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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 July 2015
This article posits an interpretation of Thomas More’s Utopia that focuses on the ways in which the nature of justice within a putatively ideal state is illuminated by references to international relations and the law of nations. Like Plato’s Republic, Utopia uses differences of scale to provide a lens through which to examine the operation in one context of a unitary concept that is more visible elsewhere. Justice is constructed as a single concept; thus, in the same way that Plato uses the justice of the kallipolis to provide insight into the justice of an individual, More uses the justice of the international community to provide a macroscopic perspective on justice as it exists within a sovereign state. Through discussions of trade, diplomacy, war and empire, Utopian understandings of international law and justice are revealed. The ideal organisation of the state is then characterised as one in which the resulting notions of justice, defined as the correct operation of laws that accord with natural law, are institutionalised.
A previous version of this paper was presented at the Imagining Justice in Early Modern English Literature and Culture workshop at Carleton University. I am grateful to the participants for their feedback, and to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for funding the workshop.
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5. Ibid at 120-35.
6. Ibid at 140-41.
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10. Ibid at 112-13, 164-65, 190-93.
11. Ibid at 130-33, 144-45, 178-85.
12. Ibid at 128-29, 146-47, 170-71.
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16. “Neque haec tamen sola est furandi necessitas. Est alia magis quantum credo, peculiaris uobis. Quaenam est ea? inquit Cardinalis. Oues inquam uestrae, quae tam mites esse, tamque exiguo solent ali, nunc (uti fertur) tam edaces atque indomitae esse coeperunt, ut homines deuorent ipsos, agros, domos, oppida uastent ac depopulentur.” “‘Yet this is not the only situation that makes thieving necessary. There is another which, as I believe, is more special to you Englishmen.’ ‘What is that?’ asked the Cardinal. ‘Your sheep,’ I answered, ‘which are usually so tame and so cheaply fed, begin now, according to report, to be so greedy and wild that they devour human beings themselves and devastate and depopulate fields, houses, and towns.’” Ibid at 64-67.
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35. Ibid at 148-49.
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37. “… populos, urbes, oppida, in his assidua non inter se modo, ac finitimos, sed procul etiam dissitas gentes, terra marique commercia”: Ibid at 52-53.
38. Ibid at 196-97.
39. Ibid at 198-99.
40. “… hostes atque inimicos inuicem sese natos putent, meritoque in mutuam grassari perniciem, nisi foedera prohibeant …”: Ibid at 198-99.
41. “… in illis terrarum plagis, foedera pactaque principum solent parum bona fide seruari”: Ibid at 196-97.
42. “… sancta est & inuiolabilis ubique maiestas foederum, partim ipsa iustitia & bonitate principum, partim summorum reuerentia metuque pontificum…. ita caeteros omnes principes iubent, ut pollicitis omnibus modis immorentur, tergiuersantes uero pastorali censura & seueritate compellunt”: Ibid at 196-97.
43. Ibid at 110-11.
44. “… ut ingentes copiae paucis inde queant propugnatoribus arceri”: Ibid at 110-11.
45. “ne si qua uis hostium ingruat, intercipi, atque auerti aqua, neue corrumpi queat”: Ibid at 118-19.
46. “… assidue militari sese disciplina exerceant…”: Ibid at 200-01.
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90. Ibid at 443c-444a.
