1) His Biography:
Niccolo Machiavelli (3 May 1469 – 21 June 1527) was a Renaissance-era Italian diplomat, philosopher, and historian. He is best known for his 1513 political treatise The Prince. He is widely regarded as the “Father of Modern Political Philosophy and Political Science.” Machiavelli was born in Florence, Italy, as the third and first child of lawyer Bernardo di Niccolo Machiavelli and his wife, Bartolomea di Stefano Nelli. The Machiavelli family is thought to be descended from the old marquesses of Tuscany and to have produced thirteen Florentine Gonfalonieres of Justice, one of the offices of a group of nine citizens chosen by lot every two months and who formed the government, or Signoria; however, he was never a full citizen of Florence due to the nature of Florentine citizenship at the time, even under the republican regime. In 1502, Machiavelli married Marietta Corsini.
Machiavelli was born during a turbulent period when popes waged acquisitive wars against Italian city-states and people and cities frequently fell from power as France, Spain, and the Holy Roman Empire fought for regional influence and control. Political-military alliances were constantly shifting, with mercenary leaders switching sides without warning and many short-lived governments rising and falling. Grammar, rhetoric, and Latin were all taught to Machiavelli. It is unknown whether Machiavelli knew Greek, despite the fact that Florence was at the time one of Europe’s centers of Greek scholarship. Florence restored the republic in 1494, exiling the Medici family, which had ruled Florence for sixty years. Shortly after Savonarola’s execution, Machiavelli was appointed to the second chancery, a mediaeval writing office in charge of the production of official Florentine government documents. Soon after, he was appointed secretary of the Dieci di Libertà e Pace.
Machiavelli conceived of a militia for Florence at the beginning of the 16th century, and he then began recruiting and forming it. He distrusted mercenaries (a distrust he explained in his official reports and later in his theoretical works as a result of their unpatriotic and uninvested nature in the war, which makes their allegiance fickle and often unreliable when most needed), and instead staffed his army with citizens, a policy that proved to be repeatedly successful. By February 1506 he could have four hundred farmers dressed and armed with lances and small fire arms marching on parade. Florentine citizen-soldiers defeated Pisa under his command in 1509. The Medici, backed by Pope Julius II, defeated the Florentines at Prato in August 1512. Soderini resigned as Florentine head of state after the siege and went into exile. The experience, like Machiavelli’s time in foreign courts and with the Borgia, would have a significant impact on his political writings. The Florentine city-state and republic were dissolved, and Machiavelli was removed from office and exiled for a year. In 1513, the Medici accused him of plotting against them and imprisoned him. Despite being tortured he denied involvement and was released three weeks later.
After that, Machiavelli retired to his farm estate in Sant’Andrea in Percussina where he studied and wrote his political treatises. He travelled to France, Germany, and Italy to represent the Florentine Republic. Despairing of the opportunity to remain directly involved in political matters, he began to participate in intellectual groups in Florence and wrote several plays that were both popular and widely known in his lifetime (unlike his works on political theory). Politics remained his primary interest, and to that end, he maintained a well-known correspondence with more politically connected friends, attempting to re-enter political life. After receiving his last rites, Machiavelli died on June 21, 1527, at the age of 58. He was laid to rest in Florence’s Santa Croce Church.
2) Main Works:
Discorso sopra le cose di Pisa (1499), Del modo di trattare i popoli della Valdichiana ribellati (1502), A Description of the Methods Adopted by the Duke Valentino when Murdering Vitellozzo Vitelli, Oliverotto da Fermo, the Signor Pagolo, and the Duke di Gravina Orsini (1502), A discourse about the provision of money (1502), Portrait of the affairs of France (1510), Portrait of the affairs of Germany (1508-1512), The Prince (1513), Discourses on Livy (1517), The Art of War (1519–1520), A discourse about the reforming of Florence (1520), A summary of the affairs of the city of Lucca (1520), The Life of Castruccio Castracani of Lucca (1520), Istorie Fiorentine (1520–1525), Decennale primo (1506), Decennale secondo (1509), The Girl from Andros (1517), Belfagor arcidiavolo (1515), Asino d’oro (1517) and fragments of stories (1525).
3) Ends Justify the Means Concept:
Niccolo Machiavelli is credited with coining the phrase “the ends justify the means.” The closest he came was when he stated his opinion in Chapter 18 of The Prince: “There is nothing more necessary to appear to have than this last quality (appearing to be religious), inasmuch as men judge generally more by the eye than by the hand, because it belongs to everybody to see you, to few to come in touch with you.”
Machiavelli instructs a Prince on how to behave and keep up appearances in this quote from Chapter 18 of The Prince about keeping faith, or being true to your word. He believes it is critical to appear merciful, faithful, humane, upright, and religious. He also claims that in order to maintain the appearance, one must be willing to act in ways that contradict the appearance. This is due to the fact that everyone can see what you appear to be, and only a few will get close enough to touch you and discover what happened.
These people (each for slightly different reasons and motivations) are all about appearing exactly how they want others to see them. Even if it is nothing like who they truly are, even if they are saying the exact opposite of what they will eventually do, they know that few will see past their outward appearances. So, for Machiavelli, appearing to be doing something is sufficient even if the actor has no intention of doing so, or achieving an end result far outweighs how we got there; what road we took; and whether or not our behavior was ethical.
The reason the means are important, perhaps more important than the ends, is that how we get there is just as important as getting there. In other words, destiny tells us what we are to the world, but journey tells us who we are; it is the journey that unlocks our potential and establishes who we are as individuals, as well as what motivates us to act.
4) The Prince:
Overview:
The Prince was written by Machiavelli as a practical guide for ruling. This goal is clear from the start, with the book’s dedication to Lorenzo de’ Medici, the ruler of Florence. The Prince is not particularly theoretical or abstract; its prose is straightforward, as is its logic. These characteristics highlight Machiavelli’s desire to provide practical, easy-to-understand advice. The Prince is interested in autocratic regimes rather than republican regimes.
Statesmanship & Warcraft:
According to Machiavelli, good laws naturally follow from a good military. In The Prince, his famous remark that “the presence of sound military forces indicates the presence of sound laws” describes the relationship between developing states and war. Machiavelli challenges the conventional view of war as a necessary but not conclusive component of state development, claiming that successful war is the very foundation upon which all states are built. Much of The Prince is devoted to elaborating on what it means to fight a good war: how to help defend a city in an effective manner, how to handle subjects in newly acquired territories, and how to prevent domestic insurgency from detracting from a successful war. However, Machiavelli’s definition of war includes more than just the use of military force; it also includes international diplomacy, domestic politics, tactical strategy, geographic mastery, and historical analysis. Within the context of Machiavelli’s Italy—when cities were constantly threatened by neighboring principalities and the region had suffered for many years from power struggles—his method of viewing almost all state affairs through a military lens was a timely innovation in political thinking.
Goodwill & Hatred:
To remain in power, a prince must avoid his people’s hatred. It is not necessary for him to be loved; in fact, he is frequently more effective when feared. Being despised, on the other hand, can lead to a prince’s demise. This assertion may appear incompatible with Machiavelli’s statements on the utility of cruelty, but Machiavelli advocates cruelty only insofar as it does not jeopardize the people’s long-term goodwill. The goodwill of the people is always the best defense against both domestic insurgency and foreign aggression. Machiavelli warns princes against actions that might incite hatred, such as confiscating property or dissolving traditional institutions. Even installations normally valued for military purposes, such as fortresses, should be evaluated primarily on their ability to garner support for the prince. Indeed, a prince can stop worrying about incurring the hatred of his subjects only when he is absolutely certain that those who despise him will never be able to rise up against him. Ultimately, however, gaining the people’s goodwill has little or nothing to do with a desire for the populace’s overall happiness. Instead, goodwill is used as a political tool to ensure the stability of the prince’s reign.
Free Will:
Machiavelli frequently uses the words “prowess” and “fortune” to describe two distinct paths to power for a prince. “Prowess” refers to a person’s abilities, whereas “fortune” implies chance or luck. Part of Machiavelli’s goal in writing The Prince is to determine how much of a prince’s success or failure is due to his own free will and how much is due to nature or the environment in which he lives. Machiavelli specifically applies this question to the failures of previous Italian princes. Machiavelli discusses the role of fortune in determining human affairs in Chapter XXV. He attempts to strike a balance between free will and determinism by arguing that fortune controls half of human actions while free will controls the other half. However, Machiavelli also argues that through foresight—a quality he champions throughout the book—people can protect themselves from the vicissitudes of fortune. Thus, Machiavelli can be described as believing in the ability of humans to shape their own destinies to some extent, but also believing that human control over events is never absolute.
Human Nature:
According to Machiavelli, a number of characteristics are inherent in human nature. People are generally self-interested, though their love for others can be won and lost. They are content and happy as long as they are not victims of a terrible event. In times of prosperity, they may be trustworthy, but in times of adversity, they quickly become selfish, deceitful, and profit-driven. People admire others’ honor, generosity, courage, and piety, but most do not exhibit these qualities in themselves. Ambition is common among those who have achieved some level of power, but the majority of people are content with their current situation and do not seek higher status. People have a natural sense of obligation after receiving a favour or service, and this bond is usually difficult to break. Nonetheless, allegiances are earned and lost, and goodwill is never absolute. Such statements about human nature are frequently used to justify the book’s advice to princes. While Machiavelli’s political arguments are supported by concrete historical evidence, his statements about society and human nature have the feel of assumptions rather than observations.
5) Themes of Virtue and Fortune in the Prince:
Virtue:
Virtues, according to Machiavelli, are qualities that are praised by others, such as generosity, compassion, and piety. He contends that while a prince should always strive to appear virtuous, acting virtuously for the sake of virtue can be detrimental to the principality. A prince does not have to avoid vices like cruelty or dishonesty if doing so will benefit the state. Cruelty and other vices should not be pursued for their own sake, any more than virtue should be pursued for its own sake: virtues and vices should be conceived as means to an end. Every action taken by the prince must be evaluated in terms of its impact on the state, rather than its intrinsic moral value.
Fortune:
Machiavelli uses the term “fortune” to refer to the unpredictability of fate, or the ways in which chance, opportunity, and pure luck frequently influence the course of life. In place of fortune, Machiavelli introduces the concept of “prowess,” which refers to the skills and abilities that men possess and use to exert control over their circumstances. According to Machiavelli, some new princes gain their states through prowess, while others gain them through fortune; however, a prince cannot maintain his hold on a state without a certain level of skill and prowess. When a prince’s actions “are marked by prowess,” he can easily encapsulate the loyalty of his soldiers and citizens. Nonetheless, even the most capable ruler can lose his state if he is met with bad luck or the wrong set of circumstances. According to Machiavelli, a prince requires both fortune and prowess to maintain power, stating that fortune is “probably… the arbiter of half the things we do, leaving the other half or so to be controlled by ourselves.” Rulers thrive as long as fortune and prowess are in sync.
Machiavelli refers to fortune in a variety of metaphors, most notably as a “violent river” and a “woman.” According to Machiavelli, a wise ruler must “take precautions” against sudden changes in fortune, just as people build embankments to tame rivers in anticipation of future floods. When comparing fortune to a woman, Machiavelli declares that it is necessary to beat and coerce her in order to exercise one’s will in order to make fortune womanly and submissive. Fortune, like a woman, is fickle, according to Machiavelli, but she responds better to a ruler’s strength and conviction than to caution. While Machiavelli’s metaphor is extremely sexist, it was unlikely to bother his male audience in the sixteenth century.
6) His Influence in the Contemporary Era:
Machiavelli was arguably the most influential Renaissance thinker. He was a man of action, despite not being a religious leader or a great artist. At the age of 29, he was appointed to a key position in the Florence government, where he was entrusted with diplomatic missions for local Italians and European courts. Machiavelli’s strengths also enabled him to take more direct action, as demonstrated when he led troops under the Florentine militia to capture the town of Pisa. His most notable contribution to history, however, is his book “The Prince,” which describes how a leader can gain and keep power. In this case, he ignored the concept of right and wrong. “The Prince” is one of history’s most important books, and it is still studied today.
What distinguishes Machiavelli is his continued relevance and importance in the modern era. Many have argued that religious leaders during Martin Luther King’s reformation era had a greater influence, but the case for Machiavelli is much stronger. Doctor King’s influence was limited to religion, which has become increasingly less influential in the world’s political and financial dynamics. However, The Prince continues to have an impact on both of those areas to this day. Machiavelli’s ideas are as relevant today as they were in the 16th century, and modern political science owes a great deal to him.
Machiavelli’s political works are known to have influenced the founding fathers of the American Revolution (including Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson).
Machiavelli, long before Darwin, demonstrated a world without heaven or hell. A world of being in the present moment as opposed to what the world “should be.” We have seen both positive and negative examples of people adopting ideas similar to Machiavelli throughout history. However, it is only now that scholars are able to recognize his work in a positive light, as opposed to the negative reputation he initially gained. In today’s world, Machiavelli would arguably be a freedom fighter, fighting for liberty.