Ethics in Machiavelli's The Prince
Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527) was an Italian statesman and political philosopher. He was employed on diplomatic missions as defence secretary of the Florentine republic, and was tortured when the Medici returned to power in 1512. When he retired from public life he wrote his most famous work, The Prince (1532), which describes the means by which a leader may gain and maintain power.
The Prince has had a long and chequered history and the number of controversies that it has generated is indeed surprising. Almost every ideology has tried to appropriate it for itself - as a result everyone from Clement VII to Mussolini has laid claim to it. Yet there were times when it was terribly unpopular. Its author was seen to be in league with the devil and the connection between 'Old Nick' and Niccolo Machiavelli was not seen as merely nominal. The Elizabethans conjured up the image of the 'murdering Machiavel' [1] and both the Protestants and the later Catholics held his book responsible for evil things. Any appraisal of the book therefore involved some ethical queasiness. Modern scholarship may have removed the stigma of devilry from Machiavelli, but it still seems uneasy as to his ethical position.
Croce [2] and some of his admirers like Sheldon Wolin [3] and Federic Chabod [4] have pointed out the existence of an ethics-politics dichotomy in Machiavelli. Isaiah Berlin [5] postulates a system of morality outside the Christian ethical schema. Ernst Cassirer [6] calls him a cold technical mind implying that his attitude to politics would not necessarily involve ethics. And Macaulay [7] sees him as a man of his time going by the actual ethical positions of Quattrocento Italy.
In the face of s...
... middle of paper ...
...erlin, Isaiah. The Question of Machiavelli. New York Review, November 4, 1971.
6. Cassirer, Ernst. Implications of the New Theory of the State (from The Myth Of The State)
7. Macaulay, Thomas Babington. Machiavelli
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1850Macaulay-machiavelli.html
8. Berlin, Isaiah. Ibid.
9. Machiavelli. Il Principe Ch XVIII 'Yet as I have said before, not to diverge from the good if he can avoid it, but to know how to set about it if compelled.' Trans. Marriott. The Project Gutenberg Internet Edition.
10. Erasmus. The Education of a Prince, quoted in J. R. Hale, Renaissance Europe 1480-1520 p. 309
11. Hale p. 308
12. Macaulay. Ibid.
13. Whitfield, J. H. Big Words, Exact Meanings.
14. Aristotle. Nichomachean Ethics. [trans. Sir David Ross]
15. Machiavelli. Discourses on Livy Ch XXVII, Project Gutenberg Internet Edition
Oscar Wilde, the writer of The Importance of Being Earnest, celebrated the Victorian Era society while criticizing it in his play. Through his play, he utilized the humorous literary techniques of pun, irony, and satire to comment on the impact of Victorian Era society left on the characters themselves. These comedic literary devices also help to show how the members of this society in the Victorian Era live by a set of unspoken rules that determine politeness, as well as proper etiquette to live by. Wilde uses a pun in the title of the work, as well as in the character personalities. Different types of irony appear in many scenes in the play, to flout the rules of society, as well as mock the intelligence of the upper-class characters, compared to the lower-class characters. Wilde satirizes the rules of the upper-class society of the Victorian Era through the dialogue of the characters. The time period in which these characters live, impacts their daily lives, and their personalities.
The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act brought the most significant changes to financial regulation in the United States since the reform that followed the Great Depression. It made changes in the American financial regulatory environment that affect all federal financial regulatory agencies and almost every part of the nation’s financial services industry. Like Glass-Steagall, the legislation passed after the Great Depression, it sought to regulate the financial markets and make another economic crisis less likely. Banks were deregulated in 1999 by the Gramm-Leach-Biley Act, which repealed the Glass-Steagall Act and essentially allowed for the excessive risk taken on by banks that caused the most recent financial crisis. The Financial Stability Oversight Council was established through the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act and was created to address the systemic risks in the United States financial system and to improve coordination among financial regulators.
In Oscar Wilde’s drama The Importance of Being Earnest, he uses light-hearted tones and humor to poke fun at British high society while handling the serious theme of truth and the true identity of who is really “Earnest.” Truth as theme is most significantly portrayed through the women characters, Gwendolen and Cecily but to present serious themes comically, Wilde portrays women to be the weaker sex of society, despite the seriousness of the subject—the identity of the men they want to marry.
Morality is the single most controversial and mind-boggling train of thought currently known to human-kind, and no particular individual more so exemplifies this conflict (or better summarizes my own personal beliefs) than Niccolò Machiavelli. Few writers in the whole of the human history have inspired the kind of personal hatred that Machiavelli has in the last 500 years, and few works have been as vilified, (or as popular) as The Prince. Machiavelli has been slandered and portrayed as a defender of tyrannical government, an atheistic promoter of immorality, and a manipulator whose interests were all self-serving. Today, the Oxford dictionary still characterizes "Machiavellian" as "of, like, or characterized by the political principles and methods of expediency, craftiness, and duplicity set forth in Machiavelli's book, The Prince; crafty, deceitful, and so on." Folk legend holds that "Old Nick," a slang term for the Devil, is derived from Machiavelli's first name, Niccolò. With that context kept in mind, isn’t morality founded on a specific set of core ideas? Isn’t it always defined by the acknowledgement of a central moral allegiance dominating all the others? From individualism to families, from tribalism to racism, from nationalism to religious fundamentalism or the allegiance to a totalitarian party what we see is the drawing of different “circles” centered on a basic, paramount moral norm. And Machiavelli is definitely not isolated in positing the interest of the nation as the foundation of his moral thinking. At the beginning of the 21st century we are still living within that same ideal nationalist realism. What could be more “Machiavellian” than the saying “My nation right or wrong”, which seems to be a still very popul...
Niccolo Machiavelli lived in Florence, Italy in the 1400’s. The country of Italy was divided into city-states that had their own leaders, but all pledged alliance to their king. In time in which great leaders were needed in order to help the development of a city-state and country, Machiavelli had a theory that man needed a leader to control them. In his book The Prince, he speaks of the perfect leader.
Lowering the drinking age from twenty-one to eighteen is a good idea because it will most likely promote responsibility, alcohol consumption will be more controlled, and, if not done so, it is posing as discrimination against the eighteen to twenty age group; however, lowering the legal drinking age back to eighteen can be fatal because the brains of the eighteen to twenty year old age groups are not fully developed, binge drinking and alcohol addiction rates will go up, and the drinking and driving rates will increase.
Canada's immigration policy is based upon principles of family reunion, humanitarian concern for refugees, and the promotion of Canada's social, economic, demographic and cultural goals.
Every woman has her own reasons behind her decision to get breast implants. Some women have undergone mastectomies, and get breast implants in order to feel “normal” again. According to the National Women’s Health Network (http://www.womenshealthnetwork.org) women who have lumpectomies have the same survival rate of women who have mastectomies as a result of breast cancer. They concluded that up to 40 percent of women who were diagnosed with breast cancer underwent unnecessary mastectomies. These mastectomies, whether necessary or not may lead to women to undergo breast augmentation surgery.
Lawmakers should not consider lowering the drinking age from twenty-one to eighteen. Despite the deep value this country places on freedom, personal liberties, and personal responsibilities, the data shows that public safety is greatly at risk if the drinking age were to be lowered to twenty-one. A variety of groups believe that the drinking age should be lowered to eighteen deeming that the twenty-one law is unconstitutional. On the opposing side, people agree that the law helps to protect our young people and the communities where they live.
Machiavelli is undisputedly one of the most influential political philosophers of all time. In The Prince, his most well-known work, he relates clearly and precisely how a decisive, intelligent man can gain and maintain power in a region. This work is revolutionary because it flies in the face of the Christian morality which let the Roman Catholic Church hold onto Europe for centuries. Machiavelli's work not only ignores the medieval world's ethics: The Prince suggests actions which oppose the four most basic of Christianity's Ten Commandments.
During the LBJ administration, Johnson was focused on ending the War on Poverty, the centerpiece of his presidency, and bringing justice to his fellow men and women. However, his pressing desire was to give the “Great Society a chance to grow and prosper! Johnson inherited the presidential seat after the death of John F. Kennedy. Immediately, Johnson was concentrated on establishing himself in the office of the Presidency, and to continue the legacy of JFK. Johnson quickly administered a group of domestic programs which he called the “Great Society”. Johnson’s vision for the Great Society drew on both his own primary identification with the New Deal (which he supported heavily) and his commitment to go beyond the achievement of FDR to create an America worthy of leadership in the twenty-first century. For America, this was the perfect time to build a Great Society. LBJ was confident that this was a time to prove that our material progress is only the foundation on which we will build a richer life in mind and spirit. He believed that the Great Society rested on an abu...
Machiavelli, Niccolò, and Robert Martin Adams. "Chapter 17." The Prince: A Revised Translation, Backgrounds, Interpretations, Marginalia. New York: Norton, 1992. 46. Print.
... age in the U.S. The drinking age is 21, but several reasons show that it should be brought down to 18. Drinking goes on with people under the age of 21, however, by lowering the age there will be less alcohol related problem. Being able to drink is a sign of maturity and growing up, and most people are becoming more independent, and make their own choices as 18 year olds. When they make their own choices they will take full responsibility for their actions. If someone is mature enough to smoke, they should be allowed to drink. The U.S. government should lower the drinking age to 18 based on the positive effects it will have in the communities, states, and nation. Lowering the drinking age in the United States is one of the topics that has been debated for years. However, it should be lowered, and in doing so this will make the U.S. a better and safer place to live.
Strauss, Leo. Machiavelli’s Intention: The Prince . Ed. Leo Strauss. N.p., 1958. Web. 1 Dec. 2010. .
Machiavelli writes, “that man has qualities that will bring him either praise or blame” and because a prince is a man; therefore, he will also exhibit these qualities. A prince should put his good qualities on public display and be clever enough to hide his immoral failings from his subjects; but, if these vices are necessary to maintain his state, he should embrace them; because this appearance of a strong state by his subjects gives them a false sense of security.