Machiavelli

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.

Some key concepts of ancient and Christian thought

Natural sociality Virtue The good life The good regime

Natural sociality
A key premise of Ancient and medieval political thought Not emphasized in Machiavelli, actively denied in Hobbes

Virtue and politics

Ancient and medieval thinkers
Good men lead to good regimes Virtues of the ruler the same as the moral virtues

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

The good life

Ancient and medieval thinkers
The good life involves life in accordance with reason (Christian thinkers) The key goals of human beings are beyond this life

Machiavelli
Glory I love my country more than I love my immortal soul (letter to Francesco Vettori)

The best regime

Ancient and medieval thinkers
The best regime is a guiding ideal The point of politics is to produce concord or harmony

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

The problem of The Prince

Is Machiavelli a teacher of evil?

The virtu of the prince

Are the qualities that enable a person to master fortune the same as the moral qualities? Are the qualities of a prince who will be good for a country the same as the moral qualities?

Learning how not to be good

Two ways of understanding Machiavellis point
Machiavelli as a teacher of evil Dirty hands or lesser of two evils analysis

Cruelty vs. mercy

No prince should mind being called cruel for what he does to keep his subjects united and loyal (chapter 17) Mercy turns into cruelty But cruelty can be well and badly used: cruelty well used is mercy