The Prince - Conclusion
Conclusion
Quote
For Machiavelli, "good" means "effective," which has led to his reputation as a conniver of morality. But he does have a morality. The "good," in Machiavelli's scheme, is that the country would prosper. And since the prosperity of the country benefits the individual members of it, actions taken by the prince that might seem "wicked" actually become "good" if they benefit the state and its people.
Susan Wise Bauer
Notes
🔥 Machiavelli grew up semi-poor but he was able to get a decent education, which included learning how to read and write in Latin.
🔥 He was very influenced by Lucretius and his book, On the Nature of Things, especially its somewhat more bleak (or down to earth?) conception of mankind.
🔥 He was also educated during a period when rhetoric was highly valued skill in statesmen and leading citizens. Angelo Poliziano, the leading thinker on this at the time, explained that "nothing is more beautiful than to distinguish oneself in the very art that makes men excel over the other animals; nothing is more marvelous than to be able to penetrate the mind and the soul of a multitude, to captivate the people's attention, to drive their will and dominate their passions."
🔥 He was appointed as a secretary in a new government, where his role was mostly to provide information and advice on military matters and foreign affairs. He was often sent out on diplomatic missions to other countries where he met other interesting and influential political figures. He relished these opportunities for learning how other states operated.
🔥 The Medici takeover of the government meant that Machiavelli would lose his position. He was put in prison and tortured in order to get him to confess that he was part of a conspiracy against the new government, but he was eventually released as part of an amnesty deal.
🔥 "Machiavelli composed his treatise in order to prove to everyone, and to himself as well, that although he had been dismissed as Secretary, he knew the art of the state better than anybody else in his time, and better even than the most revered political thinkers of antiquity, in particular Cicero and his modern followers."
🔥 Machiavelli was often deliberately contravening the writings of Cicero, whose works on governing were the ruling philosophy of the time. Cicero said you have to follow the virtues. Machiavelli said if you do you that, you will lose the state. Cicero said men are not beasts and should be above the ways of the lion or the fox. Machiavelli said a man must know how to be both. Cicero said love is better than fear. Machiavelli said it is safer to be feared rather than loved.
Thoughts
What about The Prince has made it so influential and lasting? It seems like it was the first book that broke away from the dominant worldview of politics laid down by Cicero, which stressed the importance of virtue and morality.
But it's not that Machiavelli is amoral or opposed to virtue. He just has a different kind of morality that was different than what the orthodox view was back then (or even now). His morality says that if something benefits the state and its people, then it's okay. Even if that means you have to lie, manipulate, and be cruel.
But you can't go too far in that direction either. Machiavelli is practical enough to realize that too much cruelty or lying will turn people against you. It may be better to be feared than loved, but what's far more important than either, for Machiavelli, is to not be hated.