| 1516 | Utopia |
| Bk 2 | p.102 | 7253 | In Utopia, legal euthanasia is considered honourable |
| Full Idea: In Utopia, officially sanctioned euthanasia is regarded as an honourable death. | |||
| From: Thomas More (Utopia [1516], Bk 2) | |||
| A reaction: A bit surprising coming from a writer who is now a Catholic martyr and saint. |
| Bk 2 | p.106 | 7254 | If you try to get elected, you should be permanently barred from seeking office |
| Full Idea: In Utopia, anyone who deliberately tries to get himself elected to a public office is permanently disqualified from holding one. | |||
| From: Thomas More (Utopia [1516], Bk 2) | |||
| A reaction: This echoes a thought found in Plato (Idea 2149). I've always liked this idea. Why can't we have elections were a group of the best people are invited to stand? Well, yes, it would lead to corruption... Still, the best should be pushed to the front. |
| Bk 2 | p.109 | 7255 | Only Utopians fail to see glory in warfare |
| Full Idea: Utopians are practically the only people on earth who fail to see anything glorious in war. | |||
| From: Thomas More (Utopia [1516], Bk 2) | |||
| A reaction: A refreshing thought for such an early date. Whatever dubious behaviour is nowadays attributed to Thomas More, you have to admire someone who writes this during the reign of Henry VIII. |
| Bk 2 | p.118 | 7256 | In Utopia, the Supreme Being is identical with Nature |
| Full Idea: Everyone in Utopia agrees that the Supreme Being (which they call Mythras) is identical with Nature. | |||
| From: Thomas More (Utopia [1516], Bk 2) | |||
| A reaction: This sounds remarkably like full-blown Spinozean pantheism, though it should be interpreted with caution. It certainly seems to show that pantheism was a possibility in the minds of late medieval religious thinkers. |
| Bk 2 | p.130 | 7257 | All modern social systems seem to be conspiracies of the rich |
| Full Idea: When I consider any social system that prevails in the modern world, I can't see it as anything but a conspiracy of the rich to advance their own interests under the pretext of organizing society. | |||
| From: Thomas More (Utopia [1516], Bk 2) | |||
| A reaction: I'm afraid this is my own view of most conservative politics. I don't deny that there is a good case to be made for the conservative view (by Burke and Scruton, for example), but the rich will always latch onto its coat-tails. Cf. Idea 122. |