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Niccolò Machiavelli was a political thinker, philosopher and diplomat in Renaissance Italy. His most famous text, The Prince, was controversial; leading to him being labelled an immoralist and a teacher of evil.
Machiavelli’s ideologies held in The Prince were an outlandish step in political thought; disregarding a large proportion of the beliefs that were held in the texts of antiquity which had seen a revival in the Renaissance period. In The Prince, Machiavelli defends and promotes the use of violence for a leader, shown by the fate of Remirro de Orca. [1] In this extract, for the benefit of Cesare Borgia’s tenure, Remirro is horrifically executed; humiliated as his corpse is laid to rest in the centre of town, split in half. This episode encapsulates the rhetoric of Machiavelli; that the Prince must do what is necessary to consolidate his power. In doing this, Machiavelli forgoes concepts that were a feature of his contemporaries’ work, for example the concept of natural law. Natural law dictates that all people have inherent rights, given unto them not by a political body but by “God, nature or reason.” [2]
Machiavelli goes against this concept in both The Prince and Discourses of Livy; where in the latter he simply states, “All men are bad.” [3] This attitude is also shared in The Prince as he labels men “fickle” as well as “covetous to gain” [4] thus showing his belief that men lack the inherited moral authority that is natural law. Rather, that there are cowardly, power hungry men in the world devoid of such moral code.
This abandonment of moral ideals has led to the debate of whether Machiavelli was a teacher of wickedness, pushed by Leo Strauss in his work: Thoughts on Machiavelli. Strauss argues that Machiavelli had become a “teacher of wickedness”[5] thrusting a concept of wicked morality onto the West, departing from the arguments for natural law.
To identify whether Machiavelli was a teacher of wickedness, a definition of wickedness is required. The word wicked first arose in the 13th century and has since been defined innumerable times. For the purposes of this essay, the definition held in the Oxford Dictionary is what I will be measuring Machiavelli against, although the validity of this definition is questionable, it is concise with two key elements, making it easier to delve into.
Wickedness is defined as the quality of being evil or morally wrong [6]. Therefore, to establish if Machiavelli was a teacher of wickedness, his teachings must either be evil in nature or morally wrong. So, to begin with, the moral aspect of Machiavelli’s teachings.
Morality is concerned with the principles of right and wrong behaviour,[7]. In The Prince, Machiavelli ignores the concept of normative morality, that every individual is underpinned by the same set of moral rules.
Instead, Machiavelli views the Prince as having a higher morality. This is the concept that there is a higher morality for rulers, as they take on different responsibilities than those ruled. They must also take actions which the ruled must avoid, for example murder. This belief, pushed by German scholar Friedrich Meinecke, suggests that although there is a moral code as a leader, it is just different to that of the ordinary man. This proves that Machiavelli does not teach immoral lessons, but instead is teaching moral lessons designed solely for a ruler, meaning he is not a teacher of wickedness.
Machiavelli “did not deny the validity of Christian morality, and he did not pretend that a crime required by political necessity was any less a crime. Rather he discovered . . . that this morality simply did not hold in political affairs and that any policy based on the assumption that it did would end in disaster.” [8] This shows that Machiavelli was not an immoralist as he does not deny the morals’ existence, simply that the ruler does not follow the same ones. This therefore shows that he is not a teacher of wickedness as he is not advocating wicked acts from the majority; he accepts that a citizen murdering another is immoral. Instead Machiavelli is teaching a ruler how a ruler acts, and as they have a different set of values, an act considered wicked by standard moral values is not considered as such by the values of the Prince. If it is fair to separate the moral codes of different groups of society, it can be argued that Machiavelli is not a teacher of wickedness, but a teacher of a different set of morals not accessible to the majority of the public.
The validity of this separation must be questioned as it is a significant leap, to say different groups should have different sets of moral code. We can find justification in this concept in the world of the philosopher via Plato’s writing in the Republic. [9] Here Plato describes people as being split into three groups (Artisans, Auxiliaries & Philosopher Kings) based essentially on the metals found in their soul. Each group has their own tasks and therefore must have different restrictions to their morality. A Philosopher King must act in a different way to the Artisan for them to be different. The Artisan must accept the life of sacrifice and arduous work for the sake of the Kallipolis just as the Philosopher King must use a different set of morals to go about their tasks.
Additionally, Nietzsche also concurs with this concept, stating that each person has a different set of virtues and that a standardised set of rules and principles would be to eliminate each individual skillset.[10] His belief is that to fully fulfil human excellence is to allow each to become what they should, meaning separate groups of people would have different sets of morals. This therefore supports Machiavelli’s claim that different groups can have different sets of moral values, providing a precedent and in turn justifying this separation.
We also find justification in real world examples. Political leaders often have two immoral decisions in front of them where there is not a clear moral option if we use the standard view of morality. For example, choosing between who should die and who should live after deciphering the enigma code. Therefore, for rulers there must be a different view on morality. This justifies the view held by Machiavelli, showing that he is not a teacher of wickedness but of the reality of ruling.
The second part of wickedness is evil. For this section, I am going to weigh up whether the violence in The Prince is justified or if it is an evil teaching that is promoting the abuse of those ruled. In the context of politics, violence is normal. This is seen throughout history. From the story of the foundation of Rome where Remus is killed by his brother [11] to the change in rule in England in 1066 due to the violent death of Harold Godwinson [12] violence is a key part of leadership change. This is important to note as The Prince is a text on how to achieve a unified Italy, meaning Machiavelli is teaching for a significant shift in power in Italy. 'It is the introduction of such new methods of fighting that enhances the reputation of a new ruler, establishing him as a great leader.” [13] It is evident that, Machiavelli is being a realist, recognising that to see effective change, death and violence are not only necessary but desired thus to ensure the legitimacy of the new regime. This aspect of the work must consequently not be wicked teachings, as Machiavelli is teaching what happens in reality.
However, the depiction of violence is particularly gruesome, which could be seen as going to unnecessary levels of gore. Machiavelli justifies this by showing the result of a lack of violence within a regime. He depicts how Savonarola relied on the good nature of the men14] when he took power in Florence and that, to begin with, it worked. Yet, when people changed their opinion of him, he was catapulted into prison and subsequently hanged in May 1498 alongside two friars. Posthumously, their bodies were burnt to a crisp and the ashes tossed into the Arno river. This context gives insight into the violence of the time period, thus showing why Machiavelli placed such importance on violence to repress the public mob who could turn on the ruler at any point if they did not fear him. This is why it was better to be feared than loved. The Prince has to control all that he can, and he can control how much he is feared, but he cannot control the opinion of men who will turn at the first sight of difficulty. His teaching in this regard is therefore not wicked, but in line with the violence that the 16th century could offer.
To conclude, it is evident that Niccolò Machiavelli is not a teacher of wickedness; holding the view that the intention is to show that the Prince has a higher level of morality. This means that that things which would be deemed as wicked for a citizen is not for a ruler as they are held to a different standard. It is a teaching of how to rule; as a ruler you must bypass what is seen as morally correct to succeed. It is a concept offered by a man dealing with the realities of the situation he found himself in.
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