Thomas More’s “Utopia”: A Myth, Reality, or Mythality? Individual Response
Hedonism can be defined as the ethical theory that pleasure or the pursuit of happiness is the highest good. Someone who adopts this way of life strives to maximize happiness in every aspect of their life. Ethical hedonism is commonly associated with the Greek philosopher Epicurus, he taught and believed that it is our fundamental obligation to act and behave in ways where we can avoid unnecessary desires to attain our full potential for happiness (“Epicurus”). The idea of hedonism was later redefined due to christian philosophers disagreeing with Epicurus's views believing his ideas went against God’s desire for us to serve others. This new variation came from renaissance…show more content… “Pleasure they define as any state or activity, physical or mental, which is naturally enjoyable. The operative word is naturally” (469). The idea of hedonism as a whole is not what makes More’s adaptation of it a proponent of his flawed society. But, it is the way he and Erasmus control the idea of pleasure to be based upon virtue in God’s eye and his proposed ideas of “natural” pleasures. His idea of pleasure and the virtuous way to find happiness is helping out other people; living your life for someone else. He feels you should feel good by making God happy, and by making god happy is serving others over serving yourself. “To deprive yourself of a pleasure so that you can add to someone else’s enjoyment is an act of humanity by which you alway gain more than you lose” (468). This is a false ideology that helping yourself is less rewarding or necessary than helping someone else. More devises a daily schedule in which all of the utopian inhabitants are forced to serve others for the majority of their day. They practice severe discipline and abstinence from all forms of “unnatural” indulgences, which in itself is very subjective. They have little time for
