Niccolo Machiavelli was an Italian political philosopher. He was born in 1469 in Florence, Italy. The removal of the Medici family from power made Machiavelli reflect on the political future of Italy and drove him to write The Prince. The Prince was written by Machiavelli as a way to return the favor of Lorenzo de’ Medici who was the governor of Florence (Machiavelli, N. 1998). Machiavelli dedicated The Prince to Medici who did not return the favors Machiavelli was seeking. Machiavelli went on to write other political books like Discourses, The Art of War and The Mandrake.
What makes The Prince revolutionary was the way in which it sought to separate politics from ethics. Before Machiavelli, political laws were linked to high moral laws and authority. Machiavelli thought that higher moral laws should be separated from politics. His main idea was that practicality was more significant than idealism. The Prince was designed to political problems that were bedeviling Italy at the time. It was and is still a practical guide to action. In a quest to provide practical advice, Machiavelli noted that looking to religion for solutions on matters of political and economic value was not a noble thing for a ruler (Strauss, L. 1957). In the event that there is a disaster whether it be famine or a plague, it was upon the ruler to find practical solutions within the means of human capacity as compared to just waiting for divine intervention.
One of the elements that make The Prince practical is how Machiavelli relies on simple language to convey his message. He avoids the distortions of religious teachings or other murky philosophical musings. It is argued that Machiavelli’s aim in The Prince simply to convey his patriotism and win the favor of the rulers. His expulsion of morality in his advice to the prince has been interpreted as a way of supporting despotism. One of the most misinterpreted part of Machiavelli’s advice is his argument that “it is much safer to be feared than loved because love is preserved by the link of obligation which, owing to the baseness of men, is broken at every opportunity for their advantage; but fear preserves you by a dread of punishment which never fails.” (Machiavelli, N. 1998, 54). This is a simplification of Machiavelli’s argument. He argued that a prince must be virtuous and that means he should be able to create laws and institutions that manage to create lasting order in contentious political spaces. Leo Strauss observed that if one ones to understand the practicality of The Prince, they have to know that Machiavelli wanted to put across the point that “humanism is not enough; since man must understand himself in the light of the whole or of the origin of the whole which is not human” (1957, 34). Strauss’ contention is that it is impossible for humans to triumph in practical matters when they bases their actions on impractical grounds such as religion. It is ideas like the ones advanced by Machiavelli in The Prince that influenced Western Europe’s idea of separating the church from the state. As Strauss further contends, “the primary purpose of The Prince is then not to give counsel to a contemporary Italian prince, but to set forth a wholly new teaching regarding wholly new princes in wholly new states or a shocking new teaching about a shocking phenomena” (34). The practical guide is targeted towards future princes.
In conclusion, Machiavelli’s goal in writing The Prince was to provide a practical guide to politicians. It is advice that is geared towards the removal of unnecessary religious based governing decisions. Machiavelli was aware that his writings would receive some cold reception from the ruling elites of Italy but he was confident that his advice would hold in the future.
References
Berlin, I. 1972. The originality of Machiavelli. G. C. Sansoni editore.
Machiavelli, Niccolo. 1998. The Prince. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Strauss, L. 1957. Machiavelli’s intention: The Prince. The American Political Science Review, 51
(1), pp. 11-30.
