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To understand the
Political thought of Niccolo Machiavelli
· This will help to compare thinkers on similar concept.
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To know about Niccolo
Machiavelli Politics and Religion, State, Advice to the Prince.
Machiavelli was born
in Florence, the centre of Italian culture where influence of Italian culture
where influence of the European Renaissance was the strongest among all areas
as the third child of attorney Bernardo di Niccolo Machiavelli and his wife
Bartolomea di Stefano Nelli. His writings reveal that he received an excellent
humanist education that was informed by the Renaissance values. He entered the
service of the Republican Government in 1494, the tear of expulsion of the
Medici. From 1498 to 1512 he was Secretary to the Chancellery an important post
which was concerned with diplomatic, military and administrative affairs. In
1512, consequent upon the restoration of the Medici, Machiavelli lost his
office and underwent a brief imprisonment after which he embarked on a literary
career. Machiavelli wrote his famous monograph The Prince in 1513 which
is addressed to Lorenzo de’Medici. Simultaneously he started writing another
important work- the Discourses on the First Ten Books of Titus Livius (in
short, the Discourses on Livy) which was completed in 1517. However, both of
these works were published posthumously in 1531. Machiavelli also produced
some minor literary works but his reputation as a political thinker rests on
these two books.
Machiavelli’s theory of
Government is determined by his conception of the study of human nature.
Like Hobbes,
he is very pessimistic about human nature and believes that men by nature are
purely selfish and they, in their lives, are always motivated by selfish
desires. At one place in ‘The Prince’ he says,” Men are ungrateful, fickle,
deceitful, cowardly and avaricious.” He suggests that a monarch should aim to
be feared by the people than be loved. For Machiavelli, love implies a bond of
obligation which men, being essentially selfish, break on every occasion where
their own interest demands it, while fear, for the same reason, holds them
indefinitely. He feels that men judge things by appearances and so the ruler
should take advantage of this fact and act. For him men are weak and ignorant
and are essentially vicious and become good only by necessity. He cautions the
ruler never to trust his councillors but to use his own judgement.
Machiavelli holds the
view that men have endless desires and one of the most important desire
is the love for private property. He makes materialistic individualism as the
explanation of love of independence and self-government. In the Discourses also
he gives a pessimistic view of human nature. He maintains materialistic gain as
the fundamental consideration of humans. He says that this motive of the people
make them desire for republic and dislike monarchy. Under Republican government
there are more chances for people to get material gain. This is not possible in
a monarchy because the Prince takes all the gains and profits himself. An
independent nation is preferred because a free nation enables the
multiplication of wealth for the masses.
In Greek political thought, ethics was viewed as
the foundation of politics. But Machiavelli made a striking
departure from this classical ideal. He believed that politics is governed by
its own independent standards; hence it cannot be bound by the conventional
ethical standards. He insisted on separation between politics and ethics.
According to him the ruler should be honest, righteous and true to his word,
but in reality nobody can have all these qualities and these qualities will not
enable a ruler to rule over vicious people. So the Prince should focus on the
preservation of the State without being bound by moral obligations. Machiavelli
does not contend that ‘ends justify the means’ but he claims that a ruler’s
success will be judged by popular verdict, and that he will be excused for
using dubious means if he is successful in the end. If political expediency
requires the Prince to set aside traditional morality, he should go ahead in
the interest of successful politics.
Machiavelli breaks
away from the tradition maintained by Plato, Aristotle, St.Thomas
Aquinas and others who believed in the ethical purpose of the State. He
separates politics from both religion and morality and gives an autonomous
status to politics. According to Mahiavelli, it is not a practical policy for
the prince to follow the principles of religion and ethics in his statecraft.
According to Machiavelli, the right
method to study political Science was historical. He says that human desires
and passions remain the same always and when the incidents of life are comparable,
humanity will tend to find the same remedies and repeat the same conduct. He
therefore regarded that the study of the past was very useful to understand the
present and would also make it easy to make predictions for the future. He
placed the study of politics on historical and realistic foundation and relied
on empirical method particularly in the study of political behaviour. He has
been described as a pioneer of behaviouralism. He followed this method almost
in all contexts both in the Prince and Discourses. He conceived of politics as
an instrument of acquisition, preservation and expansion of power which could
be accomplished by harnessing the faculties of the people as they exist in the
real world.
Machiavelli’s method has been called inductive or scientific on the ground
that
he drew conclusions from practical or historical experiences of human
nature that does not change under different political regimes. His originality
lies in focussing on man’s behavioural patterns instead of certain morals for
the analysis of politics. However critics have pointed out that Machiavelli’s
method was only superficially scientific and historical. He did not follow
inductive method of proceeding from the ‘particular to general’. Nor is his
method deductive, which is the method of proceeding from the ‘general to the
particular’. According to them Machiavelli never touches upon the
central problems of political philosophy, such as the justificationof the
existence of the State, grounds and limits of political obligation etc., He
never looks beyond the necessities of practical politics although his vision
was broad.
“Single ruler is necessary to found
and reform states; republican governments are better at sustaining them once
established”.
George H. Sabine has rightly observed that there is no inconsistency between Machiavelli’s tow leading books The Prince and The Discourses on Livy. Both deal with the same subject-The causes of the rise and decline of States and the means of making them permanent. The Prince deals with monarchies or absolute governments and the Discourses mainly with the expansion of the Roman republic.
Machiavelli’s enunciation
of
statecraft is his most notable as well as controversial contribution.
It is notable because it provides unique guidelines, it is controversial
because it allows the ruler to use certain immoral practices for successful
governance. While Machiavelli advised the ruler to set aside moral bindings in
order to achieve his end, he did not think that conventional morality was
totally irrelevant to politics. He enunciates a double standard of morals, one
for the ruler and another for his servants and citizens. The ruler’s moral
implies his undivided commitment to strengthen the state and enhancing his
power in order to maintain law and order within the state and to ensure
effective defence from foreign invaders. His performance will be judged by his
success in fulfilling his responsibility. But his servants and citizens are not
allowed to depart from the conventional morality, otherwise the purpose of the
state itself will be defeated.
Machiavelli \wants
the Prince to act so carefully that he is held in high esteem among the people.
The Prince must be conscious of the prevalence of ‘universal egoism’.
Government is found to provide the people with security from internal offenders
as well as external enemies. A wise ruler will frame his policy with a view to
creating an atmosphere of security of life, property and honour of the people.
He advises the Prince to provide for security of women in the state. People
will be loyal to their ruler when they are sure that their life, property and
women are safe in the state.
Machiavelli did not
intend to undermine the foundations of morality in society. As a sincere
patriot, he was particularly anxious to build a strong nation-state in Italy
which was then fragmented into five parts: Florence, Venice, Naples, Milan and
the territory of the Roman Catholic Church. He wanted his country to win a
respectable place among other nation-states of Europe. He was also worried
about the then prevailing moral corruption among Italians. Though he preferred
a republic, he advocated monarchy for the then existing condition of Italy.
Examine why Machiavelli
is considered as the first modern thinker.
Study the features of monarchical and
republican forms of governments.
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