the prince Essay -- essays research papers

Niccolo MachiavelliThe PrinceIn The Prince, Niccolo Machiavelli approaches, the topic of political morality and human nature in a very divergent way than thinkers preceding him. His arguwork forcet on political morality and human nature is made very clear in the early part of his hold. For him politics is war, no matter which way you olfactory property at it. You must, therefore, know that there are two means of fighting one according to the laws, the other with deposit the first way is proper to man, the second to beasts but because the first, in many cases is not sufficient , it becomes necessary to have recourse to the second. (Machiavelli, p.351-352). He clearly points place towards mans poor behavior in politics and accepts it as a fact, saying that law is a type of combat. He does not look up to god or any other divine authority for the political morality, like Augustine in his book the city of god or exploit and look at things the way they should have been in the idea l state, but instead probes into the individual. He aims straight at the reality of politics.Machiavelli In his vision, to guide the actions of men in general, turns to the actions of the strong prince. Machiavellis higher political morality is to pursue the means to gain and hold power. He is of the view that the ruling prince should be of the repair authority and to gain this authority the prince has to command a certain fear from his citizens.Machiavelli believes that good laws follow naturally from a good military. His famous statement that the nominal head of sound military forces indicates the presence of sound laws describes the relationship between developing states and war in The Prince. Machiavelli reverses the conventional understanding of war as a necessary, but not definitive, element of the development of states, and instead asserts that prosperous war is the very foundation upon which all states are built. Much of The Prince is devoted to describing exactly what it means to add a good war how to effectively fortify a city, how to treat subjects in newly acquired territories, and how to prevent domestic insurrection that would distract from a successful war. But Machiavellis description of war encompasses more than just the direct use of military force, it comprises international diplo... ...oodwill is never absolute. While Machiavelli backs up his political arguments with concrete historical evidence, his statements about society and human nature sometimes have the character of assumptions rather than observations.He concludes that with so many wretched men virtually virtue is hard to create in oneself. "The fact is that a man who wants to act virtuously in every way necessarily comes to grief among so many who are not virtuous." Overall, Machiavelli is very pessimistic about the abilities of the people. He feels that after examining people through history, his conclusions of wretched men is correct.The Prince is an extremely pract ical book because it does not tell the reader what the ideal prince is, but it explains to the reader what actions and qualities have enabled a prince to best rule. Machiavelli, however, was a realist. He was concerned with how things were in reality, not how things could be if the world was perfect. His reasoning was right for his time because his time was a time of frequent war. Today that advice would not work, for now we are a world roughly often ruled by laws not war.