It is better for a prince to be feared than loved, because love is fickle, while fear is constant. The Prince is a sustained attempt to define, in the most realistic terms possible, the sort of virtue that a prince must possess if he wants to succeed in achieving his objectives. He knew full well that he was taking a traditional word and evacuating it of all its religious and moral connotations.
He should be efficacious. In fact, love, as opposed to fear, falls under the rubric of fortune, because love is fortuitous, you cannot rely on it, it is not stable, it is treacherously shifty. Let me quote another famous passage of The Prince , which speaks about the relation between fortune and virtue:. Examples are everything in The Prince. Every time Machiavelli sets forth a theoretical premise about politics he gives examples, and almost invariably he will give examples from two different historical eras, antiquity on the one hand and contemporary political history on the other, as if to suggest that history is nothing but an archive of examples either to be imitated or to be avoided.
The example I would like to focus on is that of Cesare Borgia. I would like to read a passage from the text in which Machiavelli gives an example of this virtuosity of Cesare Borgia. The episode occurs after Borgia has conquered the region of Romagna, and now his task is to set the state in some kind of order. How does a prince who has just conquered a state gain the obedience of his subjects if those subjects are characterized by a human nature governed by fickleness, greed, fear, and the law of self-interest?
Well, this is how Borgia went about it:. It is almost as if Borgia is declaring, in a sort of ritualistic language, that here one of my ministers, one of my representatives, has done violence to the body politic, and therefore he will have his just punishment, that is to say he will be cut in half, because that is what he did to our state—he divided it.
The example of Cesare Borgia is significant for another reason. For all his foresight, Borgia was not able to foresee that at a crucial moment in his campaign to conquer all of Italy, his father, Pope Alexander VI, would die prematurely.
He knew that his father could die at any moment, and he had even made contingency plans for that eventuality, but he could not predict that precisely at the moment his father would die, he too would fall sick and be on the verge of death. Paradise Lost. Beyond Good and Evil. The Consolation of Philosophy. Ancius Boethius. On Living and Dying Well. Marcus Tullius Cicero. Letters from a Stoic.
The Early History of Rome. Great Dialogues of Plato. The Symposium. The Iliad. The Social Contract. Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Marcus Aurelius. On the Shortness of Life. The Oresteia. The Fall of the Roman Republic. Discourses and Selected Writings. Critique of Pure Reason. Immanuel Kant. The Last Days of Socrates. The Closing of the Western Mind. Charles Freeman. The Art of Rhetoric. The preconditions of vivere libero simply do not favor the security that is the aim of constitutional monarchy.
Machiavelli clearly views speech as the method most appropriate to the resolution of conflict in the republican public sphere; throughout the Discourses , debate is elevated as the best means for the people to determine the wisest course of action and the most qualified leaders. The tradition of classical rhetoric, with which he was evidently familiar, directly associated public speaking with contention: the proper application of speech in the realms of forensic and deliberative genres of rhetoric is an adversarial setting, with each speaker seeking to convince his audience of the validity of his own position and the unworthiness of his opponents'.
This theme was taken up, in turn, by late medieval Italian practitioners and theorists of rhetoric, who emphasized that the subject matter of the art was lite conflict. Thus, Machiavelli's insistence upon contention as a prerequisite of liberty also reflects his rhetorical predilections Viroli By contrast, monarchic regimes—even the most secure constitutional monarchies such as France—exclude or limit public discourse, thereby placing themselves at a distinct disadvantage.
It is far easier to convince a single ruler to undertake a disastrous or ill-conceived course of action than a multitude of people. This connects to the claim in the Discourses that the popular elements within the community form the best safeguard of civic liberty as well as the most reliable source of decision-making about the public good.
Machiavelli's praise for the role of the people in securing the republic is supported by his confidence in the generally illuminating effects of public speech upon the citizen body. Near the beginning of the first Discourses , he notes that some may object to the extensive freedom enjoyed by the Roman people to assemble, to protest, and to veto laws and policies.
But he responds that the Romans were able to. At times when ordinary Roman citizens wrongly supposed that a law or institution was designed to oppress them, they could be persuaded that their beliefs are mistaken … [through] the remedy of assemblies, in which some man of influence gets up and makes a speech showing them how they are deceiving themselves.
And as Tully says, the people, although they may be ignorant, can grasp the truth, and yield easily when told what is true by a trustworthy man Discourses CW The reference to Cicero one of the few in the Discourses confirms that Machiavelli has in mind here a key feature of classical republicanism: the competence of the people to respond to and support the words of the gifted orator when he speaks truly about the public welfare. Machiavelli returns to this theme and treats it more extensively at the end of the first Discourse.
Citing the formula vox populi, vox dei , Machiavelli insists that. With regard to its judgment, when two speakers of equal skill are heard advocating different alternatives, very rarely does one find the people failing to adopt the better view or incapable of appreciating the truth of what it hears Discourses CW Not only are the people competent to discern the best course of action when orators lay out competing plans, but they are in fact better qualified to make decisions, in Machiavelli's view, than are princes.
For example,. Likewise, should the people depart from the law-abiding path, they may readily be convinced to restore order:. For an uncontrolled and tumultuous people can be spoken to by a good man and easily led back into a good way.
But no one can speak to a wicked prince, and the only remedy is steel…. To cure the malady of the people words are enough. The contrast Machiavelli draws is stark. The republic governed by words and persuasion—in sum, ruled by public speech—is almost sure to realize the common good of its citizens; and even should it err, recourse is always open to further discourse.
Non-republican regimes, because they exclude or limit discursive practices, ultimately rest upon coercive domination and can only be corrected by violent means. The effect of the Machiavellian dichotomy between the need for flexibility and the inescapable constancy of character is to demonstrate an inherent practical limitation in single-ruler regimes.
For the reader is readily led to the conclusion that, just because human conduct is rooted in a firm and invariant character, the rule of a single man is intrinsically unstable and precarious. Machiavelli illustrates this claim by reference to the evolution of Roman military strategy against Hannibal. After the first flush of the Carthaginian general's victories in Italy, the circumstances of the Roman required a circumspect and cautious leader who would not commit the legions to aggressive military action for which they were not prepared.
Yet when a more offensive stance was demanded to defeat Hannibal, the Roman Republic was able to turn to the leadership of Scipio, whose personal qualities were more fitted to the times. If Fabius had been king of Rome, he might easily have lost this war, since he was incapable of altering his methods according as circumstance changed. Since, however, he was born in a republic where there were diverse citizens with diverse dispositions, it came about that, just as it had a Fabius, who was the best man to keep the war going when circumstances required it, so later it had a Scipio at a time suited to its victorious consummation Discourses CW Changing events require flexibility of response, and since it is psychologically implausible for human character to change with the times, the republic offers a viable alternative: people of different qualities fit different exigencies.
The diversity characteristic of civic regimes, which was so reviled by Machiavelli's predecessors, proves to be an abiding advantage of republics over principalities.
This does not mean that Machiavelli's confidence in the capacity of republican government to redress the political shortcomings of human character was unbridled. After all, he gives us no real indication of how republics manage to identify and authorize the leaders whose qualities are suited to the circumstances. It is one thing to observe that such variability has occurred within republics, quite another to demonstrate that this is a necessary or essential feature of the republican system.
At best, then, Machiavelli offers us a kind of empirical generalization, the theoretical foundations of which he leaves unexplored. And the Discourses points out that republics have their own intrinsic limitation in regard to the flexibility of response needed to conquer fortune.
For just as with individual human beings, it is difficult if not impossible to change their personal characteristics, so. If the downfall of principalities is the fixed structure of human character, then the failing of republics is a devotion to the perpetuation of institutional arrangements whose time has passed. Whether it is any more plausible to hold out hope for the creation of more responsive republican institutions than to demand flexibility in the personal qualities of princes is not directly examined by the Discourses.
Machiavelli thus seems to adhere to a genuinely republican position. But how are we to square this with his statements in The Prince? This is contrasted with the lengthy composition process of the Discourses. Yet Machiavelli never repudiated The Prince , and indeed refers to it in the Discourses in a way that suggests he viewed the former as a companion to the latter.
Although there has been much debate about whether Machiavelli was truly a friend of princes and tyrants or of republics, and hence whether we should dismiss one or another facet of his writing as ancillary or peripheral, the questions seems irresolvable. The body of literature debating this question, especially in connection with The Prince and Discourses , has grown to truly staggering proportions.
John Pocock , for example, has traced the diffusion of Machiavelli's republican thought throughout the so-called Atlantic world and, specifically, into the ideas that guided the framers of the American constitution. Paul Rahe argues for a similar set of influences, but with an intellectual substance and significance different than Pocock.
For Pocock, Machiavelli's republicanism is of a civic humanist variety whose roots are to be found in classical antiquity; for Rahe, Machiavelli's republicanism is entirely novel and modern. Likewise, cases have been made for Machiavelli's political morality, his conception of the state, his religious views, and many other features of his work as the distinctive basis for the originality of his contribution.
Yet few firm conclusions have emerged within scholarship. The unsettled state of play in current research on Machiavelli is well represented in Johnston et al. This historical ambiguity permits scholars to make equally convincing cases for contradictory claims about his fundamental stance without appearing to commit egregious violence to his doctrines.
Rather, salient features of the distinctively Machiavellian approach to politics should be credited to an incongruity between historical circumstance and intellectual possibility. What makes Machiavelli a troubling yet stimulating thinker is that, in his attempt to draw different conclusions from the commonplace expectations of his audience, he still incorporated important features of precisely the conventions he was challenging.
In spite of his repeated assertion of his own originality for instance, Prince CW 10, 57—58 , his careful attention to preexisting traditions meant that he was never fully able to escape his intellectual confines. Biography 2. The Prince : Analyzing Power 3. Morality, Religion, and Politics 5. The State and the Prince: Language and Concepts 6. The Discourses on Livy : Liberty and Conflict 7. Popular Liberty and Popular Speech 8.
The Character of Republican Leaders 9. Biography Relatively little is known for certain about Machiavelli's early life in comparison with many important figures of the Italian Renaissance the following section draws on Capponi ; Vivanti ; Celenza He was born 3 May in Florence and at a young age became a pupil of a renowned Latin teacher, Paolo da Ronciglione.
The Prince : Analyzing Power It has been a common view among political philosophers that there exists a special relationship between moral goodness and legitimate authority.
Machiavelli observes that one can say this in general of men: they are ungrateful, disloyal, insincere and deceitful, timid of danger and avid of profit….
Prince CW 62; translation revised As a result, Machiavelli cannot really be said to have a theory of obligation separate from the imposition of power; people obey only because they fear the consequences of not doing so, whether the loss of life or of privileges. Machiavelli offers practical advice on a variety of matters, including the advantages and disadvantages that attend various routes to power, how to acquire and hold new states, how to deal with internal insurrection, how to make alliances, and how to maintain a strong military.
This premise is especially true with respect to personal virtue. Certain virtues may be admired for their own sake, but for a prince to act in accordance with virtue is often detrimental to the state. Similarly, certain vices may be frowned upon, but vicious actions are sometimes indispensable to the good of the state.
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