Thomas More, Spinozism, and democratic radicalism.

Today’s post will offer a reading of a passage in More’s Utopia that is, in no small part, anticipated by a Sanford Kessler "Religious freedom in thomas More's Utopia." The Review of politics 64.2 (2002): 207-230. So I don’t make any claim to originality in this post. Having said that my angle is slightly different than Kessler’s, so even if you are familiar with it there may something worth digesting here. In fact, this post builds on my recurring interest (recall here; here; here; and even back in NewApps) in the proto-Spinozism of Utopia. (So, here I am going to ignore the other connection between the two, the role of federalism.)

Because liberals and contemporary republicans do not ‘claim’ Sir Thomas More — who is a Saint of the Church, after all, and somewhat dogmatic near the end of his life — his importance to the development of religious liberty is under-appreciated. But Utopia culminates with a fascinating discussion of the role of religion in Utopia. This discussion, especially on the attenuated toleration of atheists, is much indebted to Plato’s Laws. But there is also a passage that indicates views commonly associated with later thinkers. Let me quote it, and then explain.

Utopus had heard that before his arrival the natives were continually squabbling over religious matters, and he had observed that it was easy to conquer the whole country because the different sects were too busy fighting one another to oppose him. And so at the very beginning, after he had gained the victory, he prescribed by law that everyone may cultivate the religion of his choice, and strenuously proselytise for it too, provided he does so quietly, modestly, rationally and without insulting others. If persuasion fails, no one may resort to abuse or violence; and anyone who fights wantonly about religion is punished by exile or slavery.

Utopus laid down these rules not simply for the sake of peace, which he saw was being completely undermined by constant quarrels and implacable hatreds, but he also thought such decrees would benefit religion itself. In such matters he was not at all quick to dogmatise, because he was uncertain whether God likes diverse and manifold forms of worship and hence inspires different people with different views. On the other hand, he was quite sure that it was arrogant folly for anyone to force conformity with his own beliefs on everyone else by threats or violence. He easily foresaw that if one religion is really true and the rest are false, the truth will sooner or later emerge and prevail by its own natural strength, if men will only consider the matter reasonably and moderately. But if they try to decide things by fighting and rioting, since the worst men are always the most headstrong, the best and holiest religion in the world will be crowded out by foolish superstitions, like grain choked by thorns and briars. So he left the whole matter open, allowing each person to choose what he would believe. The only exception was a solemn and strict law against anyone who should sink so far below the dignity of human nature as to think that the soul perishes with the body, or that the universe is ruled by blind chance, not divine providence.—More’s Utopia, part 2, pp. 99-100. (Cambridge, revised translation by Logan)

Utopus is the original founder (or Legislator as the Ancients and Rousseau would call it) of Utopia’s political order. He is himself a foreign conqueror, and we learn here that his own diagnosis of his military success is that religious polarization among the locals created an inability to maintain unity and a proper defensive posture. Without relative religious harmony many political dangers lurk.

In addition, this also sheds wider light on something we learn at the start of Book 2of Utopia (at the beginning of the detailed description of Utopia). After conquering the locals, he put them to work alongside his own soldiers, and thereby removing the stigma of defeat (and preventing the superiority of victors). But the present passage also suggests that mixing populations also functioned as a kind of dilution of local animosity.

Be that as it may, this political fear of religious polarization shapes the nature of religious liberty in Utopia. For while such liberty is quite broad — and must have been shocking to many of More’s contemporaries — it is constrained by considerations of maintaining public order. This consideration and the requirement to proselytize calmly or civilly is, as my students noted at once, easily open to abuse by the authorities. More’s readers will have been amazed that just before the quoted passage a newcomer Christian is banished for the manner of prostelytizing, “He was tried on a charge, not of despising their religion, but of creating a public disorder, convicted, and sentenced.” One may well think that the line between proselytizing and worship may be rather blurry sometimes.

The stance of the previous paragraph is pretty much Spinoza’s, Rousseau’s and Rawls’ position. (And my students note the risk of abuse in Spinoza’s stance, too.) As Rawls puts it (recall) “Liberty of conscience is limited, everyone agrees, by the common interest in public order and security.” (To be sure, the emphasis on security is presupposed in Utopia, even though it is not theorized much in it.) To what degree an independent judiciary (which seems to be absent in Utopia) can mitigate these risks is worth asking.

That religious liberty is supposed to benefit religion is, in fact, a key piece of Spinoza’s argument for religious liberty in TTP. (I forget the exact spot, so feel to send it to me.) Such liberty does so in two (related) ways (in a manner familiar from students of Enlightenment thought): first, it prevents the state from prematurely or wrongly embracing the false as true. If the job of the State is to witness truth, then it should be cautious about doing so. The Utopians seemed to have had, for example, no direct revelation of the truth. Second, this means that they have some space to discover it. This is especially important because they get to elect their own priests (by secret ballot). In fact, this helps to explain, in part, the significant role of leisure in the political economy of Utopia (which otherwise has such a strong work ethic).

There is a third feature (that itself has three elements) lurking here in the background. The priests (who may include some women), “preside over divine worship, attend to religious matters, and act as censors of public manners.” [I have modestly shifted Logan’s ‘public morality’ to Ralph Robinson’s ‘manners.’] This is proto-Spinozistic in three ways: first, the priest and the Churches are primarily concerned with governing (or governmentality) of mores and social interactions. It is (to be anachronistic) primarily focused on ritual and ethics. (There are a few other roles.) Second, More is creating a certain kind of State and Church(es) division here. The state oversees defense, public works, production, distribution, and hospitals, the Church(es) worship, mores, and manners. (Education is a complicated case, but it does not fall under the Church.) This is more akin to Locke than to Spinoza (who thinks the state should exercise more control over the churches.)

Third, that the truth will emerge, bottom up, from the free giving and taking of reasons has become something of a dogma in twentieth century liberalism (built on a misinterpretation of J.S. Mill and supported by Aumann’s Bayesian machinery). Not unlike Mill, Utopus recognizes that vituperation is not truth-conducive. Mill allows for a lot more vituperation (and has no providential faith in the emergence of truth) because he thinks the preventing it is even worse.

Given the many forms of social control from the top down one may not expect to find much latitude for bottom-up emergence of truth views in Utopia. But it’s a seminal move for the subsequent history of Enlightenment thought. (I actually think this doesn’t come out of Plato, but can be found to some degree in Al-Farabi, but I am unsure how familiar More was with Islamic philosophers who were familiar to Aquinas and Dante.)

The fourth proto-Spinozistic move is the requirement on all religions to have certain firm dogmas or doctrines that all religions most endorse: the soul exists and survives mortality, and the world is governed by providence. (Cf. that with Spinoza TTP, the end of chapter 14.) The function of these dogmas is also quite clearly to secure public morality through fear of bad things happening to one’s soul after death. (We might say that More and Spinoza accept Al-Ghazali’s criticism of the Islamic philosophers.)

There is a fifth, final proto-Spinozistic move here. This one is more speculative. But one problem Spinoza diagnoses is a kind of corruption of the Church because it attracts the wrong sort of people due to it being a source of rents, power, and honor. (This is articulated in the Preface to the TTP.) As I have noted this is also Raphael’s diagnosis in Part 1 of Utopia, where all priests and even the apostles are treated as accommodating the preferences of the powerful. The Utopians aim to remedy this problem by making priests an elected office through secret ballot alongside some requirements on character. This seems to have been more of a norm in the early Church. This is not obviously Spinoza’s preferred solution (but it is Adam Smith’s).

In fact, it is quite noticeable how important elected offices (and even recall) are in Utopia. In this sense its practices anticipate much of the radical, republican democratic tradition (recall here) that often takes inspiration from Spinoza (and materialism).