Idea Of Virtue In Niccolò Machiavelli's The Prince

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“The Prince” has become the realist approach to politics. In the book “The Prince”, Niccolò Machiavelli impress upon the reader guidelines and tactics a prince needs to live by in order to be successful and obtain and maintain their thrones. Recurring topics prominent throughout the book is this idea of virtue, which means being manly, having the strength, intelligence, and wisdom of a ruler and fortune, being chance or luck. Machiavelli explains to the reader skills that a successful prince should possess. He referred to these skills as a virtue. Most people would concur that virtue is desirable behavior or qualities that display high moral standards, but Machiavelli 's approach to virtue is much more amoral. Machiavelli’s idea of virtue can …show more content…

Machiavelli had the notion that to an extent fortune could be controlled through virtue. In chapter XXV Machiavelli declares, “...I consider it to be true that Fortune is the arbiter of one-half of our actions, but that she still leaves the control of the other half, or almost that to us”(Machiavelli, 84). He states that humans can control half of their fortune, later in the chapter he explains what factor allows that to be done. He compares fortune to a destructive river, stating that when the river becomes enraged everyone begins to escape, unable to resist its damage. Machiavelli notions that this fortune could have been controlled by taking certain precautions, like building dams, when the water was calm. He states, “She (Fortune) shows her power where there is no well-ordered virtue to resist her, and therefore turns her impetus towards where she knows no dikes and dams have been constructed to hold her in” (Machiavelli, 84). Being prepared for every and anything and being able to fight back against a force is what Machiavelli would consider a virtuous quality, having the skill to fight

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