Machiavelli

Niccolo` Machiavelli was born on 3 May 1469 in Florence, Italy as the son of Bernardo di
Niccolo` Machiavelli and Bartolommea di Stefano Nelli. Machiavelli is considered one of the
greatest contributors to western political thought. His life has been traced and understood in
three periods and the changes in the social order of each of these periods had significant
effects on the life and ideas of Machiavelli. His two most important works, the Prince (1513)
and the Discourse on the First Decade of Titus Livius (1517) as well as other works like the
Art of War (1519) were written during the period of his exile. While The Prince addresses
questions on principalities, the Discourses on Levy talks about republics.

Laski commenting on this extraordinary change and asserted that the entire Renaissance was
in the writings of Machiavelli who portrayed the new character of the state by comprehending
the intricacies of statecraft in which decisions reflected the political compulsions rather than
religious perceptions and what ought to be. Machiavelli is the father of political realism and
can be considered one of the most important Western Political Philosophers.

Machiavelli’s place in Western Political Thought

John Pocock (1975) has traced the diffusion of Machiavelli's republican thought
throughout the so-called Atlantic world and, specifically, into the ideas that guided the
framers of the American constitution. Paul Rahe (2008) argues for a similar set of
influences, but with an intellectual substance and significance different than Pocock.
For Pocock, Machiavelli's republicanism is of a civic humanist variety whose roots are to
be found in classical antiquity; for Rahe, Machiavelli's republicanism is entirely novel
and modern.
The “neo-Roman” thinkers (most prominently, Pettit, Skinner and Viroli) appropriate
Machiavelli as a source of their principle of “freedom as non-domination”, while he has
also been put to work in the defense of democratic precepts and values.
One plausible explanation for the inability to resolve these issues of “modernity” and
“originality” is that Machiavelli was in a sense trapped between innovation and tradition,
between via antiqua and via moderna (to adopt the usage of Janet Coleman 1995), in a
way that generated internal conceptual tensions within his thought as a whole and even
within individual texts. This historical ambiguity permits scholars to make equally
convincing cases for contradictory claims about his fundamental stance without appearing
to commit egregious violence to his doctrines. This point differs from the accusation
made by certain scholars that Machiavelli was fundamentally “inconsistent” (see Skinner
1978) or simply driven by “local” agendas (Celenza 2015).
What makes Machiavelli a troubling yet stimulating thinker is that, in his attempt to draw
different conclusions from the commonplace expectations of his audience, he still
incorporated important features of precisely the conventions he was challenging. In spite
of his repeated assertion of his own originality (for instance, Prince CW 10, 57–58), his
careful attention to preexisting traditions meant that he was never fully able to escape his
intellectual confines. Thus, Machiavelli ought not really to be classified as either purely
an “ancient” or a “modern”, but instead deserves to be located in the interstices between
the two.
Changes during the Renaissance; The growth of commerce made possible by economic
development, the growth of cities, the rise of the printing press, the change over from a barter
economy to money and banking, new scientific and geographical discoveries, emergence of
centralised states with a distinctive national language, a new respect for scientific
explorations, crystallisation of humanistic philosophy, demographic changes and the rise of a
secular order were some of the key determining forces. The emergence of universities ended
the monopoly of the church over education and with increasing literacy and the revival of
human spirit during the Renaissance, individualisation and humanism came to the forefront.

Buckhardt remarked that the core of the Renaissance was the new man, with prime concern
of glory and fame replacing religious ratification and asceticism with self-realisation and the
joy of living.

The Renaissance signified a rebirth of the human spirit in the attainment of liberty, self-
confidence and optimism. In contradiction to the medieval view, which had envisaged the
human being as fallen and depraved in an evil world with the devil at the centre, the
Renaissance captured the Greek ideal of the essential goodness of the individual, the beauty
and glory of the earth, the joy of existence, the insignificance of the supernatural and the
importance of the present, as compared to an irrecoverable past and an uncertain future. This
return to a pre-Christian attitude towards humans. Humanism, affirming the dignity and
excellence of the human being, became the basis of comprehending the modern world. In
contrast to the medieval Christian stress on asceticism, poverty, humility, misery and the
worthlessness of the earthly person, Humanism defended the freedom of the human spirit and
knowledge.

At the centre of the Renaissance was the emergence of the new human, an ambitious restless
individual, motivated by his self- interest, seeking glory and asceticism, were seen as the true
ends of human existence and education. Self-fulfillment was no longer viewed as being
achievement by repressing natural facilities and emotion.

The spirit of individualism and the cult of privacy led to the growth of self-assertion and
ushered in the idea of the highest development of the individual.

Alongside the development of the modern individual was the beginning of the modern
state. The idea of the modern state, omnipotent and Omni-competent, was worked out. The
prince had to take change of everything – preservation of public buildings and churches,
maintenance of the municipal police, police, drainage of the marshes, ensuring the supply of
corn, levying taxes and convincing the people of their necessity, supporting the sick and
destitute, lending support to distinguished intellectuals and scholars on whose verdict rested
his fame for the years to come. More than anybody else, it was Machiavelli who could
understand the dynamics of this modern state and the modern individual.

Equally important were the end of the clerical monopoly and the replacement of papal
supremacy by secular, sovereign, independent states, each with its own national culture
identity and language. The nation state came into existence and its success was determined
not by religious or chivalric, but by political criteria. Explorations and voyages led to
geographical discoveries, altering the perceptions regarding the world.

The discoveries of Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) and Vasco-Da-Gama (1469-1524)

enlarged the geographical horizons beyond the Mediterranean basin and Europe. New
geographical discoveries opened up new vistas of trade and religion. This led to growth in
commerce and economic development as the basis of modern capitalism. Education, Science
and humanism ended clerical monopoly, relegating religion to the private space. The
invention of printing, the establishment of libraries and universities increased and spread
literacy, and revived an interest in Latin classics.

Politically, Italy was divided into a number of small principalities and five large states:
Milan, Venice, Florence, the papal domain and Naples. Of these, Florence was the most
cultured city, the seat of the Italian Renaissance, producing some eminent and renowned
figures.

Though cultural vibrant and creative, Italy remained politically divided and weak. Italians
could not reconcile to the fact that an age of heightened cultural creativity and scientific
discoveries coincided with loss of political liberty, leading to foreign domination.

The old, feudal order had begun to collapse and disintegrate, but the new age, marked by the
emergence of the territorial nation state as a sovereign legal political entity was still in its
embryonic form.

Writing at the time of political chaos and moral confusion, Italian unification became the
chief objective of Machiavelli. Freedom of the country and the common good remained the
core themes of Machiavelli‟s writings. A prefect state was one which promoted the common
good, namely the observance of laws, honoring woman, keeping public offices open all the
citizens on grounds of virtue, maintaining a moderate degree of social equality, and
protecting industry, wealth and property. The freedom of the country had to be safeguarded
with the help of war and explanation. War was a horror, but not worse than military defeat
and subjugation.

(DRIVE)

Machiavelli’s Political Thought

Out of his two most important works, the "Prince" is an analysis of the political system of a
strong monarchy while the "Discourses on Livius" of a strong republic. In the first one, the
theme is the successful creation of a principality by an individual, in the other it is the
creation of an empire of flee citizens. But in both, the centre of thought is the method of those
who wield the power of the state rather than the fundamental relationship in which the
essence of the state . His indifference towards morality can be explained in terms of political
expediency.

Machiavelli based his thought on two premises. First, on the ancient Greek assumption that
the state is the highest form of human association necessary for the protection, welfare and
perfection of humanity and as the interests of the state is definitely superior to individual or
social interests. The second premise was that the self-interest in one form or another,
particularly material self-interest, is the most potent of all factors of political motivation.

Hence, the art of statecraft consists of the cold calculations of elements of self-interests in all
given situations and the intelligent use of the practical means to meet the conflicting interests.

Both these premises are reflected in his two books.

Mach’s idea of moral indifference; He often discusses the advantage

of immorality used to gain a ruler's ends. A thing which would be
immoral for an individual to do might be justifiably done by a ruler or
a monarch for the state. His indifference towards morality, therefore,
can be explained in terms of political expediency.

CONCEPT OF UNIVERSAL EGOISM

Another cardinal principle besides the principle of 'moral indifference', which forms
Machiavelli's political philosophy, is the principle of "Universal Egoism". He did not believe
in the essential goodness of human nature, he held that all men are wicked and essentially
selfish. Selfishness and egoism are the chief motive forces of human conduct. Fear is the one
motivating and dominating element in life, which is mightier than love. Men aim to keep
what they already have and desire to acquire more and there are no limits to these desires, and
there being a natural scarcity of things there is everlasting competition and strife. Security is
only possible when the ruler is strong. A 'Prince', therefore, ought to personify fear. A Prince
who is feared knows how to stand in relation to his subjects and aims at the security of their
life and property

These basic elements of human nature which are responsible to make him ungrateful, fickle,
deceitful and cowardly were most prominent in Italy during Machiavelli's time. The
corruption in all spheres was the order of the day and all sorts of violence, absence of
discipline, great inequalities in wealth and power, the destruction of peace and justice and the
growth of disorderly ambitions and dishonesty prevailed. The only way to rectify such a
situation was the establishment of absolute monarchy and despotic powers, according to
Machiavelli.

THE "PRINCE"

Quentin Skinner, The Adviser to Princes; Machiavelli’s highest hope in writing the Prince
he confides to Vettori, is that his treatise may serve to bring him to the notice of ‘our Medici
lords’ (C 305). One reason for wishing to draw attention to himself in this way—as his
dedication to The Prince makes clear—was his desire to offer the Medici ‘some token of my
devotion’ as a loyal subject. His worries on this score even seem to have impaired his
normally objective standards of judgement.
To anyone beginning The Prince at the beginning, he might appear to have little more to
offer than a somewhat dry taxonomy of the various types of principality and the means ‘to
acquire them and to hold them’. Chapter 1 begins by isolating the idea of dominion, laying it
down that all dominions are either republics or principalities.

Next he offers the unremarkable observation that all princedoms are either hereditary or
new. Focusing on new princedoms, he goes on to distinguish the ‘completely new’ from those
which ‘are like limbs joined to the hereditary state of the ruler who annexes them’.

The predicament in which expert advice is said to be especially needed is when a ruler comes
to power by good luck and foreign arms. No contemporary reader of The Prince could have
failed to reflect that, at the moment when Machiavelli was advancing this claim, the Medici
had just regained their ascendancy in Florence as the result of an astonishing stroke of luck
combined with the unstoppable force of the foreign arms supplied by Ferdinand of Spain.

The 'Prince' of Macliiavelli is the product of the prevailing conditions of his time in his
country Italy, As such, it is not an academic treatise or value-oriented political philosophy it
is in a real sense realpolitik. It is a memorandum on the art of government, is pragmatic in
character, and provides a technique of the fundamental principles of statecraft for successful
rulership.

The argument of the Prince is based on the two premises borrowed from Aristotle. One of
these is that the State is the highest form of human association and the most indispensable

instrument for the promotion of human welfare and that by merging himself in the state the
individual finds his fullest development, that is, his best self. Consideration of the welfare of
the state, therefore, outweighs any consideration of individual or group welfare.

The second premise is that the material self is the most potent motive force in individual and
public action. Machiavelli almost identifies the state with the ruler. These premises led him to
the conclusion that the Prince is the perfect embodiment of shrewdness and self-control. This
quality of the Prince makes him worthy of a successful seizure of power. Chapter XVIII of
the Prince' gives Macliiavelli's idea of the virtues which a successful ruler must possess.
Integrity may be theoretically better than collusion, but cunningness and subtlety are useful.

The two basic means of success for a prince are-the judicious use of law and physical force,
He must combi~ie in himself rational as \well as brutal characteristics, a combination of 'lion'
and 'fox'. The prince must play the fox and act hypocrite to disguise his real motives and
inclinations. He must be free from emotional disturbances and ready and capable of taking
advantage of the emotions of others. He should be cool and, calculating and should oppose
evil by evil. In the interest of the state, he should be prepared ' to sin. the prince should aim
to be feared than loved. But, above all, he must keep his hands off the property and women of
his subjects because economic motives are the mainspring of human conduct a prince must
do all he can to keep his subjects materially contented. A prince must regard his neighbours
as likely enemies and keep always on guard. A clever prince will attack the enemy before the
latter is ready. .He must be of unshakable purpose and shed to every sentiment except love
for his state, which must be saved even at the cost of his own soul.

According to Maclliavelli state actions were not to be judged by individual ethics. He

prescribes double standard of conduct for statesmen and the private citizens. It was wrong
for an individual to commit crime, even to lie, but sometimes good and necessary for the ruler
to do so in the interest OF the state. Similarly, it is wrong for a private individual to kill, but
not for the state to execute someone. A citizen acts for himself whereas the state acts for all,
and therefore, the same principles of conduct could not be applied to both. The state has no
ethics. It is a non-ethical entity. The state is the highest form of human association, has
supreme claim over men's obligations.

The ruler, in order to prove this claim, must at the same time embrace every opportunity to
develop his reputation.

One of the most important characteristics of Machiavelli's philosophy in the case of Prince
was that he should aim at the acquisition and extension of his princely powers and territories.
If he fails to do this, he is bound to perish. For this he should always regard his neighboring
states as enemies and remain always prepared to attack them at some weak moments of
theirs. For this he must have a well-trained citizens soldiery. A good army of soldiers is in
reality the essence of princely strength.

THE DOCTRINE OF AGGRANDISEMENT

Both the Prince and the 'Discourses' insists on the necessity of extending the territory of the
state. His idea of the extension of the dominion of state did not mean the blending of two or
more social or political organisations, but the subjection of a number of stales under the rule
of a single prince or commonwealth. Extension of dominion was easier in one's own country,
where there was no difficulty of language or the assimilation of conquered people. Force was
necessary for both-for political aggrandizement as well as for the preservation of the state,
but force must be applied judiciously combined with craft.

Machiavelli’s idea of power

It has been a common view among political philosophers that there exists a special
relationship between moral goodness and legitimate authority. Many authors believed that the
use of political power was only rightful if it was exercised by a ruler whose personal moral
character was strictly virtuous. In a sense, it was thought that rulers did well when they did
good; they earned the right to be obeyed and respected inasmuch as they showed themselves
to be virtuous and morally upright.
Machiavelli criticizes at length precisely this moralistic view of authority in his best-known
treatise, The Prince. For Machiavelli, there is no moral basis on which to judge the
difference between legitimate and illegitimate uses of power. Rather, authority and
power are essentially coequal: whoever has power has the right to command. Machiavelli
says that the only real concern of the political ruler is the acquisition and maintenance of
power.
For Machiavelli, power characteristically defines political activity, and hence it is necessary
for any successful ruler to know how power is to be used. Only by means of the proper
application of power, Machiavelli believes, can individuals be brought to obey and will the
ruler be able to maintain the state in safety and security. Machiavelli's political theory, then,
represents a concerted effort to exclude issues of authority and legitimacy from consideration
in the discussion of political decision-making and political judgment. Nowhere does this
come out more clearly than in his treatment of the relationship between law and force.
Machiavelli acknowledges that good laws and good arms constitute the dual foundations of a
well-ordered political system. In other words, the legitimacy of law rests entirely upon the
threat of coercive force; authority is impossible for Machiavelli as a right apart from the
power to enforce it.

Consequently, Machiavelli is led to conclude that fear is always preferable to affection in

subjects, just as violence and deception are superior to legality in effectively controlling
them. For Machiavelli, people are compelled to obey purely in deference to the superior
power of the state. Machiavelli's argument in The Prince is designed to demonstrate that
politics can only coherently be defined in terms of the supremacy of coercive power;
authority as a right to command has no independent status. For Machiavelli it is meaningless
and futile to speak of any claim to authority and the right to command which is detached
from the possession of superior political power.

Virtù, and Fortune

The term that best captures Machiavelli's vision of the requirements of power politics
is virtù. While the Italian word would normally be translated into English as “virtue”, and
would ordinarily convey moral goodness, Machiavelli employs the concept of virtù to
refer to the range of personal qualities that the prince will find it necessary to
acquire in order to “maintain his state” and to “achieve great things”, the two
standard markers of power for him.
Machiavelli's sense of what it is to be a person of virtù can thus be summarized by his
recommendation that the prince above all else must possess a “flexible disposition”. That
ruler is best suited for office, on Machiavelli's account, who is capable of varying her/his
conduct from good to evil and back again “as fortune and circumstances dictate”
Machiavelli sees politics to be a sort of a battlefield on a different scale. Hence, the prince
just like the general needs to be in possession of virtù, that is, to know which strategies
and techniques are appropriate to what particular circumstance . Thus, virtù winds up
being closely connected to Machiavelli's notion of the power. The ruler of virtù is bound
to be competent in the application of power; to possess virtù is indeed to have
mastered all the rules connected with the effective application of power.
Another central Machiavellian concept, Fortuna (usually translated as
“fortune”). Fortuna is the enemy of political order, the ultimate threat to the safety and
security of the state. Suffice it to say that, as with virtù, Fortuna is employed by him in a
distinctive way. Where conventional representations treated Fortuna as a mostly
benign, if fickle, goddess, who is the source of human goods as well as evils,
Machiavelli's fortune is a malevolent and uncompromising fount of human misery,
affliction, and disaster. While human Fortuna may be responsible for such success as
human beings achieve, no man can act effectively when directly opposed by the goddess.
Machiavelli's most famous discussion of Fortuna occurs in Chapter 25 of The Prince, in
which he proposes two analogies for understanding the human situation in the face of
events. Initially, he asserts that fortune resembles destructive rivers which, when it is
angry, turns the plains into lakes, throws down the trees and buildings, takes earth from
one spot, puts it in another; everyone flees before the flood; everyone yields to its fury
and nowhere can repel it. However, Before the rains come, it is possible to take
precautions to divert the worst consequences of the natural elements.
Fortune may be resisted by human beings, but only in those circumstances where
“virtù and wisdom” have already prepared for her inevitable arrival.
In other words, Fortuna demands a violent response of those who would control her. The
wanton behavior of Fortuna demands an aggressive, even violent response, lest she take
advantage of those men who are too retiring or “effeminate” to dominate her.
Machiavelli's remarks point toward several salient conclusions about Fortuna and her
place in his intellectual universe. Throughout his corpus, Fortuna is depicted as a primal
source of violence (especially as directed against humanity) and as antithetical to reason.
Thus, Machiavelli realizes that only preparation to pose an extreme response to the
vicissitudes of Fortuna will ensure victory against her. This is what virtù provides: the
ability to respond to fortune at any time and in any way that is necessary.
Skinner; Roman historians and moralists had laid it down that, if a ruler owes his position to
the intervention of fortune, the first lesson he must learn is to fear the goddess, even when she
comes bearing gifts. This is not to say that the Roman moralists thought of fortune as a
relentlessly malign force. Rather they saw the goddess Fortuna as a potential ally whose
attention it is well worth attempting to attract. And, although she is a deity, she is still a
woman; and because she is a woman she is most attracted by the vir, the man of true
manliness. One quality she especially likes to reward is thus taken to be manly courage.
With the triumph of Christianity, this classical vision of fortune was Overthrown. She is no
longer viewed as a potential friend, but simply as a pitiless force. This new view of the
goddess’s character is associated with a different sense of her significance. By her very
carelessness and lack of concern for human merit in the disposition of her rewards, she is
said to remind us that the goods of fortune are unworthy of our pursuit.
With the growing recovery of classical values in the Renaissance, however, there was a
return to the earlier contention that a distinction needs to be drawn between luck and fate.
Man’s freedom was felt to be threatened, however, by the idea of fortune as an inexorable
force. Building on this new attitude to human liberty, the humanists of 15thcentury Italy
began to reconstruct a more classical image of fortune’s role in human affairs.
When Machiavelli asks, in the title of chapter 25 of The Prince, ‘How much control fortune
has over human affairs’, his answer draws on these humanist attitudes. He concedes that our
freedom is far from complete, since fortune is immensely powerful, and may be ‘the arbiter of
half our actions’. He stresses that she is the friend of the brave, of those who are ‘less
cautious and more aggressive’, and he develops the idea that she is chiefly responsive to the
virtus of the vir, the man of true manliness. First he makes the negative point that she is most
easily driven to rage and enmity by those who lack virtù. Just as the qualities of courage and
prudence act as an embankment against her onrush, so she always directs her fury where she
knows ‘that no dykes or dams have been built’. He then adds the positive claim that, because
fortune is a woman, she is always ‘well disposed towards young men’, who ‘treat her more
boldly’ (85).
The suggestion that fortune may take a perverse pleasure in being handled with violence has
sometimes been treated as a distinctively Machiavellian moment of offensiveness.
Like the Roman moralists, however, Machiavelli sets aside the acquisition of riches as a base
pursuit, and concludes that the noblest aim for any prince who is genuinely virtuoso must
therefore be to introduce a form of government ‘that will bring honour to him’ as well as
benefit and satisfaction to his subjects. The attainment of worldly honour and glory is thus
the highest goal for Machiavelli
Machiavelli first turns, in chapters 12 to 14, to advise new princes about the proper conduct
of military affairs. He begins by arguing that ‘the main foundations of all states’ are ‘good
laws and good armies’. But good armies are even more important than good laws, because
‘it is impossible to have good laws if good arms are lacking’. Machiavelli goes on to specify
that armies are basically of two types, hired mercenaries and citizen militias It seems more
likely that, although he mounts a general attack on hired soldiers, he may have been thinking
in particular about the misfortunes of his native city, which undoubtedly suffered a series of
humiliations at the hands of its mercenary commanders.
Arma virumque, arms and the man: these are Machiavelli’s two leading themes in The
Prince. The other lesson he accordingly wishes to bring home to the political leaders of his
age is that, in addition to having a sound army, any ruler who aspires to glory must cultivate
the right qualities of princely leadership The nature of these qualities had already been
influentially analysed by the Roman moralists and historians. They had begun by conceding
that all great leaders must to some extent be lucky. Unless fortune happens to smile, no
amount of unaided human effort can hope to bring us to our highest goals. As we have seen,
however, they had also maintained that a special range of attributes—those characteristic of
the vir—tend to attract the favourable attentions of fortune, and in this way almost guarantee
the attainment of glory and fame.
Some commentators have complained that Machiavelli fails to provide us with any definition
of princely virtù, and even that he is innocent of any systematic use of the word. As will by
now be clear, however, he uses the term with complete consistency. Following his classical
and humanist authorities, he treats it as the name of that quality which enables a prince to
withstand the blows of fortune, to attract the goddess’s favourable attention, and to rise in
consequence to the heights of princely fame, winning glory for himself, security for his state,
and contentment for his subjects.
The Roman moralists had bequeathed a complex analysis of the concept of virtus, generally
picturing the true vir as the possessor of three distinct yet affiliated sets of qualities. They
took him to be endowed in the first place with the four ‘cardinal’ virtues of wisdom, justice,
courage, and Temperance. Two more exist and that is clemency and liberality.
How a female ruler—such as Caterina Sforza—is supposed to fit into this picture of princely
virtù as the defining characteristic of the vir, the man of true manliness, is a question that
was never squarely faced. But if we return for a moment to Machiavelli’s account in his
Legations of his own encounter with Caterina, we gain some clues as to how he seems to
have thought about the issue. He emphasizes her courage and independence, drawing
particular attention to her full control of arrangements about money and troops He seems
willing, in short, to acknowledge that it may be possible for a woman to possess many of the
elements of virtù generally taken to define the manly figure of the vir.
The only solution to this dilemma is that a prince must learn to act the part of a virtuous man
even when—or rather, especially when—he is not in fact behaving virtuously. He must learn
how to turn himself into ‘a great feigner and dissembler’ who is skilled in cunningly
deceiving men (60). Machiavelli’s second piece of positive advice brings us to the heart of his
argument. If a ruler wishes to maintain his state and scale the heights of glory, he must be
guided not by the requirements of virtue but rather by what is dictated by necessity for the
attainment of these ends. He must be prepared, that is, to make a virtue out of necessity
His remaining precept is that any ruler who wishes to maintain his state ‘should avoid
anything that will make him either hated or despised’
The other topical issue Machiavelli addresses is whether princes should guard their
territories with fortresses. If you fear the hatred of your subjects you must certainly build
fortresses. But even this policy cannot in the end protect you against popular discontent.
Hence ‘the best fortress a ruler can have is not to be hated by the people’ For Machiavelli,
accordingly, one crucial question that remains is how to avoid becoming hated. Aristotle had
laid it down in his Politics that rulers generally incur hatred as a result of confiscating the
property of their subjects or violating the honour of their womenfolk (1311a–b). The But it is
even more striking that, in offering his own judgement about how to avoid hatred, he simply
reiterates what Aristotle had already said.
Turning finally to the question of how to avoid contempt, Machiavelli again offers his answer
in the form of an implicit commentary on his classical authorities. Aristotle had thought of
contempt as chiefly visited on rulers who lead a life of debauchery, and had consequently
advised them to behave with studious moderation in matters of personal and especially
sexual morality (1314b). But Machiavelli can see no force in these arguments. The classical
ideal of decorum and self-control is dismissed with a shrug.
No ruler ought to allow anything like complete freedom of debate. He ought to listen only to
a few advisers, and ought to consult them only on topics he himself wishes to hear discussed
Nevertheless, there is no doubt that Machiavelli’s understanding of princely virtù radically
parts company with prevailing traditions of thought.
According to classical and humanist moral theory, the chief qualities that enable rulers to
remain in power and rise to glory are such virtues as liberality, clemency, piety, and a sense
of justice. Machiavelli agrees that the term virtù names those qualities which enable rulers to
attain these princely goals. But he disjoins the attributes of the virtuoso prince from any
necessary connection with the conventional list of the virtues. For Machiavelli, a virtuoso
ruler is someone who is willing to do anything dictated by necessity in order to maintain his
state. The term virtù thus comes to denote that set of qualities, moral or otherwise, by means
of which —by virtue of which—this outcome can be achieved
Morality, Religion, and Politics
For many, his teaching endorses immoralism or, at least, amoralism. The most extreme
versions of this reading find Machiavelli to be a “teacher of evil”, in the famous words of
Leo Strauss (1958: 9–10), on the grounds that he counsels leaders to avoid the common
values of justice, mercy, temperance, wisdom, and love of their people in preference to
the use of cruelty, violence, fear, and deception.
A more moderate school of thought, associated with the name of Benedetto Croce (1925),
views Machiavelli as simply a “realist” or a “pragmatist” advocating the suspension of
commonplace ethics in matters of politics.
Moral values have no place in the sorts of decisions that political leaders must make.
Concentrating on the claim in The Prince that a head of state ought to do good if he can,
but must be prepared to commit evil if he must Skinner argues that Machiavelli prefers
conformity to moral virtue ceteris paribus.
The point of Machiavellian “science” is not to distinguish between “just” and “unjust”
forms of government, but to explain how politicians deploy power for their own gain.
Thus, Machiavelli rises to the mantle of the founder of “modern” political science, in
contrast with Aristotle's classical norm-laden vision of a political science of virtue.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau long ago held that the real lesson of The Prince is to teach the
people the truth about how princes behave and thus to expose, rather than celebrate, the
immorality at the core of one-man rule.
And The Prince speaks with equal parts disdain and admiration about the contemporary
condition of the Church and its Pope. Machiavelli was clear in his conception of the
relationship between religion and politics. He opined that religion should be exploited for
the sake of political expediency. Otherwise religion and politics should be kept separate,
religion always being subordinated to politics. A ruler has supreme powers, and he is
above the norms of moral or religious tenets
He holds that religious and ethical principles have only a secondary role and in no way
they should be a hindrance to the exercise of political power.
Machiavelli made a clear distinction between politics on the one hand and religion and ethics
on the other and in doing so he has accorded subordinate position to the latter. He ignores the
ethical purpose of the state. To him state is not a means but an end in itself with its own
interest. The interest of the state justifies everything. The state has no ethics. State actions are
not to be judged by individual ethics. In excersing political power, Machiavelli opines that a
ruler should give priority to what is good for the state rather than what is moral or immoral.

Appreciating the good qualities of a ruler, Machiavelli emphasized that he cannot part with
the bad means to be an able leader. He says public morality need not necessarily be identical
with the private morality because the ends of public morality may not necessarily be identical
with those of private morality. Hence Machiavelli prescribed double standard of conduct for
the ruler and for the individual citizens.

Machiavelli brings a complete divorce between politics and ethics.

The prince must appear or be sincere, upright and religious but he must have his mind so
disciplined that when it is necessary to save the state, he can act regardless of these.

The idea of State

Machiavelli has also been credited with formulating for the first time the “modern
concept of the state”, understood in the broadly Weberian sense of an impersonal form of
rule possessing a monopoly of coercive authority within a set territorial boundary.
Certainly, the term lo stato appears widely in Machiavelli's writings, especially in The
Prince, in connection with the acquisition and application of power in a coercive sense.
Moreover, scholars cite Machiavelli's influence in shaping the early modern debates
surrounding “reason of state”—the doctrine that the good of the state itself takes
precedence over all other considerations. Machiavelli's name and doctrines were
widely invoked to justify the priority of the interests of the state in the age of absolutism.
Machiavelli's “state” remains a personal patrimony, a possession more in line with the
medieval conception of dominium as the foundation of rule. (Dominium is a Latin term
that may be translated with equal force as “private property” and as “political dominion”.)
Thus, the “state” is literally owned by whichever prince happens to have control of it.
Moreover, the character of governance is determined by the personal qualities and traits
of the ruler—hence, Machiavelli's emphasis on virtù as indispensable for the prince's
success. These aspects of the deployment of lo stato in The Prince mitigate against the
“modernity” of his idea. Machiavelli is at best a transitional figure in the process by
which the language of the state emerged in early modern Europe, as Mansfield concludes.
In order to “maintain his state”, the prince can only rely upon his own fount of personal
characteristics to direct the use of power and establish his claim on rulership. This is a
precarious position, since Machiavelli insists that the throes of fortune and the
conspiracies of other men render the prince constantly vulnerable to the loss of his state.
The idea of a stable constitutional regime that reflects the tenor of modern political
thought (and practice) is nowhere to be seen in Machiavelli's conception of princely
government.
This flexibility yields the core of the “practical” advice that Machiavelli offers to the ruler
seeking to maintain his state: exclude no course of action out of hand, but be ready
always to perform whatever acts are required by political circumstance. Such
observations must make us wonder whether Machiavelli's advice that princes acquire
dispositions which vary according to circumstance was so “practical” (even in his own
mind) as he had asserted.
Popular Liberty and Popular Speech
Machiavelli evinces particular confidence in the capacity of the people to contribute to
the promotion of communal liberty. In the Discourses, he ascribes to the masses a quite
extensive competence to judge and act for the public good in various settings, explicitly
contrasting the “prudence and stability” of ordinary citizens with the unsound discretion
of the prince. Simply stated, “A people is more prudent, more stable, and of better
judgment than a prince”. He maintains that the people are more concerned about, and
more willing to defend, liberty than either princes or nobles (Discourses CW 204–
205). Where the latter tend to confuse their liberty with their ability to dominate and
control their fellows, the masses are more concerned with protecting themselves against
oppression and consider themselves “free” when they are not abused by the more
powerful or threatened with such abuse (Discourses CW 203). In turn, when they fear the
onset of such oppression, ordinary citizens are more inclined to object and to defend the
common liberty. Such an active role for the people, while necessary for the maintenance
of vital public liberty, is fundamentally antithetical to the hierarchical structure of
subordination-and-rule on which monarchic vivere sicuro rests. The preconditions
of vivere libero simply do not favor the security that is the aim of constitutional
monarchy.
Machiavelli clearly views speech as the method most appropriate to the resolution of
conflict in the republican public sphere; throughout the Discourses, debate is elevated as
the best means for the people to determine the wisest course of action and the most
qualified leaders. By contrast, monarchic regimes—even the most secure constitutional
monarchies such as France—exclude or limit public discourse, thereby placing
themselves at a distinct disadvantage.
This connects to the claim in the Discourses that the popular elements within the
community form the best safeguard of civic liberty as well as the most reliable source of
decision-making about the public good. Near the beginning of the first Discourses, he
notes that some may object to the extensive freedom enjoyed by the Roman people to
assemble, to protest, and to veto laws and policies. But he responds that the Romans were
able to maintain liberty and order because of the people's ability to discern the common
good when it was shown to them. In a chapter intended to demonstrate the superiority of
popular over princely government, he argues that the people are well ordered, and hence
“prudent, stable and grateful”, so long as room is made for public speech and deliberation
within the community.
Not only are the people competent to discern the best course of action when orators lay
out competing plans, but they are in fact better qualified to make decisions, in
Machiavelli's view, than are princes. For example, the people can never be persuaded that
it is good to appoint to an office a man of infamous or corrupt habits, whereas a prince
may easily and in a vast variety of ways be persuaded to do this. (Discourses CW 316)
Likewise, should the people depart from the law-abiding path, they may readily be
convinced to restore order. The contrast Machiavelli draws is stark. The republic
governed by words and persuasion—in sum, ruled by public speech—is almost sure to
realize the common good of its citizens; and even should it err, recourse is always open to
further discourse. Non-republican regimes, because they exclude or limit discursive
practices, ultimately rest upon coercive domination and can only be corrected by violent
means.
The Discourses on Livy: Liberty and Conflict
While The Prince is doubtless the most widely read of his works, the Discourses on the Ten Books of
Titus Livy perhaps most honestly expresses Machiavelli's personal political beliefs and commitments,
in particular, his republican sympathies. In particular, across the two works, Machiavelli consistently
and clearly distinguishes between a minimal and a full conception of “political” or “civil” order. A
minimal constitutional order is one in which subjects live securely (vivere sicuro), ruled by a strong
government which holds in check the aspirations of both nobility and people, but is in turn balanced
by other legal and institutional mechanisms. In a fully constitutional regime, however, the goal of the
political order is the freedom of the community (vivere libero), created by the active participation of,
and contention between, the nobility and the people. As Quentin Skinner (2002, 189–212) has argued,
liberty forms a value that anchors Machiavelli's political theory and guides his evaluations of the
worthiness of different types of regimes. Only in a republic, for which Machiavelli expresses a
distinct preference, may this goal be attained.

Machiavelli adopted this position on both pragmatic and principled grounds. Although Machiavelli
makes relatively little comment about the French monarchy in The Prince, he devotes a great deal of
attention to France in the Discourses.Even the most excellent monarchy, in Machiavelli's view, lacks
certain salient qualities that are endemic to properly constituted republican government and that make
the latter constitution more desirable than the former.

Machiavelli asserts that the greatest virtue of the French kingdom and its king is the dedication to law.
These passages of the Discourses seem to suggest that Machiavelli has great admiration for the
institutional arrangements that obtain in France. Specifically, the French king and the nobles, whose
power is such that they would be able to oppress the populace, are checked by the laws of the realm
which are enforced by the independent authority of the Parlement. Thus, opportunities for unbridled
tyrannical conduct are largely eliminated, rendering the monarchy temperate and “civil”.

Yet such a regime, no matter how well ordered and law-abiding, remains incompatible with vivere
libero. He concludes that a few individuals want freedom simply in order to command others; these,
he believes, are of sufficiently small number that they can either be eradicated or bought off with
honors. By contrast, the vast majority of people confuse liberty with security, imagining that the
former is identical to the latter. Although the king cannot give such liberty to the masses, he can
provide the security that they crave: As for the rest, for whom it is enough to live securely (vivere
sicuro), they are easily satisfied by making orders and laws that, along with the power of the king,
comprehend everyone's security. And once a prince does this, and the people see that he never breaks
such laws, they will shortly begin to live securely (vivere sicuro) and contentedly.

The law-abiding character of the French regime ensures security, but that security, while desirable,
ought never to be confused with liberty. This is the limit of monarchic rule: even the best kingdom
can do no better than to guarantee to its people tranquil and orderly government.

A state that makes security a priority cannot afford to arm its populace, for fear that the masses will
employ their weapons against the nobility (or perhaps the crown). Yet at the same time, such a regime
is weakened irredeemably, since it must depend upon foreigners to fight on its behalf. In this sense,
any government that takes vivere sicuro as its goal generates a passive and impotent populace as an
inescapable result. By definition, such a society can never be free in Machiavelli's sense of vivere
libero, and hence is only minimally, rather than completely, political or civil.

Confirmation of this interpretation of the limits of monarchy for Machiavelli may be found in his
further discussion of the disarmament of the people, and its effects, in The Art of War. Addressing the
question of whether a citizen army is to be preferred to a mercenary one, he insists that the liberty of a
state is contingent upon the military preparedness of its subjects.
In his view, whatever benefits may accrue to a state by denying a military role to the people are
of less importance than the absence of liberty that necessarily accompanies such disarmament.
The problem is not merely that the ruler of a disarmed nation is in thrall to the military prowess of
foreigners. More crucially, Machiavelli believes, a weapons-bearing citizen militia remains the
ultimate assurance that neither the government nor some usurper will tyrannize the populace:

Machiavelli is confident that citizens will always fight for their liberty—against internal as well as
external oppressors. The case of disarmament is an illustration of a larger difference between
minimally constitutional systems such as France and fully political communities such as the Roman
Republic, namely, the status of the classes within the society. In France, the people are entirely
passive and the nobility is largely dependent upon the king, according to Machiavelli's own
observations. By contrast, in a fully developed republic such as Rome's, where the actualization of
liberty is paramount, both the people and the nobility take an active (and sometimes clashing) role in
self-government . The liberty of the whole, for Machiavelli, depends upon the liberty of its component
parts.

EVALUATION.

Machiavelli is known as the father of modern political theory. Apart from theorising about the state he
has also given meaning to the concept of sovereignty. This concept of sovereignty-internal as well as
external-is implicit in his recommendation of the despotic power of the ruler for making the state safe
internally and externally. This idea of his was later developed into a systematic theory of state
sovereignty by French thinker Jean Bodin, while Hugo Grotius built upon a theory of legal
sovereignty, which was further given a proper formulation by the English theorist John Austin.
Earlier, Hobbes while justifying social contract had also borrowed Machiavelli's conception of
human nature on which lie built his social contract theory and that of absolute sovereignty.

Machiavelli was the first who gave the idea of secularism. He placed religion within the state, not
above it. Machiavelli's belief in the potency of material interests of people rather than the spiritual
ones influenced Hegel and subsequently Marx in propounding their theory of Material Origin of the
State. Machiavelli was also the first exponent of the theory of aggrandisement which is the basis of
modern power politics. In day-to-day international politics each state aims at increasing its economic
and military power over other states.

Machiavelli was the first pragmatist in the history of political thought.