In terms of prescribing rules to preserve the state, Machiavelli’s Prince has principles. It matters that Machiavelli’s Prince has principles because it means that Machiavelli offers a template for other Princes to follow on how they should their rule kingdom. The Prince, written in the mirror for princes style, provides historical examples as templates for Princes to copy or avoid. There are a number of principles offered by Machiavelli, all of which can be distilled a single principle: the ends justifies the means. The ends, being the preservation of the state, and the means, being the brutal methods endorsed by Machiavelli. The implication of this being that, in terms of adhering to a moral standard, Machiavelli cannot be said to have principles. The idea that Machiavelli’s philosophy is amoral matters to those who adhere to notions of traditional morality because it means that The Prince cannot be used as a serious guide to ruling. However, sometimes immoral actions are necessary to preserve the state and proponents of Machiavelli’s raison d’état philosophy argue that a moral community cannot exist without the state, therefore, the preservation of the state must be the primary consideration, with morals coming second. However, Mary G. Dietz of the University of Minnesota (Dietz, 1986, 777) disputes the idea that The Prince was intended as a serious guide to ruling at all. Instead The Prince was a “masterful act of political deception”, intended to lead the Medici rule to ruin: “he intends for a gullible and vainglorious prince to heed the duplicitous advice of The Prince, and thereby take actions that will jeopardise his power and bring about his demise” (ibid. 781). The implication of Dietz’s thesis is that The Prince does not have principles, in terms of offering serious rules to follow to preserve the state, and it also means that concerns about the amorality of the philosophy espoused by Machiavelli are irrelevant, since the work is not intended to be a serious guide to rulers.
In the first half of the work, Machiavelli describes the different kinds of states that exist, namely principalities and republics. He divides principalities into hereditary principalities, which are inherited upon the death of the previous ruler, and new principalities, which are either completely new or annexations (Machiavelli, 1995, Chapter III). Machiavelli explains that it is easier to maintain control over hereditary principalities than new principalities. This is because, in hereditary principalities, the foundations of the state already exist. Whereas, in a new principality, the Prince “makes foundations” (Rebhorn, 2010). In new principalities, the ruler must be prepared to use other methods, sometimes more ruthless, to maintain control of the state (Machiavelli, 1995, Chapter III). Machiavelli’s Prince is Lorenzo de Medici, a new Prince, i.e. one that is tasked with building the foundations of the state (Rebhorn, 2010). Machiavelli offers a number of principles to the new Prince, who is seeking to establish the foundations of a new state, which act as a template to copy, in the mirror for princes literary tradition.
Two principles are offered to the new Prince concerning the government of new principalities. As has already been mentioned, it is more difficult to maintain control over this kind of principality than it is to maintain control over hereditary principalities. Furthermore, Machiavelli sub-divides new principalities into two different types: ones that share the same language as the prince and ones that do not. The latter are more difficult to govern. For the first type of new principality, Machiavelli presents the following principle: “If the ruler wants to keep hold of his new possessions, he must bear two things in mind: first, that the family of the old prince must be destroyed; next that he must change neither their laws nor their taxes”. He asserts that if the prince follows his advice “in a very short space of time, the new principality will be rolled into one with the old”. In terms of prescribing clear rules to preserve the state, Machiavelli presents the prince with principles to follow. Namely, destroy any opposition and maintain the status quo, in order to avoid a challenge to the prince’s power.
So, for Machiavelli, laying foundations in principalities that share the same language and culture as the Prince is as simple as eliminating the previous bloodline and maintaining the same laws and taxes. However, in principalities that are alien to Prince’s language and culture, laying the foundations is more complicated. In governing these alien principalities, the Prince will be required to use different, and sometimes more ruthless, methods. The most poignant principle that can be drawn from this discussion is: “people should be either caressed or crushed…if you need to injure someone do it in such a way that you do not have to fear their vengeance” (ibid). This principle is exemplified in Machiavelli’s recommendation of using colonies rather than military occupation to establish the new prince’s authority in the foreign principality. His reasoning is that colonial rule only harms a few, namely the poor who are too weak to rise up against the prince, whereas, under military occupation, “everyone suffers… and everybody is turned into an enemy” (ibid). This implications of this principle are two-fold. First, the language “if you need to” suggests a tone of caution and advises the prince to only cause harm when it is a necessity. However, when it is a necessity, exactly, is unclear. Second, though Machiavelli may suggest caution, he is clear that if it is necessary the “crushing” of people is sanctioned. This is quite a ruthless principle, therefore, and given Machiavelli is not specific about when it is necessary to “crush” opponents, we are left wondering how useful this principle may be to new rulers. This principle also seems to support the view that Machiavelli lacks principles in terms of adhering to a moral standard. However, Bellioti comments that since this principle “seems harsh, even by Machiavellian standards”, it is more likely “a metaphor warning princes against half-hearted measures” (Bellioti, 2009).
More guiding principles are issued to the Prince in the later chapters of Machiavelli’s work from chapters 14-19. One of particular importance is found in Chapter 15, which addresses the reputation of the Prince: “A man who strives after goodness in all his acts is sure to come to ruin, since there are so many men who are not good”. This principle is informed by Machiavelli’s view of human nature: that men “are ungrateful, fickle, liars, and deceivers”. In short, because men are naturally evil, they cannot be trusted. It is therefore not recommended that the prince strives for goodness, since he cannot be sure that other men will act in the same way. Of course, this is at odds with conceptions of traditional morality and has led scholars such as Leo Strauss (1958) to condemn Machiavelli as a teacher of evil. However, other scholars, such as Croce (1925) argue that Machiavelli is simply a realist. He takes men as he finds them, rather than how he wishes that they be. Thus, with respect to Croce’s thesis, this principle offers rational instructions to the Prince. The Prince should not behave as though men are good and so strive to do good himself when the opposite is true. Indeed, if the Prince were to behave according to moral codes, he would lead himself to political ruin.
Next, Machiavelli turns to discussing particular virtues and vices. In his discussion on being generous, Machiavelli warns princes against being generous. This effectively means that he views it as a vice. He argues that that: “guarding against the people’s hatred is better than building up a reputation for generosity” (Machiavelli, 1995, Chapter 16). He reaches this conclusion by reasoning that a Prince can only build a reputation for generosity by engaging in frivolous spending. However, since frivolous spending will result in resentment due to higher taxes, the Prince ought to avoid such generosity. He supports this conclusion with several historical examples of those who have spent generously and ended up in ruin and those who have been “parsimonious”. For example, he says that the King of France was only able to conduct wars due to his parsimony and Caesar would have come to ruin had he maintained his generous spending habits that he used to come to power in Rome. One might question the strength of the evidence Machiavelli cites here, however. He fails to provide conclusive evidence to support his idea that generosity leads to political turmoil. His point about Caesar is merely speculation: “if after he [Caesar] had established it [his rule over Rome] he had remained alive and not moderated his expenditure he would have fallen from power” (ibid). It is a principle concerning how a Prince should conduct his financial affairs, but whether or not it is grounded in historical evidence is questionable.
While Machiavelli appears to present generosity as a vice, oddly, he presents cruelty as a virtue, in some instances. That is to say that, it can lead a prince to political success. He presents the famous principle: “It is better to be feared, than loved” (Machiavelli, 1995, Chapter 17). The reasoning behind which is that love only provides so much motivation, and since humans are selfish, the only love can be counted upon is love for themselves. Linking with the selfish love that humans have, fear provides much more motivation to be loyal to the Prince: “men worry less about doing an injury to one who makes himself loved than to one who makes himself feared”. Again, Machiavelli cites historical examples to show why it is better to be feared than loved. He praises Hannibal’s cruel methods as they maintained the loyalty of his army, whereas, he criticises Scipio for being too lenient. This principle is clearly at odds with traditional morality, one more showing how Machiavelli lacks principles in terms of adhering to a moral standard. However, it is worth nothing that Machiavelli does not recommend evil. He does say that “one would like to be both [feared and loved]” but concedes that it is “difficult to combine the two”.
Considering the above discussion, Machiavelli offers principles in terms of rules that he believes that the Prince best follow if he is to maintain control of his state: eliminating the bloodline, crushing opposition, spending parsimoniously and emphasis on being feared rather than loved. However, some of these rules do not adhere to a moral standard. This matters if one asks whether Machiavelli offers a suitable guide for Princes to rule their principalities with justice. However, Dietz questions whether that was the purpose of The Prince in the first place, arguing that the rules issued by Machiavelli to the Prince, i.e. Lorenzo de Medici, were intended to lead the Prince to ruin (Dietz, 1986).
Bibliography
- Bellioti, R, 2009, The Laughing Lion and the Strutting Fox. Maryland: Lexington Books
- Croce, B, 1925, Elementi di politica, Bari: Laterza & Figli.
- Dietz, M. (1986). Trapping the Prince: Machiavelli and the Politics of Deception. American Political Science Review, 80(3), pp.777-799.
- Machiavelli, N. trans. Bull, G. (1995). The Prince. 4th ed. London: Penguin Books.
- Rebhorn, W. A. (2010) “Machiavelli’s Prince in the epic tradition,” in Najemy, J. M. (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Machiavelli. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (Cambridge Companions to Literature), pp. 80–95. doi: 10.1017/CCOL9780521861250.006.
- Strauss, Leo, 1958, Thoughts on Machiavelli, Glencoe, IL: The Free Press.
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