Ava Haidar

POL-201

Sandipto Dasgupta

Pratap Bhanu Mehta

Mid-Term Paper

14th October, 2017

Is Machiavelli correct in thinking that there is a fundamental difference between what

private virtue requires and what the necessities of politics require? What is about the nature

of politics that requires it to be governed by a different morality?

“If men were entirely good this precept would not hold, but because they are bad, and will

not keep faith with you, you too are not bound to observe it with them.” (Machiavelli 103)

Niccolo Machiavelli’s words hold no contempt for men, only acceptance. Acceptance of the

idea that people are morally deviant, and so, a prince too has every right to be the same. That is the

crux of Machiavelli’s reasoning.

Unlike Confucius, whose prescribes certain traits for the ideal human being, or Aristotle,

who discusses an ideal state, Machiavelli is not concerned with laying down a philosophy for a

virtuous ruler, but rather, an effective one. In fact, he admits that it is “more appropriate to follow

up the real truth of the matter than the imagination of it”, referring to texts that instruct kings to be

the pinnacle of humanity. He believes these works focus on what must be practiced at the expense

of understanding the real morality of men, claiming that “how one lives is so far distant from how

one ought to live.” (91)

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 He devotes much consideration to human nature. Further, he uses examples of the past to

bolster his arguments, and underlines preemptive thinking as an asset for the prince to ensure the

survival of his state. Over and above this, a prince must have a knowledge of how to rule unjustly.

Morality hence emerges as a strong driver of his ideas. Immorality, even more so. Although it is

Machiavelli who is thought to be amoral, his book, The Prince finds the subjects, nobles and

ministers of the prince to be this way.

To answer the question of different moralities, this paper will look at three different actors

within the text: the prince, his people and those who are directly under his employ, such as the

army, nobles and ministers. What Machiavelli expects of each of them reveals his interesting and

complex sense of morality, and one can then decide whether such a morality conflicts with private

virtue.

Machiavelli’s writings on the use of cruelty and force to govern are what contains some of

his more controversial views. “Men ought either to be well treated or crushed” (Machiavelli 25),

meaning that if prince must use cruelty against his subjects, he must do it wholly and unsparingly,

for if they are not beaten to an extreme, they can survive and exact revenge. Although it is true that

this amounts to repression, Machiavelli is also making a larger point about rebellion. Naturally,

rebellion is undesirable to a prince.

And so, the prince must exercise cruelty to secure his state, with sufficient justification each

time, and to the extent that he does not incur the hatred of his people. How does he ensure this?

Simply, he must leave alone the property and women of his subjects. Machiavelli places the

importance of leaving be their property over executing a disloyal subject, as “men more quickly

forget the death of their father than the loss of their patrimony” (99).

He thus charges the common man with a skewed morality. Similarly, when he ponders

whether it is better to be feared or loved, and answers that it is the former, it is not because he

wishes for a prince to terrorise his population. It is to protect against the self-interest of people,
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which they will put before their obligations to the prince. He asserts that they are in general

“ungrateful, fickle, false, cowardly, covetous”, unreliable and immorally advantageous. A prince

who lovingly trusts in the promises of his people causes his own ruin, for “men have less scruple in

offending one who is beloved than one who is feared.” Machiavelli is confident that a subject of a

prince will betray him, unless he is deterred by fear, for “love is preserved by the link of obligation

which, owing to the baseness of men, is broken at every opportunity for their advantage”, whereas

if he is held by the “dread of punishment” (99), he will not fail to obey the prince. According to

Machiavelli, subjects of the prince, then, are capable of being most unfaithful and untrustworthy,

and a prince must guard against this.

He is not concerned with the genuine righteousness of princely conduct or character.

However, princely honour and glory are important. This becomes clear when he references

Agathocles the Sicilian, who ascended to the throne through the military. Even though he was able

to gain an empire, to “slay fellow-citizens, to deceive friends, to be without faith, without mercy,

without religion” (56), and to use “barbarous cruelty and inhumanity with infinite wickedness”,

made him deplorable in Machiavelli’s eyes, and thus Agathocles is not considered as a glorious

leader. Clearly, The Prince holds that cruelty can be used wrongly, or improperly. It needs to be

“necessary to one’s security”, and “not persisted in afterwards unless they can be turned to the

advantage of the subjects” (59). The Prince holds that cruel violence against the people needs to be

carried out all at once, so that its occurrence is singular and is erased afterwards from their

memories (whereas the opposite is to be done with benefits, which must be given out to them little

by little to prolong the illusion of magnanimity).

Despite these harsh measures, “every prince ought to desire to be considered clement and

not cruel.” The prince must always seek loyalty from his subjects and assure that they feel a need

for him and the state (Machiavelli 65). To the extent that he is able to inspire loyalty in his people,

he must not fear the use of cruelty to control them. Machiavelli justifies the executions of

wrongdoers in the state, as they will allow greater disorder to pervade society and harm more
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people, whereas mercilessly making an “example” (Machiavelli 97) will set a precedent, and hurt

the individual wrongdoer only.

His philosophy on cruelty is thus more concerned with making sure the state is stable and

the people are peaceful and obedient, rather than to condone any misuse of power of the prince.

Most importantly, in using cruelty with his subjects, a prince must “proceed in a temperate manner

with prudence and humanity” (Machiavelli 98). His writing does not assign an aspiring prince the

responsibility of being ruthless, but rather, knowing how to be necessarily and judiciously ruthless.

The prince must understand how to not be morally right, and use this understanding to sustain his

title.

While he emphasises a strong arm in effective rulership, Machiavelli does not fail to convey

that a prince must show genuine concern for his people as well. He must “honour the proficient in

every art”, “encourage his citizens to practice their callings peaceably”, celebrate with them through

festivals, praise and regard well the different guilds and societies in his state, and “show himself as

an example of courtesy and liberty” (Machiavelli 130).

Liberality must be carefully practiced; to establish a reputation for generosity among his

subjects, a prince must be generous with his money. To obtain money, he must tax the people. The

case should not arise that his extraction of taxes from the people becomes excessive, for this will

hurt them. It is better to be frugal, and preserve funds to better the state’s health.

Of nobles, Machiavelli believes that they are easily corruptible, and a prince must be wary

of their ambitions. Either they tie their futures with that of the prince, or they remain independent of

his command. Those nobles who choose the former path, are to be held in close regard and treated

with honour, and of those who choose the second, the ones who desire power must be treated like

enemies, for they will place their own desire above the good of the prince. They will pose threats in

times of adversity (Machiavelli 63). They are seen as cunning and self-serving, ready to “obtain

favours from him whom they expect to prevail” (Machiavelli 62).

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 They also seek to oppress the common people, whereas the common people only wish to not

be oppressed by nobles (Machiavelli 61). Machiavelli uses this to explain why a prince must value

the satisfaction of his people higher than that of his nobles, for they have a righteous demand, and

while nobles are dispensable and replaceable to him, the people are not. (Machiavelli 62) He must,

however, cherish the nobles, but only as far as he does not let himself be despised by his people.

In the same way the people’s loyalty to the state is crucial for a prince, his “secretaries” or

servants too must not seek “inwardly his own profit in everything” (Machiavelli 133), for then they

cannot be trusted.

In Chapter 23, Machiavelli discusses the danger of flatterers in his court, for they are

abundant, and can only be guarded against if a prince admits to all that hearing the truth does not

offend him. Additionally, he must ensure that he is accessible only to the wisest men in his state,

and only they can present the truth to him. He must also question their truths and encourage their

honesty towards him. They, like the nobles, will think only for themselves and be inauthentic, as

“men will always prove untrue to you unless they are kept honest by constraint.” (Machiavelli 136)

Thus, a prince must be very careful in choosing who he trusts for political counsel.

And so, Machiavelli depicts a very negative picture of a prince’s nobles and counsellors. It

becomes clear through his descriptions and cautionary advice for the prince that such characters do

not deserve the full faith of a wise prince, owing to their lack of morality, honesty and loyalty.

Self-reliance emerges as a strong theme in The Prince. This can also be gathered from

Machiavelli’s opinions about armies. Together with good laws, good arms make for strong

foundations of a state. He writes that one necessitates the other.

A prince must concentrate his expertise in the art of war. He must dedicate himself to

studying war especially in times of peace. It is regarded as such a powerful tool that even a common

man can rise to the station of a ruler through mastering it.

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 Machiavelli trusts most in a self-created army. Using Italy as an example, he shows that in

the case that a ruler trusts mercenaries, he is bound to allow the ruin of the state. Mercenaries are

“disunited, ambitious, and without discipline”, and they are motivated to protect the state only by

the stipend they receive, which “is not sufficient to make them willing to die for you”(Machiavelli

74). It seems from his ideas about a prince’s hard power that his army has to be based on the strong

allegiance of his people, and has to be recruited from them to maintain true honour.

Further, “nothing can be so uncertain or unstable as fame or power not founded on its own

strength” (Machiavelli 86). And, when the prince must resort to arms to protect the state, he must

“perform the duty of a captain” (Machiavelli 75). This chapter marks out an expectation of the

prince: he must be able to inspire glory and valour from within the people of his state. Victory must

be a claim of the prince, not of a body of mercenaries, or of the auxiliary forces of another ruler. Of

the latter, he says that they will always work to the disadvantage of the prince; if they fail, his state

is devastated, but if they succeed, the prince is in their captive debt. A prince must avoid joining

forces with a state more powerful than his, for if it conquers his own, then he is vulnerable to its

discretion. (Machiavelli 129)

Chapter XVIII is about how a prince can retain the faith of the people. Inherent in

Machiavelli’s words here and many other parts of the book is the idea that morality and honesty is

not to be expected from the people. And, while it is commendable for a leader to possess these

virtues, the leaders who take recourse to craft and trickery are more successful. Machiavelli writes

that a prince must more often learn to take the path of ‘beasts’, that is, of using force, rather than of

the civil laws of men. Of the beasts, the prince must learn to act both like the fox and the lion. By

this, he means that he must know how to be strong and intimidating like the lion, as well as cunning

and witty enough to avoid traps like the fox. He cannot simply depend on the way of one.

Particularly, “he who has known best how to employ the fox has succeeded best” (Machiavelli

104).

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 This chapter also reveals what it means to be apparently ‘Machiavellian’, and is crucial for

answering the question of different moralities. It is important for Machiavelli’s prince to “appear

merciful, faithful, humane, religious and upright, and to be so, but with a mind so framed that

should you require not to be so, you may be able.” (Machiavelli 104) Appearance of virtue in a

prince is necessary, whereas actually being virtuous is not.

In other words, a prince can be immoral if his politics requires it, as long as he is putting on

a facade of high morals. The controversy in a statement like this stems from the idea that as if a

leader can convince his people that he represents great ideals, he can turn back on his words and act

the opposite of what he publicly intends and promises.

One may consider this instead: the people themselves favour goodness, but, as Machiavelli

believes that people don’t do what they ought to do, they do not necessarily possess it. Further, they

are simpleminded, and more preoccupied with what things seem to be and not what they actually

are (Machiavelli 106). A prince must account for this tendency, and hence, his politics need to be

deceptive, if they are against the morals of his people. He must be a skilled “pretender and

dissembler”, and he will then find ease in controlling his state, for “he who seeks to deceive will

always find someone who will allow himself to be deceived” (Machiavelli 104). Machiavelli’s

arguments for the use of deception are based on two things: the weakness of people to be easily

deceived, and the historical success of leaders who use craftiness to rule their states.

Earlier in the text, he presents the example of Cesare Borgia, son of Pope Alexander the

Sixth. Borgia acquired the territory of Romagna, and put a ruthless man, Ramiro d’Orco, at its

helm. D’Orco used harsh methods to control the people and establish order in Romagna. After this,

Borgia removed him from power and imposed a court to run the state. He then had D’Orco

executed. Killing two birds with one stone, Borgia’s move transferred the blame of who caused

Romagna’s suffering to only D’Orco, and through the eyes of the people, Borgia was seen righteous

man. Machiavelli stresses that above all, a prince must strive to gain the reputation “of being a great

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and remarkable man” (127). He must, as Cesare Borgia was able to, “leave affairs of reproach to the

management of others, and keep those of grace in their own hands” (Machiavelli 111), so that he

can effectively dominate the people, but also win their affection.

Machiavelli’s principles do not appear entirely amoral, when one takes into account that his

work is tempered with much thought about self-reliance and proactiveness. I believe that the nature

of politics is such that without these considerations, a prince puts his power at risk. Because of his

special focus on them, Machiavelli accords a lower priority to being a perfect leader, or to commit

to the happiness of subjects. As a result, the means a prince must use to hold power would appear as

amoral to those who believe in the best of human nature. But Machiavelli operates with the exact

opposite assumption; he takes humans to be generally self-serving, simple-minded and easily

persuaded. Cruelty and dishonesty towards subjects are thus promptly rationalised. Nonetheless, he

believes that a prince needs them to be friendly to him to ensure that he does not have to worry

about the state’s stability in times of adversity. (Machiavelli 63)

Simply put, Machiavelli’s ideas are not in and of themselves coldblooded; his advice seems

to be largely reaction-based. Through his study of historical patterns of administration, and what he

perceives as the true behaviour of humans, he grants the prince the right way to commit a wrong,

for the good of the state.

Perhaps the question this paper needs to answer can be viewed another way; is Machiavelli

necessarily distinguishing between the necessities of politics and of private virtue through The

Prince? Or is he creating a connection between the two?

I believe that through his analyses, he demonstrates that one is necessary in order to

facilitate the other. The human constructs of morality, justice and good faith have no need in the

heart of a prince. However, they become compelling masks for him to carry out his unethical

politics. Machiavelli thus attempts to teach a ruler how to use morality to disguise immorality,

which I believe makes him a brilliant political strategist. His logic is simple: if duplicity is the
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greatest tool in the hands of a successful prince, the fundamental difference between politics and

private virtue does not matter. What matters is that they will eventually converge to fit the agenda

of a ruler.

The Prince is therefore not simply a manual on how to rule a kingdom well without a

conscience, but rather, a historically-backed guide on governing with caution, complete knowledge,

realistic expectation and a correct attitude towards all over whom one rules. It is highly important to

note that Machiavelli does not ultimately want a prince to reign through deception, cruelty and

repression; he must know how to use means of this sort, should he have to to maintain his power.

Works Cited

Machiavelli, Niccolo. The Prince. Cambridge University Press, 1988