Crime and Punishment in More’s Utopia

by maltmunsocietyin Law & Philosophyon Posted on

Written by: Samuel Camilleri Brancaleone

Introduction

When writing about the concept of a Utopia, Viera describes it as “a kind of reaction to an undesirable present and an aspiration to overcome all difficulties by the imagination of possible alternatives.”1 Indeed this may apply to Sir Thomas More, who, while never defining his political philosophy in one writing does make statements which when put together form a political theory.2 Many speculate More wrote Utopia to serve as a platform to both highlight the chaos of European politics, with particular reference to England, and, to offer an alternative by defining an ideal republic.3

What is clear is that the topic of Crime and Punishment is central, featuring both in the first and second book. It may be said that it is easier to identify the topics and themes in the second book, partly because the second book is cordoned off into different sections and partly because the first book is written in a narrative style. In the first book crime and punishment feature centrally in Hythoday’s discussion both with the Lawyer and Cardinal Morton, while it is featured in certain sections within the second book. In order for one to understand what More’s vision of crime and punishment is within a utopic society, one must see the instances in which laws and crimes are mentioned and analyse them.

Hythloday and his Discussion

In the beginning of the first book, More sets up Hytholday as a learned scholar who sailed with Vespucci, therefore, prompting the reader to hold his words in high regard. This is important particularly for the remainder of the first book. While in the second book Hythtloday mostly describes Utopia, it is in the first book we see Hythloday opine on matters. One of them being, how to deal with crime and appropriate punishments, when he recalls a discussion he had with a lawyer and Cardinal Morton.

This discussion is prompted when the lawyer praises the English Justice system pointing out how many thieves had been sent to the gallows. Here Hythloday states that being sent to death “is too extreme and cruel a punishment for theft, and yet not sufficient to refrain and withhold men from theft.”.4 Hythloday here has too points of contention: The extremity of the punishment as well as the efficiency of punishment being a deterrent to crime.

Here, More through Hythloday, is attempting to probe the reader into asking what causes people to steal. Juxtaposing the broad statements made by the lawyer, Hythloday breaks down the thieves into demographics; those effected by war and those disenfranchised by society. Regarding those effected by war, Hythloday points to the soldiers themselves who after a war, by weakness or injury can’t do their old job and are too old to learn a how to do a new one. As such, they resort to theft to sustain themselves.

Hythloday also levels a critique against feudalism by targeting landlords who don’t know a craft, but rather, feed off their tenants driving them to poverty. Hythloday continues that these landlords who administer their lord’s property are dependant on the lord being alive, as once he dies they are out on the street where they either have to steal or starve as local farmers refuse to hire them because of their temper. The lawyer retorts by stating that these ‘out of work’ men are cherished in England as they form the backbone of the army. To which Hythloday states that it is troubling that England has to cherish its thieves for the sake of war.

It is clear that when talking about people effected by war, Hythloday is taking a roundabout approach to unemployment. Firstly, soldiers who after a war struggle to re-enter the workforce and administrators of property who end up in the army due to unemployment, only to end up unemployed after the war.

Hythloday then moves to address the problem that effects the English alone. This problem being sheep. Sheep who have “become so great devourers and so wild that they eat up and swallow down the very men themselves.”.5Here of course, Hythloday employs hyperbole to level an attack against noblemen and even members of the church. Hythloday is critiquing these people who take swaths of land to allow their sheep to graze in order to harvest their wool.  Hythloday says that because “They consume, destroy, devour whole fields, houses, and cities” 6, both famers, whose land were seized without recompense, and other people are left destitute,, unable to live off the otherwise arable land now used for sheep.

Following this Hythloday also adds that others such as servants and ploughmen are also susceptible to resorting theft because of “bawds, queans, whores, harlots, strumpets, brothel houses, stews, and yet another stews, wine-taverns ale-houses and tippling houses, with so many naughty, lewd, and unlawful games”.7 Hythloday askshow can they not resort to stealing when their money is gone due to the vices these places bring. It may seem that More, rejects the idea of punishment as a deterrent to crime but rather pushes for a more moral approach. By removing institutions such as gambling halls and curbing the greed of certain people, then can theft be tackled. More here effectively wishes to say that crime, more specifically theft, is a result of the socio-economic factors faced by the people. Here it must be noted that this is true even today.8 What also must be said is that More effectively wishes to divorce crime from punishment and tackle it through addressing social issues.9

On the issue of punishment itself, when asked by Cardinal Morton what options does England have other that using death as a punishment, Hythloday states that to kill is go against the commandment of God which plain and simply states killing is not allowed. Furthering that Hythloday points out that“Moses’ law, though it were ungentle and sharp, as a law that was given to bondmen, yea, and then very obstinate, stubborn, and stiff-necked, yet it punished theft by purse and not with death”.10

Hythloday then points to the Polylerites who use slavery as a punishment to theft. Here, scholars note that the use of the Polylerites’ system as a solution is questionable, especially since Hythloday alludes to the fact that the Polylerites adopt a lax approach to the death penalty on other crimes.11 While the Polylerite episode is worth a detailed discussion, due to word count contains this is not possible. What can be said is that in relation to the rest of the book and theme it is significant as it plants a seed of doubt within the readers mind as to whether everything done by Utopia should be emulated.

Of the Magistrates

This section discusses the role of the Magistrates, although, one will note that their role is completely different from the role typically associated with magistrates. The Oxford Dictionary of law describes magistrates as “A Justice of the peace sitting in a magistrates court”12 whose job is to hear cases which effect their community in those same local courts.13

Instead, one will notice that this section describes a system of government rather than a system of law. The structure is only relevant to the theme of crime and punishment in that it is fairly centralised. Though bearing in mind that Utopia was written during the time of absolute monarchs, this system of government differs much from that of the United States or England (The United Kingdom) today which adopt three separate branches of power so to ensure that power does accumulate in the hands of a few.14 This system of Government is relevant to the theme of Crime and Punishment as it gives the reader a glimpse of how the law is decided upon and administered.

Initially, one may think that a system of where the same people play the roles of Legislator, Executive and Judiciary would be rife with corruption. Though it is explained by Hythloday that “It is death to have any consultation for the commonwealth out of the council, or the place of the common election.” 15This may be seen as an incredibly disproportionate punishment. Hythloday states that the Utopians justify “This statute, they say was made to the intent, that the prince and tr might not easily conspire together to oppress the people by tyranny, and to change the state of the weal public”.16 What is being said here runs contrary to what is implied in the first book, punishment may be used to deter crime.

It must also be noted that as far as it goes to issues of the judiciary in a civil sense the council takes the role of a civil court where “If there be any controversies among the commoners, which be very few, they dispatch and end them by and by they take ever two sphygrants to them in counsel, and everyday a new couple.”17 However, as far as it goes to the role of the criminal court it remains unclear what the procedure is and who administers the sentence.

Of Bondmen, Sick Persons, Wedlock and Divers other Matters

This section of the second book is the most replete with elements of the theme of crime and punishment. In it Hythloday details a series of policies with the three most standing out being those that deal with bondmen, the sick and marriage.

On Bondmen, Hythloday points out that not all bondmen are locals with some being foreigners who in their country faced the death penalty, and destitute individuals who believe that being a bondman in Utopia was much better than being destitute at home. However, the worst treated bondmen are the Utopian bondmen who even though were brought up in such a moral society, “could not for all that be refrained from misdoing”.18 This may be interpreted as a tacit admission that no matter how good social conditions are people still do crime and therefore a ‘by the book’ ‘no-nonsense’ approach to crime must be adopted. This reinforced when dealing with the sick. Hythloday states that those who are terminally ill may commit suicide by starvation only after having discussed this with priests and councilmen. If the person kills himself before having spoken with the aforenoted individuals he is ‘punished’ not being given a proper burial and instead having his body dumped in a marsh.

On issues of marriage, one may once again see a ‘by the book’ approach whereby couples are prohibited from engaging in pre-marital sex, but, at the same time they must expose themselves to their partner. Hythloday, while questioning this policy, states that it is done so to prevent one person from concealing any “deformities”19 from their partner causing them to commit adultery or otherwise break the vow of marriage. Once again this shows us that More  is concerned with tackling crime through addressing through social issues. While in the first book More hinted at preventing crimes through addressing socio-economic issues, here, it is in the authors opinion, that More moves to prevent ‘moral crimes’ (adultery, pre-marital sex etc), things which may contravene the teachings of the Catholic Church. Though noting here that when speaking on the issue of suicide, Mores writings run directly contrary to the teachings of the church.

It must also be noted that in similar fashion to the Church forgiving sins, bondmen may be released of their bond “if the repentance of the one … move the prince with pity and compassion”.20 Here one will not that this happens infrequently, and, it is described to happen in cases of adultery. So while unclear whether this applies to other crimes, it does however push More into the territory of reforming criminals rather than strictly punishing them. Although this constitutes a further in depth discussion as its own point.

Conclusion

J C Davis writes that “the perfection of utopias must be total and ordered” and to accomplish this, “there must be discipline of a totalitarian kind.” 21This is fitting for Utopia which having seen that, one may say that it adopts a very ‘no-nonsense’ approach to crime. However, it must be pointed out that Utopia is not tough on crime for the sake of it is tough because it has eliminated the reason for there to be crime.

More, through Hythloday’s critique of the English Justice system may be stating that punishment as a prevention of crime does not work, but rather, there firstly must be a more humane approach to punishment, and, the reduction of crimes of necessity through addressing economic inequality and the removal of factors which may morally compromise the individual.22

More ends the book stating that “I needs confess and grant that many things be in the Utopian weal public which in our cities I may rather wish for than hope after.” 23This does make the reader question whether or not some things should be taken seriously about Utopia. The ending leaves the reader with more questions than answers. The author believes that More did this, utilising especially the theme of crime and punishment, not to turn Utopia into a list of policies European nations should adopt. But rather, point out the short comings of the current system while at the same time offering up a questionable solution to further egg the reader on into thinking and pondering the issue.

  1. Fátima Vieira, The Cambridge Companion to Utopian Literature (Cambridge University Press, 2010). ↩︎
  2. R. A. Herrera, James Lehrberger, and M. E. Bradford, Saints, Sovereigns, and Scholars: Studies in Honor of Frederick D. Wilhelmsen (New York: Peter Lang , 1993). ↩︎
  3. Mildred Witt Caudle, “Sir Thomas More’s ‘Utopia:’ Origins and Purposes,” Social Science 45 (June 1970). ↩︎
  4. Thomas More, Utopia, ed. Tom Griffith (Wordsworth Classics of World Literature, n.d.). ↩︎
  5. Ibid ↩︎
  6. Ibid ↩︎
  7. Ibid ↩︎
  8. Jason Vargas, “The Impact of Socioeconomic Factors on Crime Rates.,” Perspective – Addiction & Criminology (2023) 6, no. 4 (August 28, 2023), https://www.alliedacademies.org/articles/the-impact-of-socioeconomic-factors-on-crime-rates-26135.html. ↩︎
  9. Keally McBride, “The Whip of Utopia, On Punishment and Political Vision,” essay, in Punishment and Political Order (University of Michigan Press, 2007), 17–27. ↩︎
  10. Thomas More, Utopia, ed. Tom Griffith (Wordsworth Classics of World Literature, n.d.). ↩︎
  11. Jason Gleckman, “THE POLYLERITE EPISODE IN RELATION TO BOOK II OF UTOPIA: A PRELIMINARY STUDY,” Moreana 42 (December 2005). ↩︎
  12. Elizabeth A. Martin, Oxford Dictionary of Law, Fifth (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001). ↩︎
  13. “Magistrates.” Courts and Tribunals Judiciary . Accessed January 28, 2024. https://www.judiciary.uk/about-the-judiciary/who-are-the-judiciary/magistrates/#:~:text=Magistrates%20hear%20cases%20affecting%20their,benches%2C%20of%202%20or%203. ↩︎
  14. Branches of the U.S. government, December 6, 2023, https://www.usa.gov/branches-of-government. ↩︎
  15. Thomas More, Utopia, ed. Tom Griffith (Wordsworth Classics of World Literature, n.d.). ↩︎
  16. Ibid ↩︎
  17. Ibid ↩︎
  18. Ibid ↩︎
  19. Ibid ↩︎
  20. Ibid ↩︎
  21. J. C. Davis, Utopia and the Ideal Society: A Study of English Utopian Writing, 1516-1700 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981). ↩︎
  22. 1. Peter  Gordon Stillman, Justice, Crime, and Punishment in More’s Utopia, accessed January 28, 2024, https://ediciones.ucc.edu.co/index.php/ucc/catalog/download/37/41/255?inline=1. ↩︎
  23. Thomas More, Utopia, ed. Tom Griffith (Wordsworth Classics of World Literature, n.d.). ↩︎

Tweet
Share
Share
0 Shares