Anthony Casimini September 28, 2015 Moral Foundations St Thomas More This paper is about the life and values of Thomas More. I will explain why he is considered a saint and a martyr. His life consisted of being an upstanding citizen and a morally devout Christian. As a man who possessed an insurmountable number of virtues, I will reflect on three virtues that I believe Thomas More possessed. The virtues are justice, loyalty, and integrity. I will also incorporate my reflections of Man of all Seasons, as well as James Monti’s biography of Thomas More. “The Kings good servant but God’s first”, this is a broad but direct statement summarizing Thomas More’s life. Thomas More was a master in many professions including a writer, a poet, a musician,
a translator, a lecturer, and a lawyer. His best occupation was being a man of character and faith. More had an absolute commitment to law and the church. He respects God’s law above all else but does not pretend to understand it. He felt that if morals fade then we turn to law. Thomas More based his moral stance on a sense of inner self. He refuses to sacrifice his inner self, which he defines by his moral conscience, even as he sacrifices his life. He is not concerned with doing what is right according to religious, but what is consistent with his conscience. He disparages people who clamor at all times by ideals,
In Martin Luther’s Freedom of a Christian Man, Luther describes what he believes should be the relationship between faith and good works in the life of Christian people. His beliefs became integral to the Protestant and Lutheran ideologies. The basis of Luther’s pamphlet was “A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all.” (31) This central thought provides readers dialogue on what is truly a selfless, act and if these acts do in fact have an effect on one’s
How I will use it: The first quote indicates that More will not follow others blindly and betray his conscience nor God because they are his “self”, not someone else’s. The second quote implies that if a water spaniel feared going into the water, it would be pointless for it to continue living since water spaniels were supposed to love being in water. More used this to compare with his conscience. He felt that if he could not stay true to “his own self” or his conscience, there was also no point for him to continue living since his conscience was an integral part of him.
Sir Thomas More, “The History of King Richard III” in Richard III A Source Book, Keith
Logos plays a relatively minute role in this paper due to logos being about rational or logical appeal and because this essay is about Thomas’s religious beliefs and the belief in God is not based rational or logical facts, it is based on faith and faith does not fall under logos. Also logos is hard to have in this case because everyone has different religious beliefs causing a religious statement to be true fact for some and ghastly lie to other. This makes religion views seen as that of opinion which ...
Thomas More sees physical labor as very important. Not only to survive, but so that everyone contributes to society. Idleness can be a disease. There must be a balance to work. Everybody in Utopia does some farming. Farming was considered a ver...
Sir Thomas Cromwell and Richard Rich’s moral stature do not come close to More’s reputation at anytime. All of the characteristics clearly display that More’s moral stature is no way comparable to Rich’s or Master Cromwell’s.
An Analysis of Matt Ridley’s The Origins of Virtue. Inwardly examining his own nature, man would prefer to see himself as a virtuously courageous being designed in the image of a divine supernatural force. Not to say that the true nature of man is a complete beast, he does possess, like many other creatures, admirable traits. As author Matt Ridley examines the nature of man in his work The Origins of Virtue, both the selfish and altruistic sides of man are explored.
When More died it sent a message to the public that the Kin was wrong in what he was doing. As More died in front of a lot of people, it certainly showed to the public that it was honorable and he put his point across in the clear way. “….but because I would not bend to the marriage” (pg. 78) More is simply stating that he wouldn’t agree with the King for the clear intention of staying alive.
Thomas More was a humble and faithful man who held firmly onto his beliefs. His unshakable faith is of great acclaim. The fact that one would voluntarily die for their beliefs is a beautiful thing. Why do you think we honor and respect our fallen veterans? For the same exact reason as St. Thomas More, because they died for our country and all that it stands for. St. Thomas More died for his faith and all that it stands for, so therefore he is a martyr. The fact that he died for his faith and its set of beliefs is a quality that I find most admirable.
Thomas Aquinas is known for being one of the most influential moral philosophers of natural l...
Thomas More deals with a lot of pressures and stress that come from his family and friends.
Butler, Joseph. 7Five Sermons, Preached at the Rolls Chapel and A Dissertation upon the Nature of Virtue. Ed. Stephen L. Darwall. Indianapolis, IN: 6Hackett Pub., 1983. Print.
...onscience, More makes choices to preserve his morality, which ultimately lead to his death. Since More is unwilling to compromise his scruples, More brought his downfall upon himself. More’s downfall is also somewhat due to his position as Lord Chancellor. Since More is such an eminent figure, his actions against the king have prevalent effects, which only help the king target More as a traitor. Sir Thomas More lived his entire live based upon his beliefs and principles. Even though More meets death in the end of the play, More dies standing by what he believes in. By defending his faith and morals, More proves his virtue by demonstrating that nothing worldly is ever worth one’s eternal soul, thereby making More the paragon of a virtuous man.
More’s life spanned a tumultuous era under the sovereignty of Henry VIII, in which More’s satirical portrayal of Utopia indirectly critiques Henry’s contribution to the societal failings of England. This is evident in protagonist Raphael’s discourse with More, where he sarcastically comments that “There’s almost no place where you won’t find… Laestrygones and such-like horrors, but wise and well-instructed citizens you’ll scarcely find anywhere.” More uses a hyperbole to satirize the rarity of encountering citizens under adequate rule, serving as an indirect critique of Henry’s ineptitude in leading English society sufficiently. This ineptitude is embodied in the feudalist economic structure of Tudor England, one that More heavily discountenanced as it created an oligarchy, in which peasants suffered a laborious existence as a means of supporting the prodigal lifestyles of affluent nobles. This is illustrated when More emphasizes how this model emboldened England’s pernicious enclosure movement by metaphorically referring to said nobles as “a grim plague to his native land,” who “can merge fields and enclose thousands of acres within a single boundary.” This absurd metaphor creates satire as it ridicules the English aristocracy and aids More in critiquing England’s feudalist economic structure that encouraged the existence of land enclosures that enfeebled the working class. Additionally, as More was a deeply religious man, he was an indefatigable leader of the early Counter Reformation. Ironically, one of the main tenets in his satirical portrayal of Utopia is that of religious toleration, however, the deviation within this doctrine is that of the abnegation of atheistic beliefs. This is illustrated when Raphael states that “[Utopus] solemnly and strictly forbade anyone to… think that the soul dies with the body.” More uses tautology to reflect his own unyielding
Sir Tomas More’s Utopia indirectly criticizes fifteen hundredth European catholic society of corruption, violence, poverty and of inequality. As a lord chancellor to Henry VIII, Thomas More was well aware of these problems and wrote a satire to propose his awareness in a carful manner, as we can see his hesitation to publish the book on his letter to Peter Giles especially when he described his “two minds” (More, 8). To criticize the problems of his times on a safe platform, he created a fictional character Raphael Hythloday, who is wise and knowledgeable of new places from the sailing experience with Amerigo Vespucci. This not only reflects the times in which people stepped out their voyages to the New World but also provides a foil to the European society—the