A Puritan View of the Governance of the Individual: William Ames (1576-1633)

Abstract

For William Ames everything that has to do with the art of living well (ars bene vivendi) is a theological matter. In his approach theology has two parts: faith and observance. Observance replaces ethics as the practical aspect of understanding that orients our actions. This is the subject of his book, Conscience with the Power and Cases Thereof, a casuistic work which can be seen in political theory terms as a manual on how to govern our own lives. Ames introduces and establishes an executive understanding of the faculties that are at work in the internal forum (foro interno), that realm which Hannah Arendt recovered for contemporary political thought through The Life of the Mind (1978). In the following article an analysis is offered of the puritan mentality that became deeply rooted in New England. This study takes into account the influence of Ramism and applies new political theory concepts such as the governance of the individual and internal political spaces, which give access to a more profound understanding of democracy in the twenty-first century.