Machiavelli

MACHIAVELLI

An Introduction

After 14 years of patriotic service, the Secretary to the Second Chancery of the Signoria was removed from office, tortured and banished to his villa outside the city. Aspiring but failing to be an on-air political analyst for a television network, NiccolÐ"І Machiavelli wrote The Prince.

The manuscript was ignored by Lorenzo de' Medici and printed only after Machiavelli's death.

Most would think that a "prince" is someone who is intended to inherit control of his country, yet the princes of Machiavelli's time were by no means that secure; the prince had to be careful to keep the support of his citizens if he wanted to remain in power.

The Machiavellian Philosophy

The Greek political theorists, primarily Socrates, Plato and Aristole, made politics subservient to higher quests for good and knowledge. Politics to them was an instrument in the pursuit of the "greatest good". On the contrary, to Machiavelli politics is the prime subject, second to none. To him, the greatest good is the good of the state and the good of the state is not a means to encourage the development of individual virtue or happiness. Here he rejects both renaissance and Christian individualism by asking how other interests can serve politics instead of how politics may serve other interests. He says that once the idealistic, theological goals of the older political tradition are rejected, the standards of a workable political order are lowered to one that is humanly realizable. Machiavelli also states that as long as the prince is willing to take the necessary steps, political success is not dependent

on chance or luck and can be controlled by force and fear. Therefore the political problem has moved from a philosophical, theoretical discussion about how people ought to behave to a technical matter that could be routinely solved by practical action.

In The Prince, Machiavelli insisted that only in a well-ordered state could human life flourish. Given that, any means necessary to establish and maintain order were justified.

For him, effective political rule is the most important thing and political decisions are not dependent upon moral judgments.

Whether something is morally right or wrong (according to some prominent religion) is relevant only to a political decision only to the extent of the reaction of the religious leaders and officials and how this reaction might help or hinder the political policy.

Thus Machiavelli introduces a new

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