abolition of debt, distribution of land and cereals: the debate about the legitimacy of private possessions is cast against the landscape of tumultuous social struggles and of a devastating civil war. In such an overheated context, commonality could never seem to an ex-consul, now in serious trouble, as an idealized rei publicae status, to be created from nothing in a dreamlike future. The injunction to share property is an event that might 65 Diogenes Laërtius VII, 33; 124; 131. 66 Cicero, De finibus III, 67; Epictetus, Discourses II, 4. Annas (1989: 167-169). 67 Diogenes Laërtius X, 11. On philia, see Mitsis (1998: 98-128). 68 See Annas (1989: 151-173; esp. 171): ‘Nobody could be a stronger supporter of the institution of private property than Cicero.’

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happen tomorrow, at the initiative of a winning politician. It appears as an unwelcome subversion of the status quo: a catastrophe, which wealthy landlords like Cicero could have to suffer for good. And, above all, it looks like the outcome of the antagonism between the populares and the possessores, a predictable move in the course of the raging bellum civile. The philosophical theme of holding everything in common, for the maximum good of the city, becomes thus a real probability, the all-too-possible outcome of actual politics. It is not surprising that the duty to protect the res familiaris, the pecuniae and in general everyone’s belongings (sua) has to be restated and reaffirmed as an endangered principle. Private property is the very base upon which social stability and political regimes are grounded. The scope of any civitas or res publica is suae rei cuique custodia.６９ In this light, the Pythagorean proverb is again revisited. ‘Amicorum esse communia omnia’, everything should be held in common among friends, repeats Cicero; but, by omnia, he means ‘everything’ except money, real estate and earthly goods, not to mention wives and children. Along a continuum, at one end there are those things that the laws and the ius civile describe: these have to be privately owned and responsibly preserved, following those laws. At the other end, there is the rest, cetera: those other items that nature engendered for all human beings to enjoy, such as water, fire and free advice.７０ What remains to be shared among the members of the human communitas – as a sort of ‘human right’ to which any individual born human is entitled – is in fact the environment. But between the two extremes of private property and human goods, Cicero locates other, less generic communia shared in a given civitas, such as language and, above all, the space of the city. The forum, the temples, the arcades, the streets, the laws, the right, the judgments, the votes, relations, friendships and business partnerships are listed in a mixed catalog. Physical places, institutions or social practices circumscribe the horizon of civic commonality. And within that sphere, another step closer to the core of unalienable individual belongings, Cicero situates the networks of kin and

69 Cicero, De officiis II, 73: ‘Ut sua tenerentur res publicae civitatesque constitutae sunt’; II, 78: ‘Qui vero se populares volunt ob eamque causam aut agrariam rem temptant ut possessores pellantur suis sedibus, aut pecunias creditas debitoribus condonandas putant, labefacant fundamenta rei publicae, concordiam primum quae esse non potest cum aliis adimuntur, aliis condonantur pecuniae, deinde aequitatem quae tollitur omnis si habere suum cuique non licet. Id enim est proprium, ut supra dixi, civitatis atque urbis, ut sit libera et non sollicita suae rei cuiusque custodia.’ 70 Cicero, De officiis I, 51.

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finally an even narrower association, the house: una domus, communia omnia, a community created by marriage.７１ Like Aristotle, Cicero distinguishes possession and use, and reserves commonality to the latter. In the tradition of the Aristotelian reflection on political crisis, he sees the act of sharing not as a state created ex nihilo, but as a transfer of property. To share is for Cicero a form of beneficium, an act of generosity, actually accomplished by a person in favour of others. Such an act can be just or unjust, appropriate or inappropriate. It is just if it does not deprive the one who gives, and should never be done at his expense. If you kindle a lamp at the flame of another lamp, neither of them looses fire: this example of a transaction sine detrimento, with no harm, should define the limit of placing goods in common.７２ A zone of selfishness, therefore, must be preserved. Plato could not be more different. Interestingly, Cicero remembers Socrates not as the political philosopher of the Republic, but as the teacher of Xenophon, the author of the Economics, which is precisely a handbook about the management of the res familiaris, centred upon the notions of acquisition, conservation and increase.７３ Again, Erasmus makes only a passing allusion to Cicero’s unsympathetic treatment of the adagium. Like Aristotle’s attack on Plato’s communality, Cicero’s concern about the protection of property rights, as the very end of societies and commonwealths, is obliterated. By reconstructing a brief history of the Pythagorean proverb ‘all in common among friends’ – not only in Erasmus’s adage, but also in its own terms – we can follow a double tradition. Pythagoras, Diogenes the Cynic, Plato and the Cynical Stoics are in favour; Aristotle, Epicurus and Cicero are opposed. The asceticism of the former (who despise all external goods) fits their belief in the merits of complete commonality. The flexibility of the latter (who admit external goods as factors of human happiness) clashes with such a radical opinion. The economic structure of a society and, above all, its politics of pleasure are a specific object of dispute, an expression of the profound antithesis between different ethical and political options. Indeed, Cicero’s position is the most complex. Although anti-Epicurean and inclined to Stoicism about virtues and duties, when it comes to politics, Cicero holds to a vehement anti-communism, linked to his fear of actual demagogical accidents, in the Civil War. Aristotle’s and Epicurus’s

71 Cicero, De officiis I, 53. 72 Cicero, De officiis I, 51-52. 73 Cicero, De officiis II, 87.

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arguments are essential for our understanding of what is at stake here philosophically. They both demonstrate that, in those ethics that recognize the value of pleasure, there is no place for a merely collective experience of ‘happiness’. Pleasure is individual. The enjoyment of external goods cannot be but personal, possessive and self-serving. The general advantage can only be the sum of different self-interests. The common good has to include at least some of that pleasure, instead of excluding it. Epicurus alone, however, goes so far as to identify the pleasant and the good, in his irreverent morality of ataraxia.

Gaudent tamen... The question at hand, for us, is to place Erasmus and Thomas More in the diachronic perspective of this classical tradition. Erasmus praises Pythagoras’ adage, as a condensed utterance of wisdom, so profound and so fundamental that, should one succeed in persuading mortal beings of the truth of it, then war, envy, fraud – in short: the entire army of evils – would decamp from human life.７４ Consistently, Erasmus commends Plato’s paradigm of an optimal state of a commonwealth, but minimizes Aristotle’s and Cicero’s radical criticism. He ignores Epicurus’s reservations on communality, and keeps Diogenes the Cynic out of his genealogical account altogether. The silence on Epicurus, in this context, is highly significant. Erasmus expresses adherence to Epicurus’s philosophy of pleasure, in one of the Colloquia familiares, the ‘Epicureus’. The character called Hedonius argues that, although the Epicureans have a bad reputation, they hold the truth: happiness derives from pleasure, and pleasure is good. Virtue entails enjoyment and peace of mind, whereas vices are a source of anguish, thus of systematic unpleasantness. ‘There are no people more Epicurean than godly Christians.’ ７５ As Han van Ruler has shown, Erasmus’s conflation of Epicureanism and Christian ethics, in this colloquy, requires a subtle and complex philosophical effort.７６ Hedonius’s Epicureanism is ‘of an uncommon type’, above all because it is ‘at variance with a key element in ancient Epicurean thought, namely the idea that the end of all human 74 Erasmus, Adagia 1, 6. ‘Quae si mortalibus persuadet queat, ilico facessant e medio bellum ; invidia, fraus, breviter universum malorum agmen semel e vita demigret. Quid aliud egit princeps nostrae religionis Christus? ‘ 75 Erasmus (1972: 721). Erasmus (1997: 1070-1094). 76 On Erasmus’s reinterpretation of ancient Epicureanism, see Van Ruler (2009).

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endeavour may be subsumed under a single concept of “pleasure”.’ ７７ Hedonius, on the contrary, opposes the pleasures of the flesh and those of the mind. The latter are superior, insofar as they are stable, and pure. This is true. The crucial point, however, is that, for Erasmus, God bestows delights upon us, not only as a reward in heaven, but also during our life on earth. If we behave righteously, we are happy – here and now. Nature is a Mother, not a stepmother. Material goods may be enjoyed, as long as they replenish a lack. Food and wine are restorative and energizing. Lust is beastly, but conjugal sex is fine. The worldly commitment most severely blamed is wealth. A rich man and a drunkard are both sick, but, whereas the latter may recover his health with sound sleep, the former is utterly incurable. Riches and honours bring about a life of care and anxiety: the exact opposite of ataraxy.７８ As long as he teaches us to abstain from individual and competitive prosperity, a chronic disease, Epicurus can be an ally. This harsh judgment is also at variance with Epicurus’s moderate, ‘friendly’, vision of prosperity, and his contempt for communality. Since Erasmus enthusiastically endorses Plato’s abolition of private property, as is clear from the adagium we have discussed, Epicurus’s economic views have to be adjusted. Pleasure: yes, but within a Platonic frame. As I have argued elsewhere, Erasmus is perfectly capable of juxtaposing disparate ideas, which, once replaced in their respective contexts, stand in contradiction with one another. More precisely, Erasmus injects subliminal Platonic arguments into his apology of Epicureanism. Pleasures, Hedonius argues, are divided into two groups: the true, unadulterated, authentic pleasures of the mind, and the false, mistaken and deceitful pleasures of the body. This distinction belongs in Plato’s thought.７９ Epicurus had classified pleasures along different lines of demarcation: natural, necessary and limited pleasures versus unnecessary and unlimited pleasures; stable pleasures versus moving pleasures.８０ For Epicurus, the pleasures of the body are physiological, easy to satisfy, truly pleasurable, and, unless they cause pain (for oneself, or for other people),

77 Van Ruler (2009: 241). 78 Erasmus (1997: 1077-1078). 79 Plato, Philebus 31 b-52 b; Republic 583 b-585 a; 585 a-587 a. For detailed discussions of these complex texts, see: Cooper (1995); Wolfsdorf (2013: 63-102). 80 Wolfsdorf (2013: 144-181).

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they are perfectly good.８１ Hedonius’s ‘uncommon’ Epicureanism, I would add to Han van Ruler’s comments, is such because of this Platonic contamination. Erasmus’s amalgamation of Plato and Epicurus echoes Raphael Hythlodaeus’s own synthesis, in Utopia.８２ Idle-Talk uses Plato’s arguments on the purity of intellectual pleasures versus the insatiability, and the consequent ‘impurity’ of bodily pleasures, such as food, drink, and sex. Since these appetites renew themselves perpetually, their gratification is always ‘mixed up’ with a sense of lack. They are the least genuine, minime sincerae. IdleTalk combines this assessment, however, with the Epicurean principle that Voluptas is good, and that even those delights are permitted in moderation. The Utopians enjoy them too (gaudent tamen etiam his).８３ The abolition of private property and money, in the Utopian economy, takes care of wealth.

81 Valla (1964: 914-915) had well understood the discrepancy between Plato and Epicurus on this point. He argued that, pace Plato, no pleasure was to be averted on account of its lower quality, because all pleasure was good. All pleasure, furthermore, involves the mind as well as the body, hence the fallacy of an opposition between intellectual and corporeal pleasures: ‘Aristotele dunque dà alla contemplazione la più alta supremazia. Ma poiché egli in molti luoghi non nasconde che ci sia il piacere in questa vita e in quella civile, e, per dirla più chiaramente, che questa vita sia desiderabile perché produce nell’anima il piacere, potrei sbrigarmi subito di tale questione poiché così siamo d’accordo che qualche genere del piacere sia lodevole. Questo aveva già prima detto Platone, quando affermò esserci nell’animo due piaceri, l’uno desiderabile l’altro da fuggirsi. Sono d’accordo con lui, sebbene ogni piacere, come ho mostrato prima, sia buono. E nei libri della Repubblica chiama spesso questi tre fini medesimi che ho detto, piaceri. Ma anche Aristotele stesso pone due piaceri, uno dei sensi e un altro della mente. Però io non intendo, se c’è un nome solo, in qual modo si possa considerare diversa la cosa: tanto più che ogni piacere si sente non tanto col corpo quanto coll’anima che regge il corpo, come, secondo me, pensò Epicuro. Chi dubita che i piaceri del corpo si generino coll’aiuto dell’anima e i piaceri dell’anima con la collaborazione del corpo? Non è quasi corporeo ciò che pensiamo, ossia in relazione a quelle cose che abbiamo vedute, udite, percepite con qualche senso, donde è nata la contemplazione?’ 82 On the complex resonances between the moral philosophy of the Utopians and the views of Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus and Lorenzo Valla on pleasure, see Logan (1983: 145-198). On the Epicurean hedonistic calculus in Utopia, see Lacroix (2007: 185-240). 83 More (1965: 176; 1995: 177): ‘Anyone who thinks happiness consists of this sort of pleasure (eating, drinking and sex) must confess that his ideal life would be one spent in an endless hunger, thirst, itching, eating, drinking, scratching and rubbing (in perpetua fame, siti, pruritu, esu, potatione, scalptu, frictuque traducatur). Who can’t see that such an existence is not only disgusting, but miserable? These pleasures are certainly the lowest of all, as they are the least genuine (minime sincerae) – for they never occur except in connection with the pains that are their contraries (nisi contrariis coniunctae doloribus). Hunger, for example, is linked to the pleasure of eating, and by no equal law, since the pain is sharper and lasts longer; it precedes the pleasure, and ends only when the pleasure ends with it.’ The Utopians rank pleasures, yet they enjoy also those that are inferior: gaudent tamen etiam his. On insatiable and impure desire, see: Plato, Philebus 46 c-d; 47 b; Gorgias 494 b-d; Republic IX, 584 d-586 c. On the centrality of insatiable desire, in ancient ethics, see Sissa (1997).

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The end of Utopia Now, how about Thomas More? When Morus responds to Raphael Hythlodaeus, in Utopia, he speaks to Erasmus. And he tells him, kindly and amicably, that he could not disagree more. He expresses his dissent not once, but twice. In Book 1, Morus argues against commonality, on account of several reasons that revert to the Aristotelian arguments we have examined. He insists upon the impossibility of activity, abundance and comfort, when there are no incentives to individual self-interest. Wealth and commonality are irreconcilable. Worse: if the law fails to protect private property, as Cicero had argued, social violence erupts. Corroborated by the statement that God permits dominium over external goods, therefore the ownership thereof, these interconnected arguments resurface in Thomas Aquinas’ discussion on theft and property. Property is reasonable, useful, lawful and necessary to human life. It stirs the care to act, and makes people content of their possessions. The crucial condition of a good enjoyment of wealth is generosity.８４

84 Cf. Aquinas, Summa Theologica IIa-IIae, qu. 66, art. 1, co.: ‘I answer that external things can be considered in two ways. First, as regards their nature, and this is not subject to the power of man, but only to the power of God Whose mere will all things obey. Secondly, as regards their use (ad usum), and in this way, man has a natural dominion over external things, because, by his reason and will, he is able to use them for his own profit, as they were made on his account (habet homo naturale dominium exteriorum rerum, quia per rationem et voluntatem potest uti rebus exterioribus ad suam utilitatem, quasi propter se factis): for the imperfect is always for the sake of the perfect, as stated above (qu. 64, art. 1). It is by this argument that the Philosopher proves (Politics I, 3) that the possession of external things is natural to man. Moreover, this natural dominion of man over other creatures, which is competent to man in respect of his reason wherein God’s image resides, is shown forth in man’s creation (Genesis 1:26) by the words: ‘Let us make man to our image and likeness: and let him have dominion over the fishes of the sea.’ Ibid., IIa-IIae, qu. 66, art. 2, co.: ‘I answer that two things are competent to man in respect of exterior things. One is the power to procure and dispense them, and in this regard it is lawful for man to possess property. Moreover this is necessary to human life for three reasons (licitum est quod homo propria possideat. Et est etiam necessarium ad humanam vitam). First because every man is more concerned (sollicitus) to procure what is for himself alone than that which is common to many or to all: since each one would shirk the labour (laborem fugiens) and leave to another that which concerns the community, as happens where there is a great number of servants. Secondly, because human affairs are conducted in more orderly fashion if each man is charged with taking care of some particular thing himself (si singulis immineat propria cura alicuius rei procurandae), whereas there would be confusion if everyone had to look after any one thing indeterminately. Thirdly, because a more

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When he responds to Hythlodaeus, Morus speaks this Thomistic language: ‘But I don’t see it that way (contra videtur),’ I said. ‘It seems to me that people cannot possibly live comfortably (commode vivi) where all things are in common. How can there be plenty of commodities (copia rerum) where every man stops working? The hope of gain (quaestus) does not spur him on, and by relying on others he will become lazy. If men are impelled by need, and yet no man can legally protect what he has obtained, what can follow but continuous bloodshed and turmoil, especially when respect for magistrates and their authority has been lost? I, for one, cannot even conceive of authority existing among men who are not distinguished from one another in any respect.’ ８５

At the very end of the dialogue, as we mentioned, Morus emits his final verdict: an entirely communal life, with neither private ownership nor commerce, is utterly absurd (absurde instituta).８６ These words put to rest, once and forever, Hythlodaeus’s earlier intimation that, if we were to dismiss ‘as unusual and absurd’ (insolentia atque absurda) things that may appear to be alien to us (aliena), we would have to dissimulate ‘almost all the doctrines of Christ’.８７ Christianity, Raphael insinuates, contains many unfamiliar ideas, like those found in Utopia. But Morus does not allow himself to be intimidated by Hythodaeus’s provocation.８８ He is a Christian, of course, so much so that, when he first meets Raphael Hythlodaeus and Peter Giles, he comes straight out of Notre Dame, the most beautiful and

peaceful state is ensured to man if each one is contented with his own (dum unusquisque re sua contentus). Hence it is to be observed that quarrels arise more frequently where there is no division of the things possessed. The second thing that is competent to man with regard to external things is their use. On this respect man ought to possess external things, not as his own, but as common, so that, to wit, he is ready to communicate them to others in their need (ut scilicet de facili aliquis ea communicet in necessitates aliorum). Hence the Apostle says (1 Timothy 6:17-18): ‘Charge the rich of this world (...) to give easily, to communicate to others.’ 85 More (1965: 106; 1995: 105). 86 More (1965: 244; 1995: 247). 87 More (1965: 100; 1995: 99). 88 For a discussion of Hythlodaeus’s rebuttal of Morus’s first objections, see Grace (1989: 278): ‘Raphael finds such a position compromising, and defends his principles against accommodation.’ The description/praise of Utopia will be his attempt to prove that communism, industriousness, and happiness can go together. Morus, however, will remain unmoved, in his courteous disagreement. See also my discussion of Quentin Skinner’s claim that Morus changes his mind, supra, note 17.

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famous church in Antwerp, where he has been attending Mass.８９ He is a different kind of Christian, however: one who while he shares a profoundly critical outlook on Christian Europe, does not believe in the possibility of an economic, earthly remedy.９０ By the end of the dialogue, Morus has already made crystal clear where he stands, in terms of these philosophical options: he has no time for a maximalist, and yet elitist philosophia scholastica, good for pre-dinner conversations, among nice friends; he urges instead in favour of a philosophia civilior, aimed at public engagement, partial improvements, tactful advice, and reasonable accommodations.９１ He has already explained that he could not possibly expect (expectare) the improvement of humanity, because human beings are not going to become good any time soon. This was a light-handed allusion to original sin, and the only true redemption available to humanity.９２ Now, after having patiently listened to Hythlodaeus’s tirade, he quietly recapitulates his difference. Now, he concedes that there are some unspecified qualities in Utopia – which are obviously not the same he considers absurd, since absurdity cannot be desirable – which he might wish (optare), truly, rather that hope (sperare) to see imported into Europe.９３

89 More (1965: 48; 1995: 43). Gerard Wegemer has drawn attention to this point, and to its significance for the construction of Morus’s character in Wegemer (1995: 140): ‘Morus identifies himself with Christian orthodoxy in his actions and in his entire way of life. He enters the dialogue after worshipping in the cathedral of Notre Dame and he not only warmly greets Raphael, but he also feeds him twice and freely spends the entire afternoon with him, patiently enduring Raphael’s strident and often personal attacks.’ 90 Nicole Morgan argues that Hythlodaeus’s focus on the economy, as the human and material cause of happiness in Utopia, is the most original novelty in Thomas More’s political thought. She is right about the crucial importance of economic determinism, but she is wrong when she ascribes such idea to Thomas More himself, rather than to Hythlodaeus/Erasmus – with whom Thomas More disagrees. Cf. Morgan (1995). 91 More (1965: 98; 1995: 95-97). 92 More (1965: 100; 1995: 97): ‘Since it cannot be done that all things be good, unless human beings were good, which I do no expect to happen for quite a few years from now’ (Nam ut omnia bene sint fieri non potest, nisi omnes boni sint, quod ad aliquot abhinc annos ad hunc non expecto). About other features of Utopia, Morus also claims that he would wish them rather than hope (optarim verius quam sperarim). 93 More (1965: 246; 1995: 249).

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These words, optarim verius quam sperarim, whispered to the reader, at the very end of Utopia, are more damning than it has been claimed.９４ They resonate with Cicero’s Republic. Scipio qualifies Plato’s Kallipolis precisely as ‘a city to be desired, more that to be hoped for’ (civitas optanda magis quam speranda).９５ This is a reproach. In his Politics, Aristotle chastises Socrates’ outline of Kallipolis, with these exact words: ‘One has to make suppositions, following what he wishes (kat’euchen), but should certainly suppose nothing impossible’ (meden mentoi adunaton).９６ This too is a piece of blame. An euche, is a strong desire: a prayer, like those we address to a divinity when we feel impotent and at a loss. While sketching a political project, Aristotle recommends, we have to aim at what we look for, but our ambitions have to lay within the range of the possible. What matters is what we can do. Plato’s thought is not wholly unrealistic either. Kallipolis, the ‘spoken city’ (he eiremene politeia), stands to be imitated. It can be found ‘nowhere on earth’ (ges ge oudamou),９７ but, in its celestial location, it acts as a paradigm (paradeigma), to be applied in one’s soul, in an act of metaphorical ‘colonization’.９８ Socrates insists that he is formulating a wish (euche), but a wish for something that is possible (dunata), in accord with nature.９９ ‘It is not impossible (ou gar adunatos), he says, and we are not saying impossible things’ (oud’hemeis adunata legomen). Although ordinary people will call it unfeasible, we know that it is only 94 McCutcheon (2011: 57) writes that ‘More’s intentions in having Morus make this claim (on absurdity) have been much disputed. But whether we interpret it as sincere, as ironic, or both, is not the final word either. Instead, Morus reopens the issue, hoping for further discussion with Hythloday and remarking that ‘I freely confess that in the Utopian commonwealth there are very many features that in our own societies I would wish rather than expect to see.’ Together with the parerga, McCutcheon goes on to say, the text of Utopia indicates that ‘the work is a metautopia, to be approached as an open-ended and polysemous dialogue that explores what are in fact many-faceted and still unresolved political and philosophical questions’. Utopia explores ‘the probable or contingent’. Although I thoroughly agree with Elisabeth McCutcheon on the rhetorical complexity of Utopia, especially on its encomiastic format, I cannot accept the idea that Morus’s vague sentence (about very many, permulta, indeterminate features to be wished rather than hoped for) modifies in any way the specific, dogmatic, unequivocal statement that, in Utopia, war, religion, and, above all, the economy are absurd. The core of Utopia is wrong. The rest – be it fashion, gardening or the regulation of travel, who knows? – is beyond expectation and hope, therefore beyond probability. 95 Cicero, De Re Publica 2, 30, 52. 96 Aristotle, Politics 1265 a 17-18. Cf. 1325 b 38-39; 1288 b 23-24 ; 1295 a 29. 97 Plato, Republic 5, 592 a 6-7. 98 Plato, Republic 9, 592 b 2-3: ‘Probably there lays a paradigm in the sky, for anyone who wishes to see, and for anyone who sees, to found as a colony, in himself (ἐν οὐρανῷ ἴσως παράδειγμα ἀνάκειται τῷ βουλομένῳ ὁρᾶν καὶ ὁρῶντι ἑαυτὸν κατοικίζειν).’ 99 Plato, Republic 5, 450 d; 456 b-c. Cf. Laws 5, 742 e.

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difficult (chalepa). A project made up of pure euchai, on the contrary, would be utterly ridiculous.１００ There is nothing to be expected, nothing to look forward as an end, and nothing to be taken as an example from the Utopians.１０１ What, for More, is not absurd in Utopia, is still hopeless wishful thinking. The prevailing interpretation of Morus’s last words is that they must convey either ironic reversals, or open-ended reservations.１０２ But we do not need this appeal to irony/ambiguity. Nothing compels us to take More’s assessment of Utopia as an embarrassing dissonance, except our own wish to reconcile the Author with his fictional creatures at all cost, and against the evidence of 100 Plato, Republic 6, 499 c (katagelomai). 101 Quentin Skinner makes this point, on the exemplarity of pagan political theory, in Skinner (1987: 151). Morus recounts that Hythlodaeus, in his first allusions to the new peoples he has encountered in his travels, described some of their institutions as ill-conceived, but also mentioned some that could be taken as examples (exempla), apt to correct the mistakes of our cities and nations. Morus promises to talk about those institutions and people later, because, for now, he intends to focus on the Utopians. (More, 1995: 47). The Utopians, however, are not going to be admired as good exempla, except in Hythlodaeus’s praise. Utopia cannot be a paradeigma, for Thomas More: this is what the sentence ‘optarim verius quam sperarim’, means. Whereas an exemplum/paradeigma is there to be used, in other words you can hope and expect something from its application, Utopia has nothing to offer, except mere wish, i.e. the kind of ‘prayer’ that, all by itself, would be ridiculous even for Socrates, in Plato’s Republic. This point is highly significant, in the context of Skinner’s influential interpretation, which brings to the fore a great number of textual and contextual connections, especially between Utopia and Cicero, De officiis. Skinner is right to highlight the themes of otium/negotium, and vera nobilitas. He is also right in his characterization of Morus as ‘a good Ciceronian humanist’. I cannot agree, however, with the encompassing hypothesis that, with Utopia, More offers a challenge ‘to his fellow humanists’, by raising ‘a doubt about the coherence of their political thought’ (Skinner, 1987: 154). Thomas More must have deemed these scholars to be inconsistent, Skinner argues, because they used to criticize conventional displays of social distinction, on the one hand, but fail to draw the radical conclusions that economic inequality should be eradicated, and thus property be abolished, on the other. Utopia was meant to expose the path not taken, a path to which Thomas More himself admitted he thought of with regret. The dialogue, Skinner writes, ends ‘on a wistful and elegiac note’ (Skinner, 1987: 157). The reason for my dissent is that the most prominent, the most vocal and the most familiar of those humanists was Erasmus, who did applaud the Platonic incitation to hold everything in common. That was the problem. Knowing Thomas More’s convictions on the legitimacy, naturalness and goodness of private property, based on the authority of the Ancient and New Testament, the Church fathers, Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, one can only marvel at the amplitude of the political chasm, between the two friends. If Morus objects to Hythlodaeus, I contend, it is because he finds Utopia’s economic structure (together with war, and religion) absurde instituta. This judgment is not only harsh, final and unequivocal, but it fits Morus’s general views on property, which do not ‘evaporate’, in book II, as Skinner claims, but, on the contrary, resurface in a stronger tone. Again: the abolition of property, commerce, and money is absurd – and this is a loaded word. Hythlodaeus represents, to be sure, a certain kind of humanist: he is the portrait of Erasmus, with whom Thomas More was in continuous conversa-

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the ongoing dispute. As soon as we hear Erasmus – rather than an esoteric, tortured, divided Thomas More – speak through Hythlodaeus, the entire conversation makes perfectly good sense. Two civilized friends agree up to a point, but also strongly disagree, on important issues they both care about. The topics of justice, religion, intellectual engagement, and reform were nothing less than conflict-ridden, in those years. We have seen what Erasmus thought. We are now going to venture into the works of Thomas More, beyond Utopia.

Absurde instituta Firstly, it is important to note that absurditas was one of Thomas More’s strategic weapons, in his religious and intellectual battles. It was never a frivolous excuse for disqualifying novel ideas. To call a person absurdus, or an idea absurda, and even absurdissima, conveyed an unforgiving judgment on the competence, intelligence, and good faith of a thinker, or on the logical quality of an argument. Thomas More abundantly used such judgments, against one particular and formidable adversary: Martin Luther. In the Response to Martin Luther, the denunciation of absurdity is omnipresent, and extremely aggressive. ‘You, who are the most absurd of all men...’ (qui omnium es absurdissimus). ‘You, superlatively absurd man, you claim that this is absurd and impossible’ (tu homo absurdissimus, et absurdum esse iactas et impossibile). ‘He exposes Luther’s claim, the most absurd of all...’ (ostendit Lutheri sententiam, omnium absurdissimam....). ‘Here you see, reader, the evident craziness of this supremely absurd tion, and whose ideas were not insufficiently radical and consistent, but, on the contrary, too radically and stubbornly Platonic – and, by the way, too Epicurean. My arguments are compatible with those of Travis Curtright (Curtright, 2012). 102 I have mentioned the most authoritative interpretations along this line, and discussed some of them in notes 16, 17 and 101. Although I cannot develop fully my argumentation in this paper, I will add that Morus’s words about the consequences of abolishing private property – namely the subversion of nobilitas, magnificentia, splendor, and maiestas, which ‘in the public opinion (publica opinio), are the true ornaments and glory of any commonwealth’ – should be understood at face value. See More (1995: 247-249), for the connection with Aristotle’s virtues. In response to Quentin Skinner’s point (in the article discussed in note 101) that the defense of typically aristocratic exploits cannot possibly be serious, on behalf of the author of Utopia, I will reiterate that Erasmus disdained them. Morus says specifically that the worth of these ornaments is a matter of publica opinio. Now, what is public, for Thomas More, is not necessarily bad. Opinions can be either right or wrong. When ordinary beliefs are presented as silly, thoughtless, they are attributed to the vulgus. See e.g. More (1965: 130 and 170).

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man...’ (vides hic lector, istius absurdissimi viri manifestas insanias). ‘He refutes that exceedingly absurd sophism of Luther, by which it is argued that the priest received the eucharist in mass, therefore he cannot offer it’ (Refellit illud absurdissimum Lutheri sophisma: quo sic argutatur, Sacerdos in missa recipit eucharistiam: ergo non potest offerre).１０３ This is a very small sample of this language. The superlative show-cases the vehemence of Thomas More’s attack on Luther’s logic.１０４ In Utopia, although Morus attributes absurditas to Utopians institutions (thus to their admirer), in a tactful, good-humored, amicable tone, the blame is no less trenchant. Secondly, in the Response to Luther, Thomas More articulates absurdity with an even more serious accusation. One of Luther’s most pernicious and ludicrous ideas is the denial that the true Church, that of Christ, has its spatial and institutional incarnation in Rome. That is merely the Church of the Pope, Luther contends. He is insane, More argues, to the point of claiming that the sacrament of Ordination is but an invention of the Pope. ‘These few words hold not a small heap of both falsehood and absurdity (Haec pauca verba non parvum habent et falsitatis et absurditatis acervum).’ １０５ This premise leads Luther to say that the true Church exists wherever (ubicumque) a few Christians get together – be it in a tiny corner. But this amounts to saying that the Church of Christ is, actually, nowhere (nusquam). Reader, you see, and the King has written to him, if the Church that Luther calls Papist is not the Church of Christ: it must be the case that either the Church of Christ is nowhere (aut nusquam esse Ecclesiam Christi), or it is only wherever (ubicumque) there are two or three heretics, gossiping about Christ in a corner.１０６

Following Luther’s train of thought, one has to admit that the Church is nowhere to be found (nusquam), More insists. And we are reminded that one of the possible titles Thomas More had considered, for Utopia, was, literally: Nusquama. A marginal gloss to the 1523 edition of the Response takes the allusion one step further, by saying of the invisible Church that ‘Luther must have seen it in Utopia’ (eam fortasse vidit in Utopia).１０７ Whether 103 More (1971: 542, 556, 572, 610, 616, and passim). 104 On the complexity of Thomas More’s attacks on Luther, see Rex (2011). 105 More (1971: 118). 106 Ibid. 107 The gloss was made in a copy of the 1523 Wittemberg edition of Thomae Mori Responsio ad Convitia Martini Lutheri.

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or not Thomas More himself added the marginalia, he must have approved of them, which means that he did not have any qualms in wirily referring to Hytlodaeus’s paradise, as an absurd no-place, ready-made for the nonexistent Church of Luther, the supreme nebulo, the insanis, the scurra. The foundation of social life only on natural law appears to be one of the features of this ideal community. Faithful to himself, More explains that this supposes three possibilities: that the entire Christian people would want to live in common (aut totus populus christianus vivere vellet in communi), or that the wicked would not want to steal (aut mali nolint furari), or that ‘no one anywhere’ (nulli usquam sint improbi) would be bad. But, as a matter of fact, the law of the Gospel (lex evangelica) does not permit stealing. Human laws (leges humanae) that punish theft corroborate that. And human law obliges the Christians.１０８ One could draw (trahi) the conclusion, More goes on to argue, that being born out of human law, property (rerum proprietas) could be abolished, and, if property were eliminated (sublata), theft would cease to exist. Following the same supposition, we would do better, therefore, without such a law: ‘we would live in a sort of natural community, with nothing to steal’ (in communitate quadam naturali viveremus: sublata furandi materia). If one were to take this point, however, one still would have to admit that a community with no property, and very few laws could not live without laws at all.１０９

108 This resonates with Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica IIa-IIae, qu. 66, art. 2, ad 1: ‘Unde proprietas possessionum non est contra ius naturale; sed iuri naturali superadditur per adinventionem rationis humanae.’ 109 More (1971: 274-276). On the intertextual resonances between Utopia and More’s works on Luther and heresy, see: Baker (1999: 27-54). David Weil Baker discusses the importance of Utopia as a ‘sub-text’ for More’s works on Luther and Tyndale, as well as More’s feeling that Erasmus did not distance himself enough from their revolutionary ideas. In associating Utopia with Luther’s disparagement of the Catholic Church, Baker surmises, More betrays a certain ‘nervousness’. But this psychological hypothesis becomes superfluous, once we realize how consistent Thomas More was, in favour of an accommodating reformism and against communism, on the one hand, and how provocative Hythlodaues was, in his affinity with Erasmus, on the other. More did not need to make allusion to Utopia, and then become nervous: he had fabricated a perfect Erasmian fantasy, absurd enough to host Luther’s fantasy of an invisible church. One of the advantages of my reading of Utopia is that it helps understand this crucial problem. Thomas More was not committed to Utopian values.

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Utopia displays precisely this experiment in conditional thinking.１１０ If people were happy to live in common, in a natural, communal, and minimally regulated society, then neither mali, nor improbi would be anywhere to be found.１１１

A praise of pain Thomas Morus’s objections to Hythlodaeus are consistent with Thomas More’s very long developments on wealth, pleasure and pain, in A Dialogue of Comfort against Tribulation. Thomas More composed this work in the Tower, while awaiting execution. The dialogue takes place in Hungary, in the imminence of the invasion by the Turks. It engages a wiser, older, and frail man, Anthony, and his intellectually eager, and yet immature nephew, Vincent. Vincent would like to learn how one ought to face dangerous, harrowing and sorrowful situations, be it a massive threat like a war, or a personal predicament, such as old age. Can one find some comfort in tribulation, some remedy to ‘heaviness’? And what is the right thing to do in the face of distress, for a Christian? Anthony begins with a criticism of the ancient philosophers who tried to find ways to eliminate suffering. Their efforts could only fail, he argues, because they lacked the only true foundation: God. Only God can possibly be a source of comfort. And many goodly sayings have they toward the strength and comfort against tribulation... exhorting men to the full contempt of all worldly loss, and despising of sickness and all bodily grief, painful death and all. Howbeit, in very deed, for anything that ever I read in them, I never could yet find that ever these natural reasons were able to give sufficient comfort of themselves; for they 110 Prévost (1978: 148-149), argued that Utopia develops a hypothetic-deductive argumentation. The narrative takes the reader through a syllogism, in which the major premise is false, the minor looks realistic, and the consequences are necessarily paradoxical. This insight is absolutely right. Utopia ought to be read as a creative, counterfactual thought-experiment. I add that Thomas More makes this dialectical intent explicit, in a number of non-fictional texts (for instance the one discussed here), where he discloses the false premises from which the optimal state of a commonwealth is deduced. We will see this, in the last section of this paper. See also Prévost (1969). 111 On Utopia’s few laws, see More (1995: 101). Hythlodaeus says: ‘I consider superlatively prudent and sacred the institutions of the Utopians, among whom things are administered so nicely, with so few laws (reputo prudentissima atque sactissima instituta Utopiensium, apud quos tam paucis legibus tam commode res administrantur).’

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never stretch so far but that they leave untouched (for lack of necessary knowledge) that special point which is not only the chief comfort of all... but without which, also, all other comforts are nothing: that is to wit, the referring the final end of their comfort unto God, and to repute and take for the special cause of comfort that by the patient sufferance of their tribulation, they shall attain his favour... and for their pain receive reward at his hand in heaven. And for lack of knowledge of this end, they did (as they needs must) leave untouched also the very special means without which we can never attain to this comfort: that is to wit, the gracious help and aid of God, to move, stir, and guide us forward in the referring all our ghostly comfort – yea, and our worldly comfort, too – all unto that heavenly end.１１２

There are no terrestrial remedies to tribulation. To pursue the cessation of pain through human means can only precipitate our demise, and cause more pain. The effectual insufficiency of those ‘comfortable counsels’, however, is only the first of their flaws. It is the very quest for analgesic cures that is misguided. And this is the case, for a reason: pain is good. Suffering befalls us for three reasons: because we deserve it on account of a sin we are well aware of (when sickness follows intemperance, or imprisonment a crime, for instance); because we deserve it for some sin we ignore, we have forgotten, or we might commit (in which case suffering prevents the act); because, independently of sin, we are put to the test ‘for the profit of (our) patience and increase of (our) merit’. ‘In all the former cases’, Thomas More points out, ‘tribulation is (if we will) medicinal; in this latter case of all, it is yet better than medicinal.’ １１３ Tribulation is an end in itself, and carries intrinsic value. The Church actually demands that we inflict suffering on ourselves willingly, by fasting, watching and praying. This is meant to tame our ‘fleshly lusts’, but also ‘to mourn and lament’ our sin ‘before committed’, and ‘to bewail’ our offenses toward God.１１４ Pain is good. This is the premise from which Anthony’s entire argument will be developed. By disqualifying the ‘goodly sayings’ and the ‘natural reasons’ of classical philosophy, the Dialogue of Comfort takes us into an exclusively Christian territory. Anthony has experienced the limitations of 112 More (1976: 10). 113 More (1976: 24). 114 More (1976: 52). See also More (1976: 96): ‘The Scripture is full of those places by which it plainly appeareth that God looketh of duty not only that we should amend and be better in the time to come... but also be sorry and weep and bewail our sins committed before. And all the old holy doctors be fully and wholly of that mind that men must have for their sins contrition and sorrow in heart.’

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that philosophy. There is nothing to learn from those readings, he claims. Those theories leave untouched the ‘special point’, which is God. They are meant to implement comfort against tribulation, at any cost. Tribulation, on the contrary, must be embraced. Only one textual tradition helps us understand this principle: Holy Writ, from which Anthony will quote and translate the evidence needed for his advices. Greek and Roman sources are thoroughly ignored. The contrast with Erasmus is remarkable. Far from postulating that pleasure is good and that God is its source; far from attributing a desirable and rewarding agreeableness to virtue, and a repulsive unpleasantness to vice (as Hedonius did), Thomas More marshals the most intransigent, castigatory, harmful injunctions, on behalf of the Catholic Church. We must suffer. Not only in order to punish ourselves, after a sin, or to keep our drives under control, but in order to make atonement, in advance and any way, for the sin we will commit, or we might commit. This means that we must cultivate the very experience of discomfort, all the time. Penance, contrition, and regret: this is the life-style a Christian must embrace, rather than longing for ‘perpetual wealth and prosperity in this wretched world’, or, in other words, ‘the perpetual lack of all trouble and all tribulation.’ １１５ No wise man should wish to live a painless, tranquil and comfortable existence. This is both impossible and wrong.１１６ The allusion to Epicurean morality is self-evident. Thomas More’s brand of Christianity could not possibly be more diametrically opposed to Epicureanism. The distance from Erasmus culminates with diverging views on the brevity of human life. Hedonius admits, of course, that our passage on earth is short; therefore we would be ill advised to enjoy ourselves with no consideration for the consequences in the afterlife.１１７ The awareness of finitude, however, corroborates his general line of thought: righteousness brings about true pleasure, a pleasure that does not cause future agony – and pleasure is good. Anthony makes a completely different inference. 115 More (1976: 52-53). 116 This entire section (1, 16) develops the argument that the wish of perpetual prosperity is foolish, because tribulation is necessary and inevitable. The value of pain is a motif that runs through all of More’s works. See, e.g. Life of Pico, Of the Voluntary Affliction and Paining of his own Body, More (1997: 24-31): ‘Over all this, many times (which is not to be kept secret) he gave alms of his own body. We know many men which (as Saint Jerome saith) put forth their hand to poor folk, but with the pleasure of the flesh they be overcome; but he many days (and namely those days which represent unto us the passion and death that Christ suffered for our sake) beat and scourged his own flesh in the remembrance of that great benefit and for cleansing of his old offences’ (quoted with standardized spelling). 117 Erasmus (1997: 1084).

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Since we can experience only a ‘little-while wandering’, in this world, we must conduct our existence, as if we were tired of it. ‘In this vale of labour, toil, tears, and misery’, we must not ‘look for rest and ease... game, pleasure... wealth, and felicity.’ １１８ Again: pain is good. In conclusion to the first book of A Dialogue of Comfort, Anthony recapitulates his Christian vision of pleasure and pain. If we lay first, for a sure ground, a very fast faith... whereby we believe to be true all that the Scripture saith – understanding truly, as the old holy doctors declare it, and as the Spirit of God instructeth his Catholic Church – then shall we consider tribulation as a gracious gift of God; a gift that he specially gave his special friends; the thing that in Scripture is highly commended and praised; a thing whereof the contrary long continued is perilous; a thing which but if God send it, men have need by penance to put upon themselves and seek it; a thing that helpeth to purge our sins past; a thing that preserveth us from sin that else would come; a thing that causeth us set less by the world; a thing that exciteth us to draw more toward God; a thing that much diminisheth our pains in purgatory; a thing that much increaseth our final reward in heaven; the thing by which our Savior entered his own kingdom; the thing with which all his apostles followed him thither; the thing which our Savior exhorteth all men to; the thing without which, he saith, we be not his disciples; the thing without which no man can get to heaven.１１９

A relentless panegyric of pain, this passage says it all: we have to be grateful for our sufferings, which are a generous, special gift from God. We have to welcome them and inflict some more upon ourselves, deliberately. We have to appreciate their assistance in punishing and preventing sin, in limiting our attachment to the world, in shortening our sojourn in purgatory, in bringing us closer to God. We have to imitate the Passion of Christ, and possibly to emulate the renunciations of his disciples. No pain, no paradise. This truth derives exclusively from Scripture, not the philosophical tradition. It is the doctrine of the Catholic Church.

118 More (1976: 41). 119 More (1976: 75). See Wegemer (1990a).

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Busyness In Book 2, the conversation moves to the problem of the Devil, the cause of our penchant toward the world, the flesh, and pleasure. The core of this problem is temptation. There are situations in which human beings are particularly exposed to the lures of the Devil. Prosperity is one of these situations. It is therefore in this theological context that Anthony will have to explain to Vincent what is wrong with wealth. The ‘devil that is called Busyness busily walketh about.’ Some people will follow him. The Devil will set up those unwise folk, ‘with many manner bumbling business.’ It is he who will induce ‘some to seek the pleasures of the flesh... in eating, drinking, and other filthy delight. And some he setteth about incessant seeking for these worldly goods.’ １２０ Busyness is therefore the agent who sets us up, but those of us who actually follow him are responsible for their doings. This unstable and perilous cooperation lies at the core of the Christian conception of temptation: there are favourable circumstances, attractive conditions, tantalizing perspectives, but a person must make a decision. Wealth is tempting. It is so, even for good men. The devil ‘tempteth them busily’ to set their heart upon ‘fleshly delight’.１２１ This vulnerability makes the virtue of Biblical figures, such as Abraham, even more admirable. Now, Vincent voices the suspicion that affluence and private property might be intrinsically bad, and culpable. Should the rich fear damnation, he asks. The answer is no. God invited men to abandon ‘the solicitude of worldly business’, and the ‘desire of earthly commodities’; to choose poverty and to follow Him, but never did He order such a choice to all, lest they be damned. ‘Yet doth he not command every man so to do (renouncing material goods) upon the peril of damnation.’ No commandment prohibits us from being rich, or from having ‘substance’. There are, in the house of God, ‘many mansions’.１２２ 120 More (1976: 167). 121 More (1976: 169-170 : ‘But there are very good folk and virtuous that are in the day light of grace, and yet because the devil tempteth them busily to such fleshly delight, and since they see plenty of worldly substance fall unto them, and feel the devil in like wise busily tempt them to set their heart thereupon, they be so troubled therewith, and begin to fear thereby, that they be not with God in the light, but with this devil that the Prophet calleth negotium, that is to say, business, walking about in the two times of darkness.’ 122 More (1976: 175): ‘But, as I said, to give away all, or that no man should be rich or have any substance, that find I no commandment of. There are, as our Savior saith, in the house of his Father many mansions, and happy shall he be that shall have the grace to dwell even in the lowest.’

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Unconvinced by this general principle, Vincent insists that, perhaps, the only way for a rich man to avoid damnation should be to give away all their possessions. Anthony replies with a nuanced argument about charity. Those who, thanks to God, have substance and ‘dispose it well’ should not despair of God’s favour. If they fail to donate all their goods at once, and keep some for a good cause, this is fine.１２３ We are not even obliged to bestow our presents on whoever asks. What matters is to support those who are in our charge. Well-ordered charity, by affluent people who retain the means to help others, is not only the best use of private property, but also the condition for the general well-being of a society. Economic inequality, accompanied to the moral obligation, for the rich, to redistribute wealth through generosity, consumption and employment contributes to the commonwealth. Men cannot, you wot well, live here in this world but if that some one man provide a means of living for some other many. Every man cannot have a ship of his own, nor every man be a merchant without a stock. And these things, you wot well, must needs be had; nor every man cannot have a plough by himself. And who might live by the tailor’s craft, if no man were able to put a gown to make? Who by the masonry – or who could live a carpenter – if no man were able to build neither church nor house? Who should be the makers of any manner cloth, if there lacked men of substance to set sundry sorts a-work? Some man that hath but two ducats in his house were better forbear them both and leave himself not a farthing, but utterly lose all his own, than that some rich man by whom he is weekly set a-work should of his money lose the one half; for then were himself likely to lack work. For surely the rich man’s substance is the wellspring of the poor man’s living.１２４

The abolition of private property, on the contrary, would create nothing but generalized poverty. Everyone would be poor. But, Cousin, men of substance must there be; for else more beggars shall you have, pardie, than there be, and no man left able to relieve another. For this I think in my mind a very sure conclusion: that if all the money that is in this 123 More (1976: 175-176): ‘But I say this, for that those good men, to whom God giveth substance and the mind to dispose it well, and yet not the mind to give it all away at once, but for good causes to keep some substance still, should not despair of God’s favor for the not doing of the thing which God hath given them no commandment of, nor drawn by any special calling thereunto.’ 124 More (1976: 180).

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country were, tomorrow next, brought together out of every man’s hand, and laid all upon one heap, and then divided out unto every man alike – it would be on the morrow after worse than it was the day before. For I suppose when it were all equally thus divided among all... the best should be left little better then than almost a beggar is now; and yet he that was a beggar before, all that he shall be the richer for that he should thereby receive... shall not make him much above a beggar still; but many one of the rich men, if their richesse stood but in movable substance, shall be safe enough from richesse haply for all their life after.１２５

No place, no time Within this lengthy demonstration, Anthony lends particular attention to yet another of Vincent’s scruples. Perhaps, the young man surmises, we should distinguish two kinds of historical circumstances. In a society as unequal as ours, the rich ought to surrender all their possessions. But, let us make the hypothesis of a society that, some other time and some other place, would have erased poverty. There, perhaps, the rich could remain rich in good conscience. There, and only there, wealth would be innocent. Is this the case?, Vincent earnestly asks. Anthony’s answer, again, is no. Two mistakes undermine this argument. Firstly, Vincent seems to forget his own admission that wealth is not bad per se. The young man had given his assent to the statement that God never commanded us to renounce riches completely. Now, once one has accepted the major premise that ‘a man may be rich and yet not out of the state of grace, nor out of God’s favour’, Anthony points out, then one does not need to find extenuating circumstances, in order save the rich. The rich can be good: it all depends on how they use their riches. See Abraham. Secondly, Vincent has introduced a hypothetical premise in the conversation: what if poverty were non-existent, somewhere, sometime? If that were the case, the young man is conjecturing, then ‘in some time, or in some place’, possession might be permitted. But this supposition is wrong, Anthony replies. Nowhere, such a world ever existed, and will ever exist. Given this impossibility, Vincent’s conditional, counterfactual, relativistic claim about poverty does not hold. Let us look closely at this lesson of logic. 125 More (1976: 179).

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Verily, Cousin, if that reason would hold, I ween the world was never such anywhere, in which any man might have kept any substance without the danger of damnation. As for since Christ’s days to the world’s end, we have the witness of his own word that there hath never lacked poor men nor never shall; for he said himself, ‘Pauperes semper habebitis vobiscum, quibus cum vultis benefacere potestis’ (‘Poor men shall you always have with you, whom when you will you may do good unto’). So that, as I tell you, if your rule should hold... then were there, I ween, no place in no time since Christ’s days hither – nor, as I think, in as long before that, neither... nor never shall there hereafter – in which there would abide any man rich without the danger of eternal damnation even for his richesse alone, though he demeaned it never so well.１２６

To claim that the rich are doomed to damnation only here and now, because, in Europe today, there are many poor people, is a fallacious line of reasoning. Firstly, the premise is false. Inequality is not limited to a space and a time. There could never be a society without poverty: there have always been poor people, and there will always be. The evidence comes not from social history, but from Scripture, and the voice of God. Christ himself, in the Gospel, establishes this general proposition: pauperes semper habebitis vobiscum. Semper is the key word. It means that zero poverty is purely and simply impossible. The present times, therefore, are not at all special. It is not on account of contemporary inequality that one should judge the moral consequences of wealth. Secondly, if the premise is false, then the consequences are mistaken. If we were to condone wealth only on the condition that everyone is rich, and if this condition is impossible, then, we must always renounce wealth. In Anthony’s own words: if Vincent’s ‘rule should hold’, ‘then were there... no place in no time’, in which one could be rich with impunity. Which contradicts another piece of Scriptural evidence: God never ordered to give away all of one’s possessions. Our judgment on wealth, for Anthony/More, must be based upon a matter of principle: the rich are not in danger of going to hell, on account of their richness per se. We are redirected to the first part of the discussion, and to its context: temptation. Material goods are not the cause of damnation. Wealth is attractive, indeed. A rich man, therefore, must take up the moral challenge of his economic condition. He has to resist and pray, and, above all, has to learn how to use his fortune in the right fashion: charitably and responsibly. Although no classical source is mentioned here, this Christian language has a clear affinity with Aristotle’s discourse on liberality, and the care for one’s 126 Ibid.

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household. Thomas Aquinas had adopted the core of these arguments, in response to objections that were very similar to Vincent’s queries.１２７ The style of this refutation might surprise a reader of Thomas More, the modern humanist, who allegedly criticizes scholastic, medieval logic, especially in his famous letter to Martin Dorp. In this letter, written in 1515, in defense of Erasmus, More scorned the casuistical usage of syllogisms, and the proliferation of tricky arguments, but he did so on behalf of the reason (ratio) that made those ‘rules’ (regulae).１２８ He acknowledged, and even praised, the value of Aristotelian dialectic, insofar as it conveyed good sense. As a scholar and a lawyer, More was very well trained in these techniques. In his correspondence and religious works, he constantly accused his adversaries, especially Luther, of uttering sophisms and absurdities that distorted the meaning of words, commonly accepted by all.１２９ In 127 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica IIa-IIae qu. 66, art. 1: ‘I answer that external things can be considered in two ways. First, as regards their nature, and this is not subject to the power of man, but only to the power of God Whose mere will all things obey. Secondly, as regards their use, and in this way, man has a natural dominion over external things, because, by his reason and will, he is able to use them for his own profit, as they were made on his account: for the imperfect is always for the sake of the perfect, as stated above (qu. 64, art. 1). It is by this argument that the Philosopher proves (Politics I, 3) that the possession of external things is natural to man. Moreover, this natural dominion of man over other creatures, which is competent to man in respect of his reason wherein God’s image resides, is shown forth in man’s creation (Genesis 1:26) by the words: ‘Let us make man to our image and likeness: and let him have dominion over the fishes of the sea.’ Art. 2: ‘I answer that two things are competent to man in respect of exterior things. One is the power to procure and dispense them, and in this regard it is lawful for man to possess property. Moreover this is necessary to human life for three reasons. First because every man is more careful to procure what is for himself alone than that which is common to many or to all: since each one would shirk the labor and leave to another that which concerns the community, as happens where there is a great number of servants. Secondly, because human affairs are conducted in more orderly fashion if each man is charged with taking care of some particular thing himself, whereas there would be confusion if everyone had to look after any one thing indeterminately. Thirdly, because a more peaceful state is ensured to man if each one is contented with his own. Hence it is to be observed that quarrels arise more frequently where there is no division of the things possessed. The second thing that is competent to man with regard to external things is their use. On this respect man ought to possess external things, not as his own, but as common, so that, to wit, he is ready to communicate them to others in their need. Hence the Apostle says (1 Timothy 6:17-18): ‘Charge the rich of this world (...) to give easily, to communicate to others.’ 128 Thomas More, Letter to Martin Dorp, in: More (1961: 23). 129 On a definition of sophisma, see More (1961: 24): ‘Sophists, however, by their deceptive use of words lead us to a spot where we find ourselves with surprise (...) we do not know in what sense they have secretly agreed to use our words, contrary to universal acceptance.’ This deviation from common sense, produces ‘sophistic nonsense’ and ‘absurd propositions’. On Thomas More’s scholarly and professional knowledge of logic and dialectic, see Fleisher (1973). On the Letter to Dorp, see Fleisher (1973: 87-92).

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the Dialogue of Comfort, Anthony proves to be a keen dialectician, and conducts his reasoning systematically, by scrutinizing supposition after supposition. This is how he refutes his interlocutor’s many hypotheses. On the question of wealth, Vincent is culpable of introducing a false, unexamined premise: somewhere there are no poor. Somewhere is nowhere, Anthony replies. All this is crucially important for Utopia. Vincent supposes that there might be a society where no one is poor and, conversely, everyone is rich. Now, Utopia is precisely and literally that kind of society. That admirable new island is the place where Vincent’s false premise comes true. As we have seen in detail, everybody is rich, and there is plenty for all (omnes tamen divites sunt; omnia abundant omnibus). This first principle is the primordial cause of all the other features of Utopia – political order, moral correctness, and emotional bliss. In the fictional reality projected by Hythlodaeus’s report, everything derives from that. Such derivation is presented both as a deterministic chain, and a logical sequence. Once Hythlodaeus posits the abolition of poverty as the starting point of Utopia, and of his own demonstration, all the rest unfolds. If you remove private ownership, then why would anyone be afraid of lack, thus become greedy, proud, and worried? The rationality of Utopia is as successful as it is obvious. Now, to imagine such a society may be an interesting, inspiring, entertaining thought experiment. If we talk seriously, however, the praise of Utopia appears to be the exploration of what would be the consequences of a conditional, major, general premise, which was inadmissible in the first place, and from which nothing sound can be deducted. It is, as Morus plainly repeats, academic talk about absurd institutions (absurde instituta), to be found nowhere (nusquam), i.e. in ou-topia. The inter-textual echo plays with quantifiers of time and space. If poverty always (semper) exists, then there can be ‘no place in no time’ in which all are rich. Utopia is the narrative version of Vincent’s fallacy.１３０ Let us now conclude, by restarting from Thomas More’s own premises. Firstly, human kind has inherited pride and greed, from original sin. No economic arrangement, therefore, could be a remedy against human sin130 ‘In lieu of demonstrating the viability of Utopia syllogistically, More simply exhibits it’, writes M. Fleisher (1973: 46). This felicitous claim captures the epideictic amplification of a state of perfection. On the basis of our previous demonstration, however, we can only agree if we replace ‘More’ with his Erasmian creature, Raphael Hythlodaeus. See also Grace (1989). To my knowledge, however, the intertextual resonance between Utopia and the Dialogue of Comfort has not been seen before.

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fulness. Secondly, worldly wealth per se is not a cause of damnation. Our destiny depends upon the way we handle our substance. Thirdly, never, and no-where, can there exist a society where nobody is poor. The reciprocal is that never and no-where, can there exist a society in which all are rich. Fourth, the abolition of property brings about shared indigence, not widespread wealth. Both under his name, in Utopia, and through Anthony, in A Dialogue of Comfort, Thomas More reasons along these lines. In contrast, a Platonist/Epicurean philosopher, inclined to far more radical ideas about Christianity, might endorse the Pythagorean proverb that ‘all is in common among friends’. He might genuinely believe that the abolition of property produces prosperity for all, guarantees automatic goodness, and secures the end of anxiety. That well-intentioned philosopher, aptly named Desiderius, deserves to be called ‘Idle-Talk’.

Bibliography Allen, W.S. (1976) The Tone of More’s Farewell to Utopia: A Reply to J.H. Hexter, Moreana 51, pp. 108-118. Annas, J. (1989) Cicero on Stoics and Private Property, in: M. Griffin and J. Barnes (eds), Philosophia Togata: Essays on Philosophy and Roman Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 151-173. Baker, D. (1999) Divulging Utopia, Radical Humanism in Sixteenth-century England. Amherst: University of Massachussets Press. Baker-Smith, D. (1991) More’s Utopia. Toronto: Toronto University Press, in association with the Renaissance Society of America. Barigazzi, A. (1978) Un pensiero avveniristico nel Giardino di Epicuro, Prometheus 4, pp. 1-17. Bradshaw, B. (1981) More on Utopia, The Historical Journal 24, pp. 1–27. Cooper, J. (1995) Plato’s Theory of Human Good in the Philebus, in: T. Irwin (ed.), Classical Philosophy. Plato’s Ethics. New York and London: Garland Publishing, pp. 346-362. Curtis, C. (2011) More’s public life, in: G. Logan (ed.), A Companion to Thomas More. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 69-92. Curtright, T. (2012) The One Thomas More. Washington: The Catholic University of America Press. Duhamel, R. (1955) Medievalism of More’s Utopia, Studies in Philology 52, no. 2, pp. 99-126. Eden, K. (2001) Friends Hold All Things in Common: Tradition, Intellectual Property, and the Adages of Erasmus. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001. Elton, G. (1990/2013) Humanism in England, in: A. Goodman and A. MacKay (eds), The Impact of Humanism on Western Europe during the Renaissance. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 259-278. Erasmus, D. (1972) Epicureus, in: Opera Omnia Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami, series I, vol. 3, ed. L.E. Halkin, F. Bierlaire and R. Hoven. Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Company. Erasmus, D. (1997) Epicureus, in: The Colloquies, ed. Craig R. Thompson, Collected Works of Erasmus, vol. 40. Toronto, Buffalo and London: University of Toronto Press. Fleisher, M. (1973) Radical Reform and Political Persuasion, in the Life and Writing of Thomas More. Genève: Droz.

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Fowler, D.P. (1989) Lucretius and Politics, in: M. Griffin and J. Barnes (eds), Philosophia Togata: Essays on Philosophy and Roman Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp.120-150. Grace, D. (1989) Utopia: A Dialectical Interpretation, Moreana 26 (100), pp. 274-302. Helmer, E. (2010) La Part du bronze. Platon et l’économie. Paris, Vrin. Hexter, J.H. (1952) More’s Utopia: The Biography of an Idea. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Lacroix, J.-Y. (2007) L’Utopia de Thomas More et la tradition platonicienne. Paris: Vrin. Logan, G.M. (1983) The Meaning of More’s Utopia. Princeton, Princeton University Press. Long, A.A. (1985) Pleasure and Social Utility – the Virtues of Being Epicurean, in: H. Flashar and O. Gigon (eds), Aspects de la philosophie hellénistique, Entretiens Hardt 32. Geneva: Fondation Hardt, 1985, pp. 314-315. McCutcheon, E. (2011) More’s Rhetoric, in: G. Logan, A Cambridge Companion to Thomas More. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 46-68. Marius, R. (1985) Thomas More: A Biography. New York: Vintage Books. Mitsis, P. (1988) Epicurus’ Ethical Theory: The Pleasure of Invulnerability. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. More, T. (1965) Utopia, ed. Edward Surtz, S.J., and J.H. Hexter, The Complete Works of St. Thomas More 4, New Haven and London: Yale University Press. More, T. (1967) Selected Letters, ed. E.F. Rogers. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. More, T. (1971) Responsio ad Lutherum, ed. V.J.M. Headley, The Complete Works of St. Thomas More 5. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. More, T. (1976) A Dialogue of Comfort, ed. L.L. Martz and F. Manley, The Complete Works of St. Thomas More 12. New Haven and London: Yale University Press/Spelling standardized, punctuation modernized, and glosses added by M. Gottschalk, thomasmorestudies.org, 2015. More, T. (1981) A Dialogue Concerning Heresies, ed. T. Lawler, G. Marc’hadour, and R. Marius, The Complete Works of St. Thomas More 6. New Haven and London: Yale University Press/Spelling standardized, punctuation modernized, and glosses added by M. Gottschalk, thomasmorestudies.org, 2015. More, T. (1995) Utopia, ed. G. Logan, R. Adams, and C. Miller. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. More, T. (1997) Life of Pico, ed. A. Edwards, K. Rodgers, and C. Miller, The Complete Works of St. Thomas More 1. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Morgan, N. (1995) Le Sixième continent: L’Utopie de Thomas More. Paris: Vrin. Olin, J. (1994) Erasmus’ Adagia and More’s Utopia, in: J. Olin, Erasmus, Utopia and the Jesuits. New York: Fordham UP, pp. 57-69. Phélippeau, M.-C. (2012) Narrow is the Gate to Utopia, Moreana 49 (187-188), pp. 207-226. Prévost, A. (1969) Thomas More (1478-1535) et la crise de la pensée européenne. Paris: Mame. Prévost, A. (1978) L’Utopie de Thomas More. Paris: Mame. Rex, R. (2011) Thomas More and the Heretics: Statesman, or Fanatic?, in: G. Logan, The Cambridge Companion to Thomas More. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 93-115. Sissa, G. (1997) Le Plaisir et le mal. Paris: Éditions Odile Jacob. Sissa, G. (2012) Familiaris reprehensio quasi errantis. Raphael Hythloday, between Plato and Epicurus, Moreana 49 (187-188), pp. 121-150. Schoek, R.J. (1986) Telling More from Erasmus: an Essai in Renaissance Humanism, Moreana 23 (91-92), pp. 11-19. Skinner, Q. (1987) Sir Thomas More’s Utopia and the Language of Renaissance Humanism, in: A. Pagden (ed.), The Languages of Political Theory in Early-Modern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 123-157. Smith, M.F. (1977) Thirteen new fragments of Diogenes of Oenoanda, Denkschriften der öst. Aka-

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demie of Wissenschaften, phil.-hist Klasse 117. Vienna: Öst. Akademie of Wissenschaften, pp. 21-25. Surtz, E.L. (1957) The Praise of Pleasure: Philosophy, Education, and Communism in More’s Utopia. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Sylvester, R.S. (1968) Si Hythlodaeo credimus: Vision and Revision in Thomas More’s Utopia, Soundings: An Interdisciplinary Journal 51, no. 3, pp. 272-289. Ter Meer, T.L. (2010) Introduction, in: Desiderius Erasmus, Apophthegmatum libri I-IV, Opera Omnia Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami series IV, vol. 4. Leiden: Brill, pp. 16-22. Valla, L. (1964) De vero falsoque bono, Grande Antologia Filosofica, vol. 6. Milan: Marzorati. Van Ruler, H. (2009) The Philosophia Christi, its Echoes and its Repercussions on Virtue and Nobility, in: A.A. MacDonald, Z.R.W.M. von Martels and J.R. Veenstra (eds), Christian Humanism: Essays in Honour of Arjo Vanderjagt. Leiden and Boston: Brill, pp. 235-263. Wegemer, G. (1990a) Thomas More’s Dialogue of Comfort: a Platonic Treatment of Statesmanship, Moreana 27 (101-102), pp. 55-64. Wegemer, G. (1990b) The Rhetoric of Opposition in Thomas More’s Utopia: Giving Form to Competing Philosophies’, Philosophy & Rhetoric 23, pp. 288-306. Wegemer, G. (1995) The Utopia of Thomas More: A Contemporary Battleground, Modern Age 37, no. 2, pp. 135-141. Wegemer, G. (1998) Thomas More on Statesmanship. Washington D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press. White, T.I. (1976) Aristotle and Utopia, Renaissance Quarterly 29, no. 4, pp. 635-675. White, T. I. (1978) Festivitas, Utilitas, et Opes: The Concluding Irony and Philosophical Purpose of Thomas More’s Utopia, Albion: A Quarterly Journal Concerned with British Studies 10, Quincentennial Essays on St. Thomas More, pp. 135-150. White, T.I. (1982) Pride and the Public Good: Thomas More’s Use of Plato in Utopia, Journal of History of Philosophy 20, pp. 329-354. Wolfsdorf, D. (2013) Pleasure in Ancient Greek Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wootton, D. (1998) Friendship Portrayed: A New Account of Utopia, History Workshop Journal 45, pp. 29-47.

About the author Giulia Sissa holds a joint appointment in Political Science and Classics at the University of California Los Angeles. She is the author of numerous books and articles on the history, anthropology and philosophy of the ancient world, including: Greek Virginity (Boston: Harvard UP, 1990); Sex and Sensuality in the Ancient World (New Haven: Yale UP, 2008) and La Jalousie. Une passion inavouable (Paris: Odile Jacob, 2015). Giulia Sissa is currently working on the quest for the best government, from Athens to Utopia. This article has been previously published in Algemeen Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Wijsbegeerte 2016, Vol. 108, No. 3, with DOI: １０.５１１７/ANTW２０１６.３.SISS.

Bodies, morals, and religion Utopia and the Erasmian idea of human progress Han van Ruler

Abstract Although Thomas More’s description of the Utopians’ ‘Epicurean’ position in philosophy nominally coincides with Erasmus’s defence of the Philosophia Christi, More shows no concern for the arguments Erasmus gave in support of this view. Taking its starting point from Erasmus’s depreciations of the body and More’s intellectual as well as physical preoccupations with the bodily sphere, this article presents the theme of the human body and its moral and religious significance as a test case for comparing Erasmus and More. The treatises both men wrote on Christ’s suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane confirm that both authors dealt with the notion of the body in contrasting ways: Erasmus shows a tendency to address the moral-psychological question of mentally conquering the worldly self, whilst More highlights the way in which ordinary facts and physical things may carry spiritual and religious meaning. Paradoxically, Erasmus consistently applied his spiritualized ideal of man to this-worldly moral and social concerns, whereas More focused on the physical domain out of a religious interest in transcendent truths. In line with Giulia Sissa’s thesis, our hypothesis is that More ostensibly appropriated an Erasmian type of idealism in Utopia, but, contrary to Erasmus himself, focused on the exterior form of a virtuous society, rather than on its moral and spiritual preconditions. While Erasmus advocated a mental transformation towards reason, More’s Utopia envisioned what might come of this. Keywords: Utopia, epicureanism, Philosophia Christi, the human body, Christ in Gethsemane, humanism, spirituality, political idealism, moral history

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Introduction Was Thomas More ever serious in Utopia? Giulia Sissa, who put forward the idea that the book should be read as part of a literary interplay between More and Erasmus in the wake of Erasmus’s Praise of Folly, offers good arguments against taking its moral and political recommendations in any straightforward way as Thomas More’s blueprint for a future society. If, as Sissa argues, the figure of Hythloday is an impersonation of Erasmus, we should not identify Thomas More with the idealist he portrays, but rather ‘distinguish as sharply as possible’ between ‘More’s authorship of Utopia’ and ‘[the main protagonist Raphael] Hythloday’s praise of Utopia’.１ In Sissa’s reading, More in fact makes fun of Erasmus, some of whose outrageous moral and political ideals he magnifies in return for Erasmus’s earlier implication of himself in the excessive mockery of society presented in The Praise of Folly. In what follows, I shall have reason to come back to the issue of how to read Utopia, and add further evidence in favour of seeing More’s book as a playful counterpart to the Folly that takes Erasmus’s social program to the extreme. I shall not, however, attempt to establish to what extent More himself may or may not have shared views propounded in Utopia. Rather than to concentrate on similarities or differences in their political standpoints, I shall concentrate on the differences of intellectual interest and religious susceptibilities in Erasmus and More. For this, Utopia will lead the way. If the traveller to Utopia is an impersonation of Erasmus２ – and a caricature at that – More’s book might seem to offer no indication of his more serious views, no more than Erasmus’s Folly might seem to offer straightforward signs of a position in moral philosophy. As we shall see, however, a comparison between More’s Utopia and Erasmus’s Folly in fact provides us with all relevant clues for a reconstruction of Erasmus’s moral themes as well as of More’s affiliation to these.

1 Sissa (2012: 139). 2 Note that the idea of identifying Raphael Hythloday as Erasmus also occurs in Vermeir (2012), who also speculates about the possible relation between Erasmus’s notion of the common good and provisions for good government enforced through the Blijde Inkomst, or ‘Joyous Entry’Charter of the Estates of Brabant of 1356. Finally, Mancel (2012) adds the names of the Portuguese explorers Duarte Barbosa, next to Duarte Coehlo, as sources of inspiration for the character of the Protuguese sailor in Utopia, and lists references to previous identifications of Raphael as Erasmus (Mancel, 2012: 187-188).

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As I hope to make clear, More was remarkably insensitive to a core aspect of Erasmus’s Philosophia Christi, or ‘Philosophy of Christ’. Tracing the moral philosophical theme of the body and its pleasures, I shall argue that More showed very little interest in the way in which Erasmus linked the philosophical notion of mental detachment to a moral interpretation of the New Testament message. More’s own moral and theological interests were very different, and I shall illustrate the differences between the two humanists on the basis of a comparison of the two parallel treatises in which Erasmus and More both offered their theological views on the question of Jesus’s sufferings in Gethsemane. Equally of relevance to the question of judging the moral significance of the body, and unrecognisably far removed from the satirical contexts of Utopia and the Folly, this comparison not only confirms the differences between Erasmus and More, but also indicates a theological incongruity in More that has struck other scholars as well: More’s steady attention to the significance of the human body, besides the soul, in matters of devotion.３ Contrasting More’s way of reflecting on the human body to the stark Christo-Platonism of Erasmus’s Philosophia Christi, I also hope to point out how these diverse ways of drawing attention to the physical world ironically illustrate a persistent focus on this-worldly mental aloofness in Erasmus, whilst More, for all his attention to the tangible world, had considerably more otherworldly concerns. In conclusion, I will return to Utopia and discuss the ways in which More and Erasmus may have captured the modern imagination. Let us begin, however, by taking a look at More’s references to the body in Utopia.

3 In a recent volume of Moreana dedicated to ‘The Theology of Thomas More’, both Beier (2015) and Kelly (2015) come to a similar conclusion. I shall refer to their work where appropriate. Kelly also points out that two of the editors of some of More’s Tower Works in the Yale edition made similar remarks. Thus, Clarence Miller, in his Introduction to De Tristitia, writes that ‘[one] of More’s major concerns in the De Tristitia is the attentive reverence, mental and bodily, that Christians ought to cultivate in their prayers’ (Miller, 1976b: 723; Kelly, 2015, 124). Reflecting on their different ways of judging the significance of ceremonies, Garry E. Haupt even noted the possibility that More had Erasmus in the back of his mind (Haupt, 1976: cxix; Kelly, 2015: 125): ‘Was More perhaps thinking of Erasmus’s platonizing when he, in effect turned the tables on the extreme Platonists and insisted, using the Erasmian dichotomy, that ceremony is an aid, not an enemy, to charity?’ As I hope to make clear in what follows, there is, indeed, every reason to suggest that More may have been thinking of Erasmus when trying to mitigate purely Platonist readings of Scripture.

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Utopia and Erasmus What does Utopia have to say about the body and its pleasures? Apart from the famous passage on the pre-marital inspection of each other’s naked bodies by Utopian suitors in the company of ‘a sad and honest matron’ on the girl’s and ‘a sage and discreet man’ on the young man’s side (a ‘very fond and foolish’ custom to European eyes, in the words of our traveller, Raphael Hythloday４), Utopia discusses dealings with the human body only incidentally. At the same time, the book offers a fairly comprehensive picture of the Utopian stance towards the pleasures of the body. In his account of Utopian traditions in education, Hythloday discusses not only the islanders’ interest in a variety of disciplines, but also the topic of Utopian culture more generally, including an extensive discussion of moral philosophical beliefs. More has Hythloday recount the Utopians’ ethical standpoint in a format that readers with a knowledge of European moral history will recognize as a variation on the Stoic-Epicurean debate on the question of ‘ends’. Such a debate, including partisan evaluations of the relative weight of virtue and pleasure in human happiness, had once inspired Cicero and had since been revived in scholastic as well as humanist accounts of the timeless debate on the summum bonum, most notably in Lorenzo Valla. In terms of Greek philosophical standards, the Utopians present themselves as Epicureans: they take pleasure to be the end of moral conduct and the essential element in human happiness. In fact, according to Hythloday, the Utopians seem almost too much given and inclined to the opinion of them which defend pleasure, wherein they determine either all or the chiefest part of man’s felicity to rest.５

Raphael’s circumspect disclosure of Utopian partiality for Epicureanism is a reason in itself to follow Giulia Sissa and conclude that More is dabbing at Erasmus here. Erasmus himself would only come up with an outright

4 Quotation from Ralph Robinson’s 1551 translation, as included in the Rebhorn edition (More, 2005: 108). In the original, Raphael admits that we (as Europeans) find the practice ineptisimum as well as ridiculum (More, 1965: 186, 188). 5 More (1965: 160); translation from More (2005: 92).

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identification of Christians and Epicureans in his 1533 colloquy ‘Epicureus’, in which Hedonius, the champion of hedone (‘pleasure’), would argue that ‘there are no people more Epicurean than godly Christians.’ ６ Yet he had dealt with Epicureanism much earlier, in De contemptu mundi (On Disdaining the World), a work dating back to the late 1480s, and which, as Robert Bultot argued already in 1969, should be characterized as a contribution to the medieval custom of celebrating the joys of monastic life by comparing the delights offered to those who had chosen for the monastery with the pleasures promised in the Garden of Epicurus. The use of this simile naturally implied that a champion of monasticism sharply distinguished between the base pleasures usually associated with classical Epicureanism and the higher pleasures monks were expected to enjoy.７ Such a medieval, adapted version of Epicureanism, tailored to the Christian need of advocating only higher pleasures, would remain Erasmus’s preferred interpretation of Epicureanism throughout the rest of his life. Likewise, in the late colloquy ‘Epicureus’, Hedonius’ Epicureanism is itself of this uncommon variety. Whereas Epicureans had traditionally claimed that the end of all human endeavour might be subsumed under a single concept of ‘pleasure’, Erasmus would always comply to the Christian rule of distancing himself from the original notion of hedone, and take care to emphasize the contrast between what he regarded as common and ‘unlawful’ forms of pleasure, pleasures that only breed a wretched conscience, and their alternative: the pleasures of the mind.８ Around the turn of the century, Erasmus changed his views about the question whom this Epicureanism was meant for. Having become very critical of monastery life not long after he had written De contemptu mundi, he now cautioned his readers against overhasty choices in favour

6 Erasmus (1972: 721). Quotation from Erasmus (1997a: 1075). See also Erasmus (1965: 538). 7 Bultot (1969 : 230-233). Bultot offers a comparison between Erasmus’s view and that of John of Salisbury (c. 1115-1176), who also contrasted what Bultot describes as the ‘earthly and ephemeral pseudo-values of vulgar Epicureanism’ to the ‘true, religious and supernatural values’ of the ‘true Epicurean’. 8 For the reference to ‘unlawful’ or ‘illegitimate’ pleasures, see Erasmus (1972: 727; 1965: 1081 and 1965: 544). Erasmus’s distinction between two types of pleasure, and his inclusion of an Epicurean understanding of the ultimate good that was taken to refer to mental pleasures only, would soon become a standard way of accepting the Epicurean position along with other philosophical interpretations of moral virtue. See: van Ruler (2009a).

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of monastic life; and he changed the text of De contemptu mundi accordingly.９ Far from rejecting his earlier spiritual ideals, however, he simply tossed these over the walls of the cloister, in order to prescribe them to society at large. Was not the whole world a monastery? Erasmus expressly taught it should be so.１０ As a consequence, his understanding of Epicureanism would, from this point onwards, show up in countless other contexts. In his Education of a Christian Prince for instance, the book he published in the same year in which he published More’s Utopia, Erasmus advised the youthful prince that besides the more common pleasures, ‘there is another kind of pleasure, which will last, pure and unchanging, all through a man’s life.’ １１ The Praise of Folly, too, employs a twofold conception of pleasure of which the lower kind is shunned by Christians, whilst the higher type is represented by the pleasures of the mind. It is these latter pleasures which, in this life, offer a foretaste of bliss in the hereafter.１２ The Praise of Folly has not without reason been held to add to this Christian Epicureanism a further Epicurean element in the form of a sudden debunking of Stoic philosophers, and of other frivolities Erasmus allows himself in the more humorous passages of the work. Since Erasmus’s mockery of Stoicism in The Praise of Folly contrasts sharply with the Stoic message he had earlier presented in the Enchiridion, the Handbook for the Christian Soldier of 1503, it has been suggested that Erasmus had meanwhile developed a new interest in Epicureanism, inspired by Lorenzo Valla’s 9 After having left the monastry, Erasmus would often express sour views of monks and monkhood and must at some point have decided he should adapt the text of De contemptu mundi. The exact date of the twelfth chapter that he added is unknown, but it may have been written well before the 1521 publication of the book. It is, on the other hand, most certainly a post-1500 text. Cf. Rummel (1988: 132-133): ‘The number of conceptual and even verbal similarities between chapter 12 and other Erasmian writings predating the publication of De contemptu suggest that the epilogue goes back to an earlier period. Indeed, one is tempted to see in it the fragments or salient points of a dissuasoria on the same topic composed in 1506 but now lost.’ On the date of the various parts of the 1521 publication, as well as that of the original text, see also Dresden (1977: 34-35). 10 The idea of the whole of Christianity ideally being ‘one monastery’, is a thought occurring more frequently in Erasmus, for instance in the Letter to Servatius of 1514, Ep. 296, Erasmus (1906: 568), and in the Letter to Paul Volz that was to serve as a Preface to the 1518 edition of the Enchiridion, Erasmus (1913: 374-376; 1933: 17-20). 11 Erasmus (1974: 144). Translation from Erasmus (1997b: 14). 12 Christians, according to Folly, avoid plesaures, yet delight in the spiritual pleasure that is a fortaste of heavenly rewards. Note that Erasmus uses felicitas and praemii (...) illius (...) gustum aut odorem aliquem rather than voluptas to refer to the higher pleasures in this context, and corporis voluptates as well as diliciae for the lower kind of enjoyments. Erasmus (1979: 189, 192193).

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earlier defence of the philosophy.１３ As I have argued elsewhere, however, Erasmus’s and Valla’s Epicureanisms ultimately stand worlds apart.１４ Bringing in his own quasi-Epicurean ideal of higher pleasures in the Platonico-Christian finale of The Praise of Folly (a move that has the effect of a sudden break and a remarkable change of atmosphere in the book), Erasmus simply returns to what had been his position all along, and takes up the defence of the higher pleasures that accompany virtue as a guide for self-conscious beings to make the right choices in life. His serious message for society, in other words, remained exactly the same. Using the concept of ‘pleasure’ in such a way that it was actually still quite compatible with the Stoic notion of moral worth, Erasmus’s position, moreover, was as consistent as – contrary to received opinion – it always was. Despite his jocular pestering of the stony Stoics in The Praise of Folly, he would never seriously denounce Stoicism as a faulty moral doctrine. In Utopia, Hythloday captures Erasmus’s position rather neatly by providing only a fuzzy opposition between the Utopian defence of Epicurean values and what is here presented as ‘the contrary opinion’, the one that favours ‘virtue’ and a ‘life ordered according to nature’ – the Utopian counterpart, in other words, of Stoicism. The text in fact describes both positions in favourable terms.１５ Taking away the sharp edges of Epicureanism by arguing that the Utopians ‘think not felicity to rest in all pleasure, but only in that pleasure that is good and honest’, and arguing that, if our reasonable nature kindles in us a love of God and of our fellow men, no less should it be thought to encourage self-help, More in fact gives credit to the Stoic way of thinking even when explaining Utopian Epicureanism.１６

13 See Panizza (1995). Rather than being ‘the last word in the oscillation between Stoic and Epicurean emphases in Erasmus’ thought’, James D. Tracy, however, argued Erasmus developed a more sympathetic stance towards the masses in between the Enchiridion and the Folly (Tracy, 1972: 124). 14 The Praise of Folly may rightfully be compared to Valla’s De voluptate / De vero bono not because Erasmus takes over Valla’s position, but because, if we group together the Folly with the preceding Enchiridion, and distinguish within the text of the Folly itself between the playful antiStoicism of the first part and Folly’s very serious finale, we do indeed find a triptych in the contents of these works that may count as a variation on the Ciceronian format of a StoicEpicurean debate on ends. Erasmus, in other words, never copied Valla’s position, as neither Valla copied Cicero’s, but he may well have copied the general set-up. See van Ruler (2009b). 15 See also Mancel (2012: 187): ‘Nous pourrions aller jusqu’à proposer que la philosophie des Utopiens dont Hythlodée est plutôt admiratif, rappelle étrangement l’épicurisme vaguement mâtiné de stoïcisme loué et recommandé par Érasme dans son De Contemptu Mundi.’ 16 More (1965 : 162; 2005 : 93).

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More may have tried to pick up other aspects of Erasmus’s moral philosophy as well. As said (and as Erasmus himself would claim), despite its peculiar style and content, The Praise of Folly remained true to what had been Erasmus’s standpoint in the Enchiridion.１７ It would still be his position in the colloquy on Epicureanism as late as 1533. Yet there were many ways in which Erasmus might dress up his moral philosophical views. If, at times, he defended his position in Epicurean terms, he in fact taught a Platonising and spiritualized form of Epicureanism, and one he held to be compatible not only with all of the major philosophical schools of antiquity, but with the New Testament message as well. For Erasmus, the Christian-Epicurean view that there were higher pleasures to be gained by leading a moral life coincided with what he regarded as the combined message of Greek moral philosophy and Christian theology alike. Along with Platonism and Stoicism, Epicureanism only provided another interpretative scheme with the help of which the application of philosophical reason to all areas of life (and the mental pleasure this was thought to generate) might be contrasted to non-philosophical and non-religious mental attitudes.１８ This moral dualism, moreover, was based on a firm belief in the strict dualism of body and mind, since, according to a widespread philosophical belief, the use of reason was thought to be impaired only by a mental allegiance to the comforting pleasures associated with the bodily sphere that might obfuscate a clear view of the moral good and thus prevent the agent from attaining a fully rational position. Taking the New Testament contrast between ‘the spirit’ and ‘the flesh’ to be a Biblical counterpart to the philosophical distinction of body and mind, Erasmus not only gave a combined, Platonic interpretation to the major philosophical schools of antiquity, but also held the central message of Greek philosophy to be wholly in tune with the New Testament. Indeed, in The Education of a Christian Prince, he even went so far as to profess that ‘[being] a philosopher is in practice the same as being a Christian; only the terminology is different.’ １９ When Thomas More accordingly tells us in Utopia that the Utopians ‘seem almost too much given and inclined to the opinion of them which defend pleasure’; that they curiously defend ‘so dainty and delicate an 17 See the Letter to Maarten van Dorp, Ep. 337, Erasmus (1910: 93): ‘Nec aliud agitur in Moria sub specie lusus quam actum est in Enchiridio.’ 18 Though not always very enthusiastic about Aristotelianism, Erasmus even counted the Peripatetic philosophy as a source of philosophical morality, at least in the Enchiridion. Cf. Erasmus (1933: 44). On Erasmus’s relation to Aristotle, see: Steel (2009). 19 Erasmus (1974 : 145). Translation from Erasmus (1997b: 15).

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opinion’ on arguments taken from their ‘grave, sharp, bitter [i.e., severe] and rigorous religion’; and never even discuss ‘felicity or blessedness’ without mixing religion and philosophy, joining ‘unto the reasons of philosophy certain principles taken out of religion,’ there is every reason to believe that a mock portrait of Erasmus is here being drawn up in the figure of Raphael Hythloday.２０ At the same time, the way in which Raphael describes the Utopian counterpart to Erasmian Epicureanism suggests that More had no concern for the way in which Erasmus himself would have explained and defended this position. In linking Hythloday to Erasmus, Giulia Sissa has argued that the curious mishmash of a philosophy at once Epicurean and Platonic not only uniquely fits Erasmus, but that it is also a position More deliberately presents as ultimately indefensible. ‘Hythloday’s argument’, according to Sissa, is ‘provocative and oxymoronic’; indeed, ‘the whole Utopian blend of Epicureanism and Platonism [...] should strike us as utterly absurd.’ ２１ No doubt More himself thought so, too. Yet whether or not he consciously presented the queer notion of a Platonic kind of Epicureanism as a blatant absurdity, he could only do so by disregarding some of the essential elements of Erasmus’s actual position. While, on the outside, the Utopian position in moral philosophy fits Erasmus’s standpoint in terms of its labels, its mixture of schools and its alignment of philosophy and religion, Hythloday never really ventures to explain in which way these seemingly incompatible labels, schools and areas might combine as they do in Erasmus. Likewise, in order to explain the idea of a combined philosophico-religious position, More offers only an assortment of the most general religious notions compatible with philosophical views: that the soul is immortal and by the bountiful goodness of God ordained to felicity, that to our virtues and good deeds rewards be appointed after this life and to our evil deeds punishments.２２

Explaining Utopian Epicureanism in these terms, More completely bypasses what Erasmus had in mind when presenting himself and his fellow Christians as followers of Epicurus. Nor does More seem very interested in the niceties of Erasmus’s interpretation of Epicureanism. In fact, in describ20 More (1965: 160); quotations from More (2005: 92). 21 Sissa (2012: 126-127). 22 More (1965: 160); quotation from More (2005: 92).

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ing this ‘religious’ and Utopian form of Epicureanism, More freely plunges into his own stock of associations. His enumeration of non-profitable, i.e. ‘foolish’ pleasures, for instance, though it may bring to mind Erasmus’s mockery of social norms in The Praise of Folly, actually testifies to a typically Morean interest in gluttony, greed and pride, rather than that it offers an Erasmian analysis of lower pleasures. Moreover, though Utopia’s description of the pleasures of the mind may remind us of the association Erasmus would later make between illegitimate pleasures and conscience,２３ bodily pleasures are here explained along the lines of classical Epicureanism, that is to say in terms of dynamic versus static pleasures and of pleasure in general being defined in contrast to pain２４ – all of which elements are wholly lacking in Erasmus. Nor, finally, do Hythloday’s ‘Epicurean’ interests in the health, sensual awareness and aesthetics of the human body have anything in common with Erasmian moral philosophy.２５ Indeed, the whole idea of Erasmian Epicureanism had been to draw the attention away from the body and to focus on mental pleasures alone.

Body and mind A strong Platonic dualism pervades all of Erasmus’s references to Epicureanism, as well as his dealings with Stoicism and his interpretation of the New Testament – indeed all of his philosophical and theological thought. Already in the 1503 Enchiridion, Erasmus had paraphrased biblical expressions from St. Paul, translated them into Greek philosophical language, and used these to interpret spiritual salvation in terms of philosophical detachment. To him, the Platonic distinction of body and mind and the New Testament distinction between the flesh and the spirit exemplified similar anthropological views, with similar moral consequences:

23 That is to say, in his ‘Epicureus’ colloquy of 1533; see above, note 8. 24 More (1965: 172/173-174/175). Note, however, that More does not seem to follow the Epicureans in their identification of pleasure as an ‘absence of pain’, at least not if there is no ‘presence of health’: ‘The absence of pain without the presence of health [the Utopians] regard as insensibility rather than pleasure.’ More (1965: 175). See Guido Giglioni’s article, pp. 151-152, below. 25 Cf. More (1965: 174/175-178/179).

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Paul is engrossed in this point, that we should spurn the strife-ridden flesh and be firm in the spirit, the begetter of love and liberty. On the one hand, the flesh, bondage, unrest, contention are inseparable companions; on the other, the spirit, peace, love, freedom. This is what the Apostle teaches everywhere.２６

Again, according to the Enchiridion, all details about the philosophical battle between reason and the passions are taught in the Holy Scriptures, though not in the same terms. What the philosophers call reason Paul sometimes refers to as spirit, sometimes as the inner man, sometimes as the law of the mind. What they call passions he now calls the flesh, now the body, now the outward man, now the law of bodily members.２７

The result is a very literal form of moral dualism in Erasmus: reason, virtue and piety on the one hand, passion, vice and sin on the other. And since what hindered reason, at least according to the position of classical philosophy, were the passions associated with the body, the human body, in Erasmus, too, is consistently interpreted in a negative sense; as an ‘inseparable’ ２８ source of unrest, and an incessant obstacle to moral enlightenment and religious salvation. Erasmus further developed this schematisation of traditional moral philosophical and religious intuitions into a theory of mental incentives centred around the Platonic idea of the tripartite soul. Reason, itself identified as the ‘immortal soul’, is situated in ‘the loftiest part of the body [and] the one closest to heaven’, while ‘the sensual appetite, which lusts for the pleasure of food and drink and which drives us into erotic love’ has its place in lower regions, far from ‘that divine counsellor presiding in the lofty citadel (...).’ ２９ Reinterpreting the middle soul in which Plato had seen a natural attendant of reason, Erasmus sometimes evoked the idea of a neutral ‘heart’ or ‘soul’ (anima３０) caught in between the high-rising spirit and the lowly flesh. At other times, however, he interpreted this middle part of the soul as a second level of awareness that, despite the Platonic

26 27 28 29 30

Erasmus (1933: 82). Translation from Erasmus (1963: 121). Erasmus (1933: 47). Translation from Erasmus (1963: 72). See the quotation referred to in note 26, above. Erasmus (1933 : 43-44). Translation from Erasmus (1963: 66-67). See, for instance, Erasmus (1933: 53).

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characterisation of this part as the ‘nobility’ within the republic of the mind, Erasmus interpreted in a wholly non-Platonic way as the seat of non-rational factors that may influence human thought and conduct in a manner neither reprehensible nor praiseworthy, but simply natural.３１ Thomas More had his own particular ways of talking about the body. In an issue of Moreana especially dedicated to the subject of the flesh, Germain Marc’hadour enumerated a variety of different ways in which the human body is explicitly dealt with in More, including religious and moral justifications of the belief that the death of the body is of minor significance in comparison to the life beyond; the Platonically inspired theme (also occurring in Erasmus’s Praise of Folly) that life is a preparation for death; the medico-religious conviction, rather prominent in More, that the number of deaths as a result of drinking and eating habits easily exceeds the number of deaths by the sword; as well as a great variety of gluttony-related arguments More had a particular propensity to dwell on.３２ Finally, since he had a taste for drama both in dress and in demeanour, as well as for overt displays of affection, Marc’hadour also notices a certain susceptibility to ‘symbolic action’ in More, an aspect of his personality that Marc’hadour seamlessly links to the way in which, for More, physical appearances were intertwined with religious susceptibilities. According to Marc’hadour, More was a ‘great actor, in a sacramental world’.３３ Besides for his ways of attaching symbolic meaning to the human body, Thomas More is also well-known, at least in scholarly circles, for the way in which he handled his own. As a piece of uncomfortable undergarment, his famous ‘hair-shirt’ became the trade-mark of his spiritual mentality, and More is famous besides for having practiced at home the flagellation routine he would continue in his Tower cell. Although it is difficult to estimate how More himself may have experienced and valued these practices, he no doubt saw them as expressions of his religiosity. Pious inspiration for scourging his body may well have been inspired by one or more of his

31 See, for instance, Erasmus (1933: 42) and Erasmus (1979: 171). 32 Marc’hadour (2006-2007). Note that the three bodies Marc’hadour’s title refers to are the physical body of man, the eucharist body of Christ, and the mystical body of the Church. 33 Marc’hadour (2006-2007: 104).

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intellectual heroes, such as Thomas à Kempis or Giovanni Pico della Mirandola.３４ Yet whether or not it was on the authority of others that More sought discomfort and pain, and for whatever intentional reason he did so, we are probably safe to conclude that he must have drawn some emotional stability from being aware of his own body by bearing up with the uncomfortable shirt and by thrashing himself at regular intervals. The fact of the matter is, that although such practices are nowadays more likely to be interpreted in a sexual context, they have previously been interpreted almost exclusively in terms of a depreciation of the body’s sway over the mind, and especially as a form of reducing sexual arousal.３５ Questioning the biographical value of what Erasmus has told us about the reasons More might have had for renouncing the monastery in favour of a professional career, recent biographers have shown themselves to be disinclined to link More’s presumed sexual unease to his bigger choices in life.３６ Such caution is well-grounded in itself. From the scant evidence that we have concerning More’s sexual drive (and here, too, Erasmus may indirectly have been teasing his friend３７), we cannot, indeed, draw any conclusions as to the specific doubts and concerns More may have associated with his sexual inclinations. Yet this does not mean we may not draw other conclusions. We may still, for instance, deduce from 34 The teachings of Thomas à Kempis, whose moving expressions of medieval piety greatly inspired More at least for a certain period of his life, may have influenced him to take strong measures with respect to the subjection of the flesh (Ackroyd, 1998: 98). Arguing that, rather than having been a student of the Heptaplus, of the famous lecture De dignitate hominis, or of any of Giovanni Pico’s other major works, More’s interest in the celebrated Florentine syncretist was inspired rather by the book that he partly translated into English, Gianfrancesco Pico’s Life of his renowned uncle, J.B. Trapp also pointed towards Pico. ‘Clear also,’ according to Trapp (Trapp, 1991: 127), ‘in the letters as in the duodecalogues [writings by Giovanni Pico that More also translated], is Pico’s continuing preoccupation, which was also More’s, with the need to resist the ‘cuppes of Circe, that is to saie ... the sensual affections of the flesh’ by, among other things, the mortification of that flesh practiced by both [Pico and More].’ 35 The interpretation originally derives from More’s first biographers, who alleged that More started wearing the shirt in the sexually most troublesome years of his beginning adulthood. Cf. Ackroyd (1998: 66). 36 The tendency to supress speculation on the issue has been argued either on the basis of an appraisal of More’s sense of duty and ambition (Ackroyd, 1998: 99-100), or on the basis of a broader scepticism about the possibility ever to uncover the intentions of our protagonist (Guy, 2000: 28-39). 37 Note that speculations about More’s reasons for pursuing a civil career after he had stood on the threshold of the monastery in 1505 were encouraged by Erasmus’s comments, in a letter to Ulrich von Hutten of 1519, that More had not entered the monastery because he had had a greater wish to get married – and thus to be a good husband, rather than ‘an impure priest’. Cf. Ep. 999, Erasmus (1922: 18).

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the evidence we have that Thomas More had an acute awareness of his own body and its urges. Rather more to the point with respect to our present purposes, we may suspect that if public display played such a role in More’s daily life and if penitence was such an important part of his experience of religion, a far different appreciation of the spiritual relevance of the human body and its engagement in religious life is to be expected in More than in Erasmus, who, ever since he left the monastery only to project an idealised conception of its essence on society at large, would continue to propagate his moral ideals in terms of a mental transformation towards a truly spiritualized form of life – the only stance that might serve as a precondition to moral and social reform according to Erasmus. More’s spiritual writings do, indeed, indicate that the Englishman had very different religious concerns. A fine comparison between Erasmus’s rather more ‘moral’ and More’s more ‘spiritual’ interests may be made on the basis of the tracts they both wrote on the subject of Christ’s agony in the garden of Gethsemane. Early on in his career, this was a subject Erasmus had used in order to develop his interpretation of the soul’s tripartition and its potential to redirect itself away from the bodily sphere – a theme not only missing in More, but actually at odds with More’s way of reading symbolic meaning into the story of Gethsemane.

Lessons from Christ’s suffering Christ’s suffering in the garden of Gethsemane pending his torture, crucifixion, and death is one of Christianity’s most dramatic, but also one of its most paradoxical tales. Three of the four New Testament gospels refer to Christ’s agony. All three testify that Jesus despaired: he was ‘sorrowful and very heavy’, ‘sorrowful unto death’, even ‘in agony’. All three gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke, report the famous words with which Jesus asked his Father to ‘let this cup pass from me’. All three recount the words attesting to Christ’s eventual acceptance of his plight: ‘nevertheless, not my will, but thine, be done.’ ３８ Luke even tells us that Christ’s agony was so great he sweated blood.３９ The enigma, and the main reason for so much theological effort being spent on the explanation of Christ’s agony, was that there seemed to be no reason for Christ, who is divine, all-knowing and without any sin, to experience any distress. Did he have second thoughts, as it 38 Cf. Matthew 26:36-46; Mark 14:32-42; Luke 22:39-46. 39 Luke 22:44.

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were? Did he try to prevent God from executing what was in stall for him? Did he actually implore his Father to blow the whole thing off? Had he no determination? Was the Son of God reluctant and less brave, apparently, than all those later Christian martyrs who courageously faced and often cheerfully underwent their cruel executions? Erasmus and More both discussed the New Testament scene in detail, but even More’s style is very different from Erasmus’s.４０ Of course, the circumstances in which they were composed – a young Erasmus motivated by the challenge of debating with John Colet on a new area of intellectual inspiration; the old, imprisoned More trying to encourage and reassure himself more than anyone else in preparation for his own impending execution – may explain many of the differences between the two works. Erasmus’s Disputatiuncula, or Short Debate Concerning the Distress, Alarm, and Sorrow of Jesus of 1503, is a polemical work, whilst De Tristitia Christi, or The Sadness of Christ (1535), More’s final essay, was arguably the least academic of his works. Written in his Tower cell, this meditation on Christ’s suffering was deliberately intended to ease his own torment and the misery of his imprisonment.４１ This does not alter the fact that both treatises offer a fine illustration of the varying ways in which the two humanists theologically employed their mind-body dialectics. As the editor and translator of De Tristitia Clarence Miller has argued, the clarity alone with which the text of More’s manuscript was produced ‘should serve to correct any tendency to overstress the purely personal and biographical significance’ of the work.４２ Moreover, even if More, when writing De Tristitia, was primarily concerned with consoling himself, it is not in this regard that his text differs from Erasmus’s. Had Erasmus primarily been playing the intellectual game of disputing subtle theoretical points with fellow theologians, More’s aim was clearly not so much to draw on the comparison between himself and Christ, but rather to produce a more indirect form of consolation and inspiration for author and reader alike. At every stage in its argument, De 40 Erasmus is so smart as to tackle his potential critics in advance by admitting that his own base rhetoric cannot compare to the deep theological knowledge of his friend John Colet, to whom his essay was initially addressed. Cf. Erasmus (1704: 1290; 1988: 66). More, by contrast, employs rhetorical techniques not so much in order to strengthen his argument, but to kindle the imagination of his readers, and thus to bring about a shared amazement at the facts and details of the story recalled. 41 See the Letter to Margaret, nr. 56, in More (1961: 225). On the creation of the book during More’s confinement, see also Miller (1976), as well as Baker House (2008). 42 Miller (1976: 748).

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Tristitia seems committed to moving the reader – and, no doubt, the author himself – towards a sense of wonder at the deep truth of Scripture. As Marie-Claire Phélippeau has written: Even in his most moving passages, the Sadness of Christ, for instance, More writes for an audience, giving lessons, inciting his readers to believe and pray, and to reform their souls. More writes in the pastoral (...) mode.４３

Besides this, we also see a clear theoretical parting of ways, in that Erasmus and More apply the dualism of body and mind, the Platonic theme they were equally prone to read into the New Testament dualism of the flesh and the spirit, in wholly divergent ways. It was in his Short Debate Concerning the Distress, Alarm, and Sorrow of Jesus, in fact, that Erasmus initially took up his Platonic anthropology in order not only to explain the effects of a partly human nature that might solve the riddle of Christ’s suffering, but also to explain in detail the differences that separate Christ’s position from ours. In reaction to an alternative reading that had been accepted by John Colet, and according to which Christ’s agony was not occasioned by his impending torture and death, but by a concern for the fateful future of the Jews, the lot of the apostles and the pending doom over the city of Jerusalem, Erasmus defended the more common-sense view according to which Jesus simply feared his own predicament. Erasmus thus attributed human emotions to Jesus, and interpreted Jesus’s suffering as a personal sacrifice that allows humans to identify themselves with Christ, to sympathize with him, and to see him as an example to be followed. Such an interpretation naturally implied that Erasmus highlighted the notion of Christ’s double nature: both human and divine. This in itself was a standard element in scholastic theology, and Erasmus made sure explicitly to mention his allegiance to the scholastics in this matter.４４ What the Disputatiuncula added to such long-standing theological views was a philosophical comparison between the mind of Christ and those of ordinary human beings. Despite being human, Christ was not, of course, merely human. This, amongst other things, traditionally explained the obvious difference there is between Jesus’s agony and the courageousness of human martyrs: whereas martyrs may receive divinely induced forms of support, Jesus – 43 Phélippeau (2015: 144). 44 Erasmus (1704: 1290; 1988: 66).

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at least in this particular context; the context of the Passion – wishes to emphasize his humanity.４５ In Erasmus, this leads to further psycho-philosophical speculations about how this works, and to an explanation of the way in which Jesus and common mortals differ. In order not to have to attribute sinful weaknesses to Jesus, Erasmus emphasized that Christ experienced only natural fears and it is here that he presents the full armature of his Platonic anthropology, drawing a sharp line between the ‘natural’ and the ‘moral’ realms, coinciding with the division between realms that are relevant and realms that are indifferent to questions of morality.４６ The point is that Jesus never needed lower drives to experience genuine fear, since the fear of death, for instance, may be experienced purely on the basis of the neutral ‘middle’ soul. Focusing next on the question of overcoming fears and steering one’s own conduct, the Platonic anthropology also occasioned Erasmus to add some conclusions on morality as such. The crucial difference between Jesus and humans with respect to the way in which indecision and a wavering of the will may be handled, is that Jesus may allow conflicting mental propensities to continue to exist within his mind without any consequence to his ulterior behaviour. He may at once experience the type of human feelings with which he is able to identify with us – and with which he is able to appeal to our imagination – and still keep himself from being led astray by them, since he will always choose to act according to his divine nature and will. Thus, in Christ, two natures may lead to conflicting experiences without any loss of serenity. As Erasmus puts it, Jesus ‘feared death, and did not fear it. He dreaded it, and did not. He desired it, and did not.’ ４７ In man, however, conquering the self is not that easy. Indeed, in human experience, genuine conflicts arise, as the one proclivity tends to extinguish the other. Our passions, accordingly, may overpower us. And even if they do not, there is still an ongoing struggle between our various inclinations, and always a fight to be won. Erasmus thus comes to reflect on our own moral selves through the example of Jesus. Contrary to present-day emotivist conceptions of morality, he held that it is only mental struggles that delineate the realm of the moral. To fight one’s inclinations, appetites 45 Accordingly, even though a lesser charity could help martyrs overcome their agony, the infinitely greater charity and highest pleasure in Christ himself to comply with divine will and thus save humanity, could exist in Christ alongside the most horrific pains he experienced in so far as he was human. Cf. Erasmus (1704: 1279; 1988: 43). 46 Erasmus (1704: 1272; 1988: 27-28). 47 Erasmus (1704: 1283). Translation from Erasmus (1998: 52).

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and temptations calls for a special effort, a form of bravery that may make us virtuous. No virtue, however, is found in following one’s natural endowments. The greater one’s dread, the more virtuous one’s ultimate bravery.４８ And since it is only by conquering ‘lower’ drives that human virtue may exert itself, Erasmus estimates that, contrary to the case of Jesus, human mental battles will never end, but will continue throughout life – which, for Erasmus, is a reason to revert to the Stoic example of the soldier who is judged for either defending or leaving his post – never for crying or for turning pale.４９ Like Erasmus, More attributed human emotions to Jesus and saw his suffering as a source of moral inspiration. Like Erasmus, he also distinguished Jesus’s plight from that of human martyrs and highlighted the double nature of Christ. Nor was More an average theologian himself. Indeed, searching for hidden truth in Scripture, he does more, in De Tristitia, than simply weave symbolic meaning into the facts of the biblical story. Rather, Christology turns into metaphysics here, as More continuously emphasises that there are two separate realms of activity in Jesus’s handling of the situation in Gethsemane: the worldly and the divine. From this viewpoint, More frankly addresses sceptical objections as well, such as the question why Jesus, if he truly is God, should return to his disciples after having prayed further afield no less than three times, only to find them sleeping. Why should he have to express his wish for them to stay awake, if he could see to this himself? Being God, why did he not simply enforce what he was now repeatedly asking for with such an apparent lack of success? More’s answer is that there is such a thing as wishing and wishing: of course Christ can accomplish his own wishes ‘in an absolute and unqualified sense.’ In the present case, however, Jesus’s wish is qualified, since the wish for his disciples to comply involves his wishing that they wish the same themselves.５０ Even within Divine Will, one may thus distinguish absolute from qualified demands, and God’s wish for us to cooperate and to comply, is a qualified wish. In More’s analysis, however, such a standard philosophical distinction forms part of a broader strategy with which he aims to highlight the dual character of recounted facts and their deeper meaning. Indeed, the whole story of Gethsemane would be pointless without the duality of Christ, who, as God, aims to awaken in us a trust, inspired by the example 48 Cf. Erasmus (1704: 1275; 1988: 34-35). 49 Erasmus (1704: 1273; 1988: 30). 50 More (1976b: 199; 1993: 34).

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he presents to us – as man. The meaning conveyed in the angel coming down to console Christ is, accordingly, not to detract from Christ’s divinity. Rather, ‘just as He wished to undergo sadness and anxiety for our sake, so too for our sake He wished to have an angel console Him’; it is both to show himself as ‘truly man’ and to ‘give us hope’ that we, too, may receive consolation (provided that we imitate him by ‘sighing and praying from the bottom of our hearts’, as More typically adds), that the angel comes to play a role as well.５１ At other instances, Jesus may simultaneously be acting out both sides of his twofold nature – a tactic that More makes fully explicit where, in the Biblical account of Gethsemane, Christ takes the lead in the process of his own capture, and, ‘coming up close to the crowd, asks “Whom do you seek?”’ When the cohort replies ‘Jesus of Nazareth’, he tells them: ‘I am He’,５２ and More now tells his readers how mistaken it was in the first place to object to an apparent weakness in Christ; look at the courage he now shows! It was, in effect, an overwhelming display of courage, since, as Scripture recalls, all those who attended ‘drew back and fell to the ground.’ ５３ This particular passage incites More to reflect on the disparity between Jesus and the others present at Gethsemane, since it is exactly by revealing himself through the physical body of a human being that ‘Christ proved that He truly is that word of God which pierces more sharply than any twoedged sword.’ ５４ The original manuscript of De Tristitia proves that More considered adding further symbolic interpretations of the crowd’s fearful reaction to Jesus, but ultimately chose not to speculate on its relevance for questions of the afterlife. If, however, it is More’s custom to concentrate on Old Testament similarities and on moral interpretations, rather than on speculations concerning the life beyond,５５ we must understand ‘moral’ here to mean ‘inspirational’ in a very broad sense. There is no tendency in More to develop a fuller understanding of human morality as such – not, at least, in the way Erasmus did when he made use of the events at Gethsemane for drawing a comparison between human conduct and divine. Rather than the contrast between the human and the divine, it is the 51 More (1976b: 225 and 227; 1993: 39). 52 More (1976b: 417; 1993: 75). 53 More (1976b: 417 and 425; 1993: 75 and 77). 54 More (1976b: 425; 1993: 77). 55 Cf. Clarence Miller, who writes, with respect to More’s deleted jottings in the manuscript, that ‘(...) they belong to the anagogical level of interpretation, whereas More, when he goes beyond the literal, seems to prefer the typological and tropological.’ Miller (1976: 751).

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combination of divine and human aspects in Christ that carries most significance for More, just as he shows a tendency in De Tristitia to find meaning in the combination of the mental and the physical, the body and the mind, rather than in the contrast between them. References to the body occur in De Tristitia for instance with respect to typical Morean themes such as the pre-eminence of the eternal life over the present. Likewise, the conclusion of his curiously elaborate discussion regarding the identity of the youngster who ran away naked from the scene at Gethsemane, is that the death of the body is of no great significance, since the body may be shrugged off as easily as a loincloth.５６ De Tristitia, however, is never disparaging of the body as such, nor of its moral significance. As Benjamin Beier noted with respect to the young man fleeing naked from the Garden of Gethsemane, the body is expressly described as a ‘garment’ of the soul here, and is used to announce the ‘new body’ to be won in the hereafter.５７ More’s theological interest in the body has struck other scholars as well. Michael Kelly recently argued that, for More, ‘[salvation] is not for souls alone’,５８ whilst Beier went on to observe that More ‘manifests a particular interest in and appreciation for the body as a consecutive part of the whole human being.’ ５９ This, indeed, is a significant feature of De Tristitia in comparison to Erasmus’s treatment of Gethsemane. More’s treatise, in fact, touches upon the idea of a spiritual coordination of body and mind in a very explicit way where More evokes the topic of symbolic meaning, a topic for which the story of Christ’s vigil and arrest is eminently suited, as it hinges on the dualism of Christ’s nature – and thus on the duality between the worldly and the divine.６０ The point comes out sharply where More addresses the story of Peter severing Malchus’s ear in a powerless attempt to change the divinely ordained course of things. According to all four gospel accounts, Christ at this point rebukes Peter for attempting to prevent what the arrest team have come to do, namely to seize him and to take him away. ‘Do you not know,’ Christ asks his overenthusiastic disciple according to the gospel of Mat56 More (1976b: 565-617; 1993; 104-112). The conclusion deals with a theme also mentioned by Marc’hadour in his enumeration of topics More habitually associated with the body. See note 32, above. 57 Beier (2015: 89-90); More (1976b: 605; 1993; 110-111). 58 Kelly (2015: 128). 59 Beier (2015: 84). 60 Beier adds that the analogy itself between Christ’s humanity and the human body (More, 1976b: 181; 1993: 30) ‘ensures the body’s dignity’ – a confirmation of More’s way of valuing the body’s spiritual significance in De Tristitia that I had not noticed myself. Cf. Beier (2015: 88).

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thew, ‘that I could ask my Father for help and He would immediately deliver to me more than twelve legions of angels?’ ６１ To set himself free, Jesus had much better options, in other words, than to let Peter cut off Malchus’s ear. The point is that this is not what is supposed to happen from God’s point of view. In order to stifle any speculation as to why he would not save himself, Christ rhetorically asks how otherwise the Scriptures would be fulfilled that ‘say this is the way it must be’.６２ More neatly contrasts Peter’s ill-timed worldly engagement with the divinely ordained course of things by arguing that what Peter attempts to solve on the level of human accomplishment goes against what, on a higher plan, God has in store for humanity at large. In staging the events at Gethsemane, God occasions what is crucial to the salvation of mankind, and even if, like Peter, we try with good intentions to interfere on Christ’s behalf, such human acts will always be weighed against the divine plan that may lie hidden, but is everywhere alluded to in Holy Writ. The story of Malchus’s ear occasions More to find further layers of Scriptural symbolism that need not concern us here.６３ What does matter, is that despite a Platonically-inspired moment in which he associates the name of ‘Malchus’ (meaning ‘King’) with the notion of Reason, More is not at all tempted to develop a Platonic account of higher and lower mental drives in man, as Erasmus would certainly have been tempted to do at this point. More, by contrast, has his own way of inserting the topic of mind and body into the passage, making explicit the comparison between body and soul on the one hand, and literal and allegorical meanings of Scripture – or, as More puts it, ‘spiritual mysteries’ – on the other. The story of Malchus’s ear brings More to such levels of hidden meaning, that it comes to be more than simply an example of literal happenings and hidden implications. For More, it is also an occasion to discuss the more general theme of divine mysteries continually adding to the literal account of Biblical events, and it is the all-pervading and enlivening power of the soul that is here compared to the omnipresence of deeper layers of meaning in Scripture. Indeed, as More puts it, ‘no factual account in all of

61 More (1976b: 495; 1993; 91). Cf. Matthew 26:53. 62 More (1976b: 501; 1993; 92). Cf. Matthew 26:54. 63 With respect to Malchus, More develops a line of argument that is actually rather farfetched in its way of seeking symbolic meaning. Indeed, the reference to the notion of reason through the name of Malchus, who ought to have obeyed this ‘King’ instead of rebelling against him, is almost awkward in its way of taking Malchus himself for the divine road he should follow. More (1976b: 509-515; 1993; 93-95).

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Scripture is so gross and corporeal (so to speak) that it does not have life and breath from some spiritual mystery.’ ６４ What is ‘corporeal’ in this context – as against what provides ‘life and sensation’ or ‘life and breath’, and is therefore akin to the soul (anima６５) – is not the mental disposition standing in the way of what is holy and reasonable; it is simply the potentiality of palpable facts to be pervaded by hidden meaning. As his hero St. Augustine will have taught More, it is the promise of literal affairs and dealings hiding deeper layers of meaning that renders the theme of body and mind particularly applicable as a philosophical metaphor equal to the New Testament topic of the flesh and the spirit. Because of the emphasis on the co-occurrence and coincidence of what are in fact two separate levels of causality, worldly and divine, the topic of body and soul here gives expression to the doublelayered structure of the events themselves, and thus develops into a kind of a meta-metaphor, in which the soul acquires the symbolic meaning of meaning itself, and the body that of its token or container. The body at the same time being a symbol for man’s humble station in comparison to God, More does not address the relation of body and mind in order to draw up an anthropology that might function as a basis for morality, but only in order to associate the body, just as he consequently associates words and names, with the symbolic and spiritual meaning that the sphere of the factual and the physical ultimately carries with it.６６ For Thomas More, the web of references hidden in Scripture is always an occasion to reflect on the duality between the observed facts and the deeper meaning behind the scenes, as it were. It is in this sense, too, that the notion of the body functions symbolically in More’s theology as a stepping stone towards the divine.

64 More (1976b: 505-507; 1993; 93). 65 More (1976b: 505 and 507; 1993; 93). 66 Note that Benjamin Beier, who also comments on this passage, concludes that ‘the whole passage affirms the body’s goodness and expresses the difficulty involved in giving a precise account of the relationship between, not just the ordering of, body and soul.’ Beier (2015: 93). Michael Kelly, for his part, concludes that ‘Thomas More’s ideas about the role of material things in the economy of salvation represent elements of a coherent Incarnational theology that views matter as a natural tool in the divine plan of redemption.’ Kelly (2015: 134).

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Erasmian humanism and Utopia In his recurrent attacks on legalism and ritualism, Erasmus might at times equally advocate a figurative reading of Scripture, and use the New Testament theme of the flesh and the spirit as a model for distinguishing allegory from literalism, rather than reason from irrationality. Thomas More, on the other hand, never makes the opposite move; from allegory to moral psychology. Discussing More’s various ways of reflecting on the body, Germain Marc’hadour, in the article referred to above, even observed that the whole notion of the tripartite soul is missing in the works of More: The subdivision of man into body, soul and spirit, so explicit in 1 Thessalonians 5:23, is reflected in both [John] Fisher and Erasmus, but does not seem to have entered into More’s categories.６７

The reason was not that More did not know his Bible. Rather, the difference between Erasmus and More on this point indicates that whereas theology always meant philosophy to Erasmus, it did not necessarily do so for More. Neither, therefore, was More inclined to read Plato into St. Paul in the way Erasmus did. Explaining the theologically pressing question of how Christ allowed himself, as a divine person, to experience specific parts of human emotional life in his ‘final’ hours on earth, Erasmus typically turned his attention to a moral philosophical analysis of mental fights aimed at achieving victories over the lower self. In More’s Tristitia, by contrast, references to the metaphor of body and soul primarily served to highlight the hidden meaning of Scripture, so that More might attach to the physical world a deeper, religious significance. Whereas for Erasmus the soul was primarily involved in a continued fight against the body, for More the body primarily figured as the organic bearer of religious symbolism and spiritual meaning. Returning to Utopia, we may now conclude that More fitted the image of a worldly hedonist as little as Erasmus himself. But where does this leave us with regard to our interpretation of the utopian dream? Is not Utopia at least better adapted than the Folly to awaken in a present-day readership the notion of a political dreamland, since it alludes to a joyful Epicurean future on earth, whereas Erasmus’ book ultimately conveys only a rather sombre message of Platonico-Christian renunciation? And how can it be

67 Marc’hadour (2006-2007: 104).

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that Utopia’s moral philosophy and social optimism seem to fit neither Erasmus, nor More? One way to answer these questions, is to argue that what More and Erasmus wished for was somehow fundamentally at odds with what they believed in. In an interesting book on Erasmus, More, and the idea of a Utopia, Hanan Yoran has recently suggested that there is an internal contradiction to ‘Erasmian humanism’ as such. Erasmian humanism, according to Yoran, was a unique, politically charged type of humanism of which Erasmus and More were the main representatives.６８ The movement was characterized by a radical and activist agenda in favour of social change, but ultimately failed to provide a viable program for this, since our Erasmian humanists were unable to conceptualize political ideals that were too much at variance with the epistemological and ethical presuppositions of the intellectual universe they inhabited.６９ Humanism, according to Yoran, rejected (scholastic) metaphysical categories, bridged the gap between ‘the symbolic and the “real”’, and refused to accept ‘the traditional distinction between the vita activa and the vita contemplativa’.７０ Erasmus and More were both humanists, but their universalist political ideas did not fit their humanism – which is why Erasmus’s and More’s works, according to Yoran, are full of inconsistencies. Erasmus – to name only some of the examples Yoran presents as symptoms of the contradictions internal to his humanist activism – was ultimately ambivalent about monarchical rule; dismissed in his political writings historical sources he elsewhere prescribed as educational tools; and, as the famous colloquy The Godly Feast indicates, could only fathom his own ideals to be realised in the secluded area of a country house meeting of humanist friends.７１ The retreat from the world in The Godly Feast, in particular, when moral and political views were supposed to be put into practice in European society at large, is symptomatic, according to Yoran; it is a ‘fictive – but ultimately deceptive – refuge from the harsh truths about the impotency of Erasmian Humanism.’ ７２ Likewise, More too, or so Yoran claims, subverted and undermined 68 In Yoran’s formulation, ‘Erasmus and his followers created a humanist Republic of Letters as a relatively autonomous sociointellectual space. They created the social identity, embodied first and foremost by Erasmus himself, of the universal intellectual whose sole concern is the wellbeing of Christendom as a whole.’ Yoran (2010: 37). 69 According to Yoran, the idea of the universal intellectual was an idea that ‘violated the basic epistemological and ethical presuppositions’ of humanist discourse.’ Yoran (2010: 9). 70 Yoran (2010: 3-5); quotation from Yoran (2010: 4). 71 Yoran (2010: 108-109, 111-112, and 121-131). 72 Yoran (2010: 129).

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humanist discourse itself by his leanings towards Erasmian humanism; first by offering no solution to his own ‘bleak diagnosis of the political reality’ in Richard III; and then, in Utopia, by writing a book that contradicts humanist institutions and practices at all levels, through its elimination of all cultural and symbolic forms of meaning from the economy, ethics, and social order of Utopian society.７３ Are Erasmus and More really to be charged of undermining the ‘ontology of humanist discourse’ ７４? Such a conclusion is unnecessary, I think, if only because the contradictions Yoran notes may quite easily be explained in the light of what we have been discussing. As for Erasmus, there is no need to question the consistency of his social program as such. Rather than the first modern intellectual,７５ Erasmus was a Christian philosopher. Not only did this make him less interested in political questions such as whether to support a monarchy or a democracy, it actually rendered this question more or less pointless. In The Education of a Christian Prince, Erasmus openly expressed his regret at the fact that Europe’s monarchs were not chosen.７６ Yet in Erasmus’s religiously inspired version of political idealism, this was in any case a question of minor concern, since whether it is the king who rules, or the nobility, or the people, what counts for Erasmus is that they do so according to reason. Given the fact that there are hereditary princes, Erasmus’s political treatise proposes to make good statesmen out of these rulers. Yet to follow Christ is everyone’s cause, according to Erasmus. Presenting the novel idea of a universal spiritual edification, all his works envision the formation of a social and political culture based solely on the morality of its individual members. Rather than the rule of kings, the rule of citizens, or even the rule of law, what mattered to Erasmus was the rule of ethics. This was also the ideal Socrates had once dreamt of. As a political goal, it may be said to have been Plato’s objective as well, but it was an idealism seriously applied to society at large only in post-Erasmian Europe. There is thus no inconsistency in Erasmus’s way of addressing the rulers rather than the multitudes of his times. Nor did he have any doubts about what to teach a Christian Prince. Rather than being an inconsistent humanist on the basis of his choice of classical sources, Erasmus had perfectly 73 See Chapters 5 and 6, respectively, in Yoran (2010); quotation from Yoran (2010: 158). 74 Yoran (2010: 182). 75 Note that, to Yoran’s eyes, the internal contradictions in More’s and Erasmus’s socio-political humanism was a first sign of the internal paradoxes ‘characteristic of the position of the modern intellectual’. Yoran (2010: 187). 76 Erasmus (1974: 136-137).

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good reasons to dismiss in his political writings the kind of historical sources he may elsewhere have prescribed as educational tools. Julius Caesar, for example, might well have written a very readable Latin, but this did not make his expansionist ideas suitable reading materials for the moral education of a young monarch. Finally, the ideal setting of a gathering of humanist friends, though of course no guarantee for political changes in society, was exactly the kind of small-scale example for the large-scale development of a pious mental attitude that Erasmus wished to export from the confines of the monastery to the Christian state as a whole. More, likewise, was never untrue to his Renaissance times. His theological works indicate that, for all the presumed bleakness of his depiction of the court of Richard III, or his model society in Utopia, there is little reason to attribute to him a humanistic program of political engagement that is at odds with the Renaissance tendency to attach symbolic significance to social institutions or historical events. Despite his legal and historical interest in human acts and political dealings, his religious motivations always left More plenty of room for distinguishing a level of divine orchestration that might give meaning to both political history and individual human lives. In his religious works we accordingly meet a Thomas More who cares neither for historical realism nor for philosophical idealism in themselves, as much as he cares for the possibility always to attest to a deep faith in the divine administration of things – a faith that no less allowed him to be realistic, devotional and ironic at the same time.７７ There were indeed many ways of being a humanist, and if we wish to value the significance of the humanist tradition for political history, a first thing to notice is that, instead of denoting a shared epistemology – let alone a common ‘humanist ontology’ – the fuzzy category of Renaissance humanism in fact accommodated a great variety of philosophical and political views. With respect to More’s penchant for realism and Erasmus’s idealism, there is extra reason to reflect on the Dutchman’s interest in moral philosophy and More’s interest in historical writings. In questions of morality and politics, such a diversity of interests could easily result in an intellectual responsiveness to either the notion of human perfectibility or the idea of human incorrigibility – especially so in humanist times, when scholars might develop a distinct fascination with either ancient 77 In the recent Moreana issue on ‘The Theology of Thomas More’, various contributions reflect on the role of humour in More’s otherwise very serious works on religious questions. See the reference to the issue in note 3, above.

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philosophers or classical historians. It is not without reason that Machiavelli’s Prince of 1513, to take the most obvious example of political ‘realism’, and Erasmus’s Education of a Christian Prince of 1516 are often presented as complete opposites on the spectrum of the realism-idealism debate.７８ In this case, too, positions taken to be representative of either a ‘realist’ or an ‘idealist’ interest in politics were to a large extent sustained on the basis of a diversity of literary interests, and this should not surprise us. Whereas historical sources tend to encourage – as well as to confirm the legitimacy of – a certain naturalism towards the description of human conduct, moral philosophy is ‘idealistic’ in and of itself. In Renaissance Europe, anthropological convictions may often have dwelt unconsciously, but my impression is that the disciplinary divide – along with other factors, such as religious convictions７９ – often inspired anthropological beliefs as well, ranging from naïve optimism to a dark pessimism with regard to the betterment of man.８０ Early-modern realism and idealism might thus, amongst other things, reflect an ambiguity within Renaissance culture itself,８１ but with respect to More and Erasmus it will, I think, ultimately be more profitable to consider another aspect of their intellectual concerns: Erasmus’s preoccupation 78 According to its modern editor, Erasmus’s Education of a Christian Prince, ‘takes precisely the opposite point of view’ with respect to what ‘Machiavelli set out to define.’ Jardine (1997: vi and vii). The difference between the two, one might say, is that Erasmus offers a ‘moral’ view on politics, which is to say, a view on politics in which the Prince is told that he should follow certain moral standards, whilst Machiavelli, on the other hand, presents a view of princes not so much as they should be, at least not according to ethical standards, but as they have historically presented themselves. For an elaboration of the realism-idealism theme, as well as a further comparison of Erasmus and Machiavelli, see also Erik De Bom’s article in this volume. 79 Blaise Pascal’s anti-humanist stance in moral philosophy is a telling seventeenth-century example of a religiously inspired scepticism vis-à-vis moral philosophical views. See van Ruler (2009). 80 Significantly, it was another adept of the historical tradition, Thomas Hobbes, who would later make explicit the opposition between his own realist views and the idealist conclusions of the philosophers: ‘the Felicity of this life, consisteth not in the repose of a mind satisfied. For there is no such Finis ultimus, (utmost ayme,) nor Summum Bonum, (greatest Good,) as is spoken of in the Books of the old Morall Philosophers.’ Hobbes (1981: 160). See also van Ruler (2009). For further criticisms of philosophical idealism by authors within the historical tradition, see also the examples of Machiavelli and Lipsius referred to in Erik De Bom’s article, below. 81 Although this is no immediate reason to deny More any moral or political optimism, or to attribute to him a harsh realism comparable to that of Machiavelli or Hobbes; and although the contrast between More and Erasmus is of a subtler nature than that between Erasmus and Machiavelli – and thus more difficult to determine – we should neither underestimate the potential depth of More’s irony vis-à-vis Erasmus on the basis of their disparate historical and philosophical interests.

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with a this-worldly application of religious maxims and More’s concern for purely transcendent, rather than socially relevant forms of salvation – a contrast that runs parallel to the contrast between their personality traits and religious susceptibilities, rather than their literary interests. It is in their theologies that their personalities show. Despite the fact that our two ‘Oxford Reformers’ shared many important intellectual standpoints and opinions, especially with respect to the application of a humanist methodology in theology,８２ More and Erasmus were ultimately theologians of rather different sorts. If Erasmus was a very activist and rather philosophical type of theologian, Thomas More, although a lawyer by profession, was himself not only a theologian at heart, but a very contemplative and soul-searching theologian at that. The contrasting ways in which we saw Erasmus and More deal with the Biblical theme of Christ’s suffering offers a graphic illustration, to my mind, of the dissimilar religious susceptibilities between the two friends. Where Erasmus’s Christian sentiment was driven by a this-worldly interest in moral and social reform, More had a special penchant for a symbolic reading of everyday experience. Paradoxically, their humanist ways of expressions could equally serve both causes. Whenever Erasmus propounded the moral and political belief in a transformation of society based on the mental transformation of its individual members, he might do so in some of the most ethereal terminology provided by the moral philosophical and theological literature, and allude to Platonists and Christians as a class of likeminded people who were as dead to the world as they were ecstatic in

82 As adherents of the ‘new learning’ and fellow-representatives of the party that valued the Greek New Testament over the Vulgate, and prioritised an interpretation of its message tailored to everyday concerns, Erasmus and More also followed John Colet in his critical stance towards religious practices affected by ritualistic credulity. More, accordingly, often expressed religious concerns very similar to those of Erasmus, especially in the years immediately following the publication of Utopia. Nor could he, as his famous Letter to a Monk demonstrates very clearly, be lured into distancing himself from the Erasmian cause. I cling to the expression ‘Oxford Reformers’ since I feel it neatly captures the fact that John Colet played a pivotal role in encouraging both Erasmus and More to develop an alternative to scholastic ways of theologizing as well as to thoughtless ritualism in religion. Cf. Seebohm (1971). Note, however, that Seebohm’s epitaph ‘Oxford Reformers’ has become less current today than it originally was, no doubt due to a present taste for less Wiggish interpretations of the period. Describing the cultural situation in early sixteenth-century England, J.B. Trapp, for instance, proposed to give the name of ‘London humanists’ to the party of Grocyn, William Lily, Colet, More and Linacre, ‘as they are best called, rather than the Oxford Reformers’, reserving the title of ‘early Tudor Humanists’ for the threesome that, as in Seebohm’s case, form the primary subject-matter of his book. Trapp (1991: 15).

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their minds. Yet in all of such cases, including the finale of The Praise of Folly, these views no less remained part of a decidedly this-worldly project of social change. More, on the other hand, had very different religious interests. Indeed, the same biblical verse of 1 Corinthians 2:9 that tells us of the unimaginable joys God has prepared for those who love him, might be put into the this-worldly context of mental pleasures experienced by the virtuous in Erasmus,８３ whilst serving only to sharpen the contrast between this life and the next in More.８４ It is here that Giulia Sissa’s thesis may be of most significance. What if Utopia, instead of embodying More’s own program for public reform, either ironically addresses the de facto otherworldliness of Erasmus’s moral concerns, or benevolently tries to contribute in More’s own personal way to Erasmus’s program of social improvement? As I have said at the outset, I shall not here attempt to settle the question to what extent Utopia may reflect More’s own political views. Rather, I shall round off with a reflection on how Utopia might be situated historically in view of the differences between More and Erasmus.

Conclusion However one might interpret More’s stance towards Erasmus, I take it that Utopia was the best thing More could think of in replying to The Praise of Folly. In Utopia, More involved Erasmus in a playful publication just as Erasmus had involved him a few years earlier in his Folly. More’s book does not do what Erasmus aimed to do himself, since it never seriously addresses the topic of a transformation of individual minds as a precondition for social reform, nor the idea of that, in respect of the higher goal to further the rule and triumph of reason, philosophy and religion coincide. More simply had no affinity with these topics, just as, in his theological works, he shows no concern for any practical or moral, rather than strictly spiritual, motivations for mastering the self. This leaves us with a variety of possibilities with respect to the way in which More positioned himself vis-à-vis Erasmus in Utopia. If he wished to be critical of his friend, for instance because he did not share Erasmus’s optimism about the perfectibility of man, More may still have designed Utopia as an alternative to Erasmus’s program; an alternative that argues in 83 Erasmus (1933: 120; 1979: 193; 1972: 730). 84 More (1976: 309).

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favour of changes to be made in the organisational set-up of society, rather than the mental make-up of man.８５ One might also consider the possibility that, fully in line with More’s other intellectual pursuits, Utopia supplements Erasmus’s moral concerns with a focus on the physical rather than the mental issues involved in thinking about society. Thus, Utopia’s emphasis on the corporeal side of human well-being, including its preoccupation with agricultural and economic conditions, might be read as an alternative to Erasmus’s more ethereal interpretation of human perfectibility.８６ One may also read the whole book as a parody, but there is room for a further alternative. Since there is no reason to doubt that both authors, as well as Peter Giles, the third friend involved, were all rather pleased with More’s text, one might also read Utopia not so much as a criticism of, or a substitute to, Erasmus’s views, but simply as a representation of Erasmian utopianism in a style adapted to More’s own interests. Whatever Thomas More himself may ultimately have thought of its content, Utopia may then offer an intriguing picture of what, according to More, was Erasmus’s position, or of what, according to More, might result if Erasmus’s reasonable Paradise were ever realised. In this sense, Utopia is a dummy-type description of Erasmian social reform. If it did not offer anything much by way of a Philosophia Christi, Erasmus may still have agreed to many of its futuristic ideas, even if they here come in the guise of social constraints rather than reasonable choices. Erasmus may also have liked More’s description of what an Erasmian future would look like, even if we do not. Modern doubts about the seriousness of Utopia’s vision of the future are often inspired by the fact that present-day readers see many downsides to the ideal state it describes. If we assume, as Paul Turner does in his introduction to the Penguin edition, ‘that Utopia is what it appears to be, a blueprint, however provisional, for a perfect society’,８７ then why is it that the island of Utopia strikes us as anything but a Land of Cockaigne? Or why is it that, as Hanan Yoran noted, ‘many of the ideal state’s practices are oppressive and brutal even by nonutopian standards’?８８ One solution to this problem is to see Utopia ‘though the eyes of its author, against the background of Tudor England,’ as 85 This is the position taken by Erik De Bom in his article on ‘Realism vs Utopianism’, below. 86 This would be in line with Guido Giglioini’s reading. Note that, in his article on More and Smith, Giglioni argues that ‘as an attempt to solve the problem of a generalized condition of dearth, Utopia is first and foremost about hunger.’ See below, p. 149. 87 Turner (2003: xvii). 88 Yoran (2010: 165). Yoran (2010: 165-177) offers an extended discussion of discontents with the Utopian dream.

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Paul Turner suggests.８９ This, indeed, is a promising stratagem for interpreting More as well as Erasmus. In 1516, Utopia’s strict social rules would have offered large parts of the population an unprecedented sense of security. Its idea, moreover, to give offenders official warnings first and only relatively lenient penalties later, would have come as a welcome substitute to the widespread torture and indiscriminate hangings in Renaissance Europe.９０ In this sense, More’s Utopia was politically ahead of its times as much as Erasmus himself was. Yet there is a deeper paradox to this kind of historical comparison, since it not only tells us about pre-modern ideals, but just as much about ourselves. If we wish to explain the ongoing popularity of such exceptional works of Renaissance literature as More’s Utopia and Erasmus’s Folly, we must also ask how the way in which we judge them relates to our own moral and political preferences. The reasonable hedonism of the Utopians may easily be interpreted along the lines of a conception of human happiness and in terms of individual freedoms we are generally very fond of today. Yet our own ideals of freedom are as alien to Utopia as they were alien to both More and Erasmus. The Epicureanism More sketches was neither his own, nor in all respects that of his friend, but what is more important, is that the personal freedoms we are likely to associate with individual liberties, such as the free choice and free expression of individual preferences in dress, political ideas, as well as in moral and sexual comportment, or the ideal of being able to maximise one’s positive (though possibly idiosyncratic) emotions, are wholly exempt from Utopia, as they are exempt from the Folly, and from any pre- or even early-modern moral or political treatise. It is not that Erasmus or More disliked freedom, but that their concept of freedom was very different from ours. Classical and early-modern authors were inclined to interpret the notion in terms of the mental autonomy to comply to a moral imperative, rather than in terms of the possibility to adhere to personal preferences. The contradiction is thus neither in Erasmus or More, but in the contradictory moral demands addressed by Renaissance authors yearning for a moral society on the one hand, and post-Romantic concerns addressed by 89 Turner (2003: xviii). 90 To quote Turner’s marvellous Introduction once more: ‘Compared to the nightmarish quality of regal tyranny during the period, the pressure of public opinion in Utopia does not seem so very terrible; and if adulterers have a rather hard time there, at least they are not disembowelled alive, as More might easily have been, or, like three Carthusian monks convicted of the same crime, kept standing bolt upright in fetters and iron collars for seventeen days.’ Turner (2003: xx).

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educated individuals arguably already living in a social Paradise on the other. Virtue came first. If we judge Utopia’s relation to political history from this perspective, we may see how it in fact pictures the realisation of Erasmian moral and religious ideals in an entirely honest way. It may well be that it does so by offering a bleak picture of society, but this is not the result of any inherent contradiction within the Renaissance world-outlook. Rather, its matter-of-fact presentation of Utopian customs reflects the down-to-earth character of the issues someone like More or Erasmus might have liked to see changed. In the attempt to bring his contemporaries to a higher level of moral awareness, Erasmus consistently invited his fellow Christians to redirect their mental energy towards an application of Christian piety and philosophical virtue in all manners of life. If such a strategy may have seemed idealistic at the time, there is every reason to be careful about calling it ‘idealistic’ in hindsight. Erasmus himself would have been totally amazed if he could have witnessed the level of education of later generations, their interest in questions of justice, or the daily business of millions of professionals in our own day and age who would never even dream of being corrupt. Judging from The Education of a Christian Prince, with its emphasis on educating the Prince in such a way that he might secure the common good by a focus on revenue and taxation, on infrastructure and a strict regulation of the magistracy, as well as on good education and the rule of law, rather than on family interests and wars of succession, we may well ask whether it was not Erasmus who ultimately proved to be more of a realist – at least in comparison to his pessimistic contemporary Machiavelli, whose political views are hardly of relevance for understanding civil society. One might pose a similar question with respect to Erasmus and More. If Utopia’s ongoing appeal rests primarily on its presentation of a fully realised political Paradise, we may well ask which of the two ideas has had most cultural significance five hundred years beyond: Erasmus’s utopian program of mental transformation and educational reform, or More’s sample vision of an Erasmian society? Either way, both ideas have been remarkably effective since 1516. Whereas Erasmus only advocated a mental transformation towards reason, Utopia may well have been conceived first and foremost as a good-humoured, possibly even charitable, prediction of what might come of this.

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Bibliography Ackroyd, P. (1998) The Life of Thomas More. London: Chatto & Windus. Baker House, S. (2008) Endgame: The Genesis of More’s The Sadness of Christ, Moreana 45 (174), pp. 33-53. Beier, B.V. (2015) Anthropology through Analogy: Thomas More’s Body Metaphors in De Tristitia Christi, Moreana 52 (199-200), pp. 83-94. Bultot, R. (1969) Érasme, Épicure et le ‘De contemptu mundi, in: J. Coppens (ed.), Scrinium Erasmianum. Leiden, pp. 205-238. Dresden, S. (1977) Introduction, in: D. Erasmus, De contemptu mundi, Opera Omnia Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami, series V, vol. 1. Amsterdam and Oxford: North-Holland Publishing Company. Erasmus, D. (1704) Disputatiuncula de taedio, pavore, tristitia Jesu, instante supplicio crucis; Deque verbis, quibus visus est mortem deprecari, Pater, si fieri potest, transeat a me calix iste, in: D. Erasmus, Opera Omnia, vol. 5. Leiden: P. vander Aa, 1704. Erasmus, D. (1906) Opvs Epistolarum Des. Erasmi Roterodami, vol. 1, ed. P.S. Allen. Oxford: Clarendon. Erasmus, D. (1910) Opvs Epistolarum Des. Erasmi Roterodami, vol. 2, ed. P.S. Allen. Oxford: Clarendon. Erasmus, D. (1913) Opvs Epistolarum Des. Erasmi Roterodami, vol. 3, ed. P.S. Allen. Oxford: Clarendon. Erasmus, D. (1922) Opvs Epistolarum Des. Erasmi Roterodami, vol. 4, ed. P. S. Allen. Oxford: Clarendon. Erasmus, D. (1933) Enchiridion militis Christiani, ed. H. and A. Holborn, Ausgewählte Werke, Band 1. Munich: Beck. Erasmus, D. (1963) The Enchiridion of Erasmus, ed. R. Himelick. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Erasmus, D. (1965), Epicureus, in: The Colloquies of Erasmus, ed. C.R. Thompson. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1965. Erasmus, D. (1972) Epicureus, in: Opera Omnia Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami, series I, vol. 3, ed. L.-E. Halkin, F. Bierlaire and R. Hoven. Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Company. Erasmus, D. (1974) Institutio Principis Christiani, in: Opera Omnia Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami, series IV, vol. 1 ed. O. Herding. Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Company. Erasmus, D. (1977) De contemptu mundi, in: Opera Omnia Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami, series V, vol. 1, ed. S. Dresden. Amsterdam and Oxford: North-Holland Publishing Company. Erasmus, D. (1979) Moriae encomium id est Stultitiae laus, in: Opera Omnia Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami, series 4, vol. 3, ed. C.M. Bruehl and C.H. Miller. Amsterdam and Oxford: NorthHolland Publishing Company. Erasmus, D. (1988) On Disdaining the World, in: Collected Works of Erasmus, vol. 66, ed. J.W. O’Mally. Toronto, Buffalo, and London: University of Toronto Press. Erasmus, D. (1997a) Epicureus, in: The Colloquies, in: Collected Works of Erasmus, vol. 40, ed. C.R. Thompson. Toronto, Buffalo and London: University of Toronto Press. Erasmus, D. (1997b) The Education of a Christian Prince, ed. L. Jardine, transl. M. Cheshire and M.J. Heath. Cambridge: Cambridge Univesity Press. Erasmus, D. (1998) A Short Debate Concerning the Distress, Alarm and Sorrow of Jesus, in: The Collected Wors of Erasmus, vol. 70, ed. J.W. O’Malley. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Guy, John (2000) Thomas More. London: Arnold. Hobbes, T. (1981) Leviathan, ed. Crawford Brough Macpherson. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

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Jardine, L. (1997) Introduction, in: D. Erasmus, The Education of a Christian Prince, ed. L. Jardine, transl. M. Cheshire and M.J. Heath. Cambridge: Cambridge Univesity Press. Kelly, M. (2015) Mankind, Matter, and More: Sacred Materiality in the Tower Works of Thomas More, Moreana 52 (199-200), pp. 123-134. Mancel, F. (2012) Rapaël Hythlodée et l’utopique Cité des Anges, Moreana 49 (187-188), pp. 183-205. Marc’hadour, G. (2006-2007) The Three Bodies of Saint Thomas More, Moreana 43/44 (168, 169170), pp. 85-106. Miller, C.H. (1976) Introduction, in: Thomas More, De Tristitia Christi, in 2 vols., The Complete Works of St. Thomas More 14, vol. 2. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, pp. 693778. More, T. (1961) Selected Letters, ed. E.F. Rogers. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. More, T. (1965) Utopia, ed. E. Surtz, S.J., and J.H. Hexter. The Complete Works of St. Thomas More 4. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. More, T. (1976) A Dialogue of Comfort, ed. L.L. Martz and F. Manley. The Complete Works of St. Thomas More 12. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. More, T. (1976b) De Tristitia Christi, in 2 vols., ed. C.H. Miller, The Complete Works of St. Thomas More 14. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. More, T. (1993) The Sadness of Christ, ed. G. Wegener. New York: Scepter. More, T. (2005) Utopia, ed. Wayne A. Rebhorn, transl. Ralph Robinson. New York: Barnes & Noble. Mulliez, J. (2006-2007) De l’Importance du Corps dans l’Utopie, Moreana 43/44 (168, 169-170), pp. 204-221. Panizza, L. (1995) Valla’s De voluptate and Erasmus’ Stultitiae Laus: Renewing Christian Ethics, Fifth-Annual Margaret Mann Phillips Lecture 1992, Erasmus of Rotterdam Society Yearbook 15, pp. 1-25. Phélippeau, M.-C. (2015) Thomas More, the Mystic?, Moreana 52 (199-200), pp. 135-154. Rummel, E. (1988) Introductory note, in: D. Erasmus, On Disdaining the World, in: Collected Works of Erasmus, vol. 66, ed. J.W. O’Mally. Toronto, Buffalo, and London: University of Toronto Press. Seebohm, F. (1971) The Oxford Reformers John Colet, Erasmus, and Thomas More: Being a History of Their Fellow-Work. London: Longman’s, 1867, 18873 / Reprint New York: AMS Press. Sissa, G. (2012) Familiaris reprehensio quasi errantis. Raphael Hythloday, between Plato and Epicurus, Moreana 49 (187-188), pp. 121-150. Steel, C. (2009) Erasmus and Aristotle, in: E. Pasini and P.B. Rossi (eds), Erasmo da Rotterdam e la Cultura Europea / Erasmus of Rotterdam and European Culture. Millennio Medievale 79. Firenze: Sismel – Edizioni del Galluzzo, pp. 149-174. Tracy, J.D. (1972) Erasmus: The Growth of a Mind. Genève, Droz. Trapp, J.B. (1991) Erasmus, Colet and More: The Early Tudor Humanists and their Books. The Panizzi Lectures 1990. London: The British Library. Turner, P. (2003) Introduction, in: T. More, Utopia, ed. Paul Turner. London: Penguin. Van Ruler, H. (2009a) The Philosophia Christi, its Echoes and its Repercussions on Virtue and Nobility, in: A.A. MacDonald, Z.R.W.M. von Martels and J.R. Veenstra (eds), Christian Humanism: Essays in Honour of Arjo Vanderjagt. Leiden and Boston: Brill, pp. 235-263. Van Ruler, H. (2009b) ‘Quid aliud est, quam insanire?’ Erasmus, Valla and the Stoic-Epicurean Controversy, in: E. Pasini and P.B. Rossi (eds), Erasmo da Rotterdam e la Cultura Europea / Erasmus of Rotterdam and European Culture. Millennio Medievale 79. Firenze: Sismel – Edizioni del Galluzzo, pp. 175-197. Vermeir, M.M.K., Brabantia: Decoding the main characters of Utopia, Moreana 49 (187-188), pp. 151-181. Yoran, H. (2010) Between Utopia and Dystopia: Erasmus, Thomas More, and the Humanist Republic of Letters. Lanham: Lexington.

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About the author Han van Ruler is professor of Intellectual History of the Renaissance and the Baroque at Erasmus University Rotterdam. He is general editor of Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History and scientific director of the Dutch Research School of Philosophy. Han van Ruler co-edited the Dictionary of Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Dutch Philosophers (Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 2003) and has made various modern editions of seventeenth-century philosophical sources. He is presently preparing a book on Erasmus’s moral philosophy.

This article has been previously published in Algemeen Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Wijsbegeerte 2016, Vol. 108, No. 3, with DOI: １０.５１１７/ANTW２０１６.３.RULE.

Part ２ Original reception

Realism vs utopianism The problem of the Prince in the early-modern Netherlands Erik De Bom

Abstract 1516 saw the publication of three important works. First of all, it is the year of Thomas More’s Utopia. But it is also the year in which Erasmus published his major political work The Education of the Christian Prince. The third work even appeared with the same publisher as More’s Utopia, viz. Nicolaas Everaerts’s Topica or legal commonplaces. All three works are remarkable in their own way. Erasmus represents a tradition that goes back to Petrarch and that saw the well-being of society as totally dependent on the virtuousness of its prince. For Thomas More this was far too risky and therefore he sketched a radical alternative that was based on a reorganisation of society as a whole. However appealing his imaginary island was, it is remarkable that within the domain of political theory it did not attract too much attention. Most authors focused on another work, that was conceived in the very same period, viz. Machiavelli’s Prince. The present article will shed light on these developments by focusing on the work of two further early-modern intellectuals active in the Netherlands. Both Justus Lipsius and Leonardus Lessius, whose work bears a strong resemblance to that of Everaerts, looked for the ideal society. And this was not a society after the model of More, but a society modelled after a welldefined form of Machiavellism. Keywords: political science, realism, Machiavellism, utopianism, Lipsius, Lessius

Introduction In 1516, Thomas More’s ingenious description of the island of Utopia and its distinct yet perfect form of communal life appeared in print. It was also the

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year in which the famous Dutch humanist Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536) published his Institutio principis Christiani (The Education of the Christian Prince), and the lesser known Dutch jurist Nicolaas Everaerts (c. 1462-1532) his Topica seu loci legales (Topica or legal commonplaces). On the other side of the Alps Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527) was still working on his notorious Il Principe for Lorenzo II de’ Medici. Although there is no direct connection between any of these works, they are all landmarks in earlymodern intellectual life generally, and in the development of political and juridical thought in particular. In this contribution, I want to show that More’s Utopia offered an original and relevant alternative to the tradition of the good prince, as epitomized in the work of Erasmus. Although the golden booklet (libellus aureus) is a purely fictitious description, it created a new kind of political language that opened an interesting perspective on a different way of looking at politics. However, as I will try to make clear, More did not find any direct imitators, at least not in the Netherlands. There was another political language that was also new, and that attracted far more attention. The Italian Machiavelli succeeded in developing his own image of the good prince – a morally degraded prince, as most of his contemporaries would say, though still ‘virtuous’ according to Machiavelli – that was so influentual that every author felt the need to come to terms with it; also in the Netherlands. Political thinkers did not take their recourse to More’s alternative, but, on the contrary, tried somehow to bring Machiavelli’s prince under control. Two illustrious representatives of this trend will be presented here. The first is the Dutch humanist Justus Lipsius, who made a moral appeal to keep the prince in check. The second is the late scholastic Leonardus Lessius, who suggested a legal check on the prince’s behaviour. Lessius appears somehow indebted to the work of More’s contemporary Nicolaas Everaerts, and in interesting ways. I will elucidate these developments, not by focussing on a particular theme in their work, but by highlighting some typical characteristics. At the same time, I will pay attention to the changing rhetorical discourses that accompany these developments.

Erasmus: the Prince praised When Erasmus brought out his Institutio principis Christiani, he also published by way of introduction a translation of (pseudo-)Isocrates’ oration Ad Nicoclem, a panegyric to king Nicocles of Salamis on the art of kingship, a translation of Plutarch’s moral essay That a Philosopher ought to Converse

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especially with Men in Power, and a reissue of his own Panegyric for Archduke Philip of Austria, which he had delivered in 1504 on the occasion of the return of Philip the Handsome from Spain to the Low Countries. They are advertised on the title page of the first edition of the Institutio as ‘a number of other extremely relevant works’. And relevant they are. For what is clear from the outset, is that Erasmus’s principal work is closely associated with similar works which undoubtedly belong to the classical (Ciceronian) rhetorical tradition. Politics and rhetoric were intrinsically intertwined for him, as they were for all humanists. Erasmus wrote his Institutio for the young Charles of Habsburg, who would later become Holy Roman Emperor. He composed his political work in the format of a mirror-for-princes. Although it has its roots in Antiquity, the genre came to fruition as a separate genre dedicated to instructing a future prince by providing appropriate education and good counsel only during the Renaissance.１ The general outlook of the genre was moral and didactic, with practical advice for correct behaviour and sound policy prevailing over theoretical, in-depth discussions. It does not come as a surprise, therefore, to see that the genre of mirror-for-princes is directly linked to the particular genre of epideictic oratory. It was a widespread Renaissance custom to advice princes under the guise of praise and thus exhort them indirectly to live up to morally high standards. In mirrors-forprinces as well as in panegyrics, advice and praise were necessary ingredients, although in different proportions.２ The close link explains why Erasmus could so easily connect his book of political instruction to Isocrates’s oration for Nicocles: I have taken Isocrates’ work on the principles of government and translated it into Latin, and in competition with him I have added my own, arranged as it were in aphorisms for the reader’s convenience, but with considerable differences from what he laid down.３

In a letter to Martinus Dorpius, Erasmus himself elucidates in what sense his Institutio follows almost naturally from his Panegyric for Archduke Philip of Austria and in which respects they differ from each other: 1 The rich tradition of mirrors-for-princes is discussed by, among others, Skinner (1978: 1, 113138 and 213-243), Singer (1981), Mühleisen and Stammen (1990), and, most recently, De Bom (2015). 2 On the relation between panegyrics and mirrors-for-princes in general, see De Bom (2008: 4347). For a discussion directly related to Erasmus’s Institutio and Panegyricus, see Rundle (1998). 3 Erasmus (1997: 3).

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In my book on the education of a prince, I openly expound the subjects in which a prince should be brought up. In my Panegyricus, though under cover of praising a prince, I pursue indirectly the same subject that I pursued openly in the earlier work.４

In fact, Erasmus only had one goal in mind, and that is to turn the prince into a virtuous leader through whatever exhortative medium.５ The same basic strategy had already been deployed by Petrarch in a letter requested by the hereditary lord of Padua, Francesco da Carrara, advising him on how to govern his principality. The letter took the form of a mirror-forprinces and was used ‘to spur the prince on to greatness with the very stimulus of praise to a generous mind, which is a spur more powerful than anything else.’ ６ Not only the communicative strategy was similar to the one developed and refined by Erasmus. The content, too, bore striking resemblances to the one found later in Erasmus’ mirror-for-princes. Petrarch turned to the Roman statesman and orator Cicero and put forward the Roman ideals of honour, glory and fame as the ultimate goals for every prince. Since the only way to attain them was through a life of virtuousness, almost every single account of the good and successful prince since Petrarch focused on the requirements of virtue. As Petrarch told Francesco: ‘You must lust after the treasure of virtue and win the fame of outstanding glory. This is a property that moths and rust cannot corrupt, nor can thieves steal it in the night.’ ７ As a consequence, most of the part of Petrarch’s letter as well as all other mirror-for-princes – Erasmus’s Institutio included – consisted of a detailed description of what such a virtuous life looked like. Petrarch enumerated various virtues – such as friendliness, generosity, moderation, prudence, humility, modesty, magnanimity, justice and mercy. The same virtues occur along with others in many more mirrorsfor-princes, ranging from Francesco Patrizi’s De regno et regis institutione and Govanni Pontano’s De principe to Sebastián Fox Morcillo’s De regni regisque institutione, Juan Mariana’s De rege et regis institutione and Guillaume Budé’s L’Institution du prince. Erasmus discussed these and other virtues as well, paying special attention to Christian virtues – he warned the prince that he ‘should be as different from even the noble pagan 4 Erasmus (1976: 114-115). 5 On Erasmus’s political ideas, see in particular Tracey (1978), Born (1928) and the recent overview contribution by Mout (2015) with further bibliographical references. 6 Petrarca (1978: 36). The letter is taken up in Petrarch’s collection Seniles, 14, 1. 7 Petrarch (1978: 61).

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princes as a Christian is from a pagan’ ８ – or Christian interpretations of classical virtues. At the same time, he also clearly distinguished between the virtues of a good man, which everyone needs to possess, the prince included, and the virtues which are specially required for a good prince.９ In order to enforce his idealised picture of the perfect ruler, he constantly contrasted this ideal with a sharp description of the nefarious and detestable characteristics of a tyrant. In the end, Erasmus’ Institutio principis christiani is not a real theoretical treatise on politics, but a large exhortation, so to speak, on the morally irreproachable life of a prince who rules not as a master but as a real father. It strikes the eye that the structure of the Institutio is not too stringent, but that the ideas are presented in a somewhat haphazard way and are illustrated with numerous quotations, anecdotes and examples. This is not to say that Erasmus ever lost sight of his primary aim to instruct the prince by constantly reminding him of his elevated task to govern the res publica. The detailed discussions of the many virtues turned the prince, that is to say the young Charles, dedicatee of the Institutio, into a real example – for his citizens, of course, but also for other rulers. In fact, the idealised picture of the good prince was a portrait of the Charles the Institutio intended to bring forth: And so, although I knew that your Highness had no need of any man’s advice, least of all mine, I had the idea of setting forth the ideal of a perfect prince for the general good, but under your name, so that those who are brought up to rule great empires may learn the principles of government through you and take from you their example.１０

By relying on a rhetorical strategy which deployed all means to exhort the prince to an exemplary life, Erasmus bore the risk of being accused of plain flattery. He, as well as other authors of mirrors-of-princes, were well aware of this real danger. To avoid this charge, they found an ingenious solution 8 Erasmus (1997: 17). 9 As Erasmus notices, it is impossible to be a good prince without at the same time being a good man, whereas the reverse is not necessarily the case. ‘If you can be a prince and a good man at the same time, you will be performing a magnificent service; but if not, give up the position of prince rather than become a bad man who would not make a good prince, yet one cannot be a good prince without at the same time being a good man.’ See Erasmus (1997: 51). On the continuity of the good prince as a good man, see Langer (2013). However, according to me, he all to easily passes over the distinct virtues of the prince. 10 Erasmus (1997: 3).

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in the essay De clementia (On Clemency) of the Roman Stoic philosopher Seneca.１１ Seneca offered this short tract to the emperor Nero as a kind of precursor of the mirror-for-princes tradition. Very skilfully he developed the metaphor of the mirror by calling on Nero to constantly compare himself to the ideal depicted in the small work. What Nero sees, is his own self. But if he wants to continue to be seen as such, he has to take care that he maintains high standards every day of his life. By making use of the metaphor of the mirror, description and prescription could be easily intermingled. The metaphor is taken up by Petrarch, who stated that he ‘want[s] you [viz. the prince] to look at yourself in this letter as though you were gazing in a mirror.’ １２ The idea behind the metaphor of the mirror was to call on the prince’s conscience. Through a continuous process of self-reflection, the prince had to work out for himself to what extent he embodied the qualities that were ascribed to him. This typically Senecan idea of cura sui is beautifully expressed by Erasmus: ... if he [viz. the prince] is not yet such a person as they make him out to be, let him regard it as an admonition and energetically pursue the goal of some day living up to that praise. If he already is such a person, he must strive to improve upon himself.１３

The technique is also reminiscent of Pliny’s moral intent in his Panegyric for the Roman emperor Trajan, namely that ‘good princes must hear what they have done, bad ones what they should do.’ １４ As a consequence, rulers have an enormous responsibility, because it depends only upon themselves whether they take their idealised picture seriously, or as a mere instance of flattery. Erasmus wrote: The boy must therefore be instructed in advance to turn those titles which he is forced to hear in his own advantage. When he hears ‘Father of His Country’, let him reflect that no title given to princes more precisely squares with being a good prince than does ‘Father of His Country’; consequently he must act in

11 On the influence of Seneca on early-modern political thought, see the studies by Stacey (2007) and (2015). 12 Petrarca (1978: 41). 13 Erasmus (1997: 60). 14 See Pliny, Pan., 4, 1.

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such a way that he is seen to be worthy of that title. If he thinks in this way, it will have been a reminder; if not, flattery.１５

A prince’s responsibility even reaches much further. His self-reflection will not only define whether or not his actual life and government correspond to the ideal sketched in the mirror, it will also determine to what extent his example may inspire his subjects to a truly virtuous life. It is through his example that innumerable people may be turned to wrongdoing; through his devotion to setting a good example, in turn, ‘so many more good people may result’.１６ By now we have reached what really is the essence of early-modern mirrors-for-princes. Since humanists took a hierarchically organised society as a given and were convinced that the well-being of the whole society depended on the virtuousness of its prince, they deployed all means to make sure that the head of the community was a real and irreproachable example. Erasmus literally stated that ‘the happiness of the whole people’ should ‘depend upon the moral quality of this one man.’ １７ This, of course, entailed a great risk. What if the prince was seduced by vices? What if he could not live up to the high expectations? What if he did not learn from his ‘self-reflection’? The answer was rather simple: ‘if great princes stray from the path of honour, or sin through ambition, anger, or foolishness, they at once cause enormous trouble throughout the world.’ １８ The reason why it could go so easily astray is that in this mental world there were actually no other checks and balances to control a prince’s conduct.１９ The well-being of the res publica almost totally depended on the prince’s responsibility and willingness to act as a true example. In his letter to Carrara, Petrarch remarked that a prince has ‘no one to whom to account since [his] soul must answer to itself and its conscience, which, if dissatisfied, leaves [him] sad and unhappy.’ ２０ Erasmus was well aware of this fundamental problem. He had a preference for election over a hereditary system, because this would give the possibility to choose the most virtuous ruler. But since hereditary monar15 Erasmus (1997: 59). 16 Erasmus (1997: 22). 17 Erasmus (1997: 27). 18 Erasmus (1997: 102). 19 It is not without relevance to emphasize the distinction between the mental world of Erasmus and other similar political thinkers on the one hand, and reality on the other hand, because in the latter there were numerous checks and balances in the form of various privileges and laws. 20 Petrarch (1978: 55).

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chy was widespread and considered to be the most natural, Erasmus took it as his starting point. However, he emphasized time and again that all hope of a good prince was to a large extent dependent on the quality of the education of the young ruler – an education which, of course, was provided by himself and other humanists. This is only a rather small reservation, when compared to his more fundamental skepticism about monarchy in itself. At some point, Erasmus doubted whether monarchy, although the very best constitution in principle (‘it is pretty well agreed among philosophers that the most healthy form is monarchy’), did not need a counterbalance: If it happens that your prince is complete with all the virtues, then monarchy pure and simple is the thing. But since this would probably never happen, although it is a fine ideal to entertain, if no more than an ordinary man is presented (things being what they are nowadays), then monarchy should preferably be checked and diluted with a mixture of aristocracy and democracy to prevent it ever breaking into tyranny; and just as the elements mutually balance each other, so let the state be stabilised with a similar control. For if the prince is well disposed to the state, he will conclude that under such a system his power is not restricted but sustained. But if he is not, it is all the more necessary as something to blunt and break the violence of one man.２１

Though it is a remarkable point to be made and a serious reflection that would deserve further elaboration, Erasmus only made it as an aside. Nevertheless, it is here that he actually touched upon ‘the problem of the prince’.２２

Machiavelli: The prince unbound Niccolò Machiavelli, who was actively involved in Florentine politics for many years and held various influential offices, such as diplomat and head of the second chancery, rightly saw that, however noble the intentions of Petrarch, Erasmus and their fellow humanists were, their idealised picture of the good prince carried a serious problem. Although only published in 1532, Il principe was written around the same period that Erasmus brought out his Institutio and Thomas More his Utopia. In this little booklet, Ma21 Erasmus (1997: 37). 22 Cf. Nelson (2007).

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chiavelli indirectly showed what the consequences would be if princes would govern according to the precepts of Erasmus cum suis. He mercilessly showed that the traditional humanist picture of the ideal prince simply did not work.２３ If a ruler would strive for honour, glory and fame – the very same goals which humanist advisors from Petrarch onwards had put to their princes – he could not simply rely on a well described set of classical and Christian virtues. Machiavelli did not evoke a picture of what would happen if a prince could not live up to the high-minded standards put forward in the traditional mirrors-for-princes. On the contrary, he showed what the deficiencies would be if a ruler actually succeeded in being a truly exemplary figure. The answer is as short as it is simple: he would lose his kingdom as a consequence of poor, ineffective governance. In contrast to Erasmus, Machiavelli was a great supporter of a hereditary system of monarchy, since it was ‘very much less difficult to hold than new states’.２４ And this, according to Machiavelli, was what governing is all about, viz. maintaining the state. From chapter fifteen onwards, the Florentine thinker gave his interpretation of what a good prince should be, that is, one who knows how to remain in power and safeguard his kingdom. Throughout his text, Machiavelli carefully undermined the traditional princely outlook as presented by Petrarch and his followers and as still found in Erasmus’s mirror-for-princes. He does not deny that a virtuous life would be most praiseworthy, but acknowledges that it would probably not, by his standards at least, make a successful ruler. I know that everyone will acknowledge that it would be most praiseworthy for a ruler to have all the above-mentioned qualities that are held to be good. But because it is not possible to have all of them, and because circumstances do not permit living a completely virtuous life, one must be sufficiently prudent to know how to avoid becoming notorious for those vices that would destroy one’s power and seek to avoid those vices that are not politically dangerous; but if one cannot bring oneself to do this, they can be indulged in with fewer misgivings. Yet one should not be troubled about becoming notorious for those vices without which it is difficult to preserve one’s power, because if one considers everything carefully, doing some things that seem virtuous may result in one’s ruin, whereas doing other things that seem vicious may strengthen one’s position and cause one to flourish.２５ 23 For a discussion of Machiavelli’s connection to and critique of the ‘classical’ humanist mirrorfor-princes, see Gilbert (1939) and Skinner (1981: 23-53). 24 Machiavelli (1988: 6). 25 Machiavelli (1988: 55).

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Virtues are the backbone of sound government. However, as Machiavelli tries to make clear, focusing exclusively on virtues might bring the opposite of what a prince hopes for. The reason is that there is an inseparable gap between ‘is’ and ‘ought’ – a gap which his fellow humanists wilfully refused to recognize: how men live is so different from how they should live that a ruler who does not do what is generally done, but persists in doing what ought to be done, will undermine his power rather than maintain it. If a ruler who wants always to act honourably is surrounded by many unscrupulous men his downfall is inevitable.２６

It is this simple finding which brought Machiavelli to make the notorious claim that was simply inconceivable for the traditional humanist advisors of princes to proffer, viz. ‘a ruler who wishes to maintain his power must be prepared to act immorally when this becomes necessary.’ ２７ Machiavelli’s unorthodox conclusion turned upside-down two of the most sacrosanct guidelines which could be found in all mirrors-for-princes from Petrarch onwards. The first was the traditional answer to what a ruler should do if the demands of glory collided with those of virtue. Following Cicero’s lead in De officiis, it was repeated over and again that ‘nothing can be useful that is not at the same time just and honourable’.２８ Machiavelli, for his part, simply did not make any mention of what was honourable and kept his mind strictly focused on the useful. A good instance is the passage in which he transgressed yet another fundamental humanist precept, viz. by saying that it is more important to seem to possess all the virtues instead of actually possessing them: A ruler, then, need not actually possess all the above-mentioned qualities, but must certainly seem to. Indeed, I shall be so bold as to say that having and always cultivating them is harmful, whereas seeming to have them is useful; for instance, to seem merciful, trustworthy, humane, upright and devout, and also to be so. But if it becomes necessary to refrain, you must be prepared to act in the opposite way, and be capable of doing it. [...] Hence, he must be prepared to vary his conduct as the winds of fortune and changing circumstances constrain him and, as I said before, not deviate from right conduct if possible, but 26 Machavelli (1988: 54). 27 Machavelli (1988: 55). 28 Cic., Off., 3, 30. It is found literally in Petrarch (1978: 63) and Erasmus (1997: ).

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be capable of entering upon the path of wrongdoing when this becomes necessary.２９

Nor did Machiavelli subscribe to the standard prescript that it is better to be loved than feared – another instance which already occurred in Cicero’s De officiis. A large part of the seventeenth chapter of Il principe is devoted to the question. It should be remarked, however, that the Florentine humanist makes a clear distinction that is absent, for instance, in Erasmus’s Institutio. In the latter, one reads: In the same way a good prince must be an object of fear to none but the evildoers and criminals, but here again, in such a way that even they retain some hope of leniency, if only they are capable of reform. On the other hand, the Prince of Darkness is loved by none and feared by all, especially by good people, for the wicked are on his side. Likewise a tyrant is greatly hated by every good man, and none are closer to him than the very worst people.３０

Machiavelli makes a great effort to make sure that fear does not degenerate into hatred: ‘a ruler must make himself feared in such a way that, even if he does not come to be loved, he does not come to be hated.’ ３１ The reason for this is quite simple and pops up more than once, as in one of the previous chapters where Machiavelli explained that ‘a ruler can never protect himself from a hostile people, because there are too many of them.’ ３２ The discussions on the necessity of actually possessing the virtues or not, and on whether it is better to be loved than to be feared, are related first and foremost to the attitude of the prince towards his own citizens. Next to that, there is also the question what kind of attitude the prince should adopt towards foreign peoples. And here as well, Machiavelli was not at a loss for providing another highly controversial stance. For him it was evident that since the foundations of all states were ‘good laws and good armies’ ３３, a prince should take the greatest care in military affairs. Whereas other humanists had talked about the militia in the context of just wars – and, thus, in fact, strictly limited the use of military force – Machiavelli took a radical position by stating in such explicit words and not without some exaggeration that ‘a ruler [...] should have no other objective 29 30 31 32 33

Machiavelli (1988: 62). Erasmus (1997: 23). Machiavelli (1988: 59). Translation slightly adapted. Machiavelli (1988: 35). Machiavelli (1988: 42).

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and no other concern, nor occupy himself with anything else except war and its methods and practices, for this pertains only to those who rule.’ ３４ Wholly in line with this unconventional stand, Machiavelli even went a step further and dared to undermine one of the inviolable principles of centuries of moral thought and politically correct behaviour by bringing up for discussion the question of fidelity. He came to his conclusions by the very same realistic approach with which he had found that since ‘men were [not] upright; but [...] are treacherous and would not keep their promises to you, you should not consider yourself bound to keep your promises to them.’ ３５ He captured this totally unexpected position once more by inverting an age old image that became very popular through Cicero’s De officiis (1, 41), who most fiercely denounced the use of force and fraud, since these were bestial. The former Cicero had equated with the character of a lion, the latter with that of a fox. According to Machiavelli, however, both qualities were essential for a prince who should know how to apply both at the right moment３６: Since a ruler, then, must know how to act like a beast, he should imitate both the fox and the lion, for the lion is liable to be trapped, whereas the fox cannot ward off wolves. One needs, then, to be a fox to recognise traps, and a lion to frighten away wolves. Those who rely merely upon a lion’s strength do not understand matters.３７

By this point, the Florentine had turned upside down the foundations of classical humanist political theory.

More: The prince pushed aside Machiavelli’s portrait of the good prince was so unconventional it aroused strong reactions. Almost everyone writing on politics felt the need to react in one way or another to the Florentine’s ideas, whether or not they had been examined at first hand.３８ Although it is of course impossible to catch the myriad of interpretations in a single, general statement, it seems safe to 34 Machiavelli (1988: 52-53). 35 Machiavelli (1988: 62). 36 Machiavelli’s use of this image and his attitude towards Cicero more general is analysed in Colish (1978) and Barlow (1999). 37 Machiavelli (1988: 61). 38 A masterful study on the reception of Machiavelli is offered by Anglo (2005).

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state that people were uncomfortable with Machiavelli’s raw picture of politics and, even more, with his amoral, or even immoral, portrait of the prince. However, it is important to recall that Machiavelli did not intend to show what would happen if a prince might not be able to incarnate all the lofty virtues recorded by Erasmus and other humanists. On the contrary, his primary aim was to bring to light the deficiencies of ideal government itself. In his opinion, the good prince is not necessarily a good man. When we now turn to the model of Thomas More as presented in the second book of his Utopia,３９ one could argue that his model at first sight has not that much to do with princely politics, but was rather a radical alternative that belonged more to the republican tradition, where all citizens are closely involved in daily politics. But a closer look at the text suggests that the rudder of the state is in the hands of a much smaller group, consisting of the tranibors and a governor. This governor is designated with the Latin princeps. However different the meaning of the word in More’s Utopia from the ‘classical’ humanist political interpretation may be,４０ one cannot totally discard this monarchical trait. The point, however, is not that he did not seem to doubt the intrinsic need for a good prince to ensure good governance, as Machiavelli did. Instead, he did not think it feasible to raise such a prince. To make the well-being of the whole society dependent on the moral qualities of just one man – or a few men – and his or their willingness to incarnate all princely virtues, seemed too much of a risk for him. More simply did not believe that it would be possible to find or educate such an excellent and morally irreproachable prince. However different the opinions of More and Machiavelli – they were not even familiar with each other’s work and did not know about one another’s plans – they shared the quality sharply to analyse political developments. What is more, they also refused to take an idealised image of human nature as a starting point. Machiavelli brought the conduct and politics required of a prince in line with man not as he ought to be, but as he is. More, for his part, questioned what J.C. Davis has termed the ‘perfect moral commonwealth’, ４１ that is, a society with its existing social interactions and political institutions whose flourishing was dependent on the moral revitalisation of each individual, and thus, given the hierarchical 39 This is not the place to discuss whether or not this is the ideal More himself had in mind. The literature on his Utopia and the question whether or not the ideal sketched in the second book represents More’s own position is abundant. For some interesting overviews, see, among other works, Davis (2010), Yoran (2005), and Baker-Smith (2011). 40 Baker (1993). 41 Davis (1981: 26-31) and (1991).

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structure, first and foremost on the moral revitalisation of its ruler(s). However much he might have wished it, More did not blindly rely on the moral perfectibility of one or a few individuals whose exemplary governance would inspire every other individual to a virtuous life as well. His answer to Erasmus and the majority of authors of mirrors-for-princes was the perfectibility, that is to say, the total reorganisation, of the community and its political institutions. Both More and Erasmus shared the idea that society is malleable. But whereas for Erasmus society is malleable through the education of (some) individuals, for More individuals are malleable through the reorganisation of society. The strong belief in social change might be taken almost literally in the case of Utopia. The legendary commander Utopus had conquered the peninsula and charged both his soldiers and the natives to dig a channel, in order to turn the peninsula into an island. He gave the island his name and ‘brought its rude, uncouth inhabitants to such a high level of culture and humanity that they now surpass almost every other people.’ ４２ Individuals still had their shortcomings, but the institutional set up would be of such a kind that the well-being of the community would not be dependent on it. Just like Machiavelli, the English humanist did not idealise human nature, but started from the fact that human desire is without limits – which can be satisfied, albeit only for the biggest part. The reason that it can be satisfied, depends on the way in which society is organized, and not on the fact that nature offers an abundance of inexhaustible natural resources. On the contrary, Utopia’s ‘soil is not very fertile, nor [its] climate of the best, but [the Utopians] protect themselves against the weather by temperate living, and improve their soil by industry.’ They do not do so in vain, since ‘nowhere do grain and cattle flourish more plentifully, nowhere are people’s bodies more vigorous or less susceptible to disease.’ ４３ What, then, does More’s best state of a commonwealth (optimus reipublicae status) look like? On the strict political level, all important matters are in the hands of the Syphogrants, the Tranibors, and the prince, which are the typical magistrates of Utopia. The Syphogrants are at the head of thirty families, while the Tranibors are at the head of ten Syphogrants. All the Syphogrants are responsible for the election of the prince. However important these magistrates might be, they do not form the backbone of society. That is the family and the way in which each individual is being 42 More (2002: 42; 1965: 113). 43 More (2002: 74; 1965: 179).

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actively involved in daily affairs. From the outset it is clear that the happiness of the individual citizen is subordinate to the happiness of the whole community. It need not to be recorded that the pillars of utopian society consist of communal living in a moneyless economy, where pride is abolished and all people wear the same clothing ‘throughout the whole island and throughout one’s lifetime’, ‘except for the distinction between the sexes and between married and unmarried persons.’ ４４ What needs to be stressed most, I think, is that all citizens are actively involved in communal life. The well-being of utopian society depends on the dedication and commitment of all its citizens. In other words, all have to do their share, men and women alike, in farming, while also practicing a particular trade of their own. When More talks about all citizens, this should, again, be taken almost literally: You will easily appreciate this if you consider how large a part of the population in other countries lives without doing any work at all. In the first place, hardly any of the women, who are a full half of the population, work; or, if they do, then as a rule their husbands lie snoring in bed. Then there is a great lazy gang of priests and so-called religious. Add to them all the rich, especially the landlords, who are commonly called gentlemen and nobles. Include with them their retainers, that cesspool of worthless swashbucklers. Finally, reckon in with these the sturdy and lusty beggars who feign some disease as an excuse for their idleness.４５

Since almost all people are actively at work, they need to work for no more than six hours a day, which is ‘ample to provide not only enough but more than enough of the necessities and even the conveniences of life.’ ４６ Given the importance of every citizen’s active involvement in society, More pays special attention to the education of all citizens. He dwells on their study of good literature and their devotion to reading, elaborates on the importance they attach to music, dialectic, arithmethic and geometry, praises their achievements in understanding the movements of celestial bodies and the forecasting of weather changes, and, last but not least, extols their moral philosophy. Given this extended solid education, the Utopians hardly need any laws.４７ It is a concern which More shared with 44 45 46 47

More (2002: 49; 1965: 127). More (2002: 51; 1965: 129-130). More (2002: 51; 1965: 129). See More (2002: 82; 1965: 195).

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Erasmus, who believed that ‘a very small number of laws will be sufficient in a well-ordered state under a good prince and honest magistrates.’ ４８ That is not to say that education alone suffices to organise communal life. Penalties are part and parcel of More’s ideal state, and are even more severe for Utopia’s own citizens because of their education: The Utopians, however, deal more harshly with their own people than with the others, feeling that they are worse and deserve stricter punishment because they had an excellent education and the best of moral training, yet still couldn’t be restrained from wrongdoing.４９

It should be remarked that even slavery as an institution is widely used to punish people. As More stated plainly: ‘generally, the gravest crimes are punished with slavery.’ ５０ It is no economic institution, nor is it hereditary, but slaves are used to do ‘all the particularly dirty and heavy chores’.５１ The class of slaves consists of prisoners of war, people who have been condemned to death in their own city, penniless drudges from other nations who voluntarily choose slavery, and, lastly, their own people who are guilty of some ‘heinous offence’. Slavery is the punishment, for instance, for those who wanted to travel, but did not ask for permission to do so. The first time, such a person is punished severely, but the second time he is made a slave. Another case is conjugal fidelity, which is held in very high esteem. Therefore, ‘violators of the marriage bond are punished with the strictest form of slavery.’ ５２ Another instance is the abuse some people might make of the virtue of tolerance with regard to religious convictions and practices. It is cherished in such a way that anyone may try to persuade citizens of other denominations, but ‘if persuasion fails, no one may resort to abuse or violence; and anyone who fights wantonly about religion is punished by exile or slavery.’ ５３ Although punishment occurs and is an essential part of the Utopian way of life, it is the exception rather than the rule. Disputes are very few and what needs to be settled is usually settled privately. Moreover, due to the restricted number of laws there are hardly any fixed penalties. This 48 Erasmus (1997: 79). Erasmus meaningfully continues with the following words: ‘and if things are otherwise, no amount of laws will suffice.’ 49 More (2002: 78; 1965: 185). 50 More (2002: 81; 1965: 191). 51 More (2002: 56; 1965: 141). 52 More (2002: 80; 1965: 191). 53 More (2002: 94; 1965: 221).

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means that besides education and punishment a third instrument is needed to safeguard Utopian society, which consists of its various forms of social monitoring and state control. First of all, it is almost impossible to do anything secretly. Even leisure has to be spent, as More put it, in ‘a respectable way’: So you see that nowhere is there any chance to loaf or any pretext for evading work; there are no wine-bars, or ale-houses, or brothels; no chances for corruption; no hiding places; no spots for secret meetings. Because they live in the full view of all, they are bound to be either working at their usual trades or enjoying their leisure in a respectable way.５４

There is, in fact, no privacy: Every house has a front door to the street and a back door to the garden. The double doors, which open easily with a push of the hand and close again automatically, let anyone come in – so there is nothing private anywhere.５５

It comes as no surprise, then, that the individual’s freedom is significantly curtailed, and that social life, even life as such, is organised on behalf of the state. A good example, in line with previous citations, is the way in which the daily communal meals are regulated: those of about the same age sit together, yet are mingled with others of a different age. The reason for this, as they explain it, is that the dignity of the aged, and the respect due to them, may restrain the younger people from improper freedom of words and gestures, since nothing said or done at table can pass unnoticed by the old, who are present on every side.５６

However, the public arm reaches much further. As already mentioned, every citizen is expected to choose a second occupation besides the obligatory community service in Utopia’s farming activities. Normally, one chooses the family trade. If someone is attracted to another profession, he is not prevented to do so, but ‘is transferred by adoption into a family practising that trade.’ ５７ 54 55 56 57

More (2002: 59; 1965: 147). More (2002: 46; 1965: 121). More (2002: 57; 1965: 143). More (2002: 49; 1965: 127).

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The state also keeps a close eye on the overall balance of the island, by pursuing an effective population policy: To keep the cities [and there are fifty-four cities, all built on the same plan] from becoming too sparse or too crowded, they take care that each household (there are six thousand of them in each city, exclusive of the surrounding countryside) should have no fewer than ten nor more than sixteen adults. [...] The limit on adults is easily observed by transferring individuals from a household with too many into a household with too few.５８

That is not all. When the population throughout the entire island exceeds the quota, they plant a colony. They go so far as to start an offensive war to protect their way of life – a thought which, as we have seen, is quite unorthodox, at least in comparison to the ideas current in more traditional mirrors-for-princes: Those natives who want to live with the Utopians are adopted by them. When such a merger occurs, the two peoples gradually and easily blend together, sharing the same way of life and customs, much to the advantage of both. For by their policies the Utopians make the land yield an abundance for all, though previously it had seemed too poor and barren even to support the natives. But those who refuse to live under their laws they drive out of the land they claim for themselves; and against those who resist them, they wage war. They think it is perfectly justifiable to make war on people who leave their land idle and waste yet forbid the use and possession of it to others, who, by the law of nature, ought to be supported from it.５９

Notwithstanding the many similarities with the more traditional mirrorsfor-princes of Erasmus cum suis, More developed an original alternative in which the well-being of the state would be brought about through the total reorganisation of society instead of being dependent on the virtuousness of one or a few influential people. Society would make people virtuous and not vice versa.

58 More (2002: 54; 1965: 135-137). 59 More (2002: 54; 1965: 137).

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Lipsius: The prince kept in check morally Although More discussed all the features of his ideal community within the broader framework of a deliberation – the rhetorical genre that was used to give advice – his actual exposition on the ideal society, albeit kept in rather plain style, belonged to the genus demonstrativum, the genre used to describe an ideal. In the same vein, Machiavelli subscribed with his Il principe to the demonstrative genre of the mirrors-for-princes tradition, but focussed almost exclusively on the utility and practicality of his image of the good prince, so that it would seem more justified to characterise it as an essentially deliberative work.６０ In Il principe, in other words, advice prevailed over praise, utility over honesty. The image of the state in the second book of Utopia, on the other hand, owed more to praise than to advice, more to honesty than to utility. The question of the right mixture of both of these elements also lies at the heart of the political works of Justus Lipsius (1547-1606).６１ In his first major political work, the Politica, written and published in Leiden in 1589, he undoubtedly inclined towards utility. From the very start, in a chapter on the rationale and form of the work, Lipsius dismissed almost all predecessors who had written on princely rule, with a quotation from the Lives of Eminent Philosophers of Diogenes Laertius: ‘Most of them are full of ignorance and a wealth of words.’ But more importantly, he openly takes side with Machiavelli, ‘whose genius I do not despise, sharp, subtle, and fiery as it is.’ ６２ Later on in the Politica, he criticizes those who wish to live in the ideal state of Plato – which is the tradition to which More subscribed with his Utopia, as can be inferred from the preliminary poem to the booklet. Again, with another quotation, this time from Cicero, Lipsius complains: ‘They seem not to know this age and its men, and to speak their opinion as if in Plato’s Republic instead of in the dregs of Romulus.’ ６３ The only solution lies in the work of Machiavelli. But however great – and remarkable (Lipsius was the very first to express his admiration in public) – his praise for the Florentine, the Dutch humanist did not follow him blindly. He immediately added a reservation and caution to his enthusiasm:

60 For this classification of Utopia and Il principe, see Tinkler (1988). 61 An excellent introduction to Lipsius’s political thought is offered by Van Houdt (forthcoming). 62 Lipsius (2004: 231). The reference is to Diog. Laert., Vit. Phil., 1, 91. 63 Lipsius (2004: 507). The reference is to Cic., Att., 2, 1, 8.

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if he had only directed his Prince on the straight path towards that great temple of Virtue and Honour! But all too often, he strays from that road, and while he intently follows the footpaths of advantage, he wanders from this royal road.６４

This was the challenge Lipsius accepted for his own contribution to political theory: finding a solution for the excesses of his Italian predecessor. Machiavelli had put so much pressure on the Petrarchean, Erasmean, traditional mirrors-for-princes that they were no longer very useful. Lipsius, too, did not simply wish to continue that tradition. But having turned down the Platonic, Morean approach, he had to look for a third alternative and to invent something new. And so he did. Definitely with regard to the form in which he presented his Politica. In that respect he might be compared to More himself, who also opted for a new, completely unusual genre to exhibit his political ideas. Lipsius, however, did not choose for a fictitious story behind which he could hide himself, but for a masterly woven fabric of quotations. As he proudly stated himself: For I have instituted an unusual kind of genre, in which I could say that everything is mine, and nothing. For although the selection and the arrangement are mine, the words and phrases I have gathered from various places in the ancient writers. And this mostly from the historians, that is, in my opinion, from the source itself of Political Prudence.６５

His Politica, dedicated to the ‘Emperor, Kings, and Princes’, was a mirrorfor-princes, but one that consisted of more than 2650 citations carefully selected from ancient, medieval and contemporary works, which were linked to each other by Lipsius’s own words. In doing so, he composed one of the most sophisticated works of the cento-genre in prose. At the same time, the book also belonged to the genre of the commonplace-book that was highly popular at the time. The latter represented a way of ordering sentences selected during reading for one reason or another under previously constructed headings so that they could easily be found and pondered later on. All quotations in the Politica are similarly placed under fitting titles. An essential characteristic of such a commonplacebook was that they were never finished. It was always possible to add new sentences. By formatting his political work in this way, Lipsius made 64 Lipsius (2004: 231). 65 Lipsius (2004: 231-233).

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the interpretation of his work far less univocal. One could lay most stress on the quotations – which were all published in italics – either in themselves or by turning to their original context, which is always referred to in the inner margin. Or, one could highlight the binding words of Lipsius – which were all printed in roman type – and start to read them as a separate discourse. Whatever reading strategy one would choose, interpretation was complicated and always gave Lipsius the opportunity to hide behind his quoted authors. Moreover, since most of the quotations were typical sententiae, i.e., rather short and enigmatic sentences that gave rise to some deeper reflection, reading the Politica was very demanding. The Politica was new in the way it was composed. But with regard to content it was less new or pioneering than Lipsius would have wished us to believe. The commonplace structure lent itself very well to Lipsius’s view, which he shared with his fellow humanists, namely that all knowledge was already given. The task of the humanist consisted only in rediscovering this knowledge and presenting it in the most appropriate form. By doing so, Lipsius presented himself as a true architect. The format gave him the opportunity to discuss more controversial issues as they had been dealt with by the most ancient and respected authorities. And controversial issues there were, although the first two books, out of six, were rather traditional in outlook. Contrary to Erasmus, whose first chapter on the birth and upbringing of the prince was almost as long as the remaining ten chapters on the good prince, Lipsius did not say a word about this matter and focused immediately on the princely virtues.６６ Among the virtues treated are religiousness, uprightness, justice, clemency, reliability, modesty, majesty and a range of lesser virtues – all classical Christian qualities. From the third book onwards, however, Lipsius focused on prudence, which forms a kind of unity with virtue and, in fact, is the leader of virtue (virtutis ipsius rector). Lipsius’s discussion of prudence consists of an exposition of the prudence of others, that is of counsellors and ministers – to which book three is devoted – and princely prudence. The latter is subdivided once more in prudentia togata and prudentia militaris, that is, prudence in civil life and military life. The extensive treatment of prudentia militaris – books five and six have it as their subject – already shows that Lipsius was indebted to Machiavelli, who had posited that military affairs were integral to successful princely government. Even more important, however, is the proper discussion of princely prudence. On these pages, one directly sees how 66 For a comparison of Erasmus’s Institutio with Lipsius’s Politca, see De Landtsheer (2013).

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Lipsius is struggling to come to terms with Machiavelli’s realism, albeit without giving in too much to what is morally acceptable. The first ingenious strategy was to rely largely on the writings of the Roman historian Tacitus, who lived under the often tyrannical governance of the emperors and had a special eye for the machinations of power politics.６７ Secondly, Lipsius reiterated some typically Machiavellian ideas (and images, such as the one about the lion and the fox) that he immediately qualified. A good example is his statement that although laws should be preserved and remain unchanged, ‘a very great benefit or the greatest necessity’ ６８ will leave the prince with no other choice but to change laws occasionally. But even then, he should not do this forcibly, and only step by step. Last but not least, Lipsius introduced a concept to create a possibility to make use of fraud and deceit. Here he is doing something new by launching the concept of prudentia mixta,６９ which he put forwards as follows: ‘Wine does not stop being wine when it is mixed with a little water, nor does Prudence stop being Prudence when it is mixed with a little drop of deceit.’ ７０ In this context he referred once more to Machiavelli – a reference which he had to remove in subsequent editions, as he did not want his Politica to be included on the Roman Index librorum prohibitorum: From him [sc. someone who is not ignorant of the things that happen in this world] we shall easily learn that both the Italian reprobate must not be so categorically condemned (whose hand is not flogging the poor man these days?), and that there is a certain, as a holy man [Basil the Great] puts it, honourable and praiseworthy cunning.７１

Apart from invoking the bishop and influential fourth-century theologian Basil the Great, Lipsius defended himself by adding to the previous quotations: ‘This I mean in all cases so long as it is done moderately and with good aims.’ On the subsequent pages, he tries to elaborate this rather enigmatic statement by making a distinction between three forms of deceit and by precisely circumscribing what would be allowed and what not:

67 For Lipsius’s indebtedness to Tacitus and the revival of the Roman historian for political thought, due to Lipsius, see, among other studies, Schellhase (1976), Burke (1991) and Gajda (2009). 68 Lipsius (2004: 431). 69 On the concept, see, e.g., Morford (1993), Waszink (1999) and Van Houdt (2002). 70 Lipsius (2004: 509). 71 Lipsius (2004: 511).

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There are three kinds: light, middle and grave. Light deceit I call the kind WHICH DEPARTS ONLY SLIGHTLY FROM VIRTUE, AND CONTAINS NOT MORE THAN A LITTLE DROP OF MALICE, which category I take to contain Distrust and Dissimulation. The middle sort is that WHICH DEPARTS FURTHER FROM VIRTUE, AND COMES VERY CLOSE TO SIN, in which category I place Bribery and Deception. The third kind is that WHICH DEVIATES NOT ONLY FROM VIRTUE BUT EVEN FROM THE LAWS AND REPRESENTS A SOLID AND FULL-FLEDGED MALICE, such as breach of faith and Injustice. I recommend the first kind, tolerate the second and condemn the third.７２

This was an attempt more or less to bring under control what was in essence unacceptable behaviour, but which was at the same time unavoidable for a prince if he wished to maintain his power. It is also the reason why Lipsius stressed the distinction between the good citizen and the good prince in this regard: Some upright soul is certainly going to dislike these ideas, and will exclaim: Feigning and dissimulation must be removed from every part of life. Which I agree with as regards private life, but totally deny with respect to public life. Those will never rule who will not veil: and there is no choice for those to whom the entire commonwealth is entrusted.７３

Lipsius was well aware that the turn taken by Machiavelli was irreversible. However, in trying to find a more morally acceptable version of his ideas and to construct an image of the ideal prince that was more in tune with daily politics, he ended up with a kind of Machiavellism light. This kind of Machiavellism was both subjected to more well-defined rules and the object of a lot of criticism. The Machiavellian twist to his ideas was what caused Lipsius’s ideas to meet with particular consternation and even brought the Vatican to prohibit his book, which ultimately could only be avoided by revising some essential passages. Notwithstanding the popularity of Lipsius’s ideas, as could be easily interferred from the dozens of editions of the Politica and its many translations, the time seemed not yet ripe for his answer to Machiavelli and his alternative to More, with its notion of an absolutist prince who was allowed to take recourse to morally controversial means, but who was kept in check by certain well-formulated conditions. Lipsius himself revised his 72 Lipsius (2004: 513). 73 Lipsius (2004: 517). The references are to Cic., Mil., 65, 2 and Cic., Fam., 10, 8, 4.

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political project up to a certain degree, but, in his Monita et exempla politica (Political Admonitions and Examples) of 1605, preferred praise over advice, honesty over utility again, as had been done in the tradition of the classical humanist mirrors-for-princes. The Monita et exempla politica was dedicated to Archduke Albert, whom Lipsius presented as the ultimate example of the good prince.７４ Anyone who wanted to know what good governance looked like, could profit from Lipsius’s advice to select from each great ruler his best qualities and try to unite them in his own person, or one could simply take a look at Albert’s life. This, at least, was Lipsius’s implicit, but unmistakable message. At the same time, the Monita itself was a new and unusual work. It was a commentary on the first two books of the Politica – Lipsius planned to comment on the other books as well, but illness and, finally, his death prevented him from doing so – in the form of a huge collection of examples. Each chapter is shortly introduced, after which the virtue under discussion is illustrated by means of dozens of examples taken from ancient, medieval and contemporary history. Machiavelli is mentioned or referred to again, though not as a genius to be praised, but as an erroneous mind. First, when Lipsius emphasizes the (classical) intrinsic bond between the honest and the useful: For let us not separate those: I mean, the Honest from the Useful. And the teacher from Italy who leads in another direction is mistaken. He forms little tyrants, no legitimate kings or princes. Let him go away. You, remove dissimulation and fraud, which can neither be effective nor eternal.７５

And, second, when he rejects the appearance of virtuousness: Those teachers of Politics who put it aside or oppress it are bad. They impose an outward appearance of virtue on us, but refuse to let the virtues themselves in. Are they not utterly miserable, and do they not deceive our mind and conscience?７６

Even at other places Machiavelli’s ideas lurk in Lipsius’s new mirror-forprinces, but there is not the slightest doubt that the Dutch humanist was on the safe side by including extensive commentaries on justice and other traditional, Christian and Ciceronian virtues, while hardly mentioning pru74 Cf. the fine and detailed analysis by Janssens (2009). 75 Lipsius (2009: 327). 76 Lipsius (2009: 325).

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dence and nowhere referring to prudentia mixta.７７ All these virtues were perfectly incarnated by Archduke Albert, who is lifted to incredible heights as the ultimate example of the good prince – Lipsius even had a seperate chapter ‘on the exemplary role of princes’ (2, 8) in general.

Lessius: The prince kept in check? The good prince of Lipsius’s Politica was, as we have seen, someone who knew how to reconcile the demands of worldly politics with the requirements of a morally praiseworthy lifestyle. That is to say that his prince was a virtuous ruler, who in well-defined circumstances was allowed to take recourse to morally more debatable instruments in order to safeguard his position and the well-being of the state. What is of importance at this point is to see that Lipsius, by relying on respectable auctoritates, decided what constituted debatable, but still acceptable instruments, and left it to the prince’s conscience how to make use of them. However much Lipsius focused on utility for good governance, his text remained persuasive. It was up to the prince, and the prince alone, whether or not he would follow Lipsius’s restrictions on what in essence was Machiavellian behaviour. In the Monita, the Dutch humanist had described ‘conscience’ as: How can it be defined? A judgement of the mind, stemming from religion and fear of God, which approves the good and loathes the bad. We are all called to it by that internal judge, just like to the tribunal, and God has pressed this indelible mark upon the shape of men.７８

In short, conscience was ‘the divine yet highly personal voice of truth and comfort.’ ７９ And thus, as a consequence, the ‘problem of the prince’ in fact remained. There were checks and balances on a prince’s behaviour, but they were not enforceable. The prince’s discretionary power remained intact. Again, the solution was not a recourse to a Morean approach that would transform society as a whole, but the development of a constraint on the prince’s behaviour based on nothing less than natural law. Con77 That is not to say that there is no discussion as to the traditional outlook of the Monita et exempla politica. Some authors have argued that a more controversial message is hidden behind Lipsius’s use of examples. See, e.g., Braun (2011). 78 Lipsius (2009: 325). 79 Cf. Decock (2011: 264).

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science was in a sense no longer a personal affair, but the object of a specialist’s judgement that was based on morality and law. Such a specialist was Lipsius’s personal friend Leonardus Lessius (1554-1623) from the Society of Jesus, who also dedicated a major work to Archduke Albert, viz. his De iustitia et iure (On Justice and Right).８０ It stood in a long tradition going back to the Spaniard Domingo de Soto (1495-1560), who had been the very first to compose a treatise On Justice and Right and who explicitly presented it as a mirror-for-princes: Xenophon has written a Cyropaedia, Aristotle has instructed Alexander, Seneca Nero, Plutarch Trajan, and other authors others. Although I could make use of the pedagogical instructions of those wise men that through my insignificance you will not long for another’s compliance, I was not afraid to offer your highness in the meanwhile this Carolopaedia, where you will find from the very beginning the beauty of justice and at the same time the image of the most fortunate prince.８１

Lessius, too, elaborated his letter of dedication for Albert in the form of a mirror-for-princes, reiterating the age-old panegyrical idea of the prince as a true example: First of all you, eminent Prince, in your sublime position, offer a brilliant and splendid image and ideal representation of the main virtues that are discussed here. In your position you function as an example that should be followed by princes and all citizens. For all eyes are directed towards the Prince as the substitute of the Almighty God, and all direct their life and behaviour towards the lead he sets out.８２

At first sight, Lessius’s De iustitia et iure thus bears strong resemblances to Erasmus’s and Lipsius’s text, especially if one recalls that its full title is actually De iustitia et iure ceterisque virtutibus cardinalibus. The discussion of justice is only one part, albeit by far the biggest one. However, the discursive text could not differ more from Erasmus’s Institutio or Lipsius’s Politica. It was not a persuasive text to incite the reader to an exemplary life of virtuousness, but a juridical tract on lawful actions. It did not look for an ideal behaviour, but one that was permissible. 80 On Lessius’s life, works and principal ideas, see Van Houdt and Decock (2005). 81 De Soto (1967: 3). 82 Lessius (1621: *2).

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Lessius’s massive treatise was the work of a moral theologian, whose primary aim was to bring relief to the burdened conscience and to save the soul. He could do so, because in his view conscience was subjected to a set of objective rules, ranging from divine and natural law to statutory law, that could and should be enforced.８３ Underlying was a dualistic anthropology that made a distinction between body and soul. Just as the body was subjected to the traditional courts, the soul was subjected to a parallel court, called the ‘court of conscience’, the ‘tribunal of the soul’ or the ‘internal court’. The rules that were enforced in this court were the object of expert knowledge, just as the rules enforced by judges and advocates in the traditional courts. Only moral theologians could act as experts in this field. It comes as no surprise that princes and rulers especially made an appeal to these experts to advise and assist them with the burdensome task of governing. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, cases of conscience proliferated and the ‘mirror-of-princes’ literature, as a literary genre traditionally offering advice to princes, had to respond to this trend in contemporary moral theology.’ ８４ This kind of profession also called for a discourse that was fundamentally different from the humanist mirrors-for-princes: the discourse of natural law, which was, in the case of Lessius, built on two traditions, both represented in the title of his massive handbook De iustitia et iure. The first is the moral theological stream that went back to the works of Aristotle and Thomas Aquianas, and which was revitalised by such prominent late scholastic thinkers as Francisco de Vitoria (1483-1546) and Domingo de Soto. More specifically, especially Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae served as a point of reference, because the second section of the second part of the Summa contained a wealth of insights with regard to the cardinal virtues (prudence, justice, courage and temperance). As could be derived from the title of Lessius’s handbook, most attention was paid to the virtue of justice, because it was seen as the main virtue regulating the contacts between peoples and between the prince and his subjects. The second stream of Lessius’s natural law discourse was the juristic current, which had become ever more important due to the work of the Jesuits and which was further developed by Lessius himself. This juridical tradition provided a vocabulary, derived from Roman law, ius commune and canon law, that helped to capture the significance of real actions. It was symbolised in the second

83 Cf. Decock (2013: 69-86). 84 Braun (2004: 56).

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part of the title of Lessius’s work. As such, his De iustitia et iure reflected the synthesis between ethics, moral theology and law. It is worthwhile to say a bit more about the second, legal stream of Lessius’s thought, since it is connected to the work of the exceptional Louvain jurist Nicolaas Everaerts (1463/4-1516),８５ whom I mentioned at the very beginning of this contribution because his Topica seu loci legales appeared in print in the very same year as More’s Utopia and with the very same printer, Dirk Martens. Of course, this is not to say that Lessius’s De iustitia et iure was inconceivable without Everaerts’s Topica, but the latter had a great influence on the former, as well as on other prominent thinkers in Louvain and beyond. This influence may be derived from the fact that the Topica was reprinted at least 27 times and that Lessius still quoted Everaerts. But it was also apparent on a deeper, much more important level. What Everaerts did in his Topica was somehow revolutionary in the sense that he took daily practices as his starting point and merged civil and canon law, while also taking into account moral arguments.８６ He knew these various legal traditions, and had an open mind towards innovations within philosophy. It is this kind of reasoning, which was practice-oriented and looked for morally acceptable behaviour on the basis of law – canon law as well as civil law – and ethics, that lay at the basis of Lessius’s approach in De iustitia et iure. In this sense, his ethico-political thought was steeped in a tradition that went back to the times of Erasmus and More.８７ 85 Everaerts had studied law in Louvain and was immediately afterwards appointed as professor. Later on he was active as an official in the service of the bishop of Cambrai in Brussels. He also served as judge in the Great Council of Mechlin and was even appointed president of that Great Council by Charles V in 1528. Previously, in 1510, Everaerts had served as president of the Court of Holland in The Hague. Although he was not the kind of humanist who edited classical texts, he was well acquainted with Erasmus, with whom he exchanged several letters. Besides his advice for jurists, the Consultationes, and the posthumously published advices and judgements, the Consilia sive responsa iuris, he made his name first and foremost with his Topica. On Everaerts and his work, see, e.g., Vervaart (1994: 4-26), Papy (2011: 48-50), Waelkens, Stevens and Snaat (2014: 63-65). 86 See especially Waelkens (2004). 87 More concrete, it was Pieter Crockaerts (1450-1514) who became familiar with Everaerts’s enterprise to merge civil and canon law against the background of moral philosophy, when he was at the Standonck College in Louvain. When Crockaerts moved to Paris in 1504 to the sister college Collège de Montaigu, he took this expertise with him and passed it on to, among others, Francisco de Vitoria. The latter is considered to be the father of the ‘School of Salamanca’, which represents a group of scholars, moral theologians and jurists, mostly working in Salamanca and other Spanish universities, who were held in high esteem, in particular for their successful practice-oriented and problem-solving capacities based on the fusion of law and ethics. Lessius, and many other Jesuits, appropriated their work and developed it ‘into a highly sophisticated science of the moral order’, as Annabel Brett (1997: 123) stated it.

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Both the moral theological and the legal vocabularies offered Lessius the tools to determine what could count as licit behaviour. Although this ambitious objective shows that his concern was broader than the strict question of princely governance, he nevertheless contributed in an important way to ‘the problem of the prince’. When compared to the humanist mirrors-for-princes literature, Lessius’s De iustitia et iure does not stand out by its stylistic brilliance or rhetorical force, but by the stringent syllogistic type of argumentation, in a style that is characterized by brevity and clarity, that clearly defined what licit behaviour was. The answer was as short as simple: what was licit, was everything that was not unjust or went against the law of nature, because what is right and just is objectively founded in the law of nature. This, however, did not bring him to a very narrow interpretation of what was licit. On the contrary, based on medieval antecedents, a sharp distinction was made between what was binding in all respects and what aimed at the perfection of the individual’s life. The former was expressed through precept, the latter through counsel. Only precepts were absolute and stringent and left no room for any negotiation, whilst counsels only made an appeal to the individual’s free choice. Precepts belonged to the domain of justice, counsels to the domain of supererogation and charity. In his De iustitia et iure, Lessius set out the precepts, based on natural law, that should apply to a prince’s government, among other things. His ‘court of conscience’ was not the place for the enforcement of lofty moral principles or ‘thick morality’. It was the place for determining the rights and obligations a person had in the light of truth and justice.８８ Lessius’s De iustitia et iure was a strong attempt to ground some minimal moral rules on an objective basis that demarcated the moral playfield of a prince’s – and others’ – actions. By doing so, Lessius in fact broadened that playfield, because it were only minimal rules that were strictly defined.８９ Whether or not he consciously looked for a solution to the problem of the prince, and although the checks and balances he introduced might have been legally anchored in natural law, they were at the same time much more minimalistic than the moral precepts of the humanists.

88 Decock (2013: 79). 89 This minimalistic approach to morality was, of course, closely linked to the probabilistic method, which was used and sophisticated by Lessius. Within the scope of this contribution, it would lead us too far to discuss Lessius’s probabilism. See, e.g., Schüssler (2006).

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Conclusion Although Quentin Skinner in his authorative The Foundations of Modern Political Thought stated that ‘Utopia is unquestionably the greatest contribution to the political theory of the northern Renaissance’,９０ it is altogether striking that the ideal community sketched by Thomas More found little appeal in early-modern Europe among such leading political theorists as Justus Lipsius and Leonardus Lessius. And although the powerful tradition of the virtuous prince raised many problems, authors were reluctant to consign this tradition to the wastepaper basket in favour of an institutional reform of society after More. Even when Machiavelli challenged them on their very own turf, authors in the ‘mirror-for-princes’ tradition preferred to take up the realist challenge Machiavelli’s exceptional idea of ‘the good prince’ presented them with. Lipsius firmly stood in the mirrors-for-princes tradition and highly valued the importance of virtuousness, just like Erasmus had done. However, he neither wanted to abandon the powerful contribution of the Florentine thinker and sought to develop a kind of moralized version of the latter’s amoral precepts. The result was a more elusive political language and the introduction of the new concept of prudentia mixta. Although from now on there was some room for morally questionable, yet still acceptable forms of political behaviour, there was no instance that could also effectively enforce the limits of this princely behaviour. In that sense, Lessius’s solution seemed far more promising, because he developed a system in which licit behaviour was strictly defined within a natural law discourse. But since he was looking for licit, and not ideal, behaviour, he only sketched the contours, albeit very strictly, of a minimal form of morally acceptable behaviour. And so it could be argued that the prince’s liberty was maybe even bigger than before. Given the fact that one could argue that More’s Utopia belonged more to the republican tradition, its incorporation in the mirrors-for-princes tradition might seem unfair to some people. In this contribution I have argued that it is not that strange to discuss the Utopia as a text with great affinities to the monarchical tradition, since it was only a small number of people under the responsibility of a princeps who were actively involved with daily politics in Utopia. Yet even if we would stick to the republican outlook, it seems that More’s Utopia was not directly used as a model to be followed. As late as the late seventeenth century, the Dutch Brothers De la Court, who were radical republicans, dismissed More’s work by referring to 90 Skinner (1978: 1, 256).

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it as ‘in de lugt eene Philosophise Republijk’ (‘a Philosophical Republic in the air’).９１ Even then, Machiavelli’s prince continued to offer a much more effective model to govern the state, however much that model had somehow to be brought under control.９２

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About the author Erik De Bom is an intellectual historian and political theorist currently positioned as a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Philosophy, KU Leuven. His research focuses on the history of political thought, with special attention to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and the interplay between humanism and scholasticism. Together with Harald E. Braun, he is presently editing A Companion to the Spanish Scholastics, to be published with Brill. In 2016, Erik De Bom has been involved in various projects to commemorate the 500th anniversary of Thomas More’s Utopia. He is one of the curators of the exhibition ‘Utopia and More’ at Leuven University Library and has just published a book on Utopia together with Toon Van Houdt: Andersland. In de voetsporen van Thomas More, Antwerpen: Polis, 2016.

This article has been previously published in Algemeen Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Wijsbegeerte 2016, Vol. 108, No. 3, with DOI: １０.５１１７/ANTW２０１６.３.BOM.

From Thomas More to Thomas Smith Utopian and anti-utopian understandings of economic change in sixteenth-century England Guido Giglioni

Abstract The emergence of the political sphere as an autonomous domain of human activity is considered to be one of the great achievements of Renaissance philosophy. The complementary autonomy of the economic sphere, however, was also shaping up in the world of philosophical ideas. In this article, I examine how the late medieval notion of moral economy was transformed in the hands of two illustrious representatives of Tudor and Elizabethan political thinking, Thomas More (1478-1535) and Thomas Smith (1513-1577). More specifically, I will show how, at a time of intense economic and social unrest, Smith’s A Discourse of the Commonweal of This Realm of England (1549) and De Republica Anglorum: A Discourse on the Commonwealth of England (written between 1562 and 1565) recast Morean utopian themes in a distinctively antiutopian light. Keywords: appetite, life and death, fear, want, hunger, cunning, economic change, political imagination, health

Introduction Thus, so that one greedy, insatiable glutton (helluo), a frightful plague to his native country, may enclose thousands acres within a single fence, the tenants are ejected; and some are stripped of their belongings by trickery (fraus) or brute force (vis), or, wearied by constant harassment (iniuriae), are driven to sell them. One way or another, these wretched people – men, women, husbands, wives, orphans, widows, parents with little children and entire families

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(poor but numerous, since farming requires many hands) – are forced to move out. They leave the only homes familiar to them, and can find no place to go. Since they must leave at once without waiting for a proper buyer, they sell for a pittance all their household goods, which would not bring much in any case. When that little money is gone (and it’s soon spent in wandering from place to place), what finally remains for them but to steal, and so be hanged (ut furentur et pendeant) – justly, no doubt – or to wander and beg (aut vagentur atque mendicent)? And yet if they go tramping, they are jailed as idle vagrants. They would be glad to work, but they can find no one who will hire them. There is no need for farm labour, in which they have been trained, when there is no land left to be planted (ubi nihil seritur). One herdsman or shepherd can look after a flock of beasts large enough to stock an area that used to require many hands to make it grow crops.１

So Thomas More famously described the dramatic rise of enclosures that between the fifteenth and the sixteenth centuries were turning arable lands into pasture and sheep farming and how this was affecting English agriculture and society. One of the most striking features of Utopia is the vivid contrast that More managed to create between bleak reality and auspicious aspiration. In the excerpt with which I have opened my article, he reviewed the consequences of this situation with graphic clarity: the unacceptable divide between the rich few and the poor many; the displacement and impoverishment of tenant farmers; the radical transformation of English farming, from tillage to pasture; the significant rise of unemployment, vagrancy and beggary; above all, the profound injustice of the situation. Historians have pointed out how the dramatic changes in farming, commerce and manufacture that took place under the Tudors marked the beginning of English capitalist agriculture.２ More specifically, with respect to farming, there was a significant rise in competition, especially among tenant farmers who, unlike landlords and labourers, were driven to make a profit out of their activities by devising ways to improve production through new practices, such as enclosures and engrossment. By converting arable areas into pastures, production of livestock became more lucrative than cultivating the land. This change in the models of economic production inevitably led to substantial transformations in how life cycles were 1 More (1995: 63-65; 1965: 67). 2 Jones (1970); Clay (1984); Wrightson (2000); Sacks (2011). On the social and economic aspects in More’s Utopia, see Park (1971); Skinner (1987); Garnsey (2007: 56-58).

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experienced and perceived by ordinary people at the time. More’s Utopia can be read in this particular light, as a work of political imagination in which, by focusing on issues concerning life in its more elementary forms (such as hunger, malnutrition, starvation, insatiability, health and disease, youth and old age), its author explored situations on the edge where economic turmoil became a threat to the very survival of individuals and communities. There is utopia and utopia, of course. First of all, there is Utopia, which is More’s book, a literary invention and a place of imagined perfection. Then there is utopia as a political category – the ideal commonwealth – that from Plato on has represented the conceptual laboratory where philosophers have tested the limit of feasible policies. Finally, in a more general sense, there is utopia understood as a viewpoint that is both philosophical and artistic and that stimulates alternative ways of thinking about reality and its possible transformations. The usual and recurrent question is whether utopia, both as a political category and as a way of thinking, is a plausible, indeed acceptable solution. In the twentieth century, philosophers as diverse as Theodor Adorno (1903-1969) and Karl Popper (19021994) cautioned us in a powerful manner against the dangers of utopianism. Already in the nineteenth century, however, Marx had discarded all forms of utopian socialism (advocated by Henri Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier and Robert Owen) as an infeasible and therefore barren perspective.３ A twentieth-century Marxist as Ernst Bloch (1885-1977), on the other hand, with his classic Das Prinzip Hoffnung (‘The Principle of Hope’, published in three volumes between 1938 and 1947), rehabilitated utopia as the expression of a legitimate aspiration to a better life embedded in human nature. To be sure, the question of the philosophical plausibility and ethical soundness of utopian regimes was already discussed in Thomas More’s Utopia. More addressed this problem in a sophisticated way, by refracting authorial intention through the prisms of Platonic dialectic, Socratic irony and humanist rhetoric. In the dialogue, Thomas More as the character suggests that a philosopher who wants to exercise an effective impact on political and economic decisions needs to adjust his actions to the reality of existing circumstances in order to be able to improve, in concrete ways, the situation in which he finds himself to operate. Raphael Hythloday, who

3 Paden (2002: 67-91). On the Marxist reception of ‘utopian socialism’, see also Julien Kloeg’s contribution to this volume, below.

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in More’s dialogue is the main speaker, replies by saying that madness (furor) cannot be treated with madness, for the doctor too would fall ill (insanire).４ In rejecting engagement with the political reality of his country, Hythloday was in fact reiterating yet another Platonic trope: it is in the very nature of power that it has a corruptive influence, as Plato had argued in his Republic. By all means, More was not the only one at the time to come to grips with the gravity and impact of the economic situation. The change was indeed so radical that it had prompted several thinkers to reflect on the meaning of want in human lives.５ Want could be understood in two senses, depending on its subjective and objective aspects; want, that is, could be perceived as either desire for something or lack of something. In this article, I will contrast More’s Utopia with another dialogue that, about thirty years later, addressed the same issues but from a deliberately non-utopian standpoint: the Discourse of the Commonweal of This Realm of England completed by Thomas Smith in 1549 but published posthumously in 1581. In the Discourse of the Commonweal, the five characters engaging in the dialogue represent a cross-section of English society in mid-sixteenth century: a knight, a scholar, a farmer, a merchant and an artisan. In many respects, Smith’s concerns and commitments were similar to More’s. The main difference, though, regarded the nature and function of greed in shaping human societies. Like More, Smith meant to provide a medicine of the body politic that consisted of a diagnosis of the major economic ills affecting the ailing commonwealth (‘common and universal griefs’, ‘sores and griefs’), an investigation into the ‘causes and occasions’ of the symptoms and a suggestion of possible cures and remedies.６ Once again, though, if the diagnosis was similar in both authors, their prognosis and therapy differed signifi4 More (1995: 96; 1965: 100). The playful and the ironic dimensions are an integral component of More’s Utopia and cannot simply be regarded as a symbolic ploy through which readers may in the end recover an allegedly serious and literal meaning. In this, Utopia belongs to the tradition of Platonic utopianism. As with Plato’s Republic, whenever one attempts to provide a literal reading of the playful and ironic, Platonism turns into a totalitarian nightmare. Of the meanings of utopia I have sketched out in my introduction to this article (a book, a political view and a thinking tool), the third one remains essential to preserve the freedom of inquiring imagination and its productivity, precisely those ‘Phantasies of Philosophers’ denounced by Thomas Smith in his Discourse of the Commonweal. For nuanced and engaging discussions concerning the place of irony and seriousness in More’s work, I refer to Giulia Sissa’s and Han van Ruler’s articles in this volume. 5 Mukherjee (2015). 6 Smith (1969: 13, 37).

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cantly. While More believed that greed needed to be extirpated as a sinful disposition, Smith considered it to be a source of ingenuity and industriousness. In the Discourse of the Commonweal, he explained how profitseeking and highly competitive individuals, interested in improving their material condition, could turn the relational activity that was necessarily involved in their economic transactions into long-lasting bonds of social cohesion, creating broader and more stable levels of communal and public life. In De Republica Anglorum, which Smith composed between 1562 and 1565 when he was in France as Queen Elizabeth’s ambassador, the ‘forme and manner of the governement of Englande’ rejected any foray into the territories of political utopianism, ‘in that sort as Plato made his common wealth, or Zenophon his kingdome of Persia, nor as Syr Thomas More his Utopia feigned common wealths, such as never was nor never shall be, vaine imaginations, Phantasies of Philosophers to occupie the time and to exercise their witties’.７ The idealistic and imaginary traits of Utopia, however, were not the only aspects that rendered More’s work unattractive to Smith. Because of all the positive associations that he attached to greed, economic growth and technological expansion, Smith rejected the forbidding and counterintuitive aspects that are typical of utopian solutions. Utopias and dystopias share the characteristic of being imagined places or states of affairs in which things are markedly different from ordinary experience and familiar expectations. Indeed, utopian and dystopian solutions are not simply related to each other: they can be seen as complementary. In a way, the dystopian setting, be that a condition which one wants to escape or a consequence deriving from an excess of rational planning, is already part of the utopian programme; some of the utopian arrangements, in turn, are so uncanny and remote from our expectations that they can be perceived as unnerving if not spooky. Readers of Plato’s Republic do not need Orwell or Popper to feel that perfection and excess of organization come with something inevitably ominous attached to them.

Thomas More Utopia (both More’s invention and the tradition created by it) can be seen as an attempt to rethink the cycle of life – its beginnings, steady state and inevitable decline – by imagining that cycle as eventually freed from the 7

Smith (1982: 144).

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inflexible rule of self-consuming appetite. Life here has primarily the meaning of livelihood, that is, the way in which human beings organize their existence by securing the basic necessities of life. Seen in this light, as part of the self-preservative nature of life, the economic aspect of the question is essential. Utopia is the sphere of human experience where individuals have finally managed to overcome self-interested and instrumental patterns of thinking and acting. Having reached a limit in their exploitative behaviour, human beings would be unable to survive, unless some radical change is introduced. Since its Platonic beginnings, utopia is a response to a situation of social and political disruption whose ultimate roots are of an economic nature, that is, a situation in which human behaviour is pathologically distorted by its acquisitive tendencies. A utopian plan is the attempt to prevent this situation from happening any longer in human history. We can sum up the tangle of conflicting motifs relating to life cycles, economic need and utopian betterment with a simple question: ‘What do you do when you are hungry and cannot eat?’ Here the example of hunger works as an unmediated and graphic representation of complete dispossession, when one has lost all means to survive. This is already true in Plato’s Republic. How we appease the primary instincts when the possibility of elementary survival is at risk was the question he asked in that dialogue. In More’s Utopia, hunger reawakens one of the most primordial fears, the fear of want (timor carendi) – the fear, that is, that one might no longer have what is needed to stay alive. In More’s opinion, however, it is not simply the perceived lack and absence of resources that trigger the contagious and corrupting fear; the distress has deeper motives, more complex and ignoble, for behind the cravings and the desire to possess there is the fear that other people may prevent us from acquiring and enjoying our possessions: pride (superbia), as the most negative among the fears of want, poisons the heart of human beings. The fact is that greed as an expression of our need to possess is so insecure and precarious that it has to be reinforced by the perception of other people’s misery and destitution: ‘Pride measures her prosperity not by what she has (non suis commodis) but by what others lack (ex alienis incommodis)’.８ This is the reason why for More the political and social situation of sixteenth-century England is so dire: the economic disaster is caused and fuelled in fact by more profound acquisitive drives, which liken humans to feral creatures unable to control their animal drives and which in the end derive from a sinful disposition 8

More (1995: 246-247; 1965: 242-243).

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ingrained in human beings. What then makes More’s diagnosis so frightening and despairing (and indeed so despairing that salvation can only lie in the realm of the imagination) is that greed is a form of self-destruction predicated on the destruction of others. More links the fear of want to hunger (esuries, fames, macies), for hunger is the physical and individual crystallization of want. Seen as an attempt to solve the problem of a generalized condition of dearth, Utopia is first and foremost about hunger. The reason is that every time we feel hungry, the tendency to self-preservation is given immediate expression as the most basic instinct. The sting of hunger makes us constantly aware of our deficient and needy nature. The vital impulse to survive is so deeply ingrained in all natural beings that – paradoxically – they are ready to face death when they are deprived of the elementary means of subsistence. Significantly, the bodily pleasures that are accepted by Utopians are the ones that relieve the vital functions from distress due to lack or excess of nourishment, ‘when bodily organs that have been weakened by natural heat are restored with food and drink’ or ‘when we eliminate some excess in the body’.９ Hunger also serves More to demonstrate the extent to which human life is exposed to the risk of death. He puzzles over how to reconcile the vital and natural desire to reach a stable condition of safety (vitae securitas) when fear of death (metus mortis) pervades all aspects of human experience. Through the words of the main character, Hythloday, More explains that food shortages have dramatic repercussions in society and that the high cost of living (annonae caritas) encourages theft and beggary.１０ Rather than being a moral vice, the desire to steal (latrocinandi libido) results from conditions of destitution and social exclusion caused by economic policies, political events and wars.１１ Hythloday’s opinions concerning the right punishment for theft are in fact a meditation over the limits of appetite. He argues that the contradiction between life and death imposed by the economic model of self-interested acquisitiveness goes deeper than the social contradiction between bare desire (cupiditas) and models of appetitive restraint (which is a solution based on hypocrisy, simulation and dissimulation).１２ Utopianism can then be seen as an attempt to find a lasting 9 More (1995: 173; 1965: 173). I agree with van Ruler’s argument that ‘for More the body primarily figured as the organic bearer of religious symbolism and spiritual meaning’. See this volume, p. 93. 10 More (1995: 64; 1965: 68). 11 More (1995: 86; 1965: 88-90). 12 More (1995: 68; 195: 72).

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remedy to uncontrollable urges to acquire and possess induced by forms of unbridled appetite; more specifically, by fear of want and by the desire to quash all possible competition coming from other individuals who are likewise frightened by the possibility of losing all their means of sustenance. By contrast, as Hythloday recounts, in Utopia ‘there is plenty of everything (omnium rerum abunde satis est)’ and there is no need to fear that ‘anyone will claim more than he needs’: For why would anyone be suspected of asking for more than is needed, when he knows there will never be any shortage (nihil sibi umquam defuturus)? Fear of want (timor carendi), no doubt, makes any living creature (omne animantium genus) greedy and rapacious (avidus ac rapax), and man, besides, develops these qualities out of sheer pride (superbia), which glories in getting ahead of others by a superfluous display of possessions (superflua rerum ostentatio).１３

More’s diagnosis as recounted by Hythloday is that behind any urge to accumulate goods there is a deeper fear of being left without the necessary resources to survive. Timor carendi is an animal reaction related to the instinct of self-preservation, which in human beings take on social traits (superbia, gloria, ostentatio) because it becomes conflated with the fear of not being valued and esteemed by fellow humans and, more deeply, by the fear that other people might take possession of one’s properties. Anxiety about lack of resources, unrecognition and above all competition are therefore expressions of want and insatiable appetite. Given these premises, unsatisfied hunger can lead to forms of conspicuous consumption. ‘Even the rich, I’m sure, understand this’, says Hythloday: ‘They must know that it’s better to have enough of what we really need (illa condicio nulla re necessaria carere) than an abundance of superfluities (multis abundare superfluis)’.１４ One may see overindulgence and starvation as different, indeed opposite phenomena, due to different sets of reasons, social in one case and economic in the other. For More, however, they are symptoms of the same ontological malaise, that is, our fear of losing the means of perpetuating our existence. As such, they are expressions of our fear of death. He regards conspicuous consumption (luxus) as 13 More (1995: 136-139; 138-139). At the end of Utopia, More describes superbia as a unique monster (una tantum belua), a plague from which all other plagues affecting humanity derive (omnium princeps parensque pestium), a serpent from hell (averni serpens) and a suckerfish (remora) that prevents human beings from choosing a better way of life (vitae via). See More (1995: 246-247; 1965: 244-245). 14 More (1995: 244-245; 1965: 242-243).

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a reaction induced by the horror at the tragically exposed and vulnerable character of life. The great majority of ordinary human actions are in fact unnatural reactions to a situation of discomfort which then become perverse habits (perversa consuetudo) and result in acts of distorted judgment (depravatum iudicium).１５ In discussing the Utopians’ rejection of hunting, for instance, Hythloday explains that to enjoy the sight of killing animals is the result of savage pleasure (effera voluptas) and a passion that, while causing pain to other living beings, does not feel any concern about it (crudelis affectus).１６ Inflicting pain on oneself and other people is the sign of a mind that is ‘cruel to itself as well as most ungrateful to nature’.１７ Likewise, Utopians do not practice animal sacrifices, for they do not think that ‘a merciful God, who gave life to all creatures that they might live (animantia), will be gratified with slaughter and bloodshed’.１８ Given More’s characterization of hunger as symptomatic of a shortcircuit between appetite (libido) and fear of want (timor carendi), it does not come as a surprise that in Utopia he dwells for quite some time on discussing health as the paragon of physical and emotional balance: Health itself, when not oppressed by pain, gives pleasure, without any external excitement at all. Even though it appeals less directly to the senses than the gross gratifications of eating and drinking (tumida illa edendi bibendique libido), many still consider this to be the greatest pleasure of all. Most of the Utopians regard it as the foundation and basis of all the pleasures, since by itself alone it can make life peaceful and desirable (placidam et optabilem vitae conditionem reddat), whereas without it there is no possibility of any other pleasure. Mere absence of pain, without positive health (sanitas), they regard as insensibility (stupor), not pleasure.１９

More considers health to be a real condition, of both the mind and the body (and not simply an absence of illness and pain), in which a feeling of genuine pleasure makes one aware of that particular level of mental and bodily autonomy that releases human beings from external needs and sensations of inadequacy. Unresponsive stupor is instead the response that would lead to habituation and in the end to relapsing into the inane 15 More (1995: 172; 1965: 172). 16 More (1995: 170; 1965: 170). 17 More (1995: 179; 1965: 179). 18 More (1995: 236-237; 1965: 234-235). 19 More (1995: 172-175; 1965: 172-175). On More’s views concerning pain and pleasure, see Sissa’s article in this volume.

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cycle of insatiable appetite. Health – bodily but especially mental – is therefore central to any utopian programme. It is certainly not by accident that More theorized its importance for the moral and political well-being of the community, for health is the remedy to states of physical and spiritual hunger: When we eat, they say, what happens is that health, which was starting to fade, takes food as its ally in the fight against hunger (esuries). While our health gains strength, the simple process of returning vigour gives us pleasure and refreshment. If our health feels delight in the struggle, will it not rejoice when the victory has been won? When at last it is happily restored to its original strength, which was its aim all through the conflict, will it at once become insensible and fail to recognise and embrace its own good? The idea that health cannot be felt (quod non sentiri sanitas) they consider far from the truth.２０

In a way, the very enjoyment of the otherwise elusive condition of health as a feeling of cognitive awareness, moral fulfilment and physical satisfaction is seen as the final outcome of utopia in all its forms. Far from being a mere absence of conflict and disorder, health is fruition of life in full mindfulness (bonae vitae conscientia).２１ Without health, life would be an ‘endless round of hunger, thirst and itching, followed by eating, drinking, scratching and rubbing’.２２ Utopia is therefore the ideal (and idealized) condition of life freed from the constraints of need, a situation in which the mind is free to pursue the task demanded by its nature without being threatened by the inevitable shortcomings and failures of the bodily life. Precisely because More’s health is a condition of awareness (conscientia), happiness consists in cultivating the soul and promoting its freedom: The chief aim of their [the Utopians’] constitution (reipublicae institutio) is that, as far as public needs permit, all citizen should be free to withdraw as much time as possible from the service of the body (servitium corporis) and devote themselves to the freedom and culture of the mind (animae libertas cultusque). For in that, they think, lies the happiness of life.２３

20 21 22 23

More (1995: 174-175; 1965: 174-175). More (1995: 174; 1965: 174). More (1995: 177; 1965: 177). More (1995: 134-135; 1965: 134-135).

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As health is a state of greater awareness and shared pleasures, personal and immediate gratification gives way to public advantage (commodum publicum), which causes more pleasure to the mind than any immediate and individual corporeal pleasure (plus voluptatis adfert animo quam fuisset illa corporis qua abstinuisti). On the contrary, individual and corporeal pleasures are a form of distorted and false satisfaction (adulterina voluptas; fucata voluptas; effera voluptas).２４ True pleasures are the pleasures of the mind, such as ‘knowledge (intellectus) and the delight (dulcedo) that arises from contemplating the truth (contemplatio veri), the gratification of looking back on a well-spent life (memoriae bene actae vitae) and the unquestioning hope of happiness to come (spes non dubia futuri boni)’.２５ Likewise, despite their fundamental attitude of religious tolerance, the Utopians condemn whoever believes that the soul is mortal, for this person ‘has degraded the sublimity of his own soul to the base of a beast’s wretched body’. The reason is that mortalism is yet another way to yield to anxieties about the vulnerable condition of life. To have no hope in human life can only exacerbate the fear of want and the compulsion for immediate gratification: Who can doubt that a man who has nothing to fear but the law, and no hope of life beyond the grave, will do anything he can to evade his country’s laws by craft or to break them by violence, in order to gratify his own personal greed (dum suae privatim cupiditati serviat)?２６

We would however be mistaken, if we thought that the happiness of the Utopians lies simply in asceticism and mortification. Of course, Utopians have their own philosophy and philosophers, with doctrinal elements that remind us of Platonic, Aristotelian, Stoic, Christian, indeed even Epicurean traditions. They define pleasure (voluptas) as the core of human happiness (vel tota vel potissima felicitatis humanae pars), provided that one does not sacrifice greater and healthier pleasures for smaller and harmful ones.２７ Hythloday extols the Utopians’ belief in the reasonableness of pleasure: ‘They think you would have to be actually crazy to pursue harsh and painful virtue (virtus aspera et difficilis), give up the pleasures of life, and suffer

24 25 26 27

More (1995: 166-170; 1965: 166-170). More (1995: 172; 1965: 172). More (1995: 224-225; 1965: 220-223). More (1995: 158; 1965: 160).

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pain (dolorem etiam sponte perpeti) from which you can expect no advantage’.２８ Individuals can therefore have a healthy disposition towards desires and pleasures only when a society and its laws maintain a balanced relationship with the natural conditions of life. People of Utopia strive to preserve the original bond they established with nature and the other beings (naturae societas). The lead of nature (ductus naturae) both encourages (commonet) and awakens (excitat) them to follow ‘a life as free of anxiety and as full of joy as possible’. In classic Stoic terms, Utopians define virtue as ‘living according to nature’; a joyful life (vita iucunda; vita hilaris), however, should remain the main goal of this life.２９ In those cases in which, owing to some incurable disease, pain becomes excruciating, they recommend euthanasia or persuade the patients who by outliving death (morti iam suae supervivit) has become a burden to themselves and society to starve themselves to death (inedia sponte vitam finiunt).３０ Although life and its preservation are central concerns in Utopia, individual desire to live cannot become so predominant that the health of the community is imperilled. The Utopians ‘don’t hold life so cheap that they throw it away recklessly, nor so dear that they grasp it greedily at the price of shame when duty bids them give it up’.３１ Once the healthy relationship between nature and virtue is therefore reestablished, the primal urges of desire, far from following the self-destructive drive of irrational greed, indicate the right direction to take (in appetendis fugiendique rebus).３２ Like a most provident parent, nature has placed everything that is necessary for life (such as air, water and earth) before everyone’s eyes (in propatulo), so that nobody would suffer from its scarcity.３３ When not overcome by the fear of want, human beings are taught by nature how to procure the basic means of sustenance (ars quaerendi victus), how to work in order to have a decent life (unde vivi possit) and how to regulate the distribution of goods (de parendis vitae commodis), which is the very source of legitimate pleasures (materia voluptatis).３４ Humans that 28 More (1995: 162-163; 1965: 162-163). On the subtle blend of Platonic, Aristotelian, Epicurean and Stoic tropes in More’s arguments, see Sissa’s article in this volume. 29 More (1995: 162-165; 1965: 162-165). Cf. More (1995: 164; 1965: 164): ‘Vitam ergo iucundam, inquiunt, id est voluptatem, tamquam operationum omnium finem, ipsa nobis natura praescribit, ex cuius praescripto vivere virtutem definiunt.’ 30 More (1995: 186; 1965: 186). 31 More (1995: 213; 1965: 211). 32 More (1995: 162; 1965: 162). 33 More (1995: 148; 1965: 150). 34 More (1995: 56, 76, 164; 1965: 60, 80, 164).

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have been delivered from the fear of want are also able to see to it that the greater number of people may enjoy a more pleasant life (hilarioris vitae mutuum subsidium) and may live in a political setting that guarantees them a secure existence (commode vivere and tutique ab iniuriis).３５ When the agony of insatiable appetites loosens its grip on the exposed and endangered life, happiness, virtue and pleasure can finally converge into a behaviour that is healthy as well as rational (secundum naturam vivere).３６ The Utopians define pleasure as ‘every state or movement of body or mind’ in which they find delight ‘according to the behests of nature (natura duce)’. For this reason they regard desire as an integral part of nature (appetitionem naturae non temere naturae addunt).３７ By reintegrating desire into the fabric of nature, Utopians have thus managed to reconcile the self-preservative tendencies of life with the selfacquisitive drives of individual appetites. The destructive character of uncurbed greed derives from its need to ease tension through immediate gratification. Resorting to cunning (which is always a form of narrow and instrumental thinking and the implementation, in fact, of further economic strategies), greed manages to preserve itself by elaborating short-term strategies meant to postpone death and prolong life for short periods of time. In More’s account, on the contrary, only forms of utopian planning and organization can stop the otherwise inherently destructive cycle resulting from greed (avaritia), fear of lacking the necessary means to survive (timor carendi) and death (mors). Replying to Cardinal Morton’s argument that death penalty alone can be a real deterrent against a situation of endemic theft, Hythloday demonstrates that inordinate cravings for possessions (improba cupiditas) are yet another manifestation of the desperate need to assuage the sense of emptiness and want, that is, to escape death. To appropriate goods belonging to other beings is a diffused behaviour among animals (animantia) and human beings, both rich and poor, which is caused by the urge to stay alive. Hythloday warns Morton that suppressing life with death, even when life has taken on destructive and antisocial traits, is a contradictory response and transforms the alleged remedy into a disease. Likewise, responding to economic crisis and social disruption with violence is subverting the very laws of nature. While it is not possible to suppress the overindulgent tendencies of life by resorting to death, they can, however, be gradually effaced from the 35 More (1995: 164, 90). 36 More (1995: 162; 1965: 162). 37 More (1995: 166; 1965: 166).

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ordinary patterns of human behaviour. This can only happen for More through the obliteration of material and social greed (avaritia and superbia). Thomas Smith, as we will see in the next section, rejected this solution as not only unrealistic, but above all harmful. There cannot be a healthy commonwealth, be that real or ideal, without the energy infused into its fabric by greed and competition.

Thomas Smith In More’s account, Utopia was a society that had finally come to terms with the problem of hunger, in both its biological aspects (esuries, fames) and spiritual connotations (luxus, superbia). Having overcome the fear of not being able to satisfy the violent demands of the appetites (and first among these appetites was hunger), the Utopians had established a peacefully communal intercourse with nature and other human beings. Nihil defit, ubique enim domi sunt: nothing is lacking for the Utopians, for they are at home everywhere.３８ Their victory over the need to fill a void, be this void material or moral, had reconciled them with reality. When Smith faced the question of hunger as a generalized state of ‘dearth’, he openly ruled out any solution of a utopian character, for hunger was not the problem, but the solution. Precisely because appetite was the very essence of animal and human nature, greed could not be eradicated, but needed to be channelled so as to put to good use that unique source of energy and activity. Of course, Smith did not deny the impact that hunger could have on society. In the dialogue Discourse of the Commonweal, the character playing the role of a learned ‘Doctor’ characterized hunger as ‘a bitter thing to bear’. The real bitterness about hunger, however, was that hungry people could become easily angry: ‘when they lack’, he said, they ‘murmur against them that have plenty and so stir these tumults’.３９ This is an important difference in More’s and Smith’s respective positions about hunger, seen as a condition that was both physical and social. Unlike More, Smith considered the self-acquisitive nature of man as a natural and positive trait: ‘every man naturally will follow that wherein he sees profit’.４０ This did not mean that Smith ignored the risks involved in an unlimited expansion of uncurbed greed. In the dialogue, the task of recon38 More (1995: 144-145; 1965: 146-147). 39 Smith (1969: 50, 89). 40 Smith (1969: 60).

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ciling the divisive effects of greed with the possible social uses of economic interest pertained to the Doctor, who suggested a providential justification of the appetitive nature of human beings. Trade, in this picture, was the force that united individuals, for it lured them out of their isolation and led them to share their different resources. No country, in his view, could be a single, self-sufficient market – ‘the market of all things as we list ourselves’: God has ordained that no country should have all commodities but that that one lacks, another brings forth, and that that one country lacks this year, another has plenty thereof commonly that same year, to the intent men may know that they have need one of another’s help and thereby love and society to grow amongst all men the more. But here we will do as though we had need of no other country in the earth but to live all of ourselves and as though we might make the market of all things as we list ourselves; for though God is bountiful unto us and sends us many great commodities, yet we could not live without the commodities of others.４１

Seen in this light, commerce was a natural expression of the sociable character of human beings. Or perhaps, to put it in better terms, human beings were social because they had to engage in commercial relations, exchanging goods to survive, and then exchanging knowledge and emotions (‘love and society’). Commerce could therefore become a powerful stimulus for humans to share the results of their inventiveness. To reinforce his point, the Doctor quoted an old Latin proverb, Honos alit artes, which he translated as ‘profit or advancement nourishes every faculty’. In translating honos (‘honour’, ‘repute’) as ‘profit’, he in turn translated profit into a means of social advancement, for the less people were ‘rewarded and esteemed’, the quicker human inventiveness and industriousness would diminish.４２ As we have seen in the previous section, More had regarded the human need to be recognized and praised as yet another manifestation of competitive (and therefore divisive) lust. Here Smith connected economic entrepreneurship with social repute and technological progress. When More published Utopia in 1516, Smith was three-years old. He went on studying at Cambridge and in 1540 became Regius Professor of civil law. Like More under Henry VIII, Smith held important political positions during the reigns of Edward VI and Elizabeth I. As already said, by 41 Smith (1969: 62). On Smith’s economic and political views, see Dewar (1964); Wood (1994); Wood (1997); Sack (2011). 42 Smith (1969: 58-59).

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1549 his Discourse of the Commonweal was completed in manuscript (enjoying quite a remarkable circulation), but the publication in print occurred only in 1581, four years after his death and without his name. Like More, Smith was a passionate reader of Plato’s philosophy. When in the dialogue the Doctor defended the importance of learning as a means of preserving the order and stability of a state, he appealed to Plato, ‘the divine philosopher’ and confirmed that ‘happy is that Commonweal where either the King is a philosopher or whereof a philosopher is the King’.４３ In contrast to More (and Plato), however, Smith considered greed to be the very engine of a prosperous and stable commonwealth. In his opinion, therefore, the king-philosopher had to have that level of political ingenuity that would deflect the individual appetites of the citizens towards the common interest of the country. It is interesting to note how, in analysing the pathology of want affecting society at the time, More and Smith shared a significant point, for they both thought that money was a decisive variable in their economic accounts of the situation, with the difference that, while for More money was the very reification of insatiable greed, for Smith it represented the foundation of a healthy commonwealth. In Utopia, money (pecunia) was described as a material expression of ontological hunger, so much so that for Hythloday, ‘at the very moment when money disappeared, so would fear, anxiety, worry, toil and sleepless nights’.４４ Utopians were amazed that gold, ‘a useless commodity in itself’, was everywhere held in such honour that man himself, ‘who for his own purposes conferred this value on it’, was considered ‘far less valuable than the gold’.４５ On the contrary, in the Discourse of the Commonweal, Smith assigned the cause of ‘dearth’ to the debasement of coinage that had started under Henry VIII. In Smith’s view, the importance of currency for a state’s well-being did not simply derive from its material aspects, although the value of the metal used for coinage remained relevant. The value of coinage depended on a unique combination of material qualities and symbolic references. When in the dialogue the Knight described ‘the coin’ as merely ‘a token to go from man to man’, the Doctor replied by giving all the many reasons why gold and silver were the best metals to be used as money:４６

43 44 45 46

Smith (1969: 29-30). More (1995: 244-245; 1965: 242-243). More (1995: 154-155; 1965: 156-157). Smith (1969: 69).

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Is not gold and silver the things that be most of that sort? I mean most of value, most light to be carried, longest able to abide the keeping, aptest to receive any form or mark, and most current in all places, and most easily received into many pieces without loss of the stuff. [...] And because gold and silver have all these commodities in them, they are chosen by a common assent of all the world, that is known to be of any civility, to be the instruments of exchange to measure all things by, most apt to be either carried far or kept in store, to receive for things whereof we have abundance, and to purchase by them again other things which we lack when and where we have most need.４７

As a distinctive blend of physical and social properties, gold and silver used as money provided an objective standard (‘to measure all things’) as well as a criterion for subjective judgment (‘common assent of all the world’). For Smith, the importance of money coined in good metal was particularly evident every time a king was involved in a war (and it was certainly not by accident that ‘coins and treasure’ were said to be nervi bellorum, the ‘sinews of wars’), because then military expenses could not be sustained by using a currency that had no credit abroad. In times of war, the link between economic transactions (buying and selling, borrowing and loaning), social cohesion (‘love and society’) and security from death (defence of a kingdom from its enemies) appeared in all its clarity. For all the positive attributes conferred to greed, therefore, Smith recognized the antagonistic implications of unrestrained appetite. In this respect, he did not have an optimistic view of human nature: ‘the iniquity of men is such as they cannot be long without war’; ４８ if men might live within themselves altogether without borrowing of any other thing outward, we might devise what coin we would; but since we must have need of other and they of us, we must frame our things not after our own fantasies but to follow the common market of all the world, and we may not set the price of things at our pleasure but follow the price of the universal market of the world.４９

Here the ‘universal market of the world’ was different from the ‘market of all things as we list ourselves’ that the Doctor had previously dismissed as an illusion:５０ the latter was an impossible ideal of economic self-sufficiency 47 48 49 50

Smith (1969: 72-73). Smith (1969: 83). Smith (1969: 86). Smith (1969: 62).

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in which everyone could fulfil their wishes; the former was the reality that prevented humans from both entertaining delusional representations of reality (‘fantasies’) and incurring in individualistic pursuits of economic gain. The real ‘price of things’ depended on the market that was ‘common’ to all those involved in exchanges and was guaranteed by money coined in gold and silver. Smith wrote these considerations during the time of the socalled Great Debasement (1542-1551), that is, when Henry VIII and Edward VI earned profits from reducing the value of gold or silver content in coinage.５１ Smith’s insistence on military power, however, bore clear echoes of More’s Utopia and Machiavelli’s Il principe. As an expression of economic power, warring ambitions and private ownership, money epitomized precisely all that More had rejected thirty years earlier in his dialogue. Having overcome the contradictions of possessive individualism, Utopia was a society where no one owned anything but everyone was rich (quum nemo quicquam habeat omnes tamen divites sunt)’.５２ The end of private property meant the end of money. Smith, by contrast, saw no point in rejecting the institution of private property, which, precisely because it embodied the spirit of individual greed, was economically more productive than any organization based on the collective ownership of a country’s resources. The Knight, who in the dialogue defended the reasons of the enclosures, insisted on the productive and social functions of private property. When something belonged to everyone, it ceased to attract personal interest: ‘That which is possessed of many in common is neglected of all’. Reversing the logic underlying Utopian communism, the Knight explained that, if everyone owned everything, nobody would be interested in becoming richer, that is, in improving their condition, and this would inevitably lead to the decline of public life. The central question asked by the Knight presupposed the legitimacy of the decision to aim for greater financial gain: if landlords ‘find more profit by pasture than by tillage’, ‘why should they not?’ ５３ The logic behind the Knight’s argument was inflexible when premised on the principles of economic avariciousness: ‘our own commodity should be always advanced as much as might be and these sheep profits is one of the greatest commodities we have. Therefore it ought to be advanced as high as may be’.５４ Unimpeded personal gain led by itself to the prosperity of the common51 52 53 54

Challis (1967); Gould (1970). More (1995: 240-241; 1965: 238-239). Smith (1969: 50-51). Smith (1969: 52).

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wealth, for the well-being of the whole could only derive from the wellbeing of each single part. The Knight envisaged a model of human sociability in which growth resulted from the agglomeration of countless individuals: Every man is a member of the Commonweal, and that that is profitable to one may be profitable to another if he would exercise the same feat. Therefore that that is profitable to one and so to another may be profitable to all and so to the whole Commonweal. As a great mass of treasure consists of many pence and one penny added to another and so to the third and fourth and so further makes up the great sum so does each man added to another make up the whole body of a Commonweal.５５

The terse syllogisms of the Knight were not rejected by the character who in the dialogue represented the voice of reason and learning, i.e., the Doctor; they were simply further qualified by adding a series of cautious provisos. The major problem with the free pursuit of individual profit was that, as already noted by Hythloday in Utopia, economic progress seemed to lead to ‘delicacy and tenderness’, that is, to conspicuous consumption and a decline in social mores.５６ As had already happened to More in his Utopia, Smith was confronted with the sharp contrasts created by the affluence of the few and the indigence of the many. ‘London only excepted’, a situation of generalized poverty was reigning ‘everywhere’.５７ But while in More’s case the contrast was just apparent, for both the rich few and the poor many suffered from the same illness (i.e., want and fear of want), for Smith the contrast between plenty and penury was an economic reality that was potentially full of damaging consequences. The contradictory compresence of abundance and indigence – the ‘dearth of all things though there be scarcity of nothing’ – was a recurring theme in the Discourse of the Commonweal – a contradiction exacerbated by the parallel increase in the cost of life produced by the rise of prices and the complementary decrease of wages.５８ For More the reason behind the generalized condition of dearth was ontological, irremediable avariciousness, and the remedy could only be uncompromising philosophical asceticism; for Smith avariciousness was the motor of 55 56 57 58

Smith (1969: 51). Smith (1969: 82-83). Smith (1969: 18). Smith (1969: 17, 37).

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economic progress (and therefore social cohesion and political stability), but it needed to be regulated in order to avoid anarchic and divisive outcomes. More considered appetite to be inherently insatiable, therefore sterile; Smith regarded it as a productive and transformative force. If More dismissed acquisitiveness as intrinsically competitive, therefore threatening other people’s acquisitions (see superbia), for Smith competition ensured that the bonds of community and humanity emerged out of individuals who were allowed to freely pursue their profit while being pressured by the free pursuit of profit of myriad other individuals. This view of economic greed was clearly optimistic. According to Neal Wood, Smith envisaged the political future of England as firmly based on a parliamentary monarchy that defended the interests of the landed classes (the king, the noblemen and the yeomen): ‘since most of the nation’s wealth is generated by the landed classes, and since they control Parliament, the English commonwealth is a self-governing state of the principal profit-seekers, responsible to them’.５９ This was a model of competitive activity in which all its constituent parts were constantly adjusting to each other in order to regulate their own economic interests and create a state that was understood as a ‘society of individuals’.６０

Conclusion Anuce Foës (1528-1595), one of the most important revivers of Hippocratic medicine during the sixteenth century, in explaining why he decided to entitle his dictionary of Hippocratic terms Hippocrates’s Economy, acknowledged a certain level of metaphorical ‘stretch’ (abusio) with respect to the original Greek word οἰκονομία, which denotes the administration of any family business (cura rerum domesticarum). A dictionary, Foës argued, was not simply a list a words, but also an interpretative system that organized these words according to their functions and cross-references; likewise, he continued, in the domain of household management (cura rei familiaris et res domesticae), one should not only consider food, ‘which pertains to the sphere of life necessities (victus)’, and ‘cloths, crockery, tools and furniture, which contribute to the embellishment of the house’, but also inquire how ‘the use, distribution and proper arrangement of all these elements serve to the basic needs of life (vitae necessitudo)’.６１ Econo59 Wood (1997: 36). 60 Wood (1997: 42). 61 Foës (1588: 4***v).

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my as household management was certainly intermediate between the individual and the public spheres, but, more importantly, it mediated between the levels of vital subsistence (victus) and more articulate kinds of economic relationships (necessitudo). From the very beginning, in his letter to Thomas Lupset (c. 1498-1530) prefixed to the 1517 edition of Utopia, Guillaume Budé (1468-1540), the French humanist and renowned legal scholar, pointed out how utopianism was a more or less humorous device set against a background of economic greed and legal shrewdness designed to justify the ruses of possessive individualism. With a playful tone, in the full spirit of Platonic and Morean irony, Budé recounted how, while reading Utopia, he had forgotten for a short time all the responsibilities concerning his household (res familiaris). After all, household management (oeconomia in Aristotelian terms) was the productive cell from which larger forms of social and political aggregation were supposed to emerge. And yet More’s Utopia, in Budé’s eyes, had shown him that the line between appropriation and stealing was fine indeed, and ingrained in the appetitive urges of the human beings: What nonsense, I thought, is all this bustle over maintaining a household (ars omnis industriaque oeconomica), this whole business of constantly accumulating more and more (omnis omnino cura census ampliatrix)! And yet this appetite, like a hidden parasite rooted in our flesh from birth, preys on the whole human race – there is no one who does not see and understand that fact. I might almost say we are bound to admit that this is the real end of legal training and the profession of the civil law: to make each man act with ingrained and calculated malice (tam livida quam accurata sollertia) towards the neighbour to whom he is linked by ties of citizenship and sometimes of blood. He is always grabbing something (abducat), taking it away (abstrahat), extorting it (abradat), suing for it (abiuret), squeezing it out (exprimat), breaking it loose (extundat), gouging it away (exsculpat), twisting it off (extorqueat), snatching it (excutiat), snitching it (excudat), filching it (subducat), pinching it (suffuretur), pilfering it (suppilet), pouncing on it (involet) – partly with the tacit complicity of the laws, partly with their direct sanction, he carries off what he wants and makes it his own.６２

Budé’s display of synonymic bravura concerning all possible ways to rob other people by force or cunning was meant to confirm More’s disconsolate views on human greed. To possess, and not to share, was already 62 Budé (1995: 9).

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lurking in the most elementary organizations of society. Inevitably, then, all established institutions and official organizations were in fact corporations that sanctioned and perpetuated this urge to accumulate indefinitely at the expense of other people and other similar organizations. And so the law ended up justifying the acquisitive nature of human beings. The new ‘high priests of justice and equity’ (antistites iustitiae aequitatisque), Budé continued, were not simply qualified ‘to say peremptorily what is just and good (de aequo bonoque)’; rather, they had ‘the authority and power to decide (a much greater matter) what each and every man should have, what he should not have, how much he can have and how long he can keep it; and all of this is accepted by a public opinion vitiated by illusions (alucinantis id utique sensus communis iudicio)’.６３ By endorsing the leitmotifs of Utopia, Budé described a circle of greed, deception and self-delusion. It was a situation in which the heaps of riches (acervi) amassed by Croesus and Midas were taken for the ultimate good (bonorum finis) and the peak of happiness (felicitatis cumulus). Like More, Budé retraced the root of this discussion in Plato’s Republic, for a very simple theorem based on a perverse interpretation of the law of nature (ius naturae) was behind these new ‘high priests of justice and equity’: those who were stronger (quo quisque plus polleat) possessed more goods (eo etiam plus habeat) and, having more goods, they were also seen as having more power (quo autem plus habeat, eo plus eminere inter cives debeat). Physical power was then translated into economic value, and economic value turned into political authority.６４ In fact, physical power was already a manifestation of acquisitive tendencies, and political authority was a defence of economic interests. Behind the humour and the jokes, Budé laid bare the economic foundations of civil society and political power. To this situation, he opposed the evangelical precepts of Christ (simplicitatis evangelicae praescriptum), who had redefined the meaning of property (possessionum conditor et moderator) and revived among his followers the ancient Pythagorean rule of mutual sharing and love (Pythagorica communio et charitas).６５ In the same way, the island of Utopia had managed to protect itself from the onslaughts of greed (avaritia et cupiditas) and unregulated competition (contentio vesana) through three divine laws (tria divina instituta) and three pillars of Utopian communitarianism (tria UTOPIANAE legis capita): equality among its citizens (bonorum malorumque 63 Budé (1995: 9-11). 64 Budé (1995: 10). 65 Budé (1995: 12).

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inter cives aequalitas), love for peace (pacis ac tranquillitatis amor) and contempt of riches (auri argentique contemptus). Avarice, the illness that at the moment was corrupting and ruining so many distinguished minds (tot mentes alioquin egregiae arduaeque), had long been healed by the Utopians, who instead were enjoying a new golden age (aureum saeculumque Saturnium).６６ In weaving together characteristic motifs from the traditions of Platonic-Pythagorean communism, Christian love and mythological harmony, Budé remained therefore loyal to the spirit of More’s utopianism. Like More, Budé argued that the germ that was corrupting the social fabric of individuals, communities and states was unrestrained appetite. From this point of view, it may be worthwhile to note the variety and accuracy of More’s lexicon of appetite (appetitus, appetitio) and its derivatives in Utopia: desire (cupido, cupiditas); lust (libido); covetousness (aviditas); greed (avaritia); freedom to behave as one wishes (licentia); excess (luxus); display of wealth (superflua rerum ostentatio); fear of want (timor carendi); relish in seeing animals being killed (spectandae necis libido); hunger (fames, esuries, tumida illa edendi bibendique libido); abstinence from food (inedia); famine (macies).６７ It is a lexicon that is closely related to the one denoting the domain of human livelihood: means of subsistence (annona, vitae commoda); life’s duties (vitae munia); way of life (vitae via, instituta vivendi).６８ Victus, for instance, may denote life, way of life and food, and is a word that recurs often in Utopia in these different meanings.６９ Above all, as already suggested at the beginning of this article, in his analysis of appetitive drives, More had made clear that want (inopia, egestas, penuria) had a double status, objective and subjective: it could mean an actual state of deprivation as well as a need to fill a perceived state of indigence. As such, while the diagnosis was of an economic kind (taking the adjective ‘economic’ in a broad sense, as emphasized in different senses 66 Budé (1995: 12-14). For a different analysis of the meaning of the Pythagorean maxim (‘all things are in common among friends’) in Utopia, see Sissa’s article in this volume. 67 These are the respective loci in Utopia: cupido, cupiditas (1995: 112, 224, 244; 1965: 112, 222, 240); libido (1995: 128, 144; 1965: 130, 146); avaritia, aviditas (1995: 196, 244; 1965: 196, 240); licentia (1999: 70; 1965: 74); luxus (1995: 128; 1965: 130); superflua rerum ostentatio (1995: 138; 1965: 138); timor carendi (1995: 136; 1965: 138); appetitio (1995: 166; 1965: 166); spectandae necis libido (1995: 170; 1965: 170); fames, esuries (1995: 174; 1965: 174); tumida illa edendi bibendique libido (1995: 172, 176; 1965: 172, 176); inedia (1995: 186; 1965: 186), macies (1995: 244; 1965: 242). 68 Again, these are the loci: annona (1995: 64, 112; 1965: 66, 114); vitae commoda (1995: 164; 1965: 164); vitae munia (1995: 186; 1965: 186); instituta vivendi (1995: 240; 1965: 236); vitae via (1995: 246; 1965: 244). 69 See More (1995: 204, 220, 240, 242, 244, 246; 1965: 202, 218, 238 (twice), 242, 244).

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and contexts by Foës and Budé), the solution could not be merely economic. An economic solution would simply perpetuate the imbalance of inopia, whether real or perceived. In a way, for More the perceived state of want (the subjective timor carendi) was more critical and dangerous than any actual economic ‘dearth’, for the self-acquisitive behaviour of his contemporaries, as displayed in new economic trends, was a response to a deeper sense of ontological emptiness and moral disorientation. This is where More’s and Smith’s solution to the epidemics of greed differ. In the Discourse of the Commonweal Smith had argued that greed, when duly channelled, was an agent of social cohesion, political stability and economic prosperity. Precisely because humans were constitutively lacking and wanting beings, they needed to exchange goods, knowledge and passions among each other. Through trading they became interested in other people and aware of the need to coexist in reasonably peaceful ways. Utopia, on the contrary, was a condition in which there was no longer any need to cope with want. It was a place that was home for everyone everywhere, where everything was familiar and in open view, fully transparent and abundant (omnium rerum copia). As a result, people did not have to engage in economic exchanges any longer (tota insula velut una familia est).７０ The household management (οἰκονομία) had thus become the model, but it was a household that, contrary to what Budé had suggested in an ironic fashion, was finally close for business. Utopia was a society without appetite, in which the tension of desire was at last relieved. The ‘market of all things as we list ourselves’, which Smith dismissed as logically impossible, economically counterproductive, morally escapist and theologically unacceptable, was instead the end result of Utopian economics. As everything was finally available, nothing was needed or desired any longer. An implausible fantasy in Smith’s eyes, Utopia was in fact the imaginative leverage that the mind needed to regain the lost freedom from the inexorable reality of greed.

Bibliography Budé, G. (1995) Letter to Thomas Lupset (31 July 1517), in: T. More, Utopia, ed. G.M. Logan, R.M. Adams and C.H. Miller. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 7-19. Challis, C.E. (1967) The Debasement of the Coinage, 1542-1551, The Economic History Review 20, pp. 441-466. 70 More (1995: 146; 1965: 148).

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Clay, C.G.A. (1984) Economic Expansion and Social Change: England, 1500-1700. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dewar, M. (1964) Sir Thomas Smith: A Tudor Intellectual in Office. London: Athlone Pres. Foës, A. (1588) Oeconomia Hippocratis alphabeti serie distincta. Frankfurt: Heirs of André Wechel. Garnsey, P. (2007) Thinking About Property. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gould, J.D. (1970) The Great Debasement: Currency and the Economy in Mid-Tudor England. Oxford: Clarendon. Jones, W.R.D. (1970) The Tudor Commonwealth, 1529-1559: A Study of the Impact of the Social and Economic Developments of Mid-Tudor England upon Contemporary Concepts of the Nature and Duties of the Commonwealth. London: Athlone Press. More, T. (1965) Utopia, ed. E. Surtz, S.J., and J.H. Hexter. The Complete Works of St. Thomas More 4. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. More, T. (1995) Utopia, ed. G.M. Logan, R.M. Adams and C.H. Miller. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mukherjee, A. (2015) Penury into Plenty: Dearth and the Making of Knowledge in Early Modern England. London: Routledge. Paden, R. (2002) Marx’s Critique of the Utopian Socialists, Utopian Studies 13, pp. 67-91. Park, J.W. (1971) The Utopian Economics of Sir Thomas More, The American Journal of Economics and Sociology 30, pp. 275-288. Sacks, D.H. (2011) Commonwealth Discourse and Economic Thought: The Morality of Exchange, in: S. Doran and N. Jones (eds), The Elizabethan World. London: Routledge, 389-410. Skinner, Q. (1987) Sir Thomas More’s Utopia and the Language of Renaissance Humanism, in: A. Pagden (ed.), The Language of Political Theory in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 123-157. Smith, T. (1969) A Discourse of the Commonweal of this Realm of England, ed. M. Dewar. Charlottesville: The University Press of Virginia. Smith, T. (1982) De Republica Anglorum, ed. M.Dewar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wood, N. (1994) Foundations of Political Economy: Some Early Tudor Views on State and Society. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Wood, N. (1997) Avarice and Civil Unity: The Contribution of Sir Thomas Smith, History of Political Thought 18, pp. 24-42. Wrightson, K. (2000), Earthly Necessities: Economic Lives in Early Modern Britain. New Haven: Yale University Press.

About the author Guido Giglioni teaches Renaissance Philosophy at the Warburg Institute, School of Advanced Study, University of London. His research deals with early modern ideas of life and imagination, and their relationships with both matter and knowledge. On these topics, he has published on such authors as Girolamo Cardano, Tommaso Campanella and Francis Bacon. This article has been previously published in Algemeen Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Wijsbegeerte 2016, Vol. 108, No. 3, with DOI: １０.５１１７/ANTW２０１６.３.GIGL.

Part ３ Philosophical criticism

Reflections on the utopian mind Arnold Burms

Abstract Utopianism aims at a global transformation in virtue of which both the external world and our own reality will develop in such ways as to be in greater harmony with our wishes. What utopianism does not take into account, however, is the existence of two important kinds of desire. In the first place, human beings have the need to react symbolically to what cannot be changed. In the second place, they also have a desire for recognition and for a significant life. With these desires, human beings have aims that go beyond morality’s protective ideals. Offering the example of transhumanism as a paradigm case of utopianism in our own days, the present article illustrates how utopianism ignores the fact that human beings indirectly desire that certain of their objects of desire remain beyond their control. Keywords: Non-utilitarian desires, symbolic restoration, morality, social recognition, transhumanism

Introduction Utopian thinkers dream of radically transforming reality and of adapting it in an optimal or maximal way to human needs and desires. In their hope to remove the impediments that hinder the realization of their ambitious project as much as possible, they focus not only on transforming the external world, but also on changing some aspects of human existence that may turn out to be recalcitrant to their utopian plans. It is an assumption of utopianism that happiness will be increased to the extent that human beings are less hindered in realizing their desires. This assumption will strike many people as a truism, but is nevertheless

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false. It is of course true that human beings hope to remove as much as possible the impediments that prevent them from doing what they want to do. It is, however, equally true that this is not the whole story and that they also have the need to perform actions that have no consequences, as well as paradoxically to maintain the recalcitrant forces that prevent them from reaching their goals. These are the two sorts of desire that do not fit into any utopian plan to transform reality. The first is probably best exemplified by the human need to honor the dead and to do something for people who no longer exist. A simple example of the second desire (which may also manifest itself in much more important ways) is the case of somebody who plays a competitive game. Here the desire to win is conspicuous and dominant, but it cannot exist independently of playing the game itself. Who plays a competitive game certainly hopes to win, but winning the game would become futile and pointless if victory was absolutely guaranteed and the risk of losing totally excluded. This small fact points towards a broader phenomenon: the fact that one cannot wish to win without indirectly accepting the risk of losing, is linked to the phenomenon that one cannot desire to be appreciated by others without indirectly desiring the risk of being rejected. The recognition one desires becomes pointless if one is able to manipulate the other into giving it. Paradoxically, one desires that one’s desire may be resisted. In what follows, I shall more closely examine each of these two kinds of desires that do not fit into any utopian framework.

The desire to respond to what cannot be changed: honoring the dead We are condemned to live in a world that was neither made by us nor for us. In spite of modern technology, we are still surrounded by incalculable forces that may at any moment put an end to our lives, or to the lives of those dear to us. Projects expressing our highest hopes and ambitions are fragile and can be brutally interrupted. We are not to be excessively preoccupied by these trivial but sad truths. Yet we also have the need to make sense of them and to measure in a way our own finitude to the infinite forces that lie beyond our control. While social anthropology offers a multitude of illustrations of this need, I shall only concentrate on two of them that are still very important in our time: honoring the dead and punishing criminals.

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Most people feel and believe that it is important to honor the dead,１ to take the last wishes of the deceased into account and to treat their remains with respect. Mourning is generally experienced as an obligation, as something one owes to those who have died. It should be obvious that these practices are not derived from any metaphysical hypotheses about souls continuing to exist and having an awareness of what happens to them after the death of the bodies they were associated with. Many people who are not in the least inclined to endorse such beliefs about a hereafter, nevertheless strongly feel that they have an obligation to respect the dead. Even more importantly, it is also true that the attitudes and practices related to respecting the dead were not derived from any rational justification. They were not introduced because it was thought that there were good reasons for doing so. We cannot offer any answer to the question why we should feel that we owe something to the dead, that is to say, for people who are not aware of the efforts we make for them. Even if it is given that we are obliged to do something for the dead, it is still inconceivable that a rational approach might be possible to the question what it is that the dead really need from us. In doing something for the dead we obey a demand that seems both futile and infinite. We find it difficult to understand that we might be seriously committed to doing something of which we know that it is utterly useless. This difficulty is the reason for us to deceive ourselves into believing that it is really for our own sake that we might do something for the dead. Thus, it is assumed that in honoring the dead we indulge in our own need to express ourselves and the grief we are in. The fact is, however, that while we mourn, it is the dead themselves who are in the center of our thoughts and feelings: we feel sorry for them and we hope, for instance, that they did not suffer too much before they died. In honoring the dead we are radically confronted with the nature of ourselves as beings who do not and cannot fully grasp why they do what they are most seriously committed to doing. Some of our deepest motivations are beyond our grasp and control. What is illustrated here is that we are totally incapable of seeing human nature as something to be managed, improved and changed into something that better corresponds to some rational ideal. I shall now move on to the second example, which I will deal with in somewhat greater detail: the phenomenon of blame and punishment.

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Scruton (2006, chapter 4) offers some important reflections on this theme.

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The desire to respond to what cannot be changed: punishing crime Limiting crime is one of the most important common goals of any society that wishes to protect its citizens. There is much controversy about how this goal is to be attained and whether punishment is the most efficacious instrument for reaching this result. What will, however, necessarily be left out in this kind of instrumental thinking, is the human need to take a position, or to reveal a certain attitude to what cannot be changed, namely to the crimes that were committed and to the wrongs that were done. The existing practice of punishment is characterized by a dual concern. On the one hand, it is obviously motivated by utilitarian or consequentialist considerations, in as far as punishment is seen as an instrument to protect society against crime. On the other hand, it is less obviously the expression of the need to make sense of the unchangeable past. Punishment is not merely instrumental, it is also a practice in line with the attitude of moral indignation, with the ascription of moral blame and the existence of feelings of guilt. Moral indignation is primarily a response to the harm done and only secondarily a response to the agent who has brought about the harm.２ According to a widespread but mistaken view, moral indignation and the blame it expresses are primarily motivated by an attitude towards the agent. It is assumed that when we express moral indignation, we judge the wrongdoer and consider what the wrongdoer has done as evidence of the sort of person he is. Within this perspective the blame the agent deserves is determined by his character (his central, relatively stable values and preferences) and not by what he has done. In fact, however, it is the other way around: moral blame is primarily motivated by a concern with what has happened and only derivatively with the wrongdoer. In elaborating and defending this position, I shall make use of a phenomenon that is perfectly familiar, but the relevance of which for an understanding of the notions of blame and punishment has not been fully recognized. I employ the term symbolic restoration to refer to this phenomenon. When we are affected by something that is particularly distressful, tragic or disastrous, it sometimes strikes us that everything goes on as usual, as if nothing had happened. It is then as if the reality that surrounds us, is shockingly indifferent to what deeply affects us. In such circumstances we may feel the need to go against this indifference and mark in 2

This view is defended by Duff (1996: 147-236).

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some way the importance of what has happened. We wish to express that while nature, reality, or fate is indifferent, we emphatically are not. This need for symbolic restoration explains why a minute of respectful silence should sometimes stop the daily routines, why the relatives of someone who died in an accident might put flowers on the spot where the accident occurred, or why there would be strong protests against the idea of transforming a former concentration camp into a supermarket. The phenomenon of symbolic restoration is familiar, but at the same time it seems quite marginal and is easily dismissed or neglected. Yet, although there is the inclination to ignore its importance, it is absolutely central to an understanding of moral indignation, blame and punishment. In spelling out my argument, I will describe a few examples of symbolic restoration which are strictly speaking not examples of punishment, but of something that has obviously the same structure and a similar meaning. A number of years ago, some inhabitants of the Walloon village Sars-laBuissière made a remarkable request: they demanded that the town council should order that the house in which some of a murderer’s victims had been held captive should be demolished. It was felt that the house had to disappear. The possibility that it would continue to exist and be inhabited again as if nothing had happened, was experienced as offensive and insulting to the victims of the crimes that had been committed there. Of course, inanimate objects cannot be punished or taken to be responsible for anything, but there is still much plausibility in the claim that the motivation for demolishing the house in Sars-la-Buissière is fundamentally akin to the motivation of punishing a murderer. A lorry driver who through no fault of his runs over a child, should not be blamed, punished or taken to be responsible. One does feel, however, that he should experience some sorrow or even remorse.３ Although what happened was not his fault, he was nevertheless in a special way closely involved in the accident. He should therefore not behave as if the accident had nothing to do with him. And if on the same evening he goes to a pub and cheerfully tells a joke, his conduct will be seen as offensive and morally wrong. This is because he is expected more than anyone else to engage in symbolic restoration and to affirm the dignity of the child he accidentally killed by showing at least some respectful restraint. Both examples point in the same direction. What motivates people to feel moral indignation or to express blame is primarily their reaction to the

3

See Williams (1981).

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harm done and not their attitude to the agent who brought about the harm. The attribution of moral responsibility is essentially one of the forms symbolic restoration can take.４ The practices of blame and punishment are expressions of what we are; they did not originate in the rational belief that it would be a useful or efficient measure to introduce them. Our analysis of the human desire to respond to what cannot be changed suggests that the utopian ideal of a perfect management of the self is illusionary because large domains of human desire are not accessible to us from an external viewpoint. And this means that we would not be able to explain some of our desires to somebody who might not have them. These desires do not strike us as foreign to ourselves, but they can only be grasped from within. The desire to blame and punish people is an expression of moral indignation, a deeply ingrained attitude. Such a desire is perfectly familiar and makes sense to us, but it is not accessible from an external viewpoint: we would never be able to explain why it would be good to have them if we did not have them.

The desire for recognition Human beings are dependent upon one another in two different ways. They need the co-operation of other human beings in their plans and projects and need others to refrain at least from preventing or hindering them. There is, however, also another form of dependence: people also wish to capture the attention of others and they want this attention for its own sake and not for the other beneficial effects that in some cases may result from it. This means that we are unable to answer the question why we are interested in recognition. The desire for recognition is like the desire to honor the dead or the desire to blame people for what they did wrong. We would be unable to explain the point of these desires to someone who might not already have them. There is one aspect of the desire for recognition that makes it particularly troublesome: the desire for recognition cannot be satisfied by someone who merely has the benevolent wish to satisfy it. This fact can be described by the following example. A friend of mine has some literary ambitions and wishes me to read a story of hers that she is particularly proud of. As a matter of fact, I happen to have a low view of the literary 4

The theory I have sketched here has some similarities with the view of Feinberg (1970: 95-118).

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quality of what she has written. Knowing that she would be deeply hurt if she knew my real opinion, and being very unwilling to hurt her feelings, I (perhaps unwisely but benevolently) pretend to admire her story. I know that this is what she wants to hear, but of course I also know that she would not at all be pleased by my benevolent desire to please her. And even if she never finds out the truth, one cannot really say that her desire for recognition is fulfilled. For the satisfaction of her desire is not merely dependent on what she subjectively feels, but also on a truth she might not be aware of. Our desire to be appreciated by others is intimately related to the selfesteem we have. If we seek recognition from others, we desire not simply that these others are pleasantly kind to us. That we take their judgments seriously means that we are not merely interested in their kindness, but also in the truth of what they think or seriously assert. We are interested in the recognition of others, because we believe that their judgments contain some truth. We do not merely hope that others think we are engaged in some significant activity, but also hope that these activities are really significant from a more objective point of view. We have self-esteem to the extent that we believe (often implicitly) that what we are doing is really worthwhile in some sense or another. And this seems to be the reason why in our desire for recognition we are not satisfied with friendly deceit or kind pretense. We want others to tell us what they really think because we hope that what they really think is true. What I have been discussing so far, is to be situated on the micro-level of interpersonal relations, but it has obvious consequences for collective arrangements. The roles people play and the positions they occupy may be more or less significant in the society they live in. They may be proud of being a mason or an architect, but also of being a parent. Family relations might be seen from the point of view of their instrumental adequacy, but they can also be seen as sources of meaning or genuine significance.５ Many women and men for instance believe that it is significant to have children of their own. Instead of viewing family relations exclusively in terms of functional arrangements which are more or less adequate, it might be better to see them as analogous to artistic styles. The transition from one style to another is brought about by many factors, also by conscious efforts of individual artists, for instance, but it is never inspired by the idea that the new 5 Scruton (2006: chapter 5) gives an illuminating account of the contrast between the participant viewpoint and the external, explanatory viewpoint of social science.

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style offers the better answer to the question what sort of art human beings really need. While art may produce a variety of effects, it has a fundamentally non-instrumental value. It is inconceivable that the development of a new artistic style should be supported by ideas about the desirable effects it would have. Analogously, since social roles and positions cannot be seen exclusively from the viewpoint of their functional adequacy, but are also to be considered as sources of significance, a strictly external approach to them is impossible. A utopian reformer would be unable to deal with them as if they were instruments for optimally coordinating individuals with one another. For in attempting to see social roles from such an external viewpoint, the reformer would lack any criterion for judging whether these roles have the significance people attribute to them. He would be unable to assert or to deny, for instance, that many women and men are right in thinking that having children of their own is highly significant and something to be proud of. For judging whether some role is really as significant as many people think it is, he will need a standpoint from within. If the utopian reformer refrained from judging the significance of social roles, he might at least attempt to bring about a better distribution of the self-esteem people derive from some roles or positions. We should have to imagine a society where power would be in the hands of a few and in which the utopian reformer would be part of a benevolent, reforming elite. However, what would be problematic with such an intervention, is that it would be based on deceit. There would be a gap between the motivations of the reforming elite and the motivations of the people for whom the reform would be meant. The powers that distribute self-esteem would be motivated by benevolence and as we have seen esteem (or selfesteem) given on the basis of benevolence is not real esteem. Utopianism has to be inimical to everything that makes it deeply incomplete and will have the tendency to neglect or deny its own limitations. But at the same time its advocates are sometimes indirectly aware of what it ignores. This induces them to make ambiguous attempts to incorporate what they would rather want to disregard. As I wish to show, utilitarianism and transhumanism are both characterized by this ambiguity.

Utilitarianism One of the inspirations behind utilitarianism is the idea of a purified morality, a morality free from superstitious taboos and traditions. A morality

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that is purified in this sense might appeal to the elementary moral impulse of generalized benevolence. From this perspective our primary aim would and should be to help and support each other. If utilitarianism had remained faithful to this original inspiration, it would have become a narrow but at least a sound morality, it would have been what morality really is: an ideal focused on the urgent but limited goal of protecting people against serious evils such as starving or suffering from extreme pain. Morality is overriding in that we always have to give priority to questions of human suffering over questions of human happiness. What this means already comes out in a non-moral context. If you suffer from some unbearable pain you feel the urgent need of getting rid of it; the pain silences thoughts about the significance of the activities you have been engaged in. Similarly, if someone else suffers badly, you have the moral obligation to offer the help that is needed; further thoughts are irrelevant and need at least for the time being to be removed to the background. Just as no need is more urgent than the need to be relieved from terrible suffering, so no command is more compelling and primary than the command to alleviate suffering.６ In its way of being primarily protective, morality is analogous to the parental attitude. The willingness to care for one’s children primarily expresses itself in the hope that they will be spared from serious evil, from severe illnesses, starvation, persecution, torture, early death. The idea that morality is primarily protective also explains two other features it has. It is progressive and limited. There can be cumulative progress in the protective efforts to diminish hunger or crime, whereas nothing similar can be attained in the efforts to render life more meaningful or fulfilling. We have simple criteria for determining whether criminality has decreased, but nothing similar is possible for finding out whether the desire people have for a meaningful life is better fulfilled or whether their desire for being appreciated finds greater satisfaction. It is not at all clear in what sense it could be said that the desire for recognition is really satisfied. Famous people are made unhappy if they are admired by the wrong people or if they encounter one intelligent critic who questions their achievement. And many people are to some extent concerned about the reputation they are going to have after they die. This hangs together with the fact that the negative, protective ideal is 6

See Kolnai (1956).

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also limited: being free from great evils is evidently not the highest good (summum bonum). People do not only wish to be helped by others, they also desire to be appreciated and to be engaged in significant activities. Utilitarians are not satisfied with the radical incompleteness of their doctrine. That is the reason why they represent utilitarianism as a positive theory, as a theory about fulfillment or happiness. At the same time they wish to maintain that utilitarianism has the advantages of a doctrine that promotes a protective (i.e. negative) ideaI and is therefore also progressive and cumulative. The combination advocated by the utilitarian is impossible. Talk about cumulative progress makes sense with respect to the desire to remove hunger or oppression. It makes no sense, however, with respect to being engaged in something significant and to leading a fulfilling life.

Transhumanism Transhumanism, probably the paradigm case of utopianism in our time, promotes drastic changes to be made to human nature and promises that thanks to new technologies it will be possible to dramatically improve our physical and mental capabilities. This movement or philosophy sees itself as the successor of Enlightenment Philosophy: it claims that its project is inspired by rationality, benevolence, egalitarianism and the suppression of the artificial boundaries (gender, race, origin) between human beings. It does not seem to have any doubts about the possibility that these moral ideals will survive the drastic changes in the direction of which – at least according to the transhumanist – we are moving. A fundamental ambiguity characterizes transhumanism. On the one hand it promotes changes which are in line with what we already desire: a better physical condition, extension of life, improvement of our memory and our intellectual powers. On the other hand it seems fascinated by the possibility of a more radical type of change: the transformation of ourselves into a different kind of being, into a posthuman reality.７ It is quite normal that the first aspect should be desirable to us, but it is mysterious that we should be attracted to the second. Why would we be fascinated by a drastic change in the human condition? Why should we look forward to changes we cannot really imagine and which are totally dissociated from our own reality, our own wishes and desires? It seems that the utopian thinker is the victim of a confused state that we might call 7

Bostrom (2005) enthusiastically welcomes this possibility.

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the ‘utopian contradiction’.The utopian desires to become something that has nothing to do with what he is. He would, for instance, like to have desires that are totally different from the desires he already has; thus desiring what he does not desire. The utopian contradiction is not merely a conceptual confusion that might be dissolved after it has been pointed out. It has to be admitted that the desire to become different from what one is, does not seem totally unintelligible. It is in line with the perfectly normal concern with selftranscendence. Human beings often feel the wish to transcend their own shortcomings and desires. By transforming themselves they hope to be able to face the judgment of others. I have said earlier that this willingness to be judged and appreciated by others is itself based on the assumption that the judgment of these others contains some truth. But this assumption creates the misleading impression that the judgment of others only matters to us because it constitutes one indispensable element on the basis of which we might arrive at the true picture of what we are. It is presupposed that it makes sense to think that such a picture exist. However, it is more correct to say that the truth we hope to know about our own significance consists in the endless variety of judgments others have about us. It is impossible that we might incorporate this great variety of judgments in the final balanced judgment we have about ourselves. It is equally impossible, however, that we might find rational criteria for assessing the importance of the potentially infinite multiplicity of divergent judgments others might have about us. We can neither incorporate nor ignore this multiplicity. It is often rightly said that the truth is transcendent with respect to any beliefs we may have. But now we have arrived at a radical version of that insight. Whatever significance we might have is intrinsically determined by the incompatible images others have of this significance and these images are radically transcendent with respect to our self-image. Wishing to avoid to face this disturbing truth, philosophers have constructed the idea of an Ideal Observer who would be able to know objectively the significance of each individual. The transhumanist goes one step further. He believes that the dependence of our own significance on contingent others will be replaced by a radical independence and that we will become self-creators, masters of our own significance. But when we have reached this full independence we will be totally different from what we are now: by excluding contingent alterity we will have become aliens to ourselves. Modern technology promises us an ever increasing control over exter-

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nal reality and lends some plausibility to the belief that we may once transcend many of the limitations inherent to human nature. In this way the utopian idea seems justified that both the external world and our own reality will always grow closer to becoming optimally adapted to our own wishes. The proponents of utopianism assume that nothing else could be reasonably desired. In this article I have concentrated on two kinds of desire that run counter to this assumption. In the first place, human beings have the real need to express symbolically the importance of their losses. This is obviously exemplified by their willingness to honor the dead and also (but perhaps less obviously) by the important but neglected aspect of symbolic restoration in the practice of blaming and punishing. In the second place, human beings want to be appreciated by others and desire that their lives should have significance. In our desire for recognition we directly desire to be appreciated by others, but we also indirectly desire the radical independence of the others by whom we want to be appreciated; we thus indirectly desire to risk that the direct object of our desire will be refused to us. The situation is even more complex with respect of our desire for a significant life. We desire that our life is really significant, but whether it has significance is determined by the biased, incompatible judgments of an indefinite number of individuals. The object of our desire transcends our control and indirectly this is also what we want.

Bibliography Bostrom, N. (2005) Transhumanist Values, Journal of Philosophical Research 30, pp. 3-14. Duff, R.A. (1996) Criminal Attempts. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Feinberg, J. (1970) Doing and Deserving. Essays in the Theory of Responsibility. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Kolnai, A. (1956) The Thematic Primacy of Moral Evil, The Philosophical Quarterly 6, pp. 27-42. Scruton, R. (2006) A Political Philosophy. Arguments for Conservatism. London: Continuum. Williams, B. (1981) Moral Luck: Philosophical Papers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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About the author Arnold Burms is emeritus professor of philosophy at the Institute of Philosophy, KU Leuven, where he taught ethics and epistemology. He has published mainly on personal identity, moral luck and problems in the philosophy of religion. This article has been previously published in Algemeen Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Wijsbegeerte 2016, Vol. 108, No. 3, with DOI: １０.５１１７/ANTW２０１６.３.BURM.

Utopianism in today’s health care Herman De Dijn

Les utopies apparaissent comme bien plus réalisables qu’on ne le croyait autrefois. Et nous nous trouvons actuellement devant une question bien autrement angoissante: Comment éviter leur réalisation définitive? […] Les utopies sont réalisables. La vie marche vers les utopies. Et peut-être un siècle nouveau commence-t-il, un siècle où les intellectuels et la classe cultivée rêveront aux moyens d’éviter les utopies et de retourner à une société non utopique moins “parfaite” et plus libre. (Nicolas Berdiaeff) 1

Abstract１ Utopias are much more prone to realization than people would have thought possible, according to Berdiaeff. In the twentieth century, we have witnessed realized totalitarian utopias (such as the ‘really existing socialism’ in East Germany). In the twenty-first century, late modern, capitalist society seems well under way towards the construction of another kind of realized utopianism. Recent developments in today’s health care system (changes in the very meaning of health and care, in medicine and nursing, and even in the ethics of care) all point in the same direction: the growing hold of the utopian mind (the expression is Kolnai’s) on crucial aspects of human life and society. Must we not agree with Berdiaeff that insight in the new ‘realized’ utopianism should induce us to dream ‘of a non-utopian society less “perfect”, but more free’?２ Keywords: utopianism, realized utopia, health care, political correctness, Kolnai

1 2

Epigraph at the beginning of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. This article is a reworked and expanded version of De Dijn (2015c).

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Helping and appreciating３ When we are suddenly confronted with someone else’s accident or illness, we know what we have to do. We should help the person in need by administering first aid and/or call an ambulance. Unless we do that we fail to take proper care of the other. In a society like ours, help for people in need or in an emergency is organized through special services; and sickness and accident are usually covered by health- and accident insurance agencies. Different kinds of technical and organizational elements are involved in helping patients to return as soon as possible to a healthy and active life. This is a domain in which we undoubtedly can speak of real progress, not only in the technical-medical, but also in the organizational sense. It is sufficient to envisage the situation of only a few decades ago to realize this. Today, health care also encompasses prevention, care for the chronically and mentally ill, as well as for more or less helpless elderly people. All these aspects properly belong to the domain of help and care. On the other hand we may also be confronted with different kinds of unfulfilled desire in others: longing for love or friendship, desire for recognition for who they are or for some performance or action. Everyone understands that there can be no obligation to fulfill these desires of the other, not even if the person concerned really suffers from his unfulfilled desires and finds his life meaningless. Ill people can not only suffer because of their illness, but also because they are terribly lonely, hopelessly in love with their physician, or desperate because of lack of recognition in their job. A decent society has no obligation to organize besides accident and health insurance a happiness insurance to secure people in their search for recognition and the happiness and meaningfulness resulting from it. And vice versa, no one has a right for this kind of need (desire) to be satisfied by others. The reason is simple: such an obligation or such an insurance, such a right is impossible because of the nature of what is looked for: love, friendship or recognition (and the happiness related to these). [I]t makes no sense to say that people have a right to be appreciated or that they ought to receive recognition merely because they need it and cannot be happy without it. Someone who suffers because he suspects that others find him boring, will not be satisfied with any charitable effort to listen to his stories

3 This section strongly relies on Burms (1990), “Helping and Appreciating”; see also Burms (2016).

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and laugh at his jokes. Though he badly craves attention, such kindness would only make him cringe with humiliation.４

The desire for recognition has an essentially indirect character. Any attempt for direct, unmediated recognition is doomed to fail: it cannot give us what we want, namely genuine recognition. The desire for direct recognition considers the goods through which we seek recognition as being merely means to obtain it. But striving for real recognition supposes that the object of striving is an end in itself, and not just a means. Therefore recognition ‘is only successful if both parties manage to ignore it [the desire] and if it does not play a direct role in the interaction’.５ If the other gives us recognition because we need it, it is a form of (misplaced or condescending) kindness, not recognition. The individual has to run the risk of rejection; the other has to ignore the craving and concentrate on that in which the individual ‘forgets’ his desire and through which he looks for recognition.６ In the domains of happiness and meaningfulness, the responsibility of a decent society ends with providing as much as possible equal chances for the strivings of individuals to find recognition and happiness through their relation to ends in themselves. The ‘means’ to obtain recognition are at the same time the goals which are looked for as ends in themselves, and which yield recognition only indirectly (if at all). The goods through which we seek recognition are internal goods, goods presupposing certain symbolic practices (such as friendship and other meaningful relations, or activities such as writing, sports, and the like).７ It is by engaging in these kinds of practice and of striving for the goods internal to them, that we look for recognition. In this sphere we cannot properly speak of progress. Progress is related to the incremental development of the means for a certain (external) goal. However, there is no measuring stick to compare internal goods or goals: they are incommensurable (without a common measure); accordingly, it makes no sense to speak about progress in this domain.８ The goals in the pursuit of which people find recognition are or can become substantially different, 4 Burms (1990: 70). 5 Burms (1990: 72). 6 About the intrinsic relation between the desire for recognition and the quest for meaning, see Burms (1990: 72-74). 7 I borrow the term ‘goods internal to a practice’ from MacIntyre (2007:187); for the precise meaning of the term ‘symbolic’ used here, see Burms (2011). 8 See Williams (1984); the incommensurability of the goods in themselves (internal goods) does not imply that one cannot be reasonably preferred above another.

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as happens in different cultures or through changes in time and circumstance. What may also happen is that the sphere of the internal goods or goals is affected by the spread of a pragmatic, manipulative mentality, making the pursuit of these goals more difficult or less rewarding. This is probably why we are presently confronted with the well-known paradox that, although we have never been as well off as today, people do not seem to have become the happier for it. Notwithstanding all gadgets, pills and recipes for happiness, very many individuals – especially young people, it seems – are unhappy (notwithstanding the fact that ‘they have everything you can dream of’); so unhappy sometimes that they cannot function properly in society.９ Even in a superbly organized society like ours, people cannot escape illness and accidents; fortunately, progress in dealing with these is obviously enormous. But the mal the vivre and the pain of nonrecognition produces suffering too; unfortunately, there is no mechanical, no direct solution for this problem. Our considerations on the difference between the spheres of helping and appreciating may seem undeniable. Yet they are hard to accept, especially in a society which gives the impression that for any difficulty, wherever it comes from, a solution can be found. This may be why certain changes occur in the health care sector (but not only there) that seem to deny the undeniable: the impossibility to master recognition and meaningfulness. These changes constitute part of a late modern form of utopianism.

Recent developments in the health care sector１０ The first phenomenon to draw attention to is the therapeutization of spheres which have nothing to do with illness or accident, such as happiness and unhappiness. A typical and often mentioned example is grief and mourning. Grief related to bereavement has always been considered as a normal and inevitable part of life, which has nothing to do with illness (except in extreme cases). Grief is a normal (and healthy) reaction to the loss of one’s lover, relative or friend. It is a misfortune which we encounter, not an accident or illness. Such loss leads to spontaneous emotional reactions; it also requires an appropriate form of mourning, appropriate (partly) in function of socio-cultural requirements. Quite recently, grief 9 See bestselling essays on this problem such as De Wachter (2012) and Verhaeghe (2012). 10 Examples and discussions mentioned here concern Flanders (Belgium) and the Netherlands; but similar tendencies are present in other so-called developed countries.

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and mourning have obtained the status of a medical-therapeutic affliction. According to the latest version of the widely consulted psychiatric manual DSM-5, grieving or mourning which lasts more than two weeks is (for the first time) considered as a kind of depression which should be treated.１１ Similar changes can be observed in now common reactions to major accidents and disasters, especially as they are portrayed in the media. Time and again, a lot of attention is paid not only to the more or less spectacular nature of the event, but also to the adequate (or inadequate) handling of psychological distress and the prevention of possible future traumas by an army of different medical and therapeutic experts. Even ordinary people interviewed in the media immediately start to talk about the therapeutic side of what happened to them or of what they witnessed. They often talk about their distress as a therapeutic problem which has been addressed adequately or inadequately, and which they have to attend to, preferably with the help of experts. On the page displaying obituaries in newspapers, we now find information explaining the (usually four) stadia of the mourning process. The impression one gets is that what counts in all this is not the loss of a loved one or simply of a human being, but what this can do to the psyche of the witness or the survivor. How to understand this process of therapeutization of behaviors that were considered normal before? Phenomena which belonged to luck and ill-fortune, to the sphere of meaning and recognition, are now reconsidered in such a way that they are seen as part of the sphere of care, something to be handled instrumentally and professionally. This seems to indicate that all spheres of life, even those where relations cannot be influenced directly or mechanically, are (re)considered as spheres of direct intervention. From now on, the health sector is responsible for the whole of life, not only for illness and accident, but also for health itself, and for happiness. Happiness is no longer the by-product of finding meaning and recognition; it is a subjective state which can and should be catered for in a direct way. A remarkable example of the revolutionary change just mentioned is what recently occurred in the Christian Health Insurance Fund (CM) in Flanders. The change was at least tacitly accepted by the supervising state agency. To the fundamental objectives of the CM belong no longer only illness and invalidity insurance; it has redefined itself as a global Health Fund which aims to provide its members with help in caring for all aspects and domains of human life. This total care not only encompasses care for 11 For criticism of this change, see the editorial ‘Living with Grief’ in The Lancet (18 February 2012).

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chronic diseases and prevention, it propagates a healthy lifestyle guaranteeing even happiness. In view of this new goal, the Health Fund has developed an instrument called the ‘CM happiness plan’. This will put your life ‘on the rails towards a happier life’. Members can freely obtain a to do-booklet, entitled Pluck your happiness (non-members have to pay for it). Members can freely consult (via email) a happiness coach who will ‘help you to increase your mental fitness and happiness using the happiness plan’ (see CM-website). One may think that this is a typical trick by a traditional organization trying to promote itself in secularized times, but there is undoubtedly much more to it. Previously inspired by a religion which through its care centers also cared for the body in need, the organization now seems to be inspired by the new ‘religion’ of happiness. Health is now the central task in life, and is interpreted in terms of actively developing an ‘authentic’ lifestyle.１２ It is not by mistake that health is here so intricately associated with happiness. Both notions are consciously given new meanings – meanings which are perfectly combined in the phrase quality of life. Health no longer means absence of illness or accident obstructing normal life and activity.１３ Health is now understood as a state which may continuously be enhanced, which requires constant awareness and intervention with the help of todo-books and health coaches. No one is ever really healthy; there is only a gradual difference between illness and health. New criteria of health are constantly invented (recently it was the improvement of sleep which was a topic of great concern in the media). Health, in this view, is threatened by external and internal disturbances such as grief, and we continually have to be on the alert for negative influences from the physical and relational milieu in which we live. Not only has the concept of health obtained a new meaning (an asymptotic continuum), the same goes for happiness. In the old way of seeing things, it was of course quite possible to be happy (one’s life being ‘in order’, having meaning, and being recognized as such) and be sick or disabled, or leading a rather poor and miserable life (this is still the case in so-called Third World countries). Of course, even in the old days health was considered part of a happy life, the more so since medicine was often powerless; but it was neither a strictly necessary, nor a sufficient condition. 12 See Gori and Del Volgo (2009), as well as Breeur (2015). 13 See the definition of health adopted by the World Health Organization (already since 1948 up to this day): ‘a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity’.

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In those days, happiness (Glück) was a matter of standing in certain appropriate relationships (to specific objects outside oneself) deemed ‘good in themselves’ (within one’s societal context). Now happiness is reduced to that which before was considered as its by-product, the happy feeling (happinez, as some call it today).１４ Once happiness and unhappiness are reduced to subjective feeling, having no intrinsic relationship to specific, appropriate objects, common sense creates a new paradigm: happiness becomes part of health, part of something which can be directly fabricated by the multiple instruments developed by the health industry.１５ The fusion of health and happiness has produced a new category, quality of life, the (new) highest goal in life. This notion has even been turned into a quasitechnical term, a QALY, providing an instrument ‘to assess the extent of the benefits gained from a variety of interventions in terms of health-related quality of life and survival for the patient’.１６ A second phenomenon worth our consideration in the health context, especially in nursing, is the stress on empowerment as the finality of care. Care should no longer be a paternalistic relationship between caretaker and patient (patiens). The patient has changed into an autonomous client, an agent, looking for whatever it is he/she is in need of on the care market. The caretaker’s primary objective is to help restore the client’s autonomy, to empower the client in such a way that he/she can take full control over his/her life again. The aim, again, is ‘to be the owner of one’s recovery’ as a client; care is precisely the expert succor in this process.１７ Admittedly, in the past too, care aimed at allowing people to resume their normal life as soon and as far as possible; but this happened under the ‘paternalistic’ supervision of health professionals, and everybody was very much aware of the inevitable limitations and vulnerability of their endeavors. Today, to resume normal life is understood as a question of self-management, of 14 From the movie Bagdad Café by Percy Adlon (1987): a German lady is abandoned by her husband somewhere in Texas, but succeeds in adapting herself and making a living in the local community; when asked by a friend if she is happy, she answers: ‘I am very happy, only I am not glücklich’. 15 Even leading to the idea that happiness can be measured individually and collectively (in the science of happiness); or to the conception of a World Book of Happiness (2010). 16 ‘A quality-adjusted life-year (QALY) takes into account both the quantity and quality of life generated by healthcare interventions. It is the arithmetic product of life expectancy and a measure of the quality of the remaining life-years’, quote from http://www.medicine.ox.ac.uk/ bandolier/painres/download/whatis/qaly.pdf (p.1); uploaded 13 November 2015. 17 See ‘Herstelondersteuning; van kans naar realiteit! Kansen voor mensen met een langdurige psychische kwetsbaarheid.’ Published by the Initiatiefgroep Herstelondersteuning, March 2011 (www.herstelondersteuning.nl).

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regaining full control over one’s life (with the aid bought from experts). Secondly, the notion of empowerment is extended to all forms of care, also those where this idea is at least at first sight hardly applicable. Severely handicapped patients and even people with dementia are pushed hard to develop as far as possible the ‘potentialities’ they are (still) supposed to have.１８ One can wonder how self-management could have become a strategy for people who lost all grip on their lives.１９ In any case, like the idea of self-determination, the notion of empowerment seems pretty problematic.２０ Can an individual really put himself in motion (again), can the will activate itself as some kind of causa sui? And if an individual can do this only via another’s will, is he not then under the power of another? No wonder that counter movements are emerging in nursing, going against the stress on self-management, and offering alternative ways of thinking and acting, such as the ‘presentie’-movement or ‘presence approach’.２１ Mental health discourse today is pervaded by expressions like ‘demand oriented care’, ‘care in function of self-recovery’, etc.２２ Constantly, words crop up like ‘preferences’, ‘capabilities’, ‘competences’: the buzz-words of the ideology of self-management.２３ Even in the care sector itself there is a growing awareness of the ambiguity and the ideological character of the policies advocated under the flag of these new notions.２４ With Mieke Grypdonck, professor of nursing science, one can wonder whether notions like self-management, self-control, question-oriented care, and the like, are not primarily expressions of fashion and myth. In any case, they should give rise to the critical questions Grypdonck formulates: Does the patient have control over how much control he wants? Is health becoming a lifelong duty? Is question-oriented care a real option for people living in misery or at the fringes of society? Is self-control not sometimes another word 18 I am aware that it may be in the advantage of certain patients to activate them in certain ways; but I am here addressing the general policy which favors as high a degree of activity as possible for its own sake (or perhaps better, for the sake of the obsessions of the healthy). 19 Baart and Grypdonk (2008). 20 See also Burms (2000) and De Dijn (2010). 21 Baart and Grypdonck (2008). 22 Baart and Grypdonck (2008). An example plucked from the internet: http://www.ggzcongres.be/media/docs/ggzcongres/2014/Keynote%20en%20uitgenodigd/ggzcongres2014_u01_deproostverkest.pdf (uploaded 8 May 2015). 23 For criticism of the notion of competences (in education), see Masschelein and Simons (2007), and Pattyn (2007). 24 See the report on the expert meeting at the initiative of the Tilburg Programmaraad on “Empowerment in dementia care: autonomy at which (any) price?”, in the booklet edited by Van Heck and Stoop (2009).

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for abandonment? Is self-management not primarily in the advantage of care-managers, and insurers?２５ Of course, a word like ‘empowerment’ is just another word, and it is quite possible for it to have an acceptable, not purely ideological meaning.２６ But words, especially new words, used in care, are not neutral, they are part of, or lead to attitudes and practices; the new words in fashion today are expressions of a broad, late modern (some say neo-liberal) mentality which has real effects. Another fundamental change in health care, completely in line with the expansion of the health care sector towards a health & happiness industry, is the ongoing revolution in medicine itself. Medicine is no longer just curative and preventive; there is now a whole new domain of predictive medicine leading to completely new issues, questions and problems.２７ In addition to this, medicine is now geared towards enhancement in several respects.２８ Medics have not only developed prenatal diagnosis and screening, making eugenic enhancement (at least in principle, if not already in some respects in reality) possible; they are also engaged in the enhancement of health, of physical and mental performances (in sports for example), in the inhibition of aging and the search for ‘eternal life’, and so on. The fundamental changes in the notion of care and the changes in the conception and practice of medicine are perfectly compatible, and reinforce one other. The more the bio-medical sciences have progressed, the more modern medical care has become a huge technical endeavor. The developments in medicine are more or less intricately related to changes in other domains such as biotechnology, artificial intelligence, robotics, nanotechnology, etc. All these developments are geared to some form of enhancement or even eugenics. No wonder medicine has become part and parcel of the late modern, all pervasive mentality aiming at mastery of life, and specifically of the life style individuals are in pursuit of on the ever expanding life style market. Of course, there remains an enormous contrast between the promises and expectations of a glorious future for mankind thanks to medicine, and the reality of concrete medical practice and its sometimes tragic failures and devastating side effects.２９ Nevertheless, the changes in the purposes of medicine are phenomenal and its capabilities of intervention in life even more so (if only for the happy few). No wonder they are so strongly applauded in transhumanist thinking 25 26 27 28 29

Grypdonck, unpublished pdf-presentation. Peeters (2008). Trappenburg (2000). De Dijn (2003: 130-135). See also Illich (1976).

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with its idea of the necessity or at least desirability of a transgression towards a post-human future.３０ Social and cultural changes contribute to and reinforce the developments in medicine. The aims of traditional ‘paternalistic’ medicine have been replaced by a completely new mentality. Medicine professes to be at the service of the wishes of the autonomous patient, i.e., client. Not only health care practitioners, but also health care institutions see it as their mission to provide according to the client’s wishes: the customer is king. A perfect example of this is the complete change of attitude in the medical profession as well as in health care institutions in Belgium with respect to euthanasia. From its inception in 1999, the first ‘purple’ coalition government of liberals and social democrats in Belgium wanted to change the law so as to allow doctors to perform euthanasia (under supposedly strict conditions) without running the risk of prosecution. The medical profession in general was far from being in favour of the new law. What nobody could or would have expected at the time, is that a decade or so later that same medical profession and even religiously affiliated care institutions no longer seem to have any serious problem with the law. This undoubtedly has to do with the prevailing popular opinion that euthanasia is some sort of right the individual has, even if there is no terminal illness involved. Even in cases where the individual considers his/her life as no longer worth living or as ‘complete’, doctors are supposed to (and many are willing to) perform euthanasia as part of normal care. Similar changes related to the blurring of the divide between illness and unhappiness discussed above, characterize present public opinion and practice. Changing sex or having children even if one is single or infertile are now considered as part of normal care, with reimbursement of medical costs by health insurance agencies.３１ Not surprisingly, health insurance reimbursing costs for plastic surgery are staggering: where and how to secure the boundary between cosmetic and medical practice in this domain? Insiders complain that in fact it now depends on the surgeon or the institution whether clients are reimbursed or not. And why would suffering related to being childless or to gender issues be more important than suffering related to aging or feeling inferior? Official decisions concerning 30 Philosophy, literature and movies have been quick to take up these ideas and developments. The internet swarms with talk about transhumanism, singularity, etc.; see also books like Hanif Kureishi, The Body (2002), Michel Houellebecq, La possibilité d’une île (2005) and movies like Gattaca by Andrew Nicol (1997) and The Sixth Day by Roger Spottiswoode (2000). 31 In May 30 2015, newspapers reported that in Argentina medical treatment for both interventions is guaranteed free of costs.

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reimbursement seem to depend more on the amount and strength of lobbying than on objective criteria and technical knowhow. In any case, once luck and happiness become the object of care, pressure on the care sector, and on health insurance, to give in to the demands of clients can only become bigger. In principle there is no limit to the demands and the costs. Recent research indicates that not the ageing of the population, but the pace of medical progress with its ever new techniques and drugs is the major factor responsible for rapidly increasing costs in the health sector.３２ Nevertheless, one should not underestimate the impact of changing mentalities and the intermingling of cultural and medical-technical developments, e.g., with respect to gender issues, plastic surgery, new forms of ‘disease’, etcetera.３３ In classical, paternalistic medicine, cure for illness and accident was intrinsically related to traditional ethics, predominant not only in religious but also in state institutions. Today traditional ethics is often seen as based on all sorts of taboo which have been or should be demolished (even though they were considered as ‘evident’ by practically everybody up to sixty or so years ago). The new all-encompassing medical ‘care’ is dispensed in neutral contexts which are highly technical and managerial, as well as highly competitive.３４ This does not mean that ethics is absent altogether; indeed in the last decades we have noticed a huge proliferation of ethical committees, as well as a multiplication of ethico-juridical rules and managerial regulations directed at the health sector. The ethics involved is a new, revisionist kind of ethics, a ‘narrow’ ethics as it is called in opposition to broad, traditional ethics. The prevailing sort of ethics in care is practically invariably a strongly principalist and procedural ethics, closely associated with new juridical developments (often coming from transnational sources). The law is no longer the expression of the mores and customs of a society, it is, just like the narrow ethics which it implements, governed by a few ‘rational’ principles, especially autonomy and noharm.３５ These new forms of ethics and law are perfectly suitable to the implementation of the wishes of clients with respect to ‘care’ and perfectly accommodate all sorts of new medico-technical developments.

32 33 34 35

Schokkaert (2013). Elliott (2004). De Dijn (2014b). See De Dijn (2016), as well as Schumacher and Meyer (2015).

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Utopianism in care? Utopian thinking is a typically modern phenomenon. It is characterized by a radical distrust of the past, of inherited customs and ethics, of traditional wisdom and reasonableness. It advocates a tabula rasa, the reorganization and even, if necessary, recreation of human life and community, on the basis of scientific, technical and managerial rationality. A typical representative of utopian thinking is the French Enlightment philosopher Marquis de Condorcet. The basis of his thinking is the belief in ‘la perfectibilité (indéfinie) de l’homme’. Whosoever does not share this belief, a belief in the possibility of the systematic elimination of insecurity and imperfection in this life or at least in the future, is the sworn enemy. A utopian mentality is usually associated with political totalitarianism leading to more or less harsh, or more or less subtle repression of its subjects, in combination with a strong belief in technocratic mastery of societal problems.３６ In this interpretation, utopian thinking is diametrically opposed to individual freedom, and to a democratic and pragmatic politics. However, one can wonder whether there is not a form of utopian thinking that is not totalitarian in this (older) sense, but which is perfectly embedded in liberal-democratic structures and thinking.３７ In view of our analysis of recent developments in the health sector, it seems justified to categorize these developments as betraying a kind of ‘soft’ utilitarianism: soft in opposition to the harsh, and often violent forms predominant in modern times almost up to the end of the twentieth century. Before developing this thesis, it is perhaps not unnecessary to stress that criticizing utopian thinking and action is not the same as criticizing the endeavor to develop new medicines, better techniques and therapies, better management and organization of care and care institutions. Helping people in need even presupposes the will to provide care in as efficient a way as possible, and, in function of this aim, to make progress where feasible and appropriate. In practice, it is always possible to go one step further, and to try and develop better care. Usually this attitude comes along with the awareness that perfection is not of this world, and that an activist attitude may produce undesirable, even detrimental effects (as in the case of parents being overanxious with respect to their children). Utopianism is something altogether different from the normal and pragmatic kind of striving for improvement. One of the most respected thinkers about 36 Achterhuis (1998). 37 Achterhuis (2010).

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the utopian mentality is the Hungarian philosopher Aurel Kolnai. In his view the utopian mind is typically characterized by the following features: the incapacity and/or unwillingness to accept imperfection and insecurity; the belief that there is a key or formula to eliminate imperfection; the supposition that specific models of perfection can be used in all domains; the equation between practical mastery and moral spirit, which comes down to the negation of evil.３８ It is not difficult to see fundamental characteristics of the utopian mentality at work in the late modern developments of the health sector we discussed. A first characteristic is the desire for complete control not only in the case of illness or accident, but also in the pursuit for (real) happiness and recognition, i. e., pursuits which are essentially indirect, and therefore cannot be fulfilled in a directly controlled way (see section 1). If a person who desires to be loved or recognized tries directly to control the love or recognition, by that very attempt he spoils in advance the success he hoped for. It is as with the desire to win in a competitive game: manipulating the cards, or cheating makes it impossible really to win the game. Of course some individuals cannot refrain from trying to take control, even though in this way they cannot really obtain what they want in line with the logic of playing the game. The utopian mind is obsessed with winning, and tries to eliminate the uncontrollability of the satisfaction of our deepest desires. The utopian mind teaches people to play the game in the way of the manipulator. The world of generalized care, of therapeutically organized happiness and therapeutically realized empowerment is a soft utopian world. In this world the amount of happy feelings may have increased, but real happiness (Glück) inevitably will have diminished. The word ‘happiness’ is now part of Newspeak, simply meaning ‘feeling good’. It is no accident that the health sector today is pervaded by Newspeak, not only giving new meanings to old words (like health, happiness, identity, patient), but continuously coining new words expressing the new ideology (empowerment, enhancement, life style, quality of life, etcetera). Newspeak is a phenomenon characteristic of politically correct thinking. In this kind of thinking real problems and real oppositions are avoided by a policing of expressions and/or the coining of new expressions (or new meanings to existing words); moral distinctions and judgments are avoided by adopting neutral or technical forms of expression.３９ As we have shown in the second section of this paper, these features can easily 38 Kolnai (1995); see also Burms (2016). 39 See De Dijn (2015a).

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be discovered in the new health care mentality, which is part of politically correct thinking and at the same time contributes to it. A second fundamental characteristic of the utopian mind is its incapacity to understand or recognize evil. This incapacity is the result of the pervasive desire of mastery with its implicit reduction of all goods to instruments for the fulfillment of human needs and desires. As a consequence, nothing can be a good in itself, to be desired for its own sake. This feature too is obviously present in the late modern world of generalized health cum happiness. As we discussed in the previous section, ethics or talk about the good is not completely absent from this world; but the prevailing ethics is a narrow, principalist ethics, almost invariably a consequentialist ethics.４０ It is an ethics providing the framework in which individuals can pursue whatever they subjectively see as the good: quality of life, or a minimax of as many happy and as few unhappy experiences as possible.４１ In an ethical framework of this kind, it is hard to conceive of evil in the ‘real’ sense: the kind of evil which is radically unacceptable, even though it may be the case that no-one’s feelings are hurt. Surprising as it may be, many people still understand this sort of evil, present for example in the desecration of dead bodies or graves, in the violation of children or unconscious victims, in the elimination of lives ‘without quality’, etcetera. But especially in the prevailing public mentality, evil is often explained away by reducing it to the obsessions of an old-fashioned taboo mentality, to the remnants of a primitive mentality with its purely emotional disgust. The combination of consequentialist ethics and medical techno-scientific practice weakens ethical sensibility or intuitions, and thereby leads to the incapacity to recognize real ethical problems.４２ Bodies and body parts, sexuality, fertility, human relations, life and death, all become controllable and marketable goods; in dealing with them one is hardly aware of their significance and mystery.４３ The infiltration of a utopian mentality in the health sector is further demonstrated by the fact that care has turned liquid or fluid.４４ Health care has become a medium that encompasses all human needs, desires, rela40 Schumacher and Meyer (2015). 41 More about the ideological character of the notion of quality of life in De Dijn (2014a). 42 Recent investigation of the prevailing ethical attitudes of nurses in end of life situations reveals that nurses engaged in care for terminal patients who ask for euthanasia, react in two different ways: either they obey the hospital regulations, or they are empathic towards the patient and his or her wishes: see Denier (2009). 43 De Dijn (2013). 44 De Dijn (2014b).

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tions. It has changed into a continuum of activities and techniques aiming at complete mastery of human life. As described in the second section of this paper, care is strongly intertwined with medicine, itself transformed into a generalized, technocratic health and happiness industry. Care institutions and medical personnel have changed into organizations and professionals catering for clients on the competitive care market. The individual patient has changed into the late modern figure of the autonomous, self-determining subject, pursuing whatever he sees as part of his life style and identity. As there are no limits to the desires of individuals, so there are no limits to the development of health (and happiness) instruments and markets. Nothing is sacred; there are no boundaries and no transgressions; everything can be turned into a commodity. Years ago, the Polish-British philosopher Leszek Kolakowski, quite familiar with communist totalitarianism, but also with soft utopianism, warned against the modern incomprehension vis-à-vis the sacred as revealed in taboos (for example, the sacredness of the human body): Culture, when it loses its sacred sense, loses all sense. With the disappearance of the sacred, which imposed limits to the perfection that could be attained by the profane, arises one of the most dangerous illusions of our civilization – the illusion that there are no limits to the changes that human life can undergo, that society is “in principle” an endlessly flexible thing, and that to deny this flexibility and this perfectibility is to deny man’s total autonomy and thus to deny man himself.４５

Here is what he says about taboos: When I try [...] to point out the most dangerous characteristic of modernity, I tend to sum up my fear in one phrase: the disappearance of taboos [...]. The taboo regarding respect for the bodies of the dead seems to be a candidate for extinction, and although the technique of transplanting organs has saved many lives and will doubtlessly save more, I find it difficult not to feel sympathy for people who anticipate with horror a world in which dead bodies will be no more than a store of spare parts for the living or raw material for industrial purposes; perhaps respect for the dead and for the living – and for life itself – are inseparable. Various traditional human bonds which make communal life possible [...] are not likely to survive without a taboo system, and it is perhaps better to believe in the validity of even apparently silly taboos than to let them 45 Kolakowski (1990: 72).

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all vanish. To the extent that rationality and rationalization threaten the very presence of taboos of our civilization, they corrode its ability to survive.４６

What is striking in Thomas More’s (but also in Aldous Huxley’s) Utopia is the absence of real time, with its vicissitudes, upheavals and human tragedies,４７ and with its relation to a concrete past and an unforeseeable future. The same absence seems present in late modern society with its obfuscation of the past, and its view of the future as either of no importance (‘Après nous le déluge’; ‘No Future’), or the result of endless technological breakthroughs in the service of Nietzsche’s last men or supermen.４８

Fighting windmills? Notions and insights expressing a soft utopian mentality today pervade common sense and common opinion. It is as if the Newspeak of terms like quality of life, happiness, empowerment, client, etc. has always been there. That the notion of happiness ever had another meaning, is not even realized anymore; when it turns up, people misread it for what it is not. Some time ago the former European president, Herman Van Rompuy, presented the World Book of Happiness４９ as a gift to the world leaders at one of their meetings. According to its editor, happiness is something which depends on the individual, something which is of your own making. Ministers, administrators, care organisations, professionals, clients – all seem unaware that they are under the influence of a peculiar ideology; sometimes they even find the Newspeak inspiring. Does it make any sense to go against the grain? Does it have any sense to distance oneself from the dominant discourse, even if this discourse is tainted by utopianism? Perhaps we should simply accommodate ourselves to the way people mourn today,５０ and in general to the way people think about illness, health and happiness? Anyway, the paternalism of old, with its patronizing mentality, bigotry, and abuse of power, is not something anybody is prepared to go back to? 46 Kolakowski (1990: 13). 47 Hiraux (2015). 48 See again the literary imagination of this kind of future in Michel Houellebecq’s La possibilité d’une île (Paris, Fayard, 2005), be it that transhuman technology is fused there with an esoteric religiosity. 49 Bormans (2011). 50 Aschenburg (2003).

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But even if there is no turning back, at least one can analyse – as we have tried to do – the utopian mentality and enjoy the pleasure of insight. One can also attempt to expose the contradictions present in this mentality, especially since these affect sensitive domains like care, education, and human relations. Any common mind set, utopian or not, ‘contradictory’ or not, has real, symbolic effects on individual and communal life. Via its notions and images the utopian mind produces attitudes, reactions and decisions that weaken ethical sensibility or intuitions. Even if our questioning and uncovering of illusions and contradictions does not immediately lead to the desired changes, it may have other effects. Cheaters know they are cheating and potentially destroying the game; this doesn’t necessarily mean they will not continue to cheat. But the fact they know they are cheating, somehow preserves the insight and the value of playing the game as it should be played. Just as cheaters know they are cheating, and therefore implicitly know and affirm the rules of the game, so may individuals – especially individuals operating within the present health system – become aware of the contradictions and illusions involved in the prevalent notions, attitudes and practices. This is in fact what one can observe at present.５１ Undoubtedly, many professionals in the health sector experience a profound malaise in the way they have to function, and try to do something about it.５２ We know that a realized utopian system (such as the ‘real or existing socialism’ in previous communist East Bloc countries) can take a while to expire, even though its slogans and bureaucracy betray its emptiness long before its collapse. In the same way individuals making use of the new generalized health care may come to realize its destructive effects vis-à-vis the taboos they care about, and come to grasp the unsustainability of the present ‘economy of desire’ in which nothing is sacred any more. Hope is the truly ‘utopian’ attitude. It is a virtue, a strength, which does not live of illusions, but of the conviction that, whatever the cost, the vulnerable must be protected – especially against evil which presents itself as good. ‘Hope springs eternal’, even if there is no end of the tunnel in sight; it longs for a new beginning, although it knows that even that, in turn, will be imperfect, and in need of redemption. As Péguy poetized, something really astonishing is la petite fille espérance.５３ He added that the possession of hope presupposes that one knows what happiness means; the kind of happiness which is some sort of grace. Happiness, as understood by the 51 See, again, Baert and Grypdonck (2008). 52 Desmet (2009); De Dijn (2015b). 53 Péguy (1916).

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soft, realized utopianism, can finally only lead to despair, or to the attempt to escape it.５４

Bibliography Achterhuis, H. (1998) De erfenis van de utopie. Amsterdam: Ambo. Achterhuis, H. (2010) De utopie van de vrije markt. Rotterdam: Lemniscaat. Aschenberg, K. (2003) The Mourner’s Dance: What We Do When People Die. New York: North Point Press. Baart A. and M. Grypdonck (2008) Presentie vraagt moed [interview], Tijdschrift voor verpleegkundigen 6, pp. 24-26. Bormans L. (ed.) (2011) World Book of Happiness. London: Marshall Cavendish. Breeur, R. (2015) Leven schaadt de gezondheid, Communio. Internationaal Katholiek Tijdschrift 40, pp. 357-366. Burms, A. (1990) Helping and Appreciating, in: S. Griffioen (ed.) What Right Does Ethics Have? Public Philosophy in a Pluralistic Culture. Amsterdam: VU Press, pp. 67-77. Burms, A. (2000) Autonomie: het ideaal van een narcistische cultuur, in: R. Breeur and A. Burms, Ik / Zelf. Essays over identiteit en zelfbewustzijn. Leuven: Peeters, pp. 17-31. Burms, A. (2011) Natuur en symbool, in: A. Burms and H. De Dijn, De sacraliteit van leven en dood. Voor een brede bio-ethiek. Kalmthout and Zoetermeer: Pelckmans & Klement, pp. 15-29. Burms, A. (2016) Reflections on the Utopian Mind (chapter in this volume). De Dijn, H. (2003) De biomedische technologie en de kritische functie van de filosofie, Streven. Cultureel en maatschappelijk maandblad 70, pp. 33-47. De Dijn, H. (2010) Autonomie en zelfbeschikkingsrecht, Streven. Cultureel en maatschappelijk maandblad 77, pp. 205-215. De Dijn, H. (2013) On the Sacred Character of Human Life and Death, in: Y. Denier, Ch. Gastmans and T. Vandevelde (eds) Justice, Luck and Responsibility in Health Care, Philosophical Background and Ethical Implications for End-of-Life Care. Dordrecht: Springer, pp. 205-213. De Dijn, H. (2014a) Twee visies op menswaardig leven en sterven, in: T. Boer, et al. (eds) Biopolitiek. Over de beheersing van leven en dood / Christendemocratische verkenningen lente 2014, pp. 59-66. De Dijn, H. (2014b) Vloeibare waarden. Politiek, zorg en onderwijs in de laatmoderne tijd. Kalmthout and Zoetermeer: Pelckmans & Klement. De Dijn, H. (2015a) Politieke correctheid, Communio. Internationaal Katholiek Tijdschrift 40, pp. 322-332. De Dijn, H. (2015b) Professors or Professionals?, Contemporary Readings in Law and Social Justice 7, pp. 40-45. De Dijn, H. (2015c) Soft utopisme in de zorgsector, Streven. Cultureel en maatschappelijk maandblad 82, pp. 881-895. De Dijn, H. (2016) Revisionist versus Broad Bioethics and Biolaw, in: B. van Klink, B. van Beers and L. Poort (eds) Symbolic Legislation Theory and Developments in Biolaw. Switzerland: Springer, 2016. Denier, Y. (2009) Involvement of Nurses in the Euthanasia Care Process in Flanders (Belgium). An Exploration of Two Perspectives, Journal of Palliative Care 25, pp. 264-274.

54 See the ending of the novel by Michel Houellebecq, La possibilité d’une île.

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Desmet, M. (2009) Liefde voor het werk in tijden van management. Open brief aan de ziekenhuisdirectie. Tielt: Lannoo. De Wachter, D. (2012) Borderline Times: Het einde van de normaliteit. Leuven: Lannoo. Editorial (2012), Living with Grief, The Lancet 379, No. 9861, 18 February 2012, p. 589. Elliott, C. (2004) Better Than Well: American Medicine Meets the American Dream. New York: Norton. Gori R. and M.-J. Del Volgo (2009) La santé totalitaire. Essai sur la médicalisation de l’existence. Paris: Champs Essais. Grypdonck, M. (s.d.) Over zelfmanagement, eigen regie, vraaggestuurde zorg en andere modes en mythes (pdf-presentatie op: zorgbrug.nl). Hiraux, F. (2015) Faut-il avoir peur de l’utopie?, in : P.-A. Deproost, et al. (eds), Chemins d’utopie. Thomas More à Louvain, 1516-2016. Louvain-la-Neuve : Presses Universitaires de Louvain. Illich, Y. (1976) Medical Nemesis: The Expropriation of Health. New York: Random House. Kolakowski, L. (1990) Modernity on Endless Trial. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press. Kolnai, A. (1995) The Utopian Mind and Other Papers. A Critical Study in Moral and Political Philosophy, ed. F. Dunlop. London: Athlone Press. Masschelein J. and M. Simons (2007) Competentiegericht onderwijs als strategische doelstelling. Enkele kritische bedenkingen, Ethische Perspectieven 17, pp. 398- 421. MacIntyre, A. (2007) After Virtue. A Study in Moral Theory. Notre Dame (Ind.): University of Notre Dame Press, 3rd edition. Pattyn, B. (2007) Competenties en ideologie. Het dictaat van een expanderend concept, Ethische Perspectieven 17, pp. 422-435. Peeters, J. (2008) Empowerment. Een antwoord op het pleidooi voor verantwoordelijkheid, in: P. Van Bortel (ed.) Bedrogen door de elite? Kritische beschouwingen bij Theodore Dalrymples cultuuranalyse. Kapellen & Kampen: Pelckmans & Klement. Péguy, Ch. (1916) Le porche du mystère de la troisième vertu, Nouvelle Revue Française, pp. 270 & 276. Schokkaert, E. (2013) Waarom de gezondheidszorg duurder wordt, Karakter: Tijdschrift voor wetenschap 44, pp. 21-24. Schumacher N. and P.-Y. Meyer (2015) Démence, autonomie décisionnelle et autonomie du Soi, Acta Medica Catholica 84, pp. 307-313. Trappenburg, M. (2000) Autonomie en voorspellende geneeskunde, Tijdschrift voor geneeskunde en ethiek 10, pp. 71-76. Van Heck, G. & H. Stoop (ed.) (2009) Vergeet mij niet! Uitgave van de Programmaraad Zorgvernieuwing Psychotherapie, september 2009. Verhaeghe, P. (2012) Identiteit. Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij. Williams, B. (1984) The Scientific and the Ethical, Royal Institute of Philosophy Lecture Series 17, pp. 209-228.

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About the author Herman De Dijn is emeritus professor in Modern Philosophy and its History at the Institute of Philosophy, KU Leuven. He is a member of the Royal Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts. Recent books (2014) by Herman De Dijn include: Vloeibare waarden. Politiek, zorg en onderwijs in de laatmoderne tijd (Kalmthout & Zoetermeer: Pelckmans & Klement) and Hoe overleven we de vrijheid? Twintig jaar later (Kalmthout: Pelckmans). This article has been previously published in Algemeen Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Wijsbegeerte 2016, Vol. 108, No. 3, with DOI: １０.５１１７/ANTW２０１６.３.DIJN.

Part ４ Philosophical acclaim

Utopianism and its discontents A conceptual history Julien Kloeg

Abstract Utopianism is often rejected out of hand for one of two reasons: either it is thought to be politically dangerous, or it is thought to be a mere fantasy. It is nevertheless an important theme in contemporary political philosophy. This article reviews part of the political-philosophical career of ‘utopia’ as a concept by considering the different traditions that have been influential in shaping the way utopia and utopianism are perceived today. A brief reading of Thomas More’s Utopia is followed by a consideration of the utopian socialist tradition and Karl Marx’s criticism of it. The Marxist understanding of utopia continued into the twentieth century. Utopianism’s bad reputation is partly due to its association with the attempt to realize communism in the Soviet Union, but other factors include the Eastonian empirical turn in political theory and the onset of postmodern incredulity. It made a perhaps surprising comeback in the work of John Rawls, whose work was recently criticized by Amartya Sen for being overly ‘utopian’ – a criticism that is highly analogous to Marx’s onslaught against the utopian socialists. With the help of counterarguments devised by Pablo Gilabert, the article considers three ways in which utopianism can be useful to contemporary political thought. Keywords: utopianism, Thomas More, utopian socialism, distributive justice and utopia

Introduction Every concept is controversial in academic philosophy, but some are more equal than others in this respect. Utopia and its twins ‘utopian’ and ‘utopianism’ have long been regarded with great suspicion. Leszek Kolakowski

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once said that the trouble with utopias is not that designing one is too hard, but rather that it is too easy. We can certainly sympathize with such worries. In the name of furthering the ideal society, many evils can appear permissible. The phrase ‘for the greater good’ looms large over any utopian project, and its promise to those who choose to wield it cynically is that any concern can be subordinated under the great project as the ‘cunning of reason’. The truly awful is transformed into the only apparently awful, providing a readymade justification for the breaching of any previously inviolable moral value. Kolakowski was a citizen and critic of a society on its way to communism. Like him, we Westerners have learned to distrust the grand theoretical designs that informed and justified what passed for communism, and the reputation of utopianism seems to have been severely damaged in the process. Pointing out that utopianism started not with Stalin, but with Thomas More seems to solve one problem by raising another. Surely utopianism in that sense is a self-indulgent surrender to fantasy, an act of political escapism, or at the very least unscientific. It may seem surprising, then, that utopianism is still an important theme in today’s political philosophy (if sometimes implicitly so), even in a domain that appears to be far removed from the historical connotations the term mostly carries for us. After all, what does More’s Utopia have to do with the distributive justice paradigm? In this article, I want to consider part of the political-philosophical career of ‘utopia’ as a concept by considering the continuities and discontinuities between the different traditions that have been influential in shaping the way utopia and utopianism are perceived today. I start at the beginning, with Thomas More’s original work. I briefly propose a reading that is inspired by Frederic Jameson. The goal of that section is not to give a full overview of More’s contribution to political philosophy, but rather to help us understand the ambiguity involved in Utopia, and hence in the concept of utopia itself. The utopian socialist tradition – as it was called by Marx and Engels – and Marx’s work itself both embody this ambiguity by ostensibly rejecting utopianism, but contributing to its development all the same. The Revolution of 1917 saw itself as humanity’s hope and the realization of Marxist doctrine, but its heirs inspired a suspicion against both Marxism and utopianism as such. Add to this guilt by association the onset of the postmodern condition, with its characteristic incredulity of grand narratives, as well as the Eastonian empirical turn in political theory, and it seems that there is no way back for utopianism. However, as hinted at above, utopianism lives on, even in places where we would perhaps not

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expect to find it. The later work of John Rawls attempts to design a realistic utopia, and arguably his earlier work on justice is steeped in the same kind of thinking. This is certainly the upshot of Amartya Sen’s criticism of Rawls, which is highly analogous to Marx’s criticism of the utopian socialists. Sen rejects ‘transcendental’ in favour of ‘comparative’ theories of justice. Whether that rejection was successful remains controversial, and I will use arguments based on Pablo Gilabert’s rebuttal of Sen in an attempt to show the continued relevance of utopian thought at the contemporary state of the old debates surrounding utopianism – debates that have their origin in More himself.

First steps: A reading of More’s Utopia The concept of utopia was coined by Thomas More, who chose it as the name of a fictional island, home to a novel kind of political community. The name suggests both eu-topia (good place) and ou-topia (not a place). The narrator, a character More calls Raphael Hythloday, recounts of the wondrous things he found on the island. The Utopians lead a peaceful and fulfilling existence in the absence of private property and familial ties. They are required to change house every so often, even though the houses are generally the same. Societal organization as a whole seems to be focused on maintaining a kind of equilibrium between all inhabitants of the island, so that no one is arbitrarily favoured over someone else by any part of the political system. The narrator sums it up as follows: Thus have I described to you, as particularly as I could, the Constitution of that commonwealth, which I do not only think the best in the world, but indeed the only commonwealth that truly deserves that name. In all other places it is visible that, while people talk of a commonwealth, every man only seeks his own wealth; but there, where no man has any property, all men zealously pursue the good of the public [...]; in Utopia, where every man has a right to everything, they all know that if care is taken to keep the public stores full no private man can want anything; for among them there is no unequal distribution, so that no man is poor, none in necessity, and though no man has anything, yet they are all rich; for what can make a man so rich as to lead a serene and cheerful life, free from anxieties.１

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More (2002: 103; 1965: 237-239).

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To a modern reader, this description of Utopia is likely to carry a conflicted pair of connotations. On the one hand, there are similarities to the modern welfare state; on the other hand, it is also easy to be reminded of totalitarian regimes, because of the repressive methods by which this welfare is guaranteed.２ Of course, Utopia is in this manner the outcome of More’s thought on a difficult problem: how to successfully ‘[tear] up the seeds of ambition and faction (...), along with most other vices (...)’ in the context of a functional political community. The Utopian solution is a commonwealth founded on a common ‘plan of living’.３ While modern readers would presumably agree that a commonwealth built on vice should be avoided, it is equally clear that the utopian alternative comes close to the opposite extreme. One is left to question how much of Utopia More would like to be realized. For example, consider the following passage: Anyone who is eager to stroll about his own district will not be prevented, provided he first obtains his father’s permission and his spouse’s consent. But wherever he goes in the countryside, he gets no food until he has completed either a morning’s or an afternoon’s stint of work.４

Utopia is ambiguous in other ways as well. There is no straightforward narrative, and a number of complications have to be confronted when reading the text. For instance, there is considerable uncertainty as to the genre and the continuity between the two Books of which Utopia is comprised. The narrator, who is called Raphael Hythloday or ‘Raphael the nonsense-peddler’, does not seem to be intended as a credible source. Yet he is the one who relays what appears to be the ‘utopian’ part of the book, namely Book Two. We are faced with a choice. Either we take Hythloday seriously or we do not; either Utopia is primarily a satire or it is primarily a travel narrative. Our decision will strongly influence the way we interpret More’s intentions. The fact that More gives himself a voice in his own work does little to solve this problem. In fact, it only makes it more apparent. In the closing part of Book Two, the character More expresses his disagreement with some of the institutions that Hythloday has just finished describing with great enthusiasm. Utopia’s final sentence is perhaps the crescendo of its ambiguity: ‘(...) while I can hardly agree with everything he said (though 2 3 4

Logan (2002: xii). More (2002: 107; 1965: 245). More (2002: 59; 1965: 147).

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he is a man of unquestionable learning and enormous experience of human affairs), yet I freely confess that in the Utopian commonwealth there are very many features that in our own societies I would wish rather than expect to see’.５ It seems that there are always two perspectives in play. This problem of perspective is complicated further by More’s friend Desiderius Erasmus, himself no stranger to enigmatic books, who writes in a letter that Book Two was written ‘earlier, when at leisure; at a later opportunity [More] added the first in the heat of the moment’.６ Frederic Jameson suggests turning this problem of the priority of the Books, and hence of genre and the appropriate interpretative frame, into a meta-level solution: the fact that Utopia as a whole is comprised of these two parts leads him to believe that what describes the utopian impulse dynamically and dialectically emerges from the interplay between both Books.７ Likewise, the political message of the utopian imaginary should be understood as lying ‘in between’ Utopia itself, with its characteristics of being far-removed from existing societies, and its ‘non-Utopian neighbours’.８ In a general sense, this interpretation of the utopian project places the ideal society at a distance while using (and reconfiguring) elements that are already present in existing societies. It is by this juxtaposition of the real and the fictionalized real that utopianism acquires its political potential. On this reading, which will be my point of departure in what follows, More’s utopianism concerns the reconfiguration of different aspects of either the same society or perhaps very different societies. Understanding Utopia in this way allows us to see why Marxists of various stripes could be attracted to its structure. A Marxist theory centrally concerns itself with a narrative about class struggle, where dominant classes are in possession of the means of production in various historically determined configurations. Communism or the classless society, like Utopia itself, is placed at a distance (temporal rather than spatial) as the terminus of class struggle. Although communism is not a reality we can experience at present, we can predict and work towards it using elements that can be found throughout the history of capital. The reconfiguration of cultural elements in More is specified as the revolutionary reconfiguration of material-economic relationships in Marx. Looking back on the authors that first envisioned a

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More (2002: 107; 1965: 245-247). Cited in Logan (2002: xvi). Jameson (2005: Ch 3). Cf. Elliot (1970: Ch 1). Jameson (2005: 24).

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future society with what could loosely be described as ‘socialist’ ideals, Marx dismissively calls some of his predecessors ‘utopian socialists’.

The ambiguity of ‘Utopia’ in Marxism The utopian socialist contribution to the utopian tradition was explicitly envisaged to politicize the formulation of an ideal society. Utopian socialist theory was meant to argue convincingly for the best kind of society in the hope that others would be inspired to transform reality to better conform to the theory, or to ensure a smooth transformation into the future society.９ The influence of utopian socialism should not be underestimated. In particular, it contributed to the history of the term ‘utopian’ within the Marxist tradition,１０ and hence, one might add, also provides a context for the suspicion around the term in non-Marxist circles. Many theorists have been associated with the label.１１ There is not much that unites them, and they indeed occupy very different positions on the political spectrum. They are primarily grouped together because of the strong connection that exists between their work and later Marxism, causing Lenin to call utopian socialism one of the sources of Marxism.１２ The reasons for this connection are hard to overlook. Henri de Saint-Simon, for instance, prefigured the analytical category of class and its usage in a theory of history that culminates in the abolition of the state as a result of the interests of the productive classes.１３ At this point, it is interesting to note that the utopian socialists saw themselves as social scientists, and definitely not as utopians. For them, the later term had the connotations of a radical break with reality and was to be rejected for scientific reasons.１４ Charles Fourier was one of those classified as a utopian socialist by Marx and Engels,１５ but this is a label he would certainly have rejected. It seems hard to find a stauncher opponent of utopianism:

9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Geoghegan (2008: Ch.1). ibid. See Kolakowski (2005: Ch. 10). Lenin (1977). Geoghegan (2008: 23-28). Geoghegan (2008: 23). Marx and Engels (2007: 39).

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What is Utopia? It is the dream of well-being without the means of execution, without an effective method. Thus all philosophical sciences are Utopias, for they have always led people to the very opposite of the state of well-being they promised them.１６

The casting of these diverse and, in some cases, decidedly practically oriented authors as utopian socialists is very clearly articulated in the Manifesto of the Communist Party. More’s reorganization of different features of existing societies to form his Utopia is continued by the utopian socialists with a more scientific attitude. The utopian socialists devised a method and thus gave a scientific aura to their work that More’s travel narrative could never have possessed. However, Marx and Engels characteristically see their work as an expression of the material conditions that prevailed at the time. This point is developed into two criticisms. First, the very idea of historicity disqualifies utopian socialism from having any direct relevance in the days of Marx and Engels. Class struggle had not advanced sufficiently to allow a full critique of capitalist society. Precisely because a Saint-Simon is a product of his time, he cannot be right about the future. This is why ‘[t]he significance of Critical-Utopian Socialism and Communism bears an inverse relationship to historical development’.１７ While the original utopian socialists were revolutionary in their own time, proposing measures that the Communists will also argue for, embracing their work or seeking to apply it in the present day is reactionary in the sense that it opposes the historical progress of the proletariat in the consciousness of its own role that has been achieved in the interim. This is what justifies the negative label ‘utopian’. Utopian socialism is no more than the “instinctive yearning” for a change in societal configuration, in a manner that is by itself justifiable but ceases to have value in the long run. We would compare this to the way a child’s dream of becoming a pilot helps him to do well in primary school, but is revealed as out of touch with reality when he later has to concede that his bad eyesight will not allow him to realize his dream. An important question remains, however. If Saint-Simon cannot be right about the future as a matter of principle, what hope do Marx and Engels have? This question can be answered by relating it to the second criticism of the utopian socialists in the Manifesto, which is perhaps some16 Cited in Geoghegan (1987: 33-34). 17 Marx and Engels (2007: 41).

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what understated. The as yet underdeveloped state of class struggle is not only blamed for the insufficient historical material that went into the socialist utopians’ analyses, but also for both mistaken views of their own position as theorists and misguided ideas about how to realize their versions of the ideal society. Marx and Engels say that utopian socialists ‘believe themselves far superior to all class antagonisms’, seemingly because utopian socialists want to improve everyone’s condition indiscriminately (i.e. without realizing how the condition of one is tied to the other), and because they appeal to the ruling class to realize their grand visions.１８ This comes down to a failure to see the systemic nature of capitalism, which refers us back to the first criticism. But there is a more fundamental point to be made as well. The utopian socialists lack an account of the historical nature of their own designs. While Saint-Simon develops a theory of history, he does not have a history of theories: there is no reflexive application of the historical mode of explanation on itself. Marx poses this problem as he quips to Robert Owen, another one of the principle utopian socialists: who educates the educators?１９ There are appeals to the future society as a historical necessity in Owen, Fourier and Saint-Simon, but at the same time, they ‘regard its discovery as a happy effect of intellectual genius’ ２０ and, once discovered, as an ideal to be realized in the world. Marx himself uses the idea of demystified proletarian consciousness as a way to solve this inconsistency. In becoming aware of itself as dehumanized under capitalism, society can bring about its transformation through revolution, breaking apart the institutions that stand in the way of the peaceful changes envisaged by the utopian socialists. The historical process of dehumanization is what makes this awareness possible.２１ The events of 1917 and the later horrors of Stalin’s reign, as well as the relationship between the two, cannot be considered here. It is interesting to note in passing Karl Kautsky’s dismissal of the revolution as ‘pure utopianism’, since it had to be imposed against the dynamics of society instead of being borne by the proletariat.２２ Still, when the Soviet Union began, the general sense was that ‘utopia had emerged out of myth and

18 19 20 21 22

Marx and Engels (2007: 40). Cf. Kolakowski (2005: 180). Kolakowski (2005: 182). Kolakowski (2005: 180-184). Geoghegan (1987: 99).

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was under construction’.２３ In the end, the experience of totalitarianism led to an outright dismissal of utopianism in many cases.２４ It seems impossible to offer a final summary of the role played by the concept of utopia in Marxist thought. Maurice Merleau-Ponty summed up its fundamental ambiguity when he said: ‘Marxism does not offer us a utopia, a future known ahead of time (...). However, it deciphers events, discovers in them a common meaning and thereby grasps a leading thread which (...) allows us to orient ourselves toward events’.２５ If by ‘utopia’ we mean “castles in the air”,２６ then Marxists would surely reject such a notion. But such a rejection does not do justice to the utopian socialists. They rejected the label ‘utopian’ almost as strongly as Marx did. Arguably, using the term in this pejorative way is an injustice to More himself. But let us reconsider Merleau-Ponty’s statement. Is his ‘leading thread’ not precisely what utopianism can contribute to our understanding and evaluation of political and societal organization? This question was answered affirmatively by John Rawls (who remains the dominant voice in liberal political philosophy today), but not before some resistance to utopia and its entailments had been faced.

Rawls and realistic Utopia Utopianism was beset by an attack from three sides over the course of the twentieth century. As noted above, it was deemed guilty by association of the horrors of Stalin’s reign. Second, it fell victim to postmodern doubts, though not indefinitely. Third, David Easton and his fellow advocates of the ‘empirical turn’ ousted it from political theory. The second of these attacks is related to the first and can, at least to some extent, be seen as its extension. The category of Modernity, in Lyotard’s sense, is founded on the idea that although science and narratives are opposed in principle, science attempts to legitimate its access to truth and thus produces a metadiscourse of self-legitimation (either in terms of truth or justice). This metadiscourse in turn makes an appeal to a grand narrative, of which the emancipation of the working subject is an example. In the same context, the postmodern is conceived as “incredulity towards meta23 24 25 26

Geoghegan (1987: 105). Geoghegan (1987: 111-114). Merleau-Ponty (1969: 98). Marx and Engels (2007: [41]).

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narratives”.２７ Insofar as this is our condition, we can still analyse the inconsistencies inherent in capitalism as we know it, but as postmoderns, ‘we no longer expect salvation to rise from these inconsistencies, as did Marx’.２８ It seems very difficult to believe in the possibility of a future society on these terms. Indeed, for Lyotard, the ‘balance sheet’ of political struggles reads that both the critique of political economy and the critique of alienated society are used as ‘aids in programming the system’ in liberal and communist countries alike.２９ Surely the utopian aspirations of Stalinism are part of the ideological history that Lyotard refers to in support of this claim. As if this suspicion of grand narratives was not enough, David Easton’s call for empirical political theory (1953) dominated political theory until at least 1969, when Easton changed his position in what was considered by some to be a betrayal of his earlier ideals.３０ Easton’s empirical program was focused around a strong belief in the fact-value distinction, and in particular the insistence that facts refer to a portion of reality whereas values ‘express only the emotional response of an individual to a real or presumed fact’.３１ Easton’s withdrawal of his semi-positivist position on normative theory in 1969 came two years before the publication of A Theory of Justice by John Rawls in 1971.３２ Rawls’s major innovation was to adopt and exemplify the point of view that scientific knowledge should be considered authoritative, and simultaneously to argue that normative theory was compatible with that approach.３３ It is noteworthy that this return of normativity was accompanied by the figure of utopia, though it was not explicitly mentioned until Rawls’s later work. In A Theory of Justice, which remains his most well-known work, Rawls develops his program for an individual liberal society.３４ I do not want to suggest that Rawls convinced Lyotard and other analysts and exponents of the postmodern condition in doing so. It is noteworthy, however, that Rawls is perhaps the most influential philosopher working in the second half of the twentieth century. Very briefly speaking, Rawls introduces the idea of justice as fairness and describes how the institutions of society 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34

Lyotard (1984: xxiii-xxiv). Lyotard (1984: xxiv). Lyotard (1984: 13). Zuckert and Zuckert (1997: 143). Cited in Zuckert and Zuckert (1997: 146). Rawls (1999a). Zuckert and Zuckert (1997: 153). Rawls (1999a).

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would have to be set up in order to conform to this virtue. In particular, he believes that primary goods, which includes rights and opportunities, should be equally distributed. In order to develop his theory of the just society, Rawls brackets various important concerns, including international relations. The Law of Peoples is Rawls’s later attempt to show how the existence of liberal societies should be organized on the international stage. It focuses on what Rawls calls the ‘realistic utopia’, an expression that recurs throughout the work. On most readings of what utopianism entails, it would seem to be at odds with realism. Rawls provides an interesting twist in this regard. He says that by ‘showing how the social world may realize the features of a realistic utopia, political philosophy provides a long-term goal of political endeavour, and in working toward it gives meaning to what we can do today’.３５ Rawls’s international liberalism looks toward the coexistence of reasonably just democratic societies as members of what he calls a Society of Peoples, thus securing peace and justice within and between the participating societies: according to Rawls, this is an achievable goal, which accounts for its ‘realism’. It is ‘utopian’ in the sense that it attempts to extend the limits of practical political philosophy.３６ The Society of Peoples needs Laws, and Rawls’s goal is to describe them as conditions for the possibility for a liberal world society. This does not offer solutions to ‘many of the immediate problems of contemporary foreign policy that trouble citizens and politicians’: his examples are unjust war, immigration and weapons of mass destruction.３７ Thus, The Law of Peoples shares an important feature with A Theory of Justice. By placing certain pressing concerns outside of the scope of his project, Rawls is able to focus on purely institutional aspects of society. Based on this shared feature of detachedness from current concerns, criticisms of the ‘abstract’ nature of such a project are to be expected.

The transcendental-comparative distinction Amartya Sen has long been a friendly critic of Rawlsian thought, attempting to extend the distributive justice paradigm along multiple axes while continuing to operate within a tradition that seems to be very much based 35 Rawls (1999b: 128). 36 Rawls (1999b: 5). 37 Rawls (1999b: 8).

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on Rawls’s work. One important argument of Sen’s concerns the proper metric of justice. Sen argues that the distribution of primary goods in itself is not the theoretical condition of justice: instead, we should focus on maximizing citizens’ capabilities and take into account the extent to which they will be able to ‘convert’ primary goods into what Sen calls functionings, regardless of whether the individual citizen decides to do so.３８ A more recent avenue of criticism concerns the practical usefulness of Rawls’s work on justice. This discussion mirrors many of the anti-utopian stances we saw in the Marxist tradition, and Sen even equals Marx himself by inventing an analytical category for a project within political philosophy that is, to his mind, overly utopian. This is the part of Sen’s work I want to discuss below. To Sen’s mind, Marx and others exemplify a comparative mode of analysis, where particular injustices can be confronted with features of existing societies.３９ Sen has a contrast in mind here. He sees the social contract tradition, starting with Thomas Hobbes and culminating in John Rawls (whom Sen has in mind when criticizing contemporary views of justice) as emanating from what he calls transcendental institutionalism. This basic approach to political philosophy seeks to describe what it means for a society to be perfectly just, and also to abstractly design the institutions that would be needed.４０ Sen explicitly mentions the term ‘utopian’ in his criticism of this transcendental approach.４１ Based on these contrasting approaches, Sen argues that transcendental institutionalist political-philosophical theories and realization-focused comparisons should be sharply distinguished. He sees himself as contributing to the latter tradition. The function of this distinction is to re-instate two camps and a line to separate them: the utopians versus those arguing for realization-focused comparisons. ‘Realization’ here is not a play on Rawls’s ‘realistic’ utopia, but signals Sen’s assertion that transcendental institutionalism does not give us a way of tackling real-world injustices, focusing instead on the distant ideal of a perfect society. Sen positions himself firmly on the other end of this spectrum, preferring to speak about current societies and ways in which they could be improved in terms of justice. Sen’s criticism of the ‘utopian’ mode of thought is twofold. It firstly 38 39 40 41

Sen (1979). Sen (2009: 7). Sen (2009: 6ff). Sen (2009: 96, 170).

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concerns the idea of ruling out alternatives, and secondly the failure of transcendental approaches to be action-guiding. In other words, we cannot devise a theory of the ideal society without ruling out plausible alternatives that also count as grounds for justice, and wrongly elevating one of them into our supreme principle will not actually help us to address societal problems. The first charge seems to be misplaced. Rawls, Sen’s primary target, introduces the process of reflective equilibrium, which is an openended procedure to consider in an explicitly embedded and comparative way the outcomes of the initially distant principles of justice Rawls derives.４２ Sen’s second and related charge is that transcendental institutionalism does not help us in terms of preferring one state of affairs over another, given that both fall short of the ideal society. There is no selection procedure in the sense that one might expect an ethical theory to provide. When I am thinking about a future action and attempting to determine which course of action to pursue, I can use, for instance, a version of utilitarian theory to obtain a ranking where the order is determined by the ‘to-bepursuedness’ of all options relative to each other. This may or may not be practically feasible, since we have to make many assumptions about, for instance, our knowledge of the consequences our potential future actions will have. If this kind of condition would be fulfilled, however, then something akin to an ethics machine results. We only have to enter our data to find out the appropriate course of action in each situation. This demonstrates the feasibility of this kind of moral theory on a theoretical level. Sen’s complaint is that theories like Rawls’s cannot live up to this standard, and thus cannot help us to decide between two imperfectly just states of society. The general implication that is subsequently assumed is that there is no analytical connection between the transcendental and comparative approach, and that the former is not ‘useful’ in the way required by the latter.４３ This rephrases the worry we have considered earlier in the vocabulary of out-and-out utopianism: to put it roughly, all of this wonderful theorising has no connection to real-world concerns. There are several arguments against this sweeping claim in the context of distributive justice.

42 See Gilabert (2011: 43). 43 Sen (2009: 16-17).

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Gilabert and the uses of Utopia Pablo Gilabert provides us with a list of reasons to think that transcendental theories can be useful for comparative purposes. I here select three main arguments from Gilabert’s list to bring out the related link between utopian theorizing and political reality. First, utopias have the ability to identify the salient aspects of comparisons. Second, they can be used to criticize the status quo and to activate ‘dynamic duties’. Third, utopias are important because of their inspirational and motivational significance.４４ Beginning with the last of these arguments allows a remark on Gilabert’s intentions. He is not in the business of defending someone like More or the utopian socialists. The purpose of his article is to save the ‘idealtheoretical’ aspects of Rawls and the social contract tradition before him from the, to his mind, misguided dismissal by Sen. In so doing, however, it becomes clear just how ‘traditional’ his argument is. ‘Utopian pictures can hamper or bolster people’s motivation to act, depending on how they are handled’.４５ In the same way that Lyotard took for granted the failure of the grand narrative and hence our incredulity with respect to it, Gilabert cites the successes of ideals that precisely by reaching too far have inspired many to act in their name, and thus to force concessions of world-historical importance. Socialism is one of his examples. He memorably says that while he subscribes to the often-repeated idea that ‘the best should not be an enemy of the good’, i.e. the picture of the ideal society should not be used to push through reforms that are themselves immoral, we can say with equal justice that the good should not be an enemy of the better, or even the best.４６ That is to say, part of the work required to achieve a comparatively better society of the kind that Sen envisions can be done by the kind of theory he rejects. Sen’s distinction now appears to be a prying apart of two activities that belong together: formulating ambitious ideals and making progress in practice. Gilabert’s point of dynamic duties is very similar to Rawls’s utopianism in the Law of Peoples. ‘Dynamic’ refers to the extension of our capability to recognize and battle against injustices. Theories of justice should do more than provide arguments that face up to the problems that we are now able to solve, and that we are now able to formulate. For what is feasible in terms of political action is not a given that remains constant through the 44 Gilabert (2011: 45-49). 45 Gilabert (2011: 48), my emphasis. 46 Gilabert (2011: 48).

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ages, and history has seen many examples of hidden injustices inherent in the status quo. Hence, Gilabert claims that ‘the search for perfectly just societies’ will allow us to seek out ‘expansions of our epistemic and practical grasp of further justice-enhancement or injustice-reduction’.４７ By involving ourselves with perfect designs, we can seek out the flaws in our own society and be moved to extend the possibilities we have to repair them. Finally, Gilabert claims that comparisons by themselves cannot tell us why they are relevant. This appears to turn Sen’s point on its head: whereas Sen claims that transcendental theories (in isolation) are redundant for the purposes of justice, Gilabert here states that without considering the valuational standard that renders a comparison significant, it is not clear why noting a descriptive similarity matters at all, or more precisely in virtue of what it matters. All three of these arguments echo Jameson’s comments on More’s Utopia. Utopian political potential should not be seen as restricted to formulating the ideal society, as some distant dream that is indeed an island, cut off from any practical consideration. More’s fictional utopia is not built out of woolly dreams, but out of elements that in some way existed in the world he inhabited, albeit not in the combination that makes up Utopia. One of the challenges of Utopia is to show that a different organization of elements, beyond the one familiar to More and described in Book One, is possible. No utopia is ever wholly fictional, or could be. But every utopia has to be partly fictional, since it involves as yet unrealized ideals of societal organization. By articulating this kind of fiction, it can help really existing societies to move in the direction of its ideals. I have already considered examples of how this works in practice. Utopia can inspire us to see to it that an ideal is realized in the world; it can help transform what we see as feasible; it can challenge the status quo by helping us to see beyond it; and it can give meaning and purpose to the small changes we accomplish in reality, or even to the ones we strive for. None of this shows that utopianism is necessary to help make the world a better place, but arguments of this kind do show that utopia continues to be an important feature of political thought.

47 Gilabert (2011: 47).

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Conclusion More’s Utopia remains a controversial text, and the debate on its proper interpretation does not give the impression that it will soon be finished. Similarly, utopianism itself is in no danger of disappearing. It is making a comeback in the arts４８ and is central to debates in contemporary political philosophy to an extent that some may find surprising. The legacy of utopianism after More is almost as complicated as its founding document, but what can be said in quite general terms is that the scientific aspirations of the later utopians seem to have caught up with them. In utopian socialism, the social-scientific method shared by many of its authors was used to predict the inevitable rise of socialism. Science was used as a defence against charges of utopianism. In the Manifesto, Marx and Engels reject their theories as outdated based on their own scientific analysis, which had the novel feature of being able to explain the analysis itself. Amidst all the rhetoric of castles in the air, ostensibly aimed against what Marx and Engels perceive to be utopianism, this seems to be where utopianism comes of age. It becomes conscious of its inherent connection to the society within which it was formulated. Marx espouses the idea that the utopian socialists’ vision was limited because they wrote too early for the future to come into view. He also explains why his own theory does succeed in this respect, though Marx’s actual description of communism is relatively humble in its theoretical pretension. Its effective history shows a contrary tendency. The scientific rigour that had been attempted by the utopian socialists and Marx alike led even further away from More’s Utopia when, at the beginning of the Soviet Union, many believed that ‘utopia had emerged out of myth and was under construction’.４９ I have not considered arguments for or against the possibility and even desirability of realizing a utopia, but in Lyotard’s phrase, the ‘balance sheet’ does not give us many reasons to rejoice. The attempt to realize communism ended in tragedy. Since utopianism itself was grouped in with that attempt, it seemed unlikely that the figure of utopia would continue to be an important feature of political-philosophical discussion. The role of utopia seemed to be diminished further still by the incredulity that helped to define the postmodern condition on the one hand, and Easton’s empirical turn in political theory on the other. Rawls was the one to reintroduce utopianism into mainstream political 48 Vermeulen and Van den Akker (2015). 49 Geoghegan (1987: 105).

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philosophy. He strikes a compromise between deferring to the authority of science and continuing to believe in the power of normative philosophy, but seemingly at the price of losing contact with political reality. Sen’s attack on his ideal theorizing is analogous to Marx’s onslaught against the utopian socialists and their followers in that Sen distinguishes between transcendental institutionalist political-philosophical theories and realization-focused comparisons. Sen is asking followers of Rawls to get their heads out of the clouds and focus on what we can do to improve the here and now. In the final twist of this tale, Gilabert disputes Sen’s very distinction by showing how theories like Rawls’s can and do contribute to the aims Sen has in mind for academic discourse on justice. In doing so, Gilabert also shows the continued relevance of utopianism to contemporary political philosophy. Utopianism continues to inform our normatively charged comparisons, to critically investigate the society we live in and to inspire us. By creating Utopia out of really existing materials, it creates a space ‘in between’ us non-Utopians and Utopia that allows us to consider new possibilities, or shows old ones in a new light.

Bibliography Elliott, R.C. (1970) The shape of utopia: Studies in a literary genre. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Geoghegan, V. (2008) Utopianism and Marxism. Bern: Peter Lang. Gilabert, P. (2011) Comparative Assessments of Justice, Political Feasibility, and Ideal Theory, Ethical Theory, Moral Practice, 15(1), pp. 39-56. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10677-011-9279-6 Jameson, F. (2005) Archaeologies of the future: The desire called utopia and other science fictions. Londen and New York: Verso. Kołakowski, L. (2005) Main currents of Marxism: The founders, the golden age, the breakdown, transl. P.S. Falla. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. Lenin, V.I. (1977) The three sources and three component parts of Marxism, in: Lenin’s Collected Works, Volume 19, transl. G. Hanna). Moscow: Progress Publishers, pp. 21-28. Lyotard, J.F. (1984) The postmodern condition: A report on knowledge. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Marx, K. and F. Engels (2007), Manifesto of the Communist Party. New York: International Publishers Co. Merleau-Ponty, M. (1969) Humanism and terror: an essay on the Communist problem, transl. J. O’Neill. Boston: Beacon Press. More, T. (1965) Utopia, ed. E. Surtz, S.J., and J.H. Hexter, The Complete Works of St. Thomas More 4. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. More, T (2002) Utopia, ed. G. Logan, and R. Adams. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rawls, J. (1999a) A Theory of Justice (revised edition). Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Rawls, J. (1999b) The Law of Peoples. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Sen, A. (1979) Equality of what? The Tanner Lecture on Human Values, 22 May.

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Sen, A. (2009) The idea of justice. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Vermeulen, T., and R. van den Akker (2015). Utopia, Sort of: A Case Study in Metamodernism, Studia Neophilologica, 87(sup1), pp. 55-67.

About the author Julien Kloeg is lecturer and PhD-candidate at Erasmus University College. He has taught and published on various topics in ethics and political philosophy, and is currently working on an analysis of normativity in European politics. This article has been previously published in Algemeen Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Wijsbegeerte 2016, Vol. 108, No. 3, with DOI: １０.５１１７/ANTW２０１６.３.KLOE.

The integrity of exacerbated ambiguity More’s Utopia as an evaluative thought experiment Tim De Mey

Abstract Although Thomas More is an exemplary figure of both personal and moral integrity, his Utopia is not straightforwardly ‘integer’ in another meaning of the term, i.e., it does not unequivocally describe a ‘whole, intact or pure’ conception of the ideal society. Rather, Utopia is patently ambiguous and challenges the reader to disambiguate the narrative and to make up his own mind on how to construct the ideal society. In this paper, I analyze utopias and dystopias in general as evaluative thought experiments that appeal to our imagination and deploy possible worlds. Subsequently, I argue that More’s Utopia is a successful evaluative thought experiment that actually underscores More’s integrity, because by means of its exacerbated ambiguity, it both triggers and properly respects the deliberation and evaluation of the reader in his capacity as thought experimenter. Keywords: Utopia, thought experiment, ambiguity, integrity

Introduction In Robert Bolt’s famous play and Fred Zinnemann’s even more famous film A Man for All Seasons, Thomas More is portrayed as a man of great integrity, both personally and morally. Facing enormous pressure to recant, he firmly stands by his judgement. However, ‘standing for something’ is not in itself sufficient for integrity. After all, fanatics also stand by and act according to their convictions under great pressure, and they can hardly be considered ‘integer’. What is it then that marks out Thomas More’s integrity? Recently, Greg Scherkoske has suggested that integrity is not so much a

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moral, but rather an epistemic virtue.１ Basically, it is a stable disposition to develop and maintain firm beliefs in an epistemically responsible way, and to act according to one’s convictions. On Scherkoske’s account, it is precisely their remarkable cognitive success that explains why other, less cognitive successful people put so much trust in integer persons, often consult them and take their advices to heart. Clearly, Thomas More is an exemplary figure of this kind or conception of integrity, most dramatically embodied in his chancellorship and the evolution of his relationship of trust with King Henry VIII. Given Thomas More’s ‘epistemic integrity’, readers who want to be advised on the ideal state, quite naturally turn their attention to his famous book Utopia. However, such readers soon discover that Utopia is not fully ‘integer’ in yet another meaning of the term. The book does not appear to be a well-rounded whole; More is not unequivocally describing or endorsing a pure conception of the ideal society. On the contrary, as Julien Kloeg stresses in his contribution to this volume, Utopia is in many ways very ambiguous and it is notoriously hard for the reader to interpret More’s exact intentions. For instance, although More involves himself as a character in the narrative, it is not straightforwardly clear to what extent the character voices the convictions of the author. ”It seems that there are always two perspectives in play”, Kloeg complains.２ In order to make sense of Utopia, or to take More’s advices to heart, the reader has to make a number of crucial interpretative decisions for himself. He has to disambiguate the narrative and find his own way through the book. This raises the question why Thomas More wrote such an ambiguous book. Why did he not speak out resolutely for a clear-cut conception of the ideal society? Was this simply a matter of a playful, wittily challenging style – which was not unusual in More’s time and niche – or did he also have some deeper, more authentic motivation? In this paper, I will address these questions, and I will suggest that it was precisely because More was such an integer person, that he wrote such an ambiguous book on the highly sensitive issue of the ideal society. Again, the relevant contrast here is with the fanatic. As Calhoun explains, what integer persons have and fanatics lack is proper respect for the deliberations, evaluations and resulting judgements of others.３ As I take it, the integer person aims for the very delicate balance between, on the one hand, voicing his own convic1 2 3

Scherkoske (2012). See above, p. 211. Calhoun (1995).

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tions, and, on the other hand, inviting, inspiring, and allowing other people to develop and maintain convictions of their own. The exacerbated ambiguity of More’s Utopia fulfills that dual function; it expresses some of More’s most cherished ideals, but at the same time triggers the reader to become a thought experimenter himself. In this paper, I will firstly analyze utopias and dystopias in general. As works of fiction, they can be taken as pointing to, accessing and describing possible worlds. However, the appeal a utopia or a dystopia makes to the imagination of the reader, has the specific function of triggering his evaluation of the possible world. For that reason, we can consider utopias and dystopias to be evaluative thought experiments. Subsequently, I will suggest that ambiguity plays a very important or even pivotal role in whether a thought experiment successfully involves the reader as a thought experimenter. Ambiguity triggers the thought experiment. It defines the problem that can only be solved by performing the thought experiment. Moreover, it also determines the very point of the thought experiment. Finally, I will suggest that More’s Utopia is such a successful evaluative thought experiment. It is not integer because it unequivocally articulates More’s views, but rather because its exacerbated ambiguity both triggers and allows for the deliberation and evaluation of the thought experimenter.

Possible worlds Literary studies often assume that works of fiction describe possible worlds. Although ‘possibility’ can also be analyzed without invoking possible worlds,４ most philosophers agree that the analysis of possibility or, more generally, of alethic modality, requires an appeal to possible worlds. They strongly disagree, however, on the metaphysical status of possible worlds, ranging from David Lewis’ Modal Realism, over Alvin Platinga’s Actualism or Ersatzism, to Gideon Rosen’s Modal Fictionalism.５ Another controversial issue is the epistemology of modality. What is our access to possible worlds? How do we know what is possible? Some philosophers maintain that we have reliable intuitions about modality.６ Other philosophers argue that conceivability implies possibility; they take up the notor-

4 5 6

See, for instance, Jubien (2009). Cf. Lewis (1986), Platinga (1974), and Rosen (1990). See, for instance., Bealer (2002).

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iously difficult challenge of proposing conceptions of ‘conceivability’ that are immune to counterexamples and yet not viciously circular.７ As works of fiction, utopias and dystopias can be taken as describing and evaluating possible worlds. In this domain of application, the debate is not so much about whether they really are possible and how we know this, but about whether they are accessible or attainable. Possible worlds can be intuitively ordered in terms of their distance from and to the actual world. Some are pretty close, such as the possible world in which this paper has one extra word – which I cannot mention for obvious reasons – and everything else is the same. Some are more complex – lots of things are different there – and therefore much farther away. Typically, the possible worlds described in works of fiction in general, and in utopias in particular, are rather far away. But for utopias the crucial question is whether they are attainable. Can they be realized? And if not, what is their point? On the object-level, the question is whether a specific utopia takes sufficient constraints into consideration. Of course, one can easily imagine a possible world in which nothing ever goes wrong, but there hardly would be any point to such an exercise. This suggests a demand that vaguely echoes the elegant test that Lewis and Stalnaker have developed and proposed for counterfactuals: for a utopia or dystopia to make sense, for it to be worth contemplating and evaluating, it should be attainable, and this requires that it is sufficiently ‘nearby’, i.e., close to the actual world, or within its reach.８ For instance, in the case of More’s Utopia: More could in principle have stipulated that there were no crimes or criminals, but then his Utopia would lose much of its appeal and philosophical importance. So for someone to propose a utopia, it is not enough to take the conceivability constrains into consideration; one should also meet substantial attainability constraints. Mutatis mutandis for a dystopia: there should be reasons to fear that the actual society can turn into the dystopia; otherwise the description would lose its point. On the meta-level, the question is whether such exercises are possible altogether, and if so, whether they are desirable. Are there not simply too many substantial attainability constraints that should, but cannot be met? And even if it were possible to pinpoint the best of all possible and realizable societies or worlds, would that leave enough ‘elbow room’ to the individual? Would it not fatally abate the individual?９ In this very vivid 7 8 9

See, for instance, Chalmers (2002). Cf. Lewis (1973) and Stalnaker (1984). See, for instance., Crombag and Van Dun (1997).

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meta-debate, lots of qualified answers come forward. For instance, Godin considers utopias that describe the ideal society to be dangerous and harmful, and proposes desirable, beneficial utopias instead; utopias that prescribe certain values, like peace, liberty, justice and universal solidarity.１０

Thought experiments The possible worlds described in utopias and dystopias should meet substantial attainability constraints because of their ‘point’, i.e., the role that the contemplation of such possible worlds can and should play. What is this function? What should one do with possible worlds? Or: what does the contemplation of possible worlds involve? I want to suggest that, as a text, a utopia reports one or more thought experiments performed by its author, who invites the reader to reproduce or replicate these thought experiments and to see whether the results are the same. To develop this suggestion, a clarification of the notion ‘thought experiments’ is needed. The term ‘thought experiments’ was coined by Ernst Mach.１１ Although Mach had a rather broad conception of thought experiments, including for instance the reasoning processes involved in the set-up of real experiments, later conceptions tend to put more constraints on the use of the term. More specifically, thought experiments are nowadays quite often conceived of in terms of counterfactual reasoning for argumentative purposes. However, Tamar Gendler proposes an elegant threefold taxonomy that shows that ‘counterfactuality’ is not a necessary condition for ‘thought experiments’.１２ Firstly, there are, of course, prototypical, counterfactual thought experiments (which Gendler calls ‘factive thought experiments’), in which the question the thought experimenter asks himself is: what would happen if this imaginary situation would obtain? For example, what would I see at the speed of light? Such counterfactual thought experiments flourish especially – but not exclusively – in the sciences, not only in the natural sciences,１３ but also, for instance, in medicine１４ and in history.１５ Secondly, there are conceptual thought experiments, in which there is no 10 11 12 13 14 15

Godin (2000). Mach (1905). Gendler (2000). Brown 1991). De Mey (2006). De Mey and Weber (2003).

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question about what would happen, but in which the thought experimenter asks himself the question: is a certain concept applicable to the imaginary situation or scenario or is it not? Such thought experiments mainly function as counterexamples to conceptual analyses and prosper especially – but, again, not exclusively – in (analytic) philosophy. Finally, there are evaluative thought experiments, in which there is no question about what would happen either, but in which the thought experimenter asks himself the question: how do I evaluate the imaginary situation or scenario? Is the possible world described better or worse than the actual world? There are some problems with Tamar Gendler’s taxonomy. As a matter of fact, she herself qualifies the distinction between counterfactual (or ‘factive’) and conceptual thought experiments.１６ Nevertheless, it is clear that both authors and readers of utopias and dystopias perform evaluative thought experiments; the question the thought experimenter asks himself is whether, in what sense, and to what extent, the fictive society or possible world described in the utopia or dystopia, is desirable. There are, however, two important differences of degree between the evaluative thought experiments that involve utopias and dystopias and other, basic evaluative thought experiments. Firstly, utopias and dystopias typically contain several features, and they can and do differ in the extent to which these features are really unified in a coherent manner or rather loosely connected. For example, More’s Utopia brings together many ideas about aspects of life and society, like the division of cities in four quarters, working days of six hours, the absence of lawyers in the legal process, the punishment of adultery by slavery, etc. At face value, it seems that at least some of these features can relatively easily be altered without wearing out Utopia altogether. This means that confronted with More’s Utopia, the reader can perform several evaluative thought experiments for the different features, and his thought experimental results can be divergent: he can evaluate some features positively and others negatively. Secondly, utopias and dystopias can and do also differ in how far they go to control the evaluative thought experiments of the reader. Some authors spell out their own evaluation very explicitly and almost force their thought experimental results upon the reader. Others leave more room for the deliberation and evaluation of the reader. I want to suggest now that More’s Utopia is of the latter kind. More is not, like in most thought experiments, exacerbating the ambiguity to steer the evaluative thought experiments of his readers in a certain direction. He is not tacitly 16 See also Kuhn (1964) and De Mey (2005).

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arguing. On the contrary, he is exacerbating the ambiguity to trigger the reader to stop thinking about More’s evaluations, and to start thinking carefully about his own evaluations, taking into account both perspectives in play.

Exacerbated ambiguity All thought experiments deploy and exacerbate ambiguity. However, there are basically two quite different ways in which ambiguity can be exacerbated. Many thought experiments have a definite direction; they lead from one perspective, which is found wanting and problematic, to another perspective, which solves the problem at hand. Such thought experiments are basically tacit arguments. Certainly, there is an appeal to the imagination of the individual reader, but the author knows very well where this is leading to. Other thought experiments, by contrast, suffice with exacerbating the contrast between the two perspectives. They do not make a choice. They encourage the reader to make a choice, but they do not steer that choice. They leave it to the reader, in his capacity of thought experimenter, to make up his mind on the issue. Let us consider some examples of both kinds. Even the simplest, straightforward thought experiment deploys ambiguity. Take, for instance, conceptual thought experiments in philosophy that are intended as counterexamples to analyses. Let’s consider two classic examples in turn. According to the traditional analysis of moral responsibility, the possibility to act otherwise is a necessary condition for moral responsibility. Harry Frankfurt asks the thought experimenter to imagine a ‘decision inducer’ that would force an ignorant agent to do something harmful, if that agent would choose to do something else.１７ Subsequently, Frankfurt asks the conceptual thought experimenter whether the agent would be ‘morally responsible’ if the agent himself would choose to perform that harmful act, without any intervention of the ‘decision inducer’. Thought experimenters that confirm the agent’s moral responsibility, learn that the possibility to act otherwise is not a necessary condition for moral responsibility. According to the traditional analysis of knowledge, true justified belief is sufficient for knowledge. Edmund Gettier asks the thought experimenter to imagine that Smith justifiably believes that ‘Jones owns a Ford’, and 17 Frankfurt (1969).

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deductively infers from it, without any information about Brown’s whereabouts, ‘Jones owns a Ford or Brown is in Barcelona’.１８ Subsequently, Gettier asks the conceptual thought experimenter whether Smith would know that ‘Jones owns a Ford or Brown is in Barcelona’ if it is true that Brown is in Barcelona, but wrong that Jones owns a Ford. Thought experimenters who deny knowledge of this accidentally true disjunction to Smith, learn that true justified belief is not sufficient for knowledge. In what sense do such imaginary counterexamples to conceptual analyses deploy ambiguity? On the one hand, there is the perspective of the analysis: according to the traditional analysis, the agent is not morally responsible in the Frankfurt case, and Smith does know that ‘Jones owns a Ford or Brown is in Barcelona’ in the Gettier case. On the other hand, the thought experiment appeals to the opposing, conceptual intuitions of the thought experimenter: intuitively, the agent is morally responsible in the Frankfurt case, and Smith does not know that ‘Jones owns a Ford or Brown is in Barcelona’ in the Gettier case. If the thought experiment is successful (as an argument), the thought experimenter opts for one way to disambiguate the ambiguity and concludes that the analysis at consideration is wanting: the possibility to act otherwise is not necessary for moral responsibility, and true justified belief is not sufficient for knowledge. But of course, there are other ways to disambiguate the ambiguity. As Soren Haggqvist’s model indicates, the thought experimenter may question whether the case is possible, he may question whether it is relevant, or he may bite the bullet.１９ These latter responses ‘save’ the analysis, at the expense of the putative counterexample. Nevertheless, such thought experiments are simple and straightforward in that their intended direction of argumentation is clear. They are designed as counterexamples. They appeal to, but hardly leave room for, the imagination of the thought experimenter. He is almost trapped into disambiguating the ambiguity in the envisioned way and accepting the case at hand as a counterexample to the targeted analysis. Similarly, there are also two perspectives in play in counterfactual thought experiments. On the one hand, there is the perspective of the received view, the targeted hypothesis, like Aristotle’s hypothesis that heavy bodies fall more quickly than light ones, and Galen’s hypotheses about blood, blood vessels and the heart. On the other hand, the thought experiment brings up an imaginary case to which the hypothesis cannot be 18 Gettier (1966). 19 Haggqvist (2009).

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consistently applied. Galileo suggests that if Aristotle were right, a system that combines a heavy and a light object should, by strapping them together, fall at the same time more quickly and more slowly than the heavy object would fall on its own. Harvey suggests that even on an extreme underestimation of the amount of blood, if Galen were right, ‘we would have veins empty and altogether drained dry’, whereas our arteries would ‘burst open with too great inthrusting of blood’.２０ Such exacerbated ambiguities almost force the thought experimenter to agree with Galileo and Harvey that there is only one way out. In both cases, there is only one way to disambiguate the exacerbated ambiguity: all bodies fall at the same speed regardless of their weight, and ‘blood should somehow flow back out of the arteries once more into the veins and return to the right ventricle of the heart ... as it were in a circle’.２１ Getting the point of counterfactual – or, for that matter, conceptual – thought experiments requires experiencing and recognizing the underlying ambiguities; they not only trigger but also steer the disambiguation in a certain direction. Nevertheless, there still is an element of choice; although Galileo’s and Harvey’s thought experiments are pretty convincing, they are not completely decisive, they are not ‘crucial experiments’. Supporters of Aristotle or Galen may question – and, as a matter of historical fact, have questioned – the relevance of the imaginary case, or even of thought experiments in general. At face value, evaluative thought experiments function differently. The author may of course present an imaginary case in a tendentious way, as often happens in utopias and dystopias, and thus try to steer the evaluation of the reader in a certain direction. Nevertheless, when performing evaluative thought experiments, the reader seems, at least in principle, more free to make up his own mind than when performing counterfactual or conceptual thought experiments. He is not trapped. If he does not agree with the evaluation of the author, he should not look for a specific way out; he has plenty of options. One might even question whether ambiguity plays a role worth mentioning in evaluative thought experiments. On closer inspection, however, many evaluative thought experiments do exacerbate ambiguity in an argumentative way. Take, e.g., Judith Thomson’s famous trolley problem.２２ Suppose an agent knows that a runaway trolley threatens to kill five people ahead on the tracks. In one case, the 20 Harvey (1578/1976: 74). 21 Harvey (1578/1976: 75). 22 Thomson (1976).

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agent is on the trolley, can pull a lever to switch to a side track and thereby save the five people, but, to the downside, there is one person on the side track who will get killed. In another case, the agent is not on the trolley but on a bridge over the tracks, there is one fat person standing in front of him who, if pushed off the bridge, would stop the trolley and thereby save the five people, but the fat person would get killed. The problem arises from the contrast between the two cases. With respect to the former, most thought experimenters hold that it is good to intervene, whereas most thought experimenters consider it bad to intervene in the latter case, even though in both cases the net consequences are (stipulated to be) the very same: one life is sacrificed to save five other lives. So the reader or thought experimenter does get trapped. He is led to the conclusion that in normative ethics, consequentialism fails or at least requires refinement. Interestingly though, the ambiguity that is exacerbated here is not the contrast between the two cases. Rather, the two perspectives in play are two conflicting moral intuitions. The reader or thought experimenter feels the need to unequivocally use the same principle of evaluation and realizes that consequentialism as such cannot deliver this. Clearly, the evaluative thought experiments More’s readers are triggered to perform, are not of this argumentative kind. More does not exacerbate ambiguity in the sense of trapping his readers and steering their disambiguation in a certain direction. Rather, he exacerbates the opposing perspectives on each of the many issues, in such a way that it virtually becomes impossible to find out (a consistent interpretation of) More’s own views, and that the sorely tried reader really thinks for himself, well aware of the powers and limits of both perspectives.

The integrity of More’s Utopia According to Gregory Claeys, the function of Utopia as a social critique of the growing oppression of the poor in More’s own historical context is unambiguous. However, its constructive part leaves many fundamental doubts: How should we interpret this central, definitive text to which generations of readers have returned in search of an answer to the problem of how to construct the ideal society? Utopia is clearly intended to be contrasted to the England of More’s day, where the enclosure of land in particular was causing widespread unemployment and social upheaval. But is the text a critique?

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A recipe? A lament? A satire? No single narrative perspective within Utopia is given greater authority than any other. This encourages the reader to attend to the various arguments presented.２３

Claeys’ analysis that the profound ambiguity of Utopia urges the reader to pay close attention to the arguments, is a little modest. Thomas More persistently refuses unequivocally to take sides. He deliberately leaves his intentions in doubt. What is recommended and what is dissuaded at the end of the day? What is embraced and what is satirized in the final analysis? The reader simply does not know. Some readers, however, thought they knew: More’s Utopia is a complicated little book and interpreters have claimed it for radically different positions, from traditional Roman Catholicism to British imperialism to Marxism, sometimes by simply ignoring the complexity of the book and at other times making it even more complex. One set of problems stems from the fact that Utopia appears on the surface to be straightforward while it is quite playful and satirical.２４

Given the multitude and diversity of interpretations, we can by now safely conclude that the individual reader most probably cannot tell what has been recommended from what has been discouraged by More. He is left with only one possibility: giving up on trying to discover and ascertain More’s own conception of the ideal society, and starting to think about it for himself, i.e., becoming a full-blown thought experimenter. As mentioned above, a repeated criticism of the very genre of utopias, is that they do not leave enough elbow room to the individual, that they almost paralyze the individual and leave his creative potential untouched. More’s Utopia does not function in that way. On the contrary, it constitutes an open invitation to that individual to address and fully develop his creative potential. Utopia is not so much – and certainly not unequivocally – about More’s ideal society. Rather, it is about possible features of possible societies, exacerbating the opposing perspectives on them, and thereby cordially encouraging the individual to deliberate and evaluate himself what is desirable and what is not, what should be altered and what should be left intact. In a sense, Utopia is not integer. For one thing, there are many features 23 Claeys (2011: 66-67). 24 Sargent (2010: 22).

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of the possible world described by More that may be considered and evaluated independently of one another, and in that sense, it’s not a completely well-rounded whole. For another thing, and perhaps more significantly in this context, More does not express his own views on the ideal society unequivocally. He actually conceals his own judgments on issues that matter to others, and this in itself might be a contraindication of integrity, at least according to Calhoun: Persons of integrity treat their own endorsements as ones that matter, or ought to matter, to fellow deliberators. Absent a special sort of story, lying about one’s views, concealing them, recanting them under pressure, selling them out for rewards or to avoid penalties, and pandering to what one regards as the bad views of others, all indicate a failure to regard one’s own judgment as one that should matter to others.２５

But Calhoun is also suggesting that unlike fanatics, integer persons have proper respect for the deliberations, evaluations and resulting judgements of others. And in that sense, Utopia underscores More’s integrity. He is not writing as a fanatic at all. He is not imposing his own ideas and ideals at the expense of others. Rather, he is mentioning and discussing features that he considers worth contemplating and evaluating; issues he thinks should matter to others. He is informing the reader playfully on the opposing perspectives on these features. And from then onwards, it is completely up to the reader, the individual, to perform evaluative thought experiments himself. So basically, More is exactly playing the role an epistemiccaly integer person is supposed to play in this context: he inspires and informs, without imputing, and thereby pays proper respect for the deliberations, evaluations and ultimate judgements of his readers.

Conclusion The final lines of More’s Utopia seem to offer some disambiguation to the crazed reader at last: ‘I readily admit that there are very many features in the Utopian commonwealth which it is easier for me to wish for in our countries than to have any hope of seeing realized’.２６ But even then, the reader is left with interpretative questions. Which features exactly? Why is 25 Calhoun (1995: 258). 26 More (1965: 152).

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it difficult for More to have any hope of seeing those features realized? Does he consider them to be finally unattainable or merely ‘hard to get’, i.e., far removed from actual society? The reader who has put trust in Thomas More because of his notorious epistemic integrity, and was looking for his answer to the problem of the ideal society in Utopia, is coming back empty-handed. At the end of the day, the reader has to address the question himself. More has touched on features that might be desirable. Whether they really are desirable, whether they are attainable, and, perhaps most importantly, if they are desirable, how they can be attained – the question of how to get there – is left to the reader. The profound, even exacerbated ambiguity of Utopia successfully triggers the reader to become a thought experimenter and to evaluate himself which is the best of all possible worlds. And precisely this marks out More’s integrity; it is his balanced way of edging on and at the same time properly respecting the evaluations of others.

Bibliography Bealer, G. (2002) Modal Epistemology and the Rationalist Renaissance, in: T.S. Gendler and J. Hawthorne (eds), Conceivability and Possibility. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 71-125. Bolt, R. (1962) A Man for All Seasons. London: Random House. Brown, J.R. (1991) The Laboratory of the Mind: Thought Experiments in the Natural Sciences. London and New York: Routledge. Calhoun, C. (1995) Standing for Something, Journal of Philosophy 92, pp. 235-260. Chalmers, D.J. (2002) Does Conceivability Entail Possibility?, in: T.S. Gendler and J. Hawthorne (eds), Conceivability and Possibility. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 145-200. Claeys, G. (2011) Searching for Utopia: The History of an Idea. London: Thames & Hudson. Crombag, H. and F. van Dun, F. (1997) De Utopische Verleiding. Amsterdam: Atlas Contact. De Mey, T. (2005) Tales of the Unexpected, Logic and Logical Philosophy 14, pp. 69-88. De Mey, T. (2006) Imagination’s Grip on Science, Metaphilosophy 37(2), pp. 222-239. De Mey, T. And Weber, E. (2003) Explanation and Thought Experiments in History, History and Theory, 42(1), pp. 28-38. Frankfurt, H. (1969) Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility, Journal of Philosophy 66(23), pp. 829-839. Gendler, T. (2000) Thought Experiment: On the powers and limits of imaginary cases. London and New York: Routledge. Gettier, E. (1966) Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?, Analysis 23, pp. 121-123. Godin, C. (2000) Faut-il réhabiliter l’utopie? Nantes: Éditions Plein Feux. Haggqvist, S. (2009) A model for thought experiments, Canadian Journal of Philosophy 39(1), pp. 55-76. Harvey, W. (1578/1976) The Movement of the Heart and Blood, transl. G. Whitteridge. Oxford: Blackwell. Jubien, M. (2009) Possibility, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Kuhn, T. (1964) A function for thought experiments, in: Melanges Alexandre Koyre. Paris: Hermann, pp. 307-334. Lewis, D. (1973) Counterfactuals. Oxford: Blackwell. Lewis, D. (1986) On the Plurality of Worlds. Oxford: Blackwell. Mach, E. (1905) Erkenntnis und Irrtum. Leipzig: Verlag von Johann Ambrosius. More, T. (1965) Utopia, ed. E. Surtz, S.J., and J.H. Hexter. The Complete Works of St. Thomas More 4. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Plantinga, A. (1974) The Nature of Necessity. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Rosen, G. (1990) Modal Fictionalism, Mindi 99(395), pp. 327-354. Thomson, J.J. (1976) Killing, Letting Die, and the Trolley Problem, The Monist 59, pp. 204-217. Sargent, L.T. (2010) Utopianism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Scherkoske, G. (2012) Leading a Convincing Life: Integrity and the Virtues of Reason. New York: Cambridge University Press. Stalnaker, R. (1984) Inquiry. Cambridge MA: MIT Press.

About the author Tim De Mey is assistant professor in Theoretical Philosophy at Erasmus University Rotterdam. His research focuses on imagination and creativity in general, and on abduction and thought experiments in particular. He has recently (2015) published both a textbook and an edited volume on scepticism: Het voordeel van de twijfel (Rotterdam: Lemniscaat) and Het nadeel van de zekerheid (Rotterdam: Lemniscaat). This article has been previously published in Algemeen Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Wijsbegeerte 2016, Vol. 108, No. 3, with DOI: １０.５１１７/ANTW２０１６.３.MEY.

Index

Index of terms animals 40, 148, 150-151, 155-156, 165 anxiety (see also fear of want) 26-27, 29, 47, 67, 150 appetite 15, 48, 81, 87, 148-152, 155-159, 162166

counterfactual reasoning 229 crime 101n, 179, 228 punishing 124, 174-175 cunning 130, 155, 163, 208 death 21-22, 82, 84, 87, 90, 149-150, 155, 173 life and 22, 82, 149, 154-155, 198 deceit 47, 130-131, 177-178

Bible (see also Scripture) 93 body (see also human body) 12, 38, 47, 71, 73-74, 81-84, 89-93, 149, 152, 198 mind and 12, 47, 48n, 78, 80, 85-86, 9093, 135, 151, 155 business (busyness) 25, 31 capabilities 180, 192, 218 capitalism 16, 214, 216

desire 16-18, 52, 61, 122, 146-150, 154-155, 165, 171-182, 186-187, 197-199 dialogue form 8 distributive justice 208, 217, 219 dualism (see also body, mind) 12, 78, 80-81, 86 dystopias 147, 225-230, 233 economy 28, 34, 48, 123, 143

charity 31, 62, 87n, 137 Christ, Jesus 12, 64, 73, 84-91, 93, 95, 98 in Gethsemane 73, 84-91 Christian 10, 27, 46, 50, 55-61, 75-79, 96, 102, 112-113, 129, 132 morality 30, 35 tradition, Christianity 9, 25, 31, 67, 153 Church 55-60

economic change 143 economic determinism 27, 51n education 74, 94, 96, 102, 116, 122-125, 214 egalitarianism 26, 37, 180 enhancement, human (see also transhumanism) 193 empowerment 17, 191-193, 197, 200 Epicureanism 12, 28-29, 34-35, 46-48, 59, 74-

civility 35, 159 commerce 26, 43, 144, 157 commonwealth (Commonweal) 13, 26, 29, 35, 45-46, 62, 121-122, 145-146, 156, 158, 161, 209-211 communality 28, 33, 36, 40, 47 communism 16, 30n, 34, 36-37, 42-43, 160, 208, 211, 222

80, 101 epistemic integrity, epistemic virtue 226, 236-237 ethics (see also morality) 46, 95, 136, 195-198 consequentialist, consequentialism 196, 234 principalist 195-196 revisionist 195

consequentialism: see ethics

eugenics 193

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INDEX

euthanasia 154, 194 excellence (see also virtue) 26, 41-42 family 26, 40, 102, 122, 125, 177 fear of want (see also anxiety, food, hunger, want) 15, 27, 148-151, 153-155, 165 flattery 113-115 food (see also fear of want, hunger) 40, 47,

institutions 44, 55, 66, 95-96, 121-124, 164, 210, 216 integrity 225-226, 234-237 justice 19, 42, 102, 112, 132-135, 137, 164, 209, 217-221 Kallipolis 11, 28-29, 33, 42, 52 laws 15, 38, 44, 56-58, 119, 123-124, 130, 154,

81, 149, 152, 162, 165, 210 free trade (see also capitalism, profit) 16 freedom 81, 101, 125, 146n, 152, 165, 196 friendship 13, 35n, 37, 43, 186 Glück 191, 197 gluttony 80, 82 God 12, 47, 49, 57-65, 77, 79, 85, 88-92, 99, 133-134, 151, 157

164 liberalism 64, 196, 215-217 life 37, 41, 82, 92, 147-148 and death 22, 82, 149, 154-155, 198 quality of 17, 190-191, 197-198, 200 liquid forms of care 198 Machiavellism 109, 131 market 157, 159-160, 166, 199

goods internal (to a practice) 187 government 26, 38, 41-42, 69, 111, 118, 121, 194 greed 15, 25-27, 31, 66, 146-149, 154-166 grief 146, 188 happiness 16-18, 34, 36, 40-42, 46, 48n, 74, 101, 115, 123, 152-153, 171, 179-180, 186-191, 195, 197-201 health 17-18, 80, 151-154, 186, 190-193, 198-201

Marxism 18, 145, 208, 211-212, 215, 235 medicine 146, 162, 193-196, 199 metaphysics 88, 94, 173, 227 military 119, 129, 159, 160 mind (see also soul) 30-33, 46-48, 75-76, 112, 132, 152-153, 197, 201, 218 and body 12, 47, 48n, 78, 80, 85-86, 9093, 135, 151, 155

health care 17, 185-198, 201 hedonism 34, 93, 101 honouring the dead 16 hope 18, 50-52, 172, 201 household management 162-163, 166 human behaviour 148, 156 human body 12, 71-74, 80-84 human nature 86, 121-122, 156, 159, 173, 180,

mirror-for-princes 111-118, 122, 126-128, 132, 134-138 monarchy 95, 116-117, 138, 162 money 26, 34n, 39, 43, 48, 123, 158-160 morality 12-15, 19, 26, 35, 59, 71, 84, 87, 92, 101, 134-138, 179 moral history 71, 74 moral indignation 174-176

182 humanism 93-96 humanity 51, 87, 91, 122, 162, 208 hunger (see also food, fear of want) 15, 48n, 148-152, 156, 165 idealism (see also society, ideal; utopia) 9, 15, 20-22, 95-97 ideology 18, 192, 197, 200

moral philosophy 12, 72-74, 78-81, 93-98, 123 moral responsibility 176, 231-232 purified 178 Morus 9-10, 25, 30-36, 49-57, 66 mourning 173, 188-189, 200 narrative 35, 66, 210-211, 213, 226, 235 grand 18, 208, 215-216, 220

inequality 42, 62, 64

natural law 56, 133, 135-138

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INDEX

nature 26, 28, 34, 44, 47, 77, 146, 151, 154-156 New Testament 31, 73, 78, 80, 84-86, 92-93 Newspeak 197, 200 non-utilitarian desires 171 Nowhere, No-place theme 8 nursing 185, 191-192 Old Testament 89

recognition 17, 150, 171-172, 176-179, 182, 186189, 197 revisionist ethics: see ethics safety (see also security) 149 Scripture 58n, 60, 64, 81, 86, 88-93 security (see also safety) 26, 30, 101, 159 self-management 191-193

original sin 27, 51, 66 pain 25, 30, 32, 34, 47, 57-60, 151, 154, 179 parody 9, 13, 35, 100 paternalism 191, 194-195, 200 planned economy 16 pleasure 11-12, 28-34, 38-48, 57, 59-61, 74-81, 149, 151-155 politics 9-21, 31, 38, 44, 96, 109-111, 207-211

slavery 124, 230 social contract 218, 220 social life 29, 56, 125 social recognition 171 socialism 18, 145, 201, 207-209, 212-215, 220, 222-223 society, free 16 society, ideal 13-16, 109, 127, 208, 211-214, 219-

political correctness 185, 198 political idealism 72, 94-95 political imagination 145 political philosophy 13, 18-19, 45, 208, 215-218, 222-223 political science 109 possible worlds 42, 225, 227-230, 236-237 postmodernism 207-208, 215-216, 222

221, 225-226, 229, 234-237 soft utopianism 197, 199-200 soul (see also mind) 26, 41, 52, 79, 81, 87, 9093, 135, 152-153, 173 spirituality 12, 20, 71, 76, 78, 80, 82, 84, 90-93, 152, 156 Stalinism 216 stealing 56, 163

prices 161 pride 26-27, 66, 80, 123, 148, 150 privacy 37, 125 private property, ownership 26, 30, 32n, 39, 41-44, 49, 160, 209 abolition of 11, 29, 48, 54n, 62 profit 15, 58, 144, 156-157, 160-162 property: see private property

Stoicism 45, 76-78, 80 suffering 12, 57-60, 73, 84-88, 98, 179, 188, 194 symbolic restoration 17, 171, 174-176, 182 taboos 178, 199-201 theology 61, 73, 78, 80, 84-86, 90, 92-93, 9699, 135-137 therapeutization 188-189 thought experiment 8, 16, 19, 26, 66, 225,

prudence 112, 129, 135 public good 40 public wealth (see also wealth) 41 punishment (see also crime) 17, 79, 124-125, 149, 174-176, 230 QALY (Quality-adjusted life year) 191 Raphael Hythlodaeus 8-11, 14, 21, 25-26, 3032, 34, 48-50, 72, 74, 79, 145, 209-210

227, 229-237 tolerance 124, 153 totalitarianism 16, 146n, 185, 196, 199, 210, 215 tranquillity 28, 59 transcendental institutionalism 218-219, 223 transhumanism (see also human enhancement) 17, 171, 178, 180-181, 193, 194n tribulation 12, 57-60

realism 14, 22, 96-97, 102, 109, 130, 217, 227

utopia 7-22, 25-36, 48-57, 66-67, 71-78, 93-

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INDEX

102, 109-110, 116, 121-122, 127, 136, 138, 144166, 200, 207-215, 220-223, 225-230, 234237 realistic 209, 215-218 realized 185, 201-202 utopian socialism 18, 95, 123, 125, 145, 207-209, 212-215, 220, 222-223

virtue (see also excellence) 12, 46, 74, 77, 88, 102, 112-113, 116-121, 129, 131-135, 154, 201, 226 want (see also hunger, fear of want) 15, 143, 146, 149, 155, 158, 165-166, 231-232 wealth (see also public wealth) 12, 25, 29-31, 43, 47-49, 61-67, 161, 165, 209

utopianism 7, 15-22, 100, 109, 145-147, 149, 163, 165, 171, 178, 180, 182, 185, 188, 196, 200, 207-217, 219-223 utilitarianism 18, 178-180, 196

welfare state 15, 210 well-being 15, 33, 40-41, 62, 100, 115, 121-123, 126, 133, 158, 161, 213 work 39, 50, 123, 125, 144, 154, 230

Index of names Adorno, Theodor 145

45-49, 53n, 54, 56n, 59, 65, 71-102, 109-119, 122, 124, 126, 129, 134, 136, 211 Everaerts, Nicolaas 14, 109-110, 136

Aristotle 32, 39-43, 45, 52, 64, 134-135, 232233 Aquinas 32, 49, 65, 135 Augustine 92 Basil the Great 130 Berdiaeff, Nicolas 185 Bloch, Ernst 145 Budé, Guillaume 112, 163-166

Foës, Anuce 162, 166 Fourier, Charles 145, 212, 214 Francisco de Vitoria 135, 136n Frankfurt, Harry 231, 232 Galileo Galilei 233 Gendler, Tamar 229-230 Gettier, Edmund 231-232 Gilabert, Pablo 19, 207, 209, 220-223

Calhoun, Cheshire 226, 236 Chrisippus 43 Cicero 43-46, 49, 52, 53n, 77n, 111-112, 118-120, 127 Claeys, Gregory 234-235 Condorcet, Marquis Nicolas de 196 De la Court, Johan and Pieter 138 Diogenes the Cynic 37, 45-46

Giles, Peter (Pieter Gillis) 10-11, 14, 33-35, 50, 100 Hobbes, Thomas 97n, 218 Holbein, Ambrosius 21- 22 Huxley, Aldous 185n, 200 Isocrates 110-111 Jameson, Frederic 208, 211, 221 Jerome 20-22, 59n

Domingo de Soto 134-135 Dorp, Martin (Martinus Dorpius) 65, 78n, 111 Easton, David 18, 215-216, 222 Engels, Friedrich 18, 208, 212-214, 222 Epictetus 43 Epicurus 28-29, 33-35, 43, 45-48, 75, 79 Erasmus, Desiderius 9-15, 19-22, 34-39, 42,

Kautsky, Karl 214 Kolakowski, Leszek 199, 207-208 Kolnai, Aurel 185, 197 Laërtius, Diogenes 37, 43, 127 Lessius, Leonardus 14, 109-110, 133-138 Lipsius, Justus 14, 109-110, 127-134, 138 Luther, Martin 32, 54-56, 65

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INDEX

Machiavelli, Niccolò 14, 97, 102, 109-110, 116122, 127-133, 138-139, 160 Marx, Karl 18, 145, 207-216, 218, 222-223 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice 215 More, Thomas passim Paul 80-81, 93 Péguy, Charles 201

Pythagoras 11, 36-37, 43-46, 164 Rawls, John 18, 207, 209, 215-220, 222-223 Saint-Simon, Henri de 145, 212-214 Sen, Amartya 18, 207, 209, 217-221, 223 Seneca 114, 134 Smith, Thomas 14-15, 143, 146-147, 156-162, 166, 231-232

Petrarch 109, 112, 114-118 Pico della Mirandola, Giovanni 83 Pico della Mirandola, Gianfrancesco 83n Plato 8-12, 21, 28-29, 33-40, 42, 45-48, 52-54, 78-82, 93, 95, 145-148, 158 Pliny 114 Popper, Karl 16, 18, 145, 147

Socrates 33n, 38, 40, 45, 52, 53n, 95 Tacitus 130 Thomas à Kempis 83 Thomson, Judith 233 Valla, Lorenzo 48n, 74, 76-77 Xenophon 45, 134

Index of main titles discussed A Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation 12, 25, 32, 57-60, 66-67 A Dialogue on Heresies 32 A Discourse of the Commonweal of this Realm of England 14, 143, 146-147, 156, 158, 161, 166

Enchiridion militis Christiani / A Handbook for the Christian Soldier 76-81 Hippocrates’s Economy 162 Laws / De legibus 28, 38, 39n Lives of Eminent Philosophers 127 Manifesto of the Communist Party 213, 222 Politics / Politica 127-134 Prince / Il principe 97, 109-110, 116, 119, 127,

A Theory of Justice 216-217 Brave New World 185 Colloquia familiares 35, 46 De contemptu mundi 75-76 De iustitia et iure / On Justice and Right 134137 De Republica Anglorum 143, 147 De Tristitia Christi 73n, 85, 88-90, 93

160 Republic / De re publica 52 Republic / Politeia 8-9, 28, 29n, 33n, 38, 4243, 146-148, 164 Response to Luther 32, 55 Richard III 95-96 The Godly Feast 94 The Praise of Folly / Moriae encomium /

Disputatiuncula de taedio, pavore, tristitia Jesu 85-86 Instutio principis Christiani / The Education of a Christian Prince 10, 76, 78, 95, 97, 102, 109-110, 113 Epicureus 35, 46, 75

Stultitiae laus 9-10, 72, 76-78, 80, 99 Topica seu loci legales/ Legal Commonplaces 15, 109-110, 136 Utopia 7-22, 25-36, 48-57, 66-67, 71-78, 93-102, 109-110, 116, 121-122, 127, 136, 138, 144-166, 200, 207-215, 220-223, 225-230, 234-237