Professional Documents
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POl C212 Machiavelli and Modernity
POl C212 Machiavelli and Modernity
What do you know about Machiavelli? What do you associate the word Machiavellian with?
Machiavelli will be forever associated with the idea that the ends justify the means, and that in the pursuit of power everything is allowed
if that were all that Machiavelli had said, he would not be very interesting or worth reading, since such is the credo of the professional politician everywhere; and anyway others had written in this vein before, though perhaps not as well as Machiavelli.
What makes Machiavelli worth reading is the fact that he argues from profoundly different assumptions about politics; he begins the process of changing the values of an entire age.
Natural sociality
A key premise of Ancient and medieval political thought Not emphasized in Machiavelli, actively denied in Hobbes
Machiavelli
Good men lead (some times) to bad regimes Good rulers must learn how not to be good men New definition of virtu: the qualities that enable a man to master fortuna
Machiavelli
Glory I love my country more than I love my immortal soul (letter to Francesco Vettori)
Machiavelli
many have pictured republics and principalities which in fact have never been known or seen, because how one lives is so far distant from how one ought to live (chapter 15) The point of politics is to manage disharmony for great ends