Wisdom and Reputation in Machiavelli’s The Prince
“A prince should always take counsel, then, but when he wants advice, not when other people want to give it. On the contrary, he should prevent anyone from offering him uncalled-for advice. But he should also be a liberal questioner, and afterwards a patient hearer of the truth regarding whatever he has asked about. Many people think that a prince who is considered prudent gets that reputation, not on his own merits, but because he has good counselors around him. That is completely wrong. For this is a general and unfailing rule: that a prince who is not shrewd himself cannot get good counseling, unless he just happens to put himself in the hands of a single able man who makes all the decisions
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How can preventing “uncalled-for advice” be the same thing as constantly “want[ing] advice”; it would seem there must be a definitive difference between “advice” and “uncalled-for advice.” What does it mean for advice to be “uncalled-for”? It certainly cannot mean that the advice is something that the prince did not want to hear as Machiavelli implores the prince to be a “patient hearer of the truth.” Perhaps it simply means that the prince did not physically “call” or ask for the advice to be given. However, if the prince is wanting advice at all times, it makes little sense for him to have to keep asking. Maybe the prince gives leave to certain people, his advisers, to speak their mind at all times and must explicitly ask people other than his advisers for advice. In that case however, his advisers would be giving the advice when they want “to give it.” It makes the most sense therefore to equate “uncalled-for advice” as advice that the advisor has some particular motive in giving, and the prince does not completely understand this motive. In that sense, it makes sense to restrict the power to give advice to a group of “ministers” whose particular “interests” in giving advice are understood by the prince. Since the prince understands the motive, the advice that his ministers give will rarely be “uncalled-for.” With this understanding of “uncalled-for” and the equivalence of the first few sentences, the prerogative of the prince is to always want advice from advisers whose motives you
For the prince it is more of what he did not do than what he did. The prince lets the feuding families grow in enmity. He doesn’t take enough action to squash his rebellious subjects’ uproars, and when he does take action and punishes them, he is too lenient. The prince himself acknowledges his faults by saying, “And I for winking at your discords too. Have lost a brace of kinsmen.
Niccolò Machiavelli was a man who lived during the fourteen and fifteen hundreds in Florence, Italy, and spent part of his life imprisoned after the Medici princes returned to power. He believed that he should express his feelings on how a prince should be through writing and became the author of “The Qualities of a Prince.” In his essay, he discusses many points on how a prince should act based on military matters, reputation, giving back to the people, punishment, and keeping promises. When writing his essay, he follows his points with examples to back up his beliefs. In summary, Machiavelli’s “The Qualities of a Prince,” provides us with what actions and behaviors that a prince should have in order to maintain power and respect.
4. Machiavelli’s advice for a prince was to not be deceived easily and that when it came to staying in power, being feared by the public would be more practical than being loved. The idea that the prince needed to be selfish and make decisions that result in the best for the state and for himself, rather than only exercising power when it was needed for the common good. Machiavelli did not seem sarcastic in his treatise. All his advices were reasonable and simple and even the controversial ones were justified with logic.
Machiavelli believes that it is important for a prince maintain a respectful relationship with his people. If the people are abused or otherwise mistreated, the prince will not have a strong following and the people will not obey his orders. Machiavelli states, “Therefore, one who becomes prince through the support of the people should keep them friendly to him, which should be easy for him because they ask of him only that they not be oppressed” (40). Through interpretation of this statement, without
The prince’s demand to behave towards nobles negatively gave approval to how they are biased against him. He needs to learn to be able to tie their fortunes to his own. Nonetheless, the particular independents may be of two kinds. Their freedom comes from an absence of bravery to join themselves together to the prince’s purpose, in which they may be passed down and recognized for their helping hand; or they are free because they have their own deadlines and strong desires for success in mind. In this particular case, the prince must be careful of them as possible
Miserliness will be looked down upon at first for the prince but soon his subjects will come to appreciate the prince’s miserliness, his ability to expand the kingdom and to protect them without putting any strain on them.
According to Machiavelli, the role of the teacher is to guide, protect and direct the Prince into rendering wise political decisions. The responsibility of the teacher, which Machiavellian describes as “of no small importance” is vital to aiding the Prince. In chapter twenty – two and twenty-three, Machiavelli describes his three main principles, surrounding the prince with capable man, avoiding flattery and protecting the prince from bad decision making. Building upon his main themes, Machiavelli illustrates his wisdom on how to control the prince while also showing off his intellectual skills. In this easy, I will expand on Machiavelli three main points on how to guide a Prince and how this ties into his political philosophy.
All about a prince is the danger of death. This danger may come from treason within his government, war with foreign enemies, or a rebellion of his people. The situation is always kill-or-be-killed, and the Fifth Commandment - "Thou shalt not kill." - is discarded before it is ...
The subject of human nature has great emphasis in “The Prince”. Human beings are viewed as rational decision makers who try to maximize their self-interest. They are inclined to help whoever will give them the most benefits and by definition, may easily betray someone to whom they were previously loyal seeing a better opportunity. A large part of being a prince or a politician is being able to lead people, and therefore it is of utter importance in how to deal with their behavior. “Here a question arises: whether it is better to be loved than feared, or the reverse. The answer is, of course, that it would be best to be both loved and feared. But since the two rarely come together, anyone compelled to choose will fin...
Although Machiavelli gives numerous points on what it takes to excel as a prince, he also shows some raw examples of how he feels a prince should act in order to achieve maximum supremacy. First, when he says, "ought to hold of little account a reputation for being mean, for it is one of those vices which will enable him to govern" proves Machiavelli feels mighty adamant about his view that being mean will help a prince achieve success (332). It is absurd to imagine the meanest prince as the most successful. Also, when Machiavelli states, "our experience has been that those princes who have done great things have held good faith of little account, and have known how to circumvent the intellect of men by craft" revealing his attitude to manipulate people into fearing and respecting the prince (335). Also, Machiavelli shows that for a prince to be successful, he must not think about good faith.
Niccoló Machiavelli claims in “The Qualities of the Prince” that a prince must have certain qualities that will allow him to seize and maintain his power as a ruler. Machiavelli asserts that these qualities will guarantee the ruler to be able to govern his subjects effectively. According to him, a prince must study the art of war, must understand generosity and to what extent he must be generous to be effective, must choose to either be loved or feared, and be able to keep his word to his citizens according to the situation. These qualities can still apply in today’s politics, and will be useful for a modern time politician as long as they are used carefully.
tells him not to, he does this out of fear of the prince carrying out
society and the goal of The Prince is to instruct a prince, or ruler, on how to maintain his state.
Enlightening persons from the average Joe to the high monarchs of countries, The Prince is one of the best, if not the best, books relating to politics of all time. Machiavelli explains how to gain power in a government and once you gain it, he explains how to keep it. The first few chapters of the book set the tone for the rest of the writing. Early in his work, he says that all high powers can be separated into two totally different groups: principalities and republics. The Prince is written with dictatorial type regimes, and not with republican regimes. Niccolò seems to ignore the republican regimes which must mean that, at the time, he did not think that this would get very far or would not help anybody. Machiavelli goes onto explain the various principalities and princes. He creates an outline for the rest of the book during this explanation. To become a prince, he says that there is no way any normal person can become one, as the way this is acquired is either by hereditary means or is appointed to by the stat...
feel that a Prince should mistreat the citizens. This suggestion is only to serve the Prince's best interests.