..Philosophers ought not to advise princes,for rulers are not interested in advice,
but would much prefer to have others assent to their fixed policies.
..
An economic system which allows private property drives the poor from the land and thereby creates thieves whom the existing laws require to be hanged :
such a system and policy is neither just nor expedient.
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In opposition to the former ideas which are defended by Raphael Hythloday,a world traveler,Thomas More -as a character in the conversation- argues that a nonspeculative,prudential philosopher might be useful in politics,but Hythloday is skeptical.
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(The name Raphael, though, may have been chosen by More to remind his readers of the archangel Raphael who is mentioned in the Book of Tobit. In that book the angel guides Tobias and later cures his father of his blindness. While Hythloday may suggest his words are not to be trusted, Raphael meaning "God has healed" suggests that Raphael may be opening the eyes of the reader to what is true. The suggestion that More may have agreed with the views of Raphael is given weight by the way he dressed; with "his cloak was hanging carelessly about him"; a style which Roger Ascham reports that More himself was wont to adopt. Furthermore, more recent criticism has questioned the reliability of both Gile's annotations and the character of "More" in the text itself. Claims that the book only subverts Utopia and Hythloday are possibly oversimplistic)
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More objects to Raphael Hythloday's call for the abolition of money and private property by arguing that unless men have the profit motive,they will not work.
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Hythloday describes Utopia,a carefully organized state in which the citizens engage in scientific farming according to assignments from magistrates and then return to the cities ;
they work a six-hour day and spend their leisure moments reading,attending lectures,and conversing on academic subjects.
..
In Utopia gold has no worth,
marriages are regulated,
work is cooperative,and
pleasure in accordance with virtue is the aim of Life.
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(The communistic life style of a Utopian is a strange one coming from a rich landowner, though maybe influenced by the Spanish colonization of the Americas, which was bringing to European ears tales of ideal civilizations at about this time, such as the communistic Inca Empire)
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(There are several religions on the island: moon-worshipers, sun-worshipers, planet-worshipers, ancestor-worshipers and monotheists, but each is tolerant of the others. Only atheists are despised (but allowed) in Utopia, as they are seen as representing a danger to the state: since they do not believe in any punishment or reward after this life, they have no reason to share the communistic life of Utopia, and will break the laws for their own gain. They are not banished but encouraged to talk out their erroneous beliefs with the priests until they are convinced of their wrong. Raphael says that through his teachings Christianity was beginning to take hold in Utopia.
The toleration of all other religious ideas is enshrined in a universal prayer all the Utopians recite.
“...but, if they are mistaken, and if there is either a better government, or a religion more acceptable to God, they implore His goodness to let them know it.”)
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The Book : http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/2130
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Utopia.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopia_(book)
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[Book 1: Dialogue of Counsel
(Woodcut by Ambrosius Holbein for a 1518 edition of Utopia. The lower left-hand corner shows the traveler Raphael Hythlodaeus, describing the island.)
The work begins with written correspondence between Thomas More and several people he had met on the continent: Peter Gilles, Town clerk of Antwerp, and Jerome Busleiden, counselor to Charles V. More chose these letters, which are communications between actual people, to further the plausibility of his fictional land. In the same spirit, these letters also include a specimen of the Utopian alphabet and its poetry. The letters also explain the lack of widespread travel to Utopia; during the first mention of the land, someone had coughed during announcement of the exact longitude and latitude. The first book tells of the traveler Raphael Hythloday, to whom More is introduced in Antwerp, and it also explores the subject of how best to counsel a prince, a popular topic at the time.
The first discussions with Raphael allow him to discuss some of the modern ills affecting Europe such as the tendency of kings to start wars and the subsequent bleeding away of money on fruitless endeavours. He also criticises the use of execution to punish theft saying that thieves might as well murder whom they rob, to remove witnesses, if the punishment is going to be the same. He lays most of the problems of theft at the cause of enclosure—the enclosing of common land—and the subsequent poverty and starvation of people who are denied access to land because of sheep farming.
More tries to convince Raphael that he could find a good job in a royal court, advising monarchs, but Raphael says that his views are too radical and would not be listened to. Raphael sees himself in the tradition of Plato: he knows that for good governance, kings must act philosophically.
However, he points out that:
“Plato doubtless did well foresee, unless kings themselves would apply their minds to the study of philosophy, that else they would never thoroughly allow the council of philosophers, being themselves before, even from their tender age, infected and corrupt with perverse and evil opinions.”
More seems to contemplate the duty of philosophers to work around and in real situations and, for the sake of political expediency, work within flawed systems to make them better, rather than hoping to start again from first principles.
“... for in courts they will not bear with a man's holding his peace or conniving at what others do: a man must barefacedly approve of the worst counsels and consent to the blackest designs, so that he would pass for a spy, or, possibly, for a traitor, that did but coldly approve of such wicked practices]
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