Talk:Niccolò Machiavelli

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Layout revision

The article is in need of a few minor layout changes. as i am unfamiliar with the coding, perhaps someone would like to apply these. Zarzhu (talk) 01:40, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Also, why "is" he a philosopher? I'm pretty sure he's dead. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.48.207.13 (talk) 21:13, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

redundant?

Do we need the article to say "The Prince's contribution to the history of political thought is the fundamental break between political Realism and political Idealism." twice within a couple lines?MephYazata (talk) 01:12, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

From the two lines I think the best one to leave in is the second instance. The first line "The Prince's contribution to the history of political thought is the fundamental break between political Realism and political Idealism. Niccolò Machiavelli’s best-known book" could be changed to "The Prince, Niccolò Machiavelli’s best-known book, ...". This leaves the second sentence of the paragraph mostly intact and in the point about realism and idealism is not lost, simply a few lines later.MephYazata (talk) 01:18, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

The Prince's contribution to the history of political thought is the fundamental break between political Realism and political Idealism. Niccolò Machiavelli’s best-known book exposits and describes the arts with which a ruling prince can maintain control of his realm. It concentrates on the "new prince", under the presumption that a hereditary prince has an easier task in ruling, since the people are accustomed to him. To retain power, the hereditary prince must carefully maintain the socio-political institutions to which the people are accustomed; whereas a new prince has the more difficult task in ruling, since he must first stabilize his new-found power in order to build an enduring political structure. That requires the prince being a public figure above reproach, whilst privately acting amorally to achieve State goals. The examples are those princes who most successfully obtain and maintain power, drawn from his observations as a Florentine diplomat, and his ancient history readings; thus, the Latin phrases and Classic examples.

The Prince does not dismiss morality, instead, it politically defines “Morality”—as in the criteria for acceptable cruel action—it must be decisive: swift, effective, and short-lived. Machiavelli is aware of the irony of good results coming from evil actions; notwithstanding some mitigating themes, the Catholic Church proscribed The Prince, registering it to the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, moreover, the Humanists also viewed the book negatively, among them, Erasmus of Rotterdam. As a treatise, its primary intellectual contribution to the history of political thought is the fundamental break between political Realism and political Idealism—thus, The Prince is a manual to acquiring and keeping political power. In contrast with Plato and Aristotle, a Classical ideal society is not the aim of the prince’s will to power. As a political scientist, Machiavelli emphasises necessary, methodical exercise of brute force punishment-and-reward (patronage, clientelism, et cetera) to preserve the status quo.

Frankly, the above paragraphs are tendentious and only true if you ignore large parts of "The Prince" and/or decide arbitrarily that Machiavelli was lying in some parts of the Prince and telling the truth in others (the method used by Leo Strauss and his followers, who disdain to supply supporting evidence for their conclusions, since they do not believe in empiricism). Scholars have very differing interpretations of what Machiavelli meant and the article would be more acceptable if informed readers of the range of these differing interpretations instead of supplying its own. It is true that Machiavelli does claim to be describing "la verita' effettuale delle cose" the actual truth of things, but he himself did not identify himself as a "realist" writing against the "idealists". This is presentism -- the application of nineteenth and twentieth century terms to the past. In fact, Machiavelli makes it clear in a long prelude at the beginning that his advice in The Prince only applies to leaders of new principalities that have been seized illegally by strongmen who possess neither the "virtu" necessary to have a what we might call a strong public mandate (and the political skill to keep it) nor the legitimacy conferred by hereditary succession. The leader or prince that Machiavelli is addressing (a weak and illegitimate i.e., non-hereditary one) must rely on fortune, but fortune will betray him in the end, as it did Cesare Borgia and as it does everyone. In the last chapter of the Prince, Machiavelli calls out for a leader (such as Moses) who does possess virtu (an actual constituency and the support of God) to unite Italy. Machiavelli wrote I Discorsi at the same time as The Prince and there is no necessary contradiction between the two works.

The article's identification of "realism" with willingness to resort to cruel and evil actions is overdrawn. Aristotle had made clear in his Politics that a different set of ethics applies to leaders than to ordinary citizens; for example, the advice for Princes to appear to be liberal (generous) while in reality taking care that public resources are not endangered occurs in "Mirrors for Princes" written before Machiavelli.Mballen (talk) 19:46, 13 January 2010 (UTC)173.56.200.209 (talk)

One more thing, when I checked there are no wiki cross references for "political realism" and "idealism" so it would be best to either define/and or contextualize these terms (with citations) or leave them out.173.56.200.209 (talk) 23:33, 13 January 2010 (UTC)My error -- there is a link to political realism in wiki173.56.200.209 (talk) 04:03, 14 January 2010 (UTC) Actually, I see that Political Realism redirects to Realism in International relations an article that calls Machiavelli, along with Sun Tzu and Tacitus an antecedent of Power Politics because in the Prince he allegedly "held that the sole aim of a prince (politician) [sic] was to seek power, regardless of religious or ethical considerations". Machiavelli does write about how a prince can maintain power in a new state, but he does not really address international power relations. IMO he could more accurately be called one of the founders of systematic political science along with Jean Bodin, the French theorist of absolute monarchy who was roughly contemporaneous with Machiavelli, who is credited with inventing the term.173.56.200.209 (talk) 05:31, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

It is not a question of any good result -- it must be a good result for very large numbers of people over a long period of time, and not for the short-term private good of the prince and his associates. The best known example is Machiavelli's treatment of the myth of the foundation of Rome during which Romulus murdered his brother Remus in order not to have to share power (The Discourses I:ix); as Edwin Curley writes:

The question of Machiavelli's amoralism is often framed in terms of the question whether the end justifies the means. We might better ask, I think, whether there are certain ends (such as the establishment or preservation of a political community) so good that they justify the use of any means whatever. The most instructive passage I find on this occurs in Machiavelli's discussion of Romulus's murder of Remus, where his consequentialism falls somewhere in between the extreme individualism of the egoist and the extreme universalism of the utilitarian:

A prudent founder of a republic, one whose intention is to govern for the common good, and not in his own interest, not for his heirs, but for the sake of the fatherland, should try to have the authority all to himself; nor will a wise mind ever reproach anyone for some extraordinary action performed in order to found a kingdom or institute a republic. It is, indeed, fitting that while the action accuses him, the result excuses him; and when the result is good, as it was with Romulus, it will always excuse him; for one should reproach a man who is violent in order to destroy, not one who is violent in order to mend things. (The Discourses I.ix in Machiavelli 1979: 200—1)

In this passage Machiavelli does concede that in some sense an act like that of Romulus is reprehensible; the fact that it leads to a good result does not justify the action, it excuses it. .... [And] It is not just any good result which will "excuse" an action of this character. It takes a very significant result, affecting a large number of people, not merely the agent and those who are close to him. As [Peter] Bondanella and [Mark] Musa point out, the result in this case was "the establishment of the most durable and powerful republican government in human history" (Machiavelli 1979: 22, editors' introduction). It may be that "patriotism, as Machiavelli understood it, is collective selfishness,"35 but Machiavelli's "patriotic consequentialism," as I am inclined to call it, falls short of saying that what-ever you can do, you may do. What it does hold is that a ruler is to be praised, not blamed, even though he does things which might other-wise be highly reprehensible, provided he acts with a prudent regard for the well-being of the community he is ruling. Edwin Curley, "Kissinger, Spinoza, and Genghis Khan" in the Cambridge Companion to Spinoza.Mballen (talk) 05:01, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Nav box

Could someone help and translate the names of Machiavelli's works into English for this navigation box? It's a bit of an ugly nav box at the moment... Francium12 (talk) 21:14, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Shakur?

I took the liberty of removing 2pac from the "influenced" list. I don't think I should have to explain why, as it seems pretty obvious that he doesn't belong. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.5.109.49 (talk) 02:39, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

"And An Assassin"?

Quite obviously a reference to Assassin's Creed II.--CombustionMan1 (talk) 07:44, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Satire?

I recently read an article explaining the theory that 'The Prince' may have been intended as satire. Just wondered if anybody had any more information on this?