From Saint Thomas More’s Utopia, as quoted from the character Raphael Hythloday:
It seems to me a very unjust thing to take away a man’s life for a little money; for nothing in the world can be of equal value with a man’s life: and if it is said that it is not for the money that one suffers, but for his breaking the law, I must say extreme justice is an extreme injury; for we ought not to approve of these terrible laws that make the smallest offences capital, nor of that opinion of the Stoics that makes all crimes equal, as if there were no difference to be made between the killing a man and the taking his purse, between which, if we examine things impartially, there is no likeness nor proportion.
God has commanded us not to kill, and shall we kill so easily for a little money? But if one shall say, that by that law we are only forbid to kill any, except when the laws of the land allow of it; upon the same grounds, laws may be made in some cases to allow of adultery and perjury: for God having taken from us the right of disposing, either of our own or of other people’s lives, if it is pretended that the mutual consent of man in making laws can authorize manslaughter in cases in which God has given us no example, that it frees people from the obligation of the divine law, and so makes murder a lawful action; what is this, but to give a preference to human laws before the divine?
And if this is once admitted, by the same rule men may in all other things put what restrictions they please upon the laws of God. If by the Mosaical law, though it was rough and severe, as being a yoke laid on an obstinate and servile nation, men were only fined and not put to death for theft, we cannot imagine that in this new law of mercy, in which God treats us with the tenderness of a father, he has given us a greater license to cruelty than he did to the Jews.
Upon these reasons it is that I think putting thieves to death is not lawful; and it is plain and obvious that it is absurd, and of ill-consequence to the commonwealth, that a thief and a murderer should be equally punished; for if a robber sees that his danger is the same, if he is convicted of theft as if he were guilty of murder, this will naturally incite him to kill the person whom otherwise he would only have robbed, since if the punishment is the same, there is more security, and less danger of discovery, when he that can best make it is put out of the way; so that terrifying thieves too much, provokes them to cruelty.
I have always wondered what drive people to stiffen penalties against breaking certain laws. More argues through the mouthpiece of Hythloday that such a practice only engenders a disrespect for law, to the point that citizens no longer have a respect for laws because they are no longer just, no longer proportionate.
I can’t help but draw the comparision to More’s conclusion and the general attitude towards lawmaking today when it comes to punishing crimes. Sir Thomas More was a product of his times of course, but his Utopia speaks just as clearly then as it does today.
Unfortunately, Henry VIII (for whom the text was written for) chose not to heed his advice. For the grievious penalty of refusing to assent to the king’s divorce and subsequent marriage to Anne Boleyn, Thomas More was executed at Hill Tower in 1535.