Utopians are relaxed; pleasure and happiness are the most important things in their lives, and they are always prepared to try something new.
The two greatest pleasures in life are knowledge for the mind and health for the body, the latter including “pleasure which arises from satisfying the appetite which Nature has wisely given to lead us to the propagation of the species”.
To ensure such appetite, More introduces nude speed-dating sessions for potential spouses, under the supervision of a personal coach.
Care for the sick and the elderly is core business, and Utopians cherish the intellectually disabled (“they take great pleasure in fools”).
The incurably ill are allowed to die by refusing to eat and drink, and permitted to take opium to ease the pain: when “there is no hope either of recovery or ease, the priests and magistrates come and exhort them, that, since they are now unable to go on with the business of life, are become a burden to themselves and to all about them, and they have readily out-lived themselves […] they should choose rather to die since they cannot live but in much misery […] Such as are wrought on by these persuasions, either starve themselves of their own accord, or take opium, and by that means die without pain. But no man is forced on this way of ending his life; and if they cannot be persuaded to it, this does not induce them to fail in their attendance and care of them”[…]
(English translation from call no. 1989/5650).
Read more about the third edition (1518) in the IISH Library