"Every man has a certain sphere of discretion which he has a right to expect shall not be infringed by his neighbours. This right flows from the very nature of man"
About this Quote
Godwin is carving out a radical boundary line: a private zone where a person’s judgment is sovereign, not merely tolerated. The phrasing is deceptively calm - “a certain sphere of discretion” sounds modest, almost bureaucratic - but it smuggles in a revolutionary premise. If discretion is a right grounded in “the very nature of man,” then it doesn’t depend on tradition, property, church sanction, or the mood of Parliament. It is pre-political, which makes it hard to bargain away and harder to police.
The subtext is a critique of social tyranny as much as state tyranny. “Neighbours” is doing a lot of work: not kings and ministers, but the everyday enforcement mechanisms of community life - gossip, moral bullying, conformity, surveillance. Godwin, writing in the wake of the French Revolution and in conversation with Enlightenment arguments about natural rights, is wary of any collective that treats the individual as raw material for order. He’s also distancing himself from a purely legalistic model of rights. This isn’t “the law grants you privacy”; it’s “human reason requires it.”
Intent matters here: Godwin isn’t defending selfishness so much as moral autonomy. Discretion implies deliberation, the capacity to choose and revise one’s beliefs. That makes the “sphere” less about hiding and more about thinking without coercion. The rhetorical move - grounding the claim in human nature - turns tolerance into obligation. Your neighbors don’t refrain because they’re nice; they refrain because violating that space is an assault on personhood itself.
The subtext is a critique of social tyranny as much as state tyranny. “Neighbours” is doing a lot of work: not kings and ministers, but the everyday enforcement mechanisms of community life - gossip, moral bullying, conformity, surveillance. Godwin, writing in the wake of the French Revolution and in conversation with Enlightenment arguments about natural rights, is wary of any collective that treats the individual as raw material for order. He’s also distancing himself from a purely legalistic model of rights. This isn’t “the law grants you privacy”; it’s “human reason requires it.”
Intent matters here: Godwin isn’t defending selfishness so much as moral autonomy. Discretion implies deliberation, the capacity to choose and revise one’s beliefs. That makes the “sphere” less about hiding and more about thinking without coercion. The rhetorical move - grounding the claim in human nature - turns tolerance into obligation. Your neighbors don’t refrain because they’re nice; they refrain because violating that space is an assault on personhood itself.
Quote Details
| Topic | Human Rights |
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