![]() ![]() In other words, morality may be real, but in only a small part of the world that we inhabit. It is only with Niccolò Machiavelli that we begin to get the idea that some things may be made good by what they accomplish. Some ancient thinkers, such as Thrasymachus or Thucydides, would have rejected justice as a coherent idea, while others might say that justice does not need worldly justification. The difference can be shown by a simple question: Does the end justify the means?įor earlier thinkers, such as Augustine or Aquinas, it was a thought that was hard to conceive. ![]() In these views, God seems to be very far away, and morality becomes something different for the thinkers of this period. (Image: Everett Collection/Shutterstock) Does the End Justify the Means?Īfter the Reformation of the 16th century, a secular view of evil was seen to be possible in Europe in a way that was not seen before. Machivelli's "Prince" is how Socrates "politeia" would look like, if Socrates did not think that the Idea of the Good were supreme.In The Prince, Machiavelli states that a prince must love his city more than his soul. This is contrary to ancient Greek optimism, according to which people, even if they are not virtuous by nature, have some rudimentary good traces in their nature, tend towards goodness and improvement. ![]() My conclusion is that, despite some obvious parallels between Plato's "Politeia" and Machivaelli's "Prince", it is not completely true to say that Machiavelli begins where Platonic characters stop: Machiavelli actually starts with a completely different premise than Plato, namely, that people are by nature wicked. In the second part I discuss the partiuclar relationship between Machiavelli's "Prince" and Plato's "Republic". In the first part I present some general problems with the interpretation of Machiavelli's text of "The Prince" and some aspects of Machiavelli's relationship to ancient philospohers. ![]() This chapter has two parts: the first part should provide a context for the second part. ![]()
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