Machiavelli
The Prince
Machiavelli’s The Prince
Historical Overview
 Human Nature and Power
 Fortune & Virtue
 Forms of Government

I. Historical Overview


Niccolò Machiavelli
(1469 – 1527)
European
Renaissance



Declining power of
Church
Advancing in Science,
Arts, Literature
The Prince written in
1513 during period of
political exile
Copernican Universe
I. Historical Overview

Machiavelli & Florence



Medici family rules
city
French forces invade,
set up republican
government
Machiavelli gets role
in government, ends
up as high civil
servant, some
diplomatic missions
and military
operations
I. Historical Overview

Machiavelli & Florence
Spanish defeat the French, and
reinstall the Medici
 Machiavelli is arrested, tortured, and
eventually exiled to his country home
beyond the city walls
 During this period (he’s in his 40s) he
begins his philosophical/political
writing, including The Prince

I. Historical Overview

Machiavelli & Florence
Prince is dedicated to Lorenzo de
Medici, the Magnificent
 But this Medici is the grandson of the
founder of the Medici dynasty,
Lorenzo il Magnifico, the genuine
Lorenzo the Magnificent

Machiavelli & Florence


The Prince as extended job
application?
Two aims:
1.
2.
Secure a government job
Provide recipe for stabilizing Italian
city states to protect them from
outside interference, whether civil or
ecclesiastical
II. Human Nature and
Power
“The desire to acquire is truly a very
natural and common thing; and
whenever men who can, do so, they
are praised and not condemned; but
when they cannot and want to do so
just the same, herein lies the mistake
and the condemnation.” (Chapter 3).
II. Human Nature and
Power
Contrast with Greeks/Aquinas
 Implications?

Human beings are selfish animals
 Need to construct a political life which
is based on how people actually
behave, not how we want them to be
 But…

II. Human Nature and
Power
Doesn’t want to reject either rational
politics (the Greeks) or religious
salvation (the church) out of hand
 Rather, the goals of these two projects
must come not from directives by
external sources but through personal
choices

II. Human Nature and
Power
These personal choices will only
come about if and when we
appreciate the factors that motivate
people in making their choices
 Each individual is fully responsible for
his/her choices
 Each of us share this responsibility
since we each share the same human
nature

II. Human Nature and
Power

Power
Machiavelli the first political thinker to
focus on power as positive trait
 Simple recognition of the fact that the
quest for power is an essential part of
human nature
 Why?

II. Human Nature and
Power
If we want to acquire possessions,
then that implies that we also want the
means to acquire those possessions
 Need to recognize that for rulers the
study of power is vital: how to acquire
it, how to keep it, how to use it

II. Human Nature and
Power
“Many writers have imagined for themselves
republics and principalities that have never
been seen nor known to exist in reality; for
there is such a gap between how one lives
and how one ought to live that anyone who
abandons what is done for what ought to be
done learns his ruin rather than his
preservation…” (chapter 15)
II. Human Nature and
Power
“for a man who wishes to profess
goodness at all times will come to
ruin among so many who are not
good” (chapter 15).
II. Human Nature and
Power

Indeed, Machiavelli asserts:
“For one can generally say this about men:
they are ungrateful, fickle, simulators and
deceivers, avoiders of danger, greedy for
gain; and while you work for their good they
are completely yours, offering you their
blood, their property, their lives, and their
sons, as I said earlier, when danger is far
away; but when it comes nearer to you they
turn away” (chapter XVII).
II. Human Nature and
Power

So if a Prince or ruler wants to stay in
power, he must
“Learn how not to be good, and to use
this knowledge or not to use it
according to necessity” (chapter XV)
II. Human Nature and
Power
What does this mean?
 Machiavelli is not advising us to
behave badly simply for the sake of
being evil

II. Human Nature and
Power
Rather since we see power in political
life we need to counsel rulers on how
best to use it
 Basic advice, don’t help others, be
cruel, stingy, deceptive…
 And get others to do the dirty work so
you can escape blame

II. Human Nature and
Power

“You must, therefore, know that there
are two means of fighting: one
according to the laws, the other with
force; the first way is proper to man,
the second to beasts; but because the
first, in many cases is not sufficient, it
becomes necessary to have recourse
to the second” (chapter XVIII).
II. Human Nature and
Power
“Since, then, a prince must know how to make
good use of the nature of the beast, he should
choose from among the beasts the
fox and the lion; for the
lion cannot defend itself
from traps and the fox
cannot protect itself from
wolves. It is therefore
necessary to be a fox in
order to recognize the
traps and a lion in order to
frighten the wolves.”
II. Human Nature and
Power

Examples?

Chapter VII
• “Cesare Borgia
acquired the state
through the favour and
help of his father, and
when this no longer
existed, he lost it, and
this despite the fact
that he did everything
and used every means
that a prudent and
skilful man ought to
use in order to root
himself securely in
those states that the
arms and fortune of
others had granted
him”
II. Human Nature and
Power
Background here:
 Cesare’s father? Pope Alexander VI
 The Pope put Cesare in charge of
Florence, and issued a formal papal
bull (order) authorizing him to expand
the power of Florence
 What were some of the means used
by this “prudent” and “skilful” man?

II. Human Nature and
Power
Later in the chapter we get one
example
 Borgia takes over Romagna, but is
meeting resistance since “it was ruled
by powerless noblemen who had
been quicker to despoil their subjects
than to govern them, and gave them
cause to disunite rather than to unite
them”

II. Human Nature and
Power
He decided it was necessary to bring
“peace and obedience of the law” and
installed a man named Remirro de
Orca, a “cruel and efficient man” to
rule
 Then, after the area was pacified,
Borgia does the following:

II. Human Nature and
Power

“Since he knew that the severities of
the past had brought about a certain
amount of hate, in order to purge the
minds of those people and win them
over completely, he planned to
demonstrate that if cruelty of any kind
had come about, it did not stem from
him [Borgia] but rather from the bitter
nature of the minister…”
II. Human Nature and
Power

“And having found
the occasion to do
this, he had him
placed one
morning in Cesena
on the piazza in
two pieces with a
piece of wood and
a bloodstained
knife alongside
him.”
II. Human Nature and
Power

“The atrocity of such a spectacle left
those people at one and the same
time satisfied and stupefied.”
II. Human Nature and
Power
Story of Agathocles the Sicilian
(chapter VIII)
 Story of Oliverotto of Fermo (chapter
VII)
 Footnote:


A year after the events described here
(1512), Cesare had Fermo strangled
and the corpse displayed on the main
square of Senigallia for 3 days
II. Human Nature and
Power

Conclusion?

“In taking a state its conqueror should
weigh all the harmful things he must
do and do them all at once so as not
to have to repeat them every day, and
in not repeating them to be able to
make men feel secure and win them
over with the benefits he bestows
upon them”
II. Human Nature and
Power
Machiavelli is not counseling the need
to be cruel, nor denying that cruelty is
sometimes useful, but rather showing
how to limit its worst effects
 The primary requirement for selfish
individuals seeking personal goals is
to enter into reciprocal relationships
where each needs power or influence
over the behavior of others

II. Human Nature and
Power
In entering these relationships, all are
equal in their selfishness, and all are
free to seek power
 He’s not saying that people will never
act on the common good, only that
they will do so only if they see an
identity between their private interest
and the common good

II. Human Nature and
Power

Those who appear good or altruistic to
others are either rational actors really
motivated by desire for personal
advantage, or ruled by laziness and
retreating from their political
responsibilities
II. Human Nature and
Power

“And it is essential to understand this:
that a prince, and especially a new
prince, cannot observe all those
things for which men are considered
good, for in order to maintain the state
he is often obliged to act against his
promise, against charity, against
humanity, and against religion…”
II. Human Nature and
Power

“And therefore, it is necessary that he
have a mind ready to turn itself
according to the way the winds of
fortune and the changeability of affairs
require him; and, as I said above, as
long as it is possible, he should not
stray from the good, but he should
know how to enter into evil when
necessity commands” (Chapter XVIII).
III. Fortune and Virtue
But what happens if you follow
Machiavelli’s principles?
 Is success guaranteed
 Recall the passage about Cesare
Borgia, the model for much of
Machiavelli’s discussion:

III. Fortune and Virtue
“Cesare Borgia acquired
the state through the
favour and help of his
father, and when this no
longer existed, he lost it,
and this despite the fact
that he did everything
and used every means
that a prudent and skilful
man ought to use in order
to root himself securely in
those states that the
arms and fortune of
others had granted him”
(emphasis added)
III. Fortune and Virtue
Machiavelli recognizes that
sometimes, despite the best planning,
education, and skill, events still turn
out badly
 That is, fortune or luck is also a part of
our political life

III. Fortune and Virtue
Chapter XXV
 “I judge it to be true that fortune is the
arbiter of one half of our actions, but
that she still leaves the control of the
other half, or almost that, to us.”
 Flooding river analogy

III. Fortune and Virtue

What to do?
1.
2.
Follow Machiavelli’s prescriptions.
That is, learn the virtues of ruling
“I also believe that the man who
adapts his course of action to the
nature of the times will succeed and,
likewise, that the man who sets his
course of action out of tune with the
times will come to grief” (XVIII).
III. Fortune and Virtue
In other words, a good ruler is one
who can adapt to changing
circumstances
 It means knowing when to be cautious
and hesitant, or bold and forceful, as
the occasion demands.

III. Fortune and Virtue
Knowing what to do and when to do it
is part of Machiavelli’s understanding
of virtue
 Unlike the ancient philosophers or
Christian theologians, virtue is
divorced from the idea of a code of
conduct, of “good” versus “bad” ways
of acting

III. Fortune and Virtue
Instead, for Machiavelli, virtue is
individualistic [contra the Greeks and
Romans] and secular [contra the
Church]
 Not some idealistic merit or moral
goodness, but …

III. Fortune and Virtue



A true selfishness that enables individuals to get what
they value, whether power, wealth, fame, etc.
Those who get what they seek have demonstrated
their virtue and they are judged, in Machiavelli’s
criteria, as good.
By adapting – by adjusting cunning and strength, by
following the fox and the lion – a virtuous ruler is one
who can see trouble on the horizon (the work of
fortune) and act rather than be taken off-guard by
changing events
III. Fortune and Virtue

Because a political state is passive
(events happen to it), it needs
constant attention devoted to creating
order and avoiding disorder
IV. Forms of Government
What is the best way to maintain the
state?
 What is the best form of government?
 What are the basic forms of
government?

IV. Forms of Government

Unlike Aristotle, Machiavelli argues
that basically we have two forms:
1. Republic
2. Monarchy
“All the states, all the dominions that
have had and still have power over
men, were and still are either
republics or principalities” (first
sentence, Chapter 1)
IV. Forms of Government
But throughout The Prince, that
distinction blurs a bit, with monarchies
or “civic principalities” ending up
looking very similar to republics
 The real distinction is then between
republics and tyrannies (i.e., those
monarchies or principalities which
differ from republics).

IV. Forms of Government

Republics:
Founded by a strong, inspirational
leader rallying the citizenry
 Based on law
 Governed in the interest of the
majority, not of a special elite
 Mixed class – members of all classes
have opportunity to participate

IV. Forms of Government
Note, republics require a special
citizenry: active, engaged, public
spirited
 Unlikely to have those conditions in
every area, so tyranny is inevitable

IV. Forms of Government

Tyrannies
Masses are subjects, not active
participants in political life
 Ruling classes enjoy more liberty, and
when interests of rulers conflict with
liberty of the masses, the rulers
prevail

IV. Forms of Government
The masses are content with this
arrangement since they recognize that
without the ruler, anarchy would
ensue, or
 They’re content because they are
either fearful or awestruck of the
powers that be

IV. Forms of Government
Lacking the virtue of citizens in a
republic, the masses under tyrannical
regimes both merit and need tyranny
 And when a tyrant is stuck governing
a bunch of corrupt, vulgar masses
who lack virtue, then ordinary morality
is not binding and he/she/they can
pretty much do what they must to stay
in power
