РефератыИностранный языкPrPrince And Discourses Essay Research Paper Although

Prince And Discourses Essay Research Paper Although

Prince And Discourses Essay, Research Paper


Although many of the same ideas are contained in both The Prince and the


Discourses, these two works differ significantly in emphasis because they


discuss two different types of political systems. The Prince, is one of the


first examinations of politics and science from a purely scientific and rational


perspective. In The Prince, Machiavelli was concerned with a principality, a


state in which one ruler or a small elite governs a mass of subjects who have no


active political life. Machiavelli addresses a monarchical ruler, the Medici,


and offered advice designed to keep that ruler in power. He recommended policies


that would discourage mass political activism and channel the subjects energies


into private pursuits. Machiavelli’s aim was to persuade the monarch that he


could best preserve his power by using violence carefully and economically, by


respecting the persons, property, and traditions of his subjects, and by


promoting material prosperity. The ruling Prince should be the sole authority


determining every aspect of the state and put in effect policies which serves


his best interests. These interests were gaining, maintaining, and expanding his


political. However, Machiavelli did not feel that a Prince should mistreat his


citizens. This suggestion is once again to serve the Prince’s best interests. If


a prince can not be both feared and loved, Machiavelli suggests, it would be


better for him to be feared by the citizens within his own principality. He


makes the generalization that men are, "…ungrateful, fickle, liars, and


deceivers, they shun danger and are greedy for profit; while you treat them well


they are yours". He characterizes men as being self centered and not


willing to act in the best interest of the state,"[and when the prince] is


in danger they turn against [him]". Machiavelli reinforces the prince’s


need to be feared by stating: "Men worry less about doing an injury to one


who makes himself loved than to one who makes himself feared. The bond of love


is one which men, wretched creatures they are, break when it is to their


advantage to do so; but fear is strengthened by a dread of punishment which is


always effective". In order to win honor, Machiavelli suggests that a


prince must be readily willing to deceive the citizens. One way is to


"…show his esteem for talent actively encouraging the able and honoring


those who excel in their professions…so that they can go peaceably about their


business". By encouraging citizens to excel at their professions he would


also be encouraging them to "…increase the prosperity of the their


state". These measures, though carried out in deception, would bring the


prince honor and trust amongst the citizens, especially those who were in the


best positions to oppose him. Machiavelli actively promoted a secular form of


politics. He laid aside the medieval conception "of the state as a


necessary creation for humankind’s spiritual, material, and social well


being". In such a state,"[a] ruler was justified in his exercise of


political power only if it contributed to the common good of the people he


served, [and] the ethical side of a prince’s activity…ought to [be] based on


Christian moral principles…." Machiavelli believed a secular form of


government to be a more realistic type. His views were to the benefit of the


prince, in helping him maintain power rather than to serve to the well being of


the citizens. Machiavelli promoted his belief by stating: "The fact is that


a man who wants to act virtuously in every way necessarily comes to grief among


those who are not virtuous. Therefore, if a prince wants to maintain his rule he


must learn not to be so virtuous, and

to make use of this or not according to


need". While The Prince is Machiavelli’s best known work, it is The


Discourses, which portray the most about him. The Prince was just a pamphlet


dashed off to gain influence with the Medici, but in The Discourses he sought to


include his entire system of politics. In the Discourses, Machiavelli was mainly


concerned with a republic, a state collectively controlled by a politically


active citizenry. Depending on their institutional arrangements, republics could


be either aristocratic or democratic. Machiavelli advocated a democratic


constitution modeled after ancient Rome. In the Discourses his concern was to


preserve the liberty and independence of a self-governing citizenry. He


emphasized the idea that a republic needed to foster a spirit of patriotism and


civic virtue among its citizens if it were to survive. In addition Machiavelli


rejected the traditional republican theory that social harmony and unity were


essential to political liberty. He argued that factions and class divisions were


inevitable in human society and that republics could be strengthened by the


conflicts generated through open and widespread political participation and


debate. Machiavelli discusses six types of governments in The Discourses, three


of them good, and three of them bad. The good Republics are democracies,


aristocracies, and principalities and the bad are oligarchies, tyrannies, and


anarchy. Machiavelli states that the three good governments are similar to its


bad counterpart since they can easily jump from one form to another. "A


democracy is converted into anarchy with no difficulty". Hence when a


founder of a city organizes one of these three governments in a city, he


organizes it for only a brief period of time, since no precautions can prevent


it from slipping into its contrary. The only solution is to implement a mixed


government, such as ancient Rome. "Thus, those who were prudent in


establishing laws recognized this fact, and avoiding each of these forms in


themselves, chose one that combined all, judging such a government to be


steadier and more stable, for when there is in the same city-state a


principality, an aristocracy, and a democracy, one form keeps watch over the


other." In general, the basic idea of The Discourses is the superiority of


the democratic republic and the ultimate reliance of even the most despotic


regimes on the mass consent of the people. Machiavelli did not construct an


abstract and unified philosophical system. Rather, his orientation was


practical, and his method was empirical and impressionistic. His political


writings contain a series of generalizations taken from ancient and contemporary


history about the possibilities and limitations of various courses of political


action. One of the most distinctive and controversial characteristics of


Machiavelli’s thought is that he did not devote much attention to the values


that define the ends of political action. Instead he concentrated on


distinguishing those circumstances in which a political act will have morally


justified consequences from those circumstances in which it will not. In his


view, political actions, much more than the activities of private life, have


consequences that cannot be foreseen or fully controlled. Therefore, political


life cannot be governed by a single set of moral (or religious) absolutes, and


the political agent may sometimes be excused for performing acts of violence and


deception that would be ethically indefensible in private life. Partly because


Machiavelli’s subtle and ironic view of the relationship between ethics and


politics has been widely misinterpreted, Machiavelli is sometimes perceived as


one who manipulates others in an opportunistic and deceptive manner.

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