Machiavelli

Life

Early Life

• Bio
  • Philosopher, historian, statesman, writer
  • Niccolò Machiavelli, 1469 - 1527- (Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli)
  • Born in Florence, a thriving center of philosophy and art at the time
• Florence
  • It was a prosperous oligarchic republic
  • Sea access and trade brought wealth
  • Christians and protestants are at war during Machiavelli’s time
• Family
  • Born to a prominent family
  • They occasionally held office in Florence
  • His father, Bernardo, was a doctor of laws
  • Bernardo was in great debt too, one of the poorest members of the family
  • Father was barred from public office and earned a meager income from small landed property near the city
  • His profession was restricted

• Education

  • Little is known of his early life
  • Machiavelli likely read from his father’s library
  • He attended lectures by Marcello Virgilio Adriani
  • He learned Latin and likely knew some Greek
  • He had a typical humanist education, the type expected for officials of the Florentine Chancery

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Career

• Girolamo Savonarola (1452 - 98)
  • Dominican friar who moved to Florence in 1482 and gained support from his accusations against the government, clergy, and pope
  • He is featured in The Prince as an example of an “unarmed prophet” doomed to fail
  • Machiavelli had written about listening to his sermons and appreciated his learning and rhetorical skill
  • In 1498 Savonarola was hanged as a heretic and his body burned
  • The unknown Machiavelli became the head of the second chancery several days later, at the age of 29
• The cancelleria
  • Machiavelli’s post put him in charge of the republic’s foreign affairs in subject territories
  • He was young for such a high post and never served an apprenticeship in chancery
  • Held the post until 1512 and gained the confidence of Piero Soderini (chief magistrate)
• Machiavelli at second chancery
  • 1505: Persuaded Soderini to reduce city’s reliance on mercenary forces by establishing a militia, the first standing army the city had
  • Went on diplomatic and military missions to the court of France, to Cesare Borgia, Pope Julius II, and Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I and Pisa
  • After the mission to Cesare Borgia he wrote the short work On the Way to Deal with the Revel Subjects of the Valdichiana which deals with the errors of Florence with the wisdom of Rome and decided that to deal with rebellious people one must benefit them or eradicate them
  • He also writes a famous account to the vengeance of Cesare on his mutinous captains in Sinigaglia
  • He was like a secretary of foreign affairs and of the military
• Medici takeover
  • With the takeover of the Medici family, he is expelled from political service in 1513
  • They suspected his was a traitor due to his time in France, and tortured and exiled him
  • This is when he writes The Prince
  • His work would not gain attention in his lifetime
  • Florence was not restored to its former glory in his lifetime either, it was dominated for nearly 400 years by outside rulers
  • In 1527 he tried to return to his position in the Chancery but without success, and died shortly after from illness

Philosophy

How politicians succeed: *The Prince*

• Machiavelli was in the midst of the political turmoil of his time during his post
  • There were struggles between France, Spain, the Holy Roman Empire . . . he got to travel around
  • He describes how powerful people succeed but not how an ideal leader should be
  • The Prince describes the traits he believed bolstered power and influence, the outline for what makes effective leadership
  • His figure is brutal, calculating, and immoral
  • It was a cynical piece, arguing it was impossible to bring the virtues of every day life into the political sphere
  • This is a change of pace for how philosophers wanted to define a good leader
  • It is considered the first book on political science
  • It describes how to acquire, maintain, and expand power
  • Dedicated to the Medicis
• Leadership
  • People will change their nature when they believe they can improve their lot
  • Those who wish to act virtuously in every way will come to grief among so many who are not virtuous
  • therefore one who seeks to maintain rule must be ready to not be virtuous
  • Cruelty is better than kindness, making examples of offenders is better than being overly kind, for then disorder develops that impacts the whole community
  • It is better to be feared than to be loved
  • Unless it is hate. Do not take away their property or women
  • Honestly is damaging, those who do not keep their word take advantage of those who do
  • When leaders are not moral, then must pretend to be and maintain that appearance
  • He does not work within the framework of the church
  • He does not seek a higher power of morality
  • Like Aristotle, he makes comparisons with nature” Strong as a lion and cunning as a fox”
  • Calls into question whether amoral is the same is immoral, Machiavelli advocates amorality and not immorality
  • Leaders should not rely on luck but make their own fortune thorough their works, charisma, cunning, and force
  • He believed in two main variables: fortune and virtù
  • virtù meant bravery, power, and the ability to impose one’s will
  • Fortune: like a violent river that can be destructive but when calm, leaders can use it their free will to conquer the river of fate
  • Effective leaders maximize virtù and minimize the role of fortune (fortune favors the bold)
  • I hold strongly to this: that it is better to be impetuous than circumspect; because fortune is a woman and if she is to be submissive it is necessary to beat and coerce her.
  • The end justifies the means
  • Manipulation through dear, religion, promises, but also rewards and create an aura of trust

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• Mankind and Community

  • While it was different with the political sphere, he felt that communities without the spirit of virtue will be unstable
  • He thought that religion was man-made an controlling, meant to maintain peace by keeping people weak by demonizing the use of force
  • He was not a humanitarian, condoned violence and executions to stabilize power
  • His government is therefore one tyrannical in nature
  • Foresaw the invasion of the French due to the fragmented Italy, he wanted to unite like in Roman times (therefore a nationalist)

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Discourses of Livy:

• There is a more republican stance
  • He does not support the monarchy as is done in The Prince
  • Discourses the elements of the Roman Republic compared to the Florentine Republic such as:
  • This includes policies on immigration and civic virtues
  • Suggests ancient Greek religion is superior to Christianity
  • Also believed that all people should participate in government

The Art of War

• Military had to be a standing army made up of conscripts
• The state is so important it is a duty to fight for it: higher moral
  • soldiers in the prime
  • Less defection
  • Thought soldiers with families had more incentives

Impact

• In his time
  • His work would not gain attention in his lifetime
  • Florence was not restored to its former glory in his lifetime either, it was dominated for nearly 400 years by outside rulers
  • Prince is published five years after his death (1532), and later triggering disgust and admiration. He was a revolutionary thinker
  • 1559: All his works are prohibited by the Catholic church, and also condemned by the Protestant Church, and Elizabethan England
• Later
  • Machiavelli became synonymous with cunning and unscrupulous behavior
  • Some theorize that The Prince was satirical, a warning rather than something descriptive and cynical
  • The Prince is considered by some academics to be the basis of modern political science
  • Early advocate for the separation of Church and state

Conclusions

• The end justifies the means
  • If one is confident that they can lead the best, then anything should justify the acquisition of this power
  • One who enters politics goes against those without virtues and morals, so it is better to do what is necessary to make sure you are the one in charge
  • Those who wish to act virtuously in every way will come to grief among so many who are not virtuous

• Government

  • Wanted a strong government that could exercise the use of force, needed a strong military
  • The idea forms conflict in The Prince and DoL, the monarchy had a mechanism against aristocracy
  • He believed in a republic

• Renaissance impact

  • 14 to the 15th Century
  • This was the time and place in which Machiavelli lived
  • It was the rebirth of the Roman and Greek philosophers, which had inspired Machiavelli
  • These ideas were previously replaced by conflicting Christian ideals
  • Authority of the Church is in decline
  • This period is marked by questioning and curiosity, the basis of science
  • Not stimulated by Christian doctrine

• Machtpolitik: a doctrine in political theory advocating the use of power and especially of physical force by a political state in the attainment of its objectives

• Realpolitik: politics based on practical and material factors rather than on theoretical or ethical objectives

• International Relations

  • It is egotistical, there is no superior body, national states are the highest sovereign powers
  • They have an interest in their own well-being and interests and power only
  • Survival of the national state is the end, IR
  • There are morals, law, and treaties but this is negligible to the Realpolitik school