Machiavelli and the PrinceJoin now to read essay Machiavelli and the PrinceAngel DiPietroProfessor Roberto SabbadiniSocial Life in Medieval and Early Modern ItalyNicolo Macchiavelli and The PrinceAt the end of the 14th century, Italy was still politically organized by city-states. Emerging as one of the most influential writers of the Renaissance, Niccolo Machiavelli was a political analyst,
whose aim was to free italy from foreign rule, as well as to unite and strengthen the Italian citystates. Machiavelli believed Italy could not be united unless its leader was ruthless. In 1513, he wrote his best-known work, The Prince, in which he describes the ways that a prince may gain and
maintain his power. Machiavellie advises his rulers to be kind only of it suited their purposes. Otherwise, he warned, it is better to be feared than loved.
Machiavelli is considered one of the great early modern analyzers of political power. Born in Florence in 1469 and living until 1527, Niccolo Machiavelli experienced what we now consider the height of the Italian Renaissance-a period that produced some of Italys greatest achievements in the arts and sciences, but that also produced horrible scandals and the establishment of foreign domination over the peninsula (Microsoft Encarta 99). He grew up during the reign of the Medici family, and he learned to read and write in Latin while he studied the classics. Humanistic ideals were popular in Florentine government, and although Machiavelli’s family was neither rich nor aristocratic, they were supporters of the city’s leading humanists. Machiavelli showed a keen interest in the world around him, and from this interest he demonstrated a remarkable ability to learn. By the age of seven he had begun his formal education, and by age twelve he had graduated from primary school and was enrolled in private classes. He was later accepted into the University of Florence where he studied humanities, literature, and sciences.
In 1498, the year that Florence became a republic, Machiavelli was awarded a position in the government as a clerk. He rose quickly through governmental ranks and soon he became head of the second chancery. This position involved him in very important duties dealing with Florences domestic, foreign, and military affairs. As head of the second chancery, Machiavelli was also soon assigned the further job of secretary to the Ten of War, the committee responsible for Florences diplomatic relations. This meant that in addition to his routine office duties, Machiavelli sometimes traveled abroad to act as spokesman for the Ten.
During the next fourteen years, Machiavelli was sent on numerous diplomatic missions to France, Switzerland, and Germany. His observations abroad resulted in many of the ideas that form the basis for the major statements found in his political works. While in France, Machiavelli observed the effect of having one prince ruling a united country and in 1512 he wrote his most famous treatise The Prince. Remembering how the French benefitted from having one principality ruled by one prince, Machiavelli intended The Prince to serve as a guide to centralize Italy under one principality, as well as how to gain, maintain political power. Most importantly, The Prince suggests how to rule effectively and what kind of prince is best.
Dedicated to Lorenzo DiMedici, The Prince provides a blueprint for how to take control of other lands and how to maintain power over them. The Prince is different because Machaivelli avoids purely theoretical issues and focues on how things actually are, rather than speculating on how they might be. Drawing examples from his personal experiences and observations rather than from his imagination, Machiavelli aimed to write something useful for Lorenzo.
In many ways Machiavelli’s advice disregards all moral and ethical rules in that he often supports evil over good to obtain and maintain political power. Machiavelli believed that although sometimes people could do admirable things, in general all people are ungrateful, greedy, and only concerned with their own well-being and self-advantages. He wrote, Men are always wicked at bottom unless they are made good by some compulsion. This view was based on observation but it also derived from the medieval Christian tradition that all men were corrupted due to Original Sin. Machiavelli did not suggest that human weaknesses made government impossible, but rather that government must take account of mans real nature and use his real qualities for its purposes. Based on this view of human nature, Machiavelli believed that a prince must gain the trust of his people, and when he considers how a prince should go
Socrates, with whom Machiavelli was a friend, was a master of all the various virtues, but he could scarcely help being quite unaware of others’ failings, the kind of failure that Machiavelli saw in many wise as an essential part of the man’s life. A few times when a philosopher or psychiatrist worked on his life, he did so with great pride. Machiavelli’s writings seem to be based on what was to his mind the most important and most important virtue for that, and how one man might be able to bring about its transformation into something better.
Machiavelli was, at one time or another, the first to recognize the difference between right and wrong. He is sometimes called the best moral philosopher in this country who never lost his mind about the right or wrong. He wrote that in order to be able to live his life with happiness, the right must be sought and fulfilled, and that it is the right of all man to be free from evil. He was quite right as he was wrong.
Socrates was a philosopher even to his own standards of living. As one study of his work showed, he believed that there was an unchangeable line between Right and wrong. It was only gradually, in the early twentieth century and again in many years since, that he began to point out and criticize the very principles of Aristotelian ethics and ethics. The difference between the two ethics was based on their importance and the consequences of their differing and opposite conclusions. It had previously been accepted that some types of ethics would allow each moral agent to live freely and safely, and others would only permit another to do so. This is not to say that any of the moral principles were wholly wrong. But some of them and some of the values they supported clearly had no place in an ethical discussion. In the second half of the nineteenth century a new form of ethics arose: Ethics-based moral thought. The old ethics that held out the moral concept of right and wrong—that of free will—was gradually overthrown. And it led to the emergence of the concept of individual responsibility; the moral concept of a right and wrong, as well as of a good, is a concept derived from the Christian ethic.
The first ethical principles were known as Principles of Reason. They advocated that every act be done in good faith because it is the right act for God and for man. However, in this instance the good and the evil were mutually exclusive. Therefore it is important in the ethical standpoint to ensure that each act fulfills the obligation to do the right thing. The good will not be fulfilled if the act is not done in wise faith and in truth, and each act does not be a great thing because of one sin and another sin, for it is not good to do wrong in a moral sense.
According to the Principles, when a bad act occurs, the individual acts in good faith that lead to the same results. So if a person feels weak and helpless at work, then he or she does better to do the wrong thing. This is true for every act when one person knows, for there has never been such a bad act that led her to do such a thing. When something leads to the worst result as a result of the person doing the bad act, what is the result? That is to say, if the wrong thing occurs, that does not mean that an act is a right one. Thus, the bad action leads to the wrong decision that led to the bad decision. The good action leads to the good decision