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            Source Book Study Questions

Dialogue on Conscience (SB, pp. 316-35)   Click here for a study outline.

1. What is the overall effect of this literary work?  To what emotion(s) does it most appeal?

2. What two-fold charge is leveled against More by Lord Chancellor Audley? How does More answer each? In his response to the fable about fools and the rain, what position does More take on wisdom and folly (322-324)?

3. When More answers and dismisses these charges, what new issue(s) does Margaret bring up?

4. What surprised you most in Audley's "merry tales" about More?  What surprised you most in More's response to Audley? In responding to the suggestion that he is a scrupulous ass, why does More suggest that he is confident in the judgment of his conscience (325)?  

5. What does More's "merry tale" about Company (325-27) add to his fatherly conversation with Meg?  Did anything strike you as "unfatherly" in this conversation? What understanding of friendship emerges from this section of the dialogue?

6. According to this Dialogue (esp. 328-32), what has greater importance for More, law or conscience? Explain. 

7. Are there any issues of conscience of this kind in Utopia?  Are there any similar conflicts between conscience and law in Utopia?

8. According to this Dialogue, these elements seem necessary to achieve a right conscience:

-Serious study for years, to instruct conscience (320-21, 325)

-Determination not to act against conscience (320, 325-27, 332, 334)

-Knowing when and when not to conform your conscience to others' (327-32)

-Confrontation of the dangers that must be faced in living up to conscience (320, 333-35).

Are these elements sufficient?

9. Essay question or subject for a project: Compare More's position in this dialogue with the position taken by Socrates in the Crito.