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The Meaning of More's Utopia
Examining its relation to ancient and Renaissance political thought, George M. Logan sees Thomas More's Utopia whole, in all its ironic complexity. He finds that the book is not primarily a prescriptive work that restates the ideals of Christian humanism or warns against radical idealism, but an exploration of a particular method of political study and the implications of that method for normative theory.
Originally published in 1983.
The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Originally published in 1983.
The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1983
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March 2, 2017
Logan's work is incredibly useful to a student looking to define More's contribution to political thought. This book places More in dialogue with his humanist contemporaries and with his classical influences, especially the "city-state" theories of Plato and Aristotle and the Roman rhetorical tradition of Cicero. Logan persuasively describes More's innovations upon these theories and his novel contributions which constitute his "modernity," namely his "experimental" method of systemic social analysis which seeks to discover the root causes of political problems in the social order itself, and the proto-scientific "testing" More enacts in constructing a fictional regime where the practical results of a given theory might play out imaginatively. Logan's discussion of More's engagement with the problematic relationship between morality and political expediency in his analysis of Raphael Hythloday is also very useful, and he correctly identifies this problem as the central theme of Book I.
Logan's weakness is his conflation of the Ciceronian strains of Christian humanism, and consequently More's political thought, with Stoicism. Far from identifying himself unqualifiedly with Stoicism as Logan assumes, Cicero criticizes Stoicism in the same way that he criticizes Epicureanism's apolitical neglect of duty. The Stoic conception of wisdom as the supreme good for human beings abstracts from the realities of the body and the material conditions in which man lives, leading to a demotion of duty that is virtually incompatible with political life. Logan's treatment of More's reaction to these two philosophies in Book II of "Utopia" suffers from a lack of critical engagement with Cicero's dialectical treatment in "De finibus", which leads him to defend the Utopian moral philosophy when it seems more likely that More shares Cicero's criticisms. Logan also seems to misread Aristotle on the status of pleasure, which in turn confuses his treatment of the Utopian moral philosophy that is the heart of the "best-commonwealth exercise" in Logan's own argument. I would argue that More does not endorse Utopian moral philosophy to the extent that Logan says he does.
Logan's larger points about Utopia on the whole seem accurate, however; especially in his claims about More's twofold criticism of Renaissance humanism in "Utopia": Christian humanists suffer from idealism and a lack of engagement with concrete political realities on the one hand, while secular humanists vastly exaggerate the gulf between morality and political expediency on the other. Though More does grant that the latter tension exists, instances of the conflict between morality and political prudence are far fewer than secular humanists like Machiavelli imagine them to be. On the whole More believes it is possible for Christian statesmen to be "wise as serpents and gentle as doves."
Logan's weakness is his conflation of the Ciceronian strains of Christian humanism, and consequently More's political thought, with Stoicism. Far from identifying himself unqualifiedly with Stoicism as Logan assumes, Cicero criticizes Stoicism in the same way that he criticizes Epicureanism's apolitical neglect of duty. The Stoic conception of wisdom as the supreme good for human beings abstracts from the realities of the body and the material conditions in which man lives, leading to a demotion of duty that is virtually incompatible with political life. Logan's treatment of More's reaction to these two philosophies in Book II of "Utopia" suffers from a lack of critical engagement with Cicero's dialectical treatment in "De finibus", which leads him to defend the Utopian moral philosophy when it seems more likely that More shares Cicero's criticisms. Logan also seems to misread Aristotle on the status of pleasure, which in turn confuses his treatment of the Utopian moral philosophy that is the heart of the "best-commonwealth exercise" in Logan's own argument. I would argue that More does not endorse Utopian moral philosophy to the extent that Logan says he does.
Logan's larger points about Utopia on the whole seem accurate, however; especially in his claims about More's twofold criticism of Renaissance humanism in "Utopia": Christian humanists suffer from idealism and a lack of engagement with concrete political realities on the one hand, while secular humanists vastly exaggerate the gulf between morality and political expediency on the other. Though More does grant that the latter tension exists, instances of the conflict between morality and political prudence are far fewer than secular humanists like Machiavelli imagine them to be. On the whole More believes it is possible for Christian statesmen to be "wise as serpents and gentle as doves."
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