Friday, 22 February 2019

• the elite have the economic means to a

Machiavelli good life and exploration of literary, artistic,
and scholarly activities (i.e. Leonardo da
Social Science 2
Vinci, Niccolò Machiavelli)

- Renaissance
- Machiavelli as a public servant
• cause/effect: the rebirth and rediscovery of
antiquity
• fourteen years of service as a representative
for diplomatic missions in France and
• revival of rational, secular, scientific beliefs
Germany

after its dormancy during the Medieval

period
• lost his job when the republican government
was replaced by an absolutist regime of the
• development of technology

Medici - with the help of the Pope and the

- printing press destroyed the monopoly of French

knowledge of the clergy

• initially accused and tortured, but was set

- gunpowder destroyed the military free afterwards

monopoly of the nobility

• wrote The Prince and The Discources wrote

• "discovery of man" - led to individualism during his exile

(individualism first began from stoicism and

christianity)

- Machiavelli's works
• beyond moral selfhood of Stoicism +
spiritual uniqueness of Christianity + • The Prince - dedicated to Lorenzo di Medici
aesthetic individuality of Greeks
and his dynasty despite his personal
preference to republicanism

• saw man in his totality - body, mind, and

spirit - and his relation to himself, society, • "a reflection not only of man's political
and the world
ambitions and passions but of man himself"

- man as the center of the universe, as • portrayed evil through real humans

opposed to God-centered

• "the end justifies the means"

• power as an end to itself, which is inherent

- Italy during Renaissance period to the prince/ruler/would-be-prince or ruler

• never lost contact with the ancient past/ • focuses on the means that are best in order
antiquity
to acquire, retain, and expand power

• feudal system did not permeate

• separation of power/politics from morality,
ethics, religion, and metaphysics

• "islands of individualistic republicanism in a

sea of European monarchical loyalties"
• state as an autonomous system of values

• wealthy cities - in international trade, • a statesman may violate other value

business, commerce
systems as well

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 Friday, 22 February 2019
• "the canons of power and the tenets of - "prudence"

morality are independent of each other"

- ambitious, ruthless, crafty

• "reason of state", or "raison d'etat"

• Machiavelli admired Alexander VI (Cardinal

- some acts, which might be considered Rodrigo Borgia, Pope) and Caesar Borgia
heinous if understood from the (his son) -- ruthless and deceptive leaders

perspective of religion/ethics, are

• power are supreme over social values

permissive

- "For where every safety of the country

depends upon the resolution to be taken,
no consideration of justice or injustice,
humanity or cruelty, not of glory or of
shame, should be allowed to prevail. But
- Machiavelli's pragmatic and political
interest in Christianity/religion
• not religious, alien to the mystical element
of christianity

putting all other considerations aside, the

only quesion should be: What ourse will • however, he sees religion as a tool for
save the life and liberty of the country?"
political domination, cohesion, and unity of
the people/the ruled, as well as for control
• different "codes" for ethics, religion, and
and influence

politics/state, with different basic

assumptions and objectives
• religion for making armies and disciplining
the poor

• amorality, as opposed to immorality: in

some situation, rules of power have priority • "as the observance of divine institutions is
over those of ethics and morality; what is the cause of the greatness of republics, so
evil from the viewpoint of morality and the disregard of them produces their ruin"

religion may be good from teh viewpoint of

the reason of the state, if it serves to • fear of the Prince may temporarily suggest
acquire, retain, or expand power
for fear of God

• good and evil as relative

• It is justifiable for a ruler to spread false
doctrines and beliefs in miracles in order to
• power as the end of politics assumes that keep the people "well conducted and
goodness coincides with efficiency of united"

acquiring, consolidating, and expanding

power; inefficiency is bad
• criticizes Christianity because it promotes/
idealizes men of humility, contemplation
• Machiavelli's virtue - "military valor", based (passiveness) rather than men of action;

on the Roman concept of virtus, which

means "manliness", military courage and • the only strength that Christianity teaches is
intelligence combined with civic endurance/fortitude of soul in suffering

responsibility and personal integrity

• virtue as a necessary trait of the prince

- Machiavelli and Italy
- implies capability to understand reality
• Machiavelli wants unification of Italy

and adapt action to reality in a flexible,

non-ideological, nondogmatic manner

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 Friday, 22 February 2019
• blames the church for 1) setting a bad • often insufficient, must recourse to the
example to Italians, who became "irreligious second

and bad"; 2) keeping Italy divided

- by force

• while having jurisdiction over certain

• of beasts

portions of Italy, she never had the sufficient

power or courage to enable her to make
herself sovereign of Italy" and at the same
- The Prince and his faith
time does not let other foreign powers to
help her attain unity of Italy
• "Should a ruler keep faith?"

• hated papacy, but won't mind to see them • while it is laudible for a ruler to keep faith, in
unite Italy
politics, faith might be irreconcilable with
expediency and interest

• criticizes papacy not for the crimes it

committed but for its failure to rule the • "a prudent ruler ought not to keep faith
whole country
when by doing so it would be against his
interest, and when the reasons which made
him bind himself no longer exist. If men
- Machiavelli and man were all good, this precept would not be a
good one; but as they are bad, and would
• pessimist approach to man and human
not observe their faith in you, so you are not
nature

bound to keep faith with them."

• man as "essentially unchangeable,

incapable of progressive improvability, and
he denies that reason can cope with hard - Machiavelli and prudence
and limiting facts of nature and history"

• rulers must be temperate

• looks into the past and what has happened

in history
• useless arrogance and cruelty will result to
hatred without advantage

• moral considerations may be laudable in

themselves, but the statesman cannot • rulers should not use threats or insult,
afford the luxury to practicing morality
because it doesn't solve the problem and it
will only make the enemy cautious and used
• "For how we live is so far removed from to hate

how we ought to live, that he who abandons

what is done for what ought to be done, will • all are doubtful; no state can follow fate
policy; (n: just like peace as temporal)

rather learn to bring about his own ruin than

his preservation."
• prudence is in knowing the nature of
difficulties, and taking the least harmful as
• Two methods of fighting

good

- by law

• rational skepticism: larger vs. lesser evil

• of men
rather than good vs. evil

• there is no absolute safety

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 Friday, 22 February 2019
• there is lack of ideological passion in • reduced politics to war and revolution;
Machiavelli
normal becomes abnormal, extraordinary
becomes ordinary

• ideology as "an idea in the service of

interest": ideologists rationalize, justify, • less interested in the institutional framework
obfuscate, and in extreme cases prevaricate of politics
and lie

• utilitarian, experimental, relativistic,

empirical (not taking anything as final), but
an extremist nonetheless

- Machiavelli's doctrine on the badness of

man

• man as between angel and beast

• ruler as between man and beast

• ruler must know how to utilize the two

natures

- Machiavelli and his political "realism"

• Machiavelli identifies all too readily naked

power politics with the whole of political
reality

• forgets to take into account man's will to be

free, to put freedom above all other goods,
even above life itself (freedom as end?)

• "But of what use is realism of means, if the

ends themselves are utterly megalomaniac
and unrealistic?"

• he became unaware of the relations of

means and ends

- Machiavelli and politics

• interested with the dynamics of illegitimate

power

• founders of new states are revolutionaries