The Prince, By Machiavelli

Machiavelli concentrated more on the way things should be and how to manipulate them for his own personal gain rather than for the betterment of the state. He was well-known for being a political thinker who believed that outcomes justified why things happened. A key aspect of Machiavelli’s concept of the Prince was that “men must either be caressed or annihilated” (Prince, 9). What Machiavelli meant by

Barnett makes sure to approach this article with other peoples' opinions still in mind, telling Machiavelli's story very open mindedly. I understood his doings a bit more when Machiavelli used Agathocles the Sicilian as an example to distinguish between the rights and wrongs of doing something unlawful to "better" yourself or others. If you kill tons of people and take over their city and don't end up bettering it and its' people then it's cruel. If you do end up doing something great for that country, city, or whatever, then you have what it takes to be a great ruler. Power, motivation, and hard skin.

In The Prince, Machiavelli explains what a good and successful prince should be like. He advocates a strong, cutthroat authority figure and encourages the winning of power by any means necessary. The main theme in The Prince is that mob rule is dangerous, for people know only what is good for themselves and not what is good for the whole. The common people, in Machiavelli’s view, “are ungrateful, fickle, liars, and deceivers, they shun danger and are greedy for profit; while you treat them well, they are yours”. He believes that these commoners should be

In Niccolo Machiavelli’s article to the Italy Prince, he mentioned a lot about the morals that a prince should have. He wrote that as a prince of a country political power is much important than human nature and sometimes prince needs to neglect morals in order to get political power, which I agree with his idea. The difference between a prince and a civilian is that prince has the political power that a normal people could not have, so the prince should use his political power correctly, which can lead the country to become better and united. To use the political power in a right way as Machiavelli said in his article, the prince sometimes needs to be a miser and feared by his people. To do so, the prince can gain the political power. Having

Machiavelli considers society an immoral place. According to Machiavelli as stated in The Discourses on Livy, “for as men are, by nature, more prone to evil than to good”. The Prince is a manual for being a successful ruler in an immoral society. Often times that success is met by committing immoral acts. Machiavelli, an outsider to the inner workings of government gives what he thinks are the critical tools to being a successful ruler in modern society. “Sometimes you have to play hardball” is a saying from today that I relate to his philosophies.

The Prince is essentially a guide book on how to acquire and maintain political power. We can think of it as a collection of rules and methods to achieve a level of superior authority. Its main focus is that the ends—no matter how immoral—justify the means for preserving political authority. While some may agree with this mindset of thinking many today dismiss Machiavelli as a cynic. The book shows rulers how it is that they should act to survive in the real world to maintain authority. While Niccolo Machiavelli’s ideas can be radical, they helped to spark a revolution in political philosophy. Although his ideas might have not been completely original, they were very different and unheard of at the time, The Prince, was published. Machiavelli uses many methods to convey his messages including biblical comparisons and of course metaphors. This character can be viewed in several manners. He is almighty and powerful, stopping at nothing to achieve his goals or have his ways. While this quality does qualify him to be a might leader it also raises the question of immorality. How far will one go to maintain order? Would you stop at nothing to achieve this task? Machiavelli shows this by saying, “it is

Machiavelli bases his observations on what he believes the “real world” is, and not on an imagined ideal. Machiavelli’s first states that there is so much difference between the way people should act and the way they do act that any prince must know when to act immorally. Cliff notes claims, “Everyone agrees that a prince should have all good qualities, but because that is impossible, a wise prince will avoid these vices that would destroy his power and not worry about the rest.” Machiavelli recommends that leaders be bad rather than good. Furthermore, he justifies this statement by saying that since we do not live in a perfect little world one cannot be perfect to survive when the world is full of unscrupulous people. This is where I disagree

When reading Niccolo Machiavelli's The Prince, one can't help but grasp Machiavelli's argument that morality and politics can not exist in the same forum. However, when examining Machiavelli's various concepts in depth, one can conclude that perhaps his suggested violence and evil is fueled by a moral end of sorts. First and foremost, one must have the understanding that this book is aimed solely at the Prince or Emperor with the express purpose of aiding him in maintaining power. Therefore, it is essential to grasp his concepts of fortune and virtue. These two contrary concepts reflect the manner in which a Prince should govern while minimizing all chance and uncertainty. This kind of governing demands violence to be taken, however

Although written nearly two centuries apart, The Republic by Plato and The Prince by Machiavelli offer important views on political philosophies of rulers. Plato writes of a perfect society where status as ruler is naturally selected through innate abilities. These abilities are used to sustain the society, better it, and preserve it. Machiavelli writes of a society where anyone can be a prince; which for our purposes is a synonym for ruler, if they follow his instructions. These instructions are to ensure a new ruler can take control of new lands and maintain order in them for the sake of conquering and expanding power.

Through his word choice it makes it clear that it is ideally the best choice to be cruel when needed because it is cruel to completely pretend that it is not necessary. The strength, intelligence, and experience clearly show Machiavelli’s ideal to pursue a just society that keeps everyone in check and unified with one another.

Machiavelli has another argument “concerning those who become princes by evil means.”# He believes that cruelty can also be used to benefit the prince but only in modesty. If a prince frequently relies on cruel acts then he will not live in power for long. Proper use of cruelty is only achieved when it is done “out of the need for safety” and when it is done swiftly as to make sure that the act is quickly forgotten, and the people can return to a feeling of safety.# His idea that cruelty should be swift is excellent, this way the citizens will feel more at ease with there prince, because if he were to drag out the atrocities then the people may feel the need to revolt to protect their personal freedoms and civil rights. Many people may think these are evil ideas, but it is completely practical, during Machiavelli’s era (and even today) a prince will always face a moment in this rule that he will have to act in a cruel manner, in no way is this statement cruel it is just a practical way of dealing with a inevitable situation. He also believes that “benefits ought to be given little by little, so that the flavour of them may last longer.”# As much as people may be discusted by this

In the first place, people are not good. They will act only in accordance with whatever will best suit their needs. It is human nature to act first and foremost with one’s self interest in mind regardless of what would provide a benefit to the state. This is why a ruler who acts in a good manner to those he rules and expects to only receive the same in return is only fooling himself while also putting the safety and peace of his state in harm’s way. (Klosko 2012) In the words of Machiavelli, “…for a man who wishes to act entirely up to his professions of virtue soon meets with what destroys him among so much that is evil.” (Machiavelli 2006, Chap XV) In this, Machiavelli reinforces the idea that due to the nature of man, it is important for a ruler to not

Machiavelli with especially clear how little he values Christian morality and principalities. He argued that the realm of idealism would only bring a pretty down for the difference must strive to be practical and that he must learn how to work in a frame of something other than moral. Though the practice of moral principles is useless to a prince, machiavelli did say that it prints should allow themselves to participate in moral goodness but only when those actions do not threaten the security of his state. However Machiavelli makes it clear that being a prince is not a moral occupation and that when the time comes to be in moral a ruler must be able to frame to their people then in moral action was at least necessary if not to be able to deceive them into believing that the action was moral to begin with. An excellent example of a prince craft fully framing a situation to his advantage would be when duke Valentino framed to the people to the actions of the cruel man, Messer Remirro de Orca, he had personally put in power to restore order to a chaos written state we're not the orders of the Duke but rather that the man was working under his own order. This gave the Duke the

Machiavelli’s lowering of politics creates an impact on the way ordinary subjects and citizens behave, a prince, according to Machiavelli, should be loved but most important to him, this sovereign should be feared, citizens need to obey and follow regulations and be faithful to the ruler, they are expected to honor and fight for their sovereign, in general, Machiavelli does not go into so much detail about the duties of the people, but he explains that by teaching the prince how to manage the system, he is working for the sake of people, as Machiavelli explains, a prince should follow two policies in which one of the two explains how a sovereign must keep balance and unchanged laws when conquering new territories, “not to change their laws or impose new taxes” (Machiavelli’s The Prince, page 8) what he means by this is that a sovereign should respect customs and traditions, the way people

Machiavelli was consumed with rulers having and keeping power, by whatever force necessary. This seems to contradict what he is saying about the common good and civic virtues. If the ruler is only interested in power, what care would he have for the people? None, it seems to me. According to Ian Johnston, The Prince was more than just a feeble