This understanding of Machiavelli’s aims, according to which he, on the one hand, saw Christian morality as ill-suited to this world, but did not disassociate morality from politics, on the other, was pivotal to Isaiah Berlin’s seminal 1972 article on “The Originality of Machiavelli.”¹² According to Berlin, the claim that Machiavelli divorced ethics from politics is based on the false premise that ethics is the realm of absolute, ultimate values, whereas politics is the technical art of adapting means to ends.¹³ But Berlin maintains that there exists another kind of ethics, embodied in the polis or Greek city-state, of which Aristotle provides the most comprehensive and authoritative account. Berlin explains that in the polis, politics is not an instrument for attaining a different, higher end, but a supreme value in itself. It defines man as a rational being, and leads to a fuller and happier life. Accordingly, man and politics—that is, the private good and the public good—are in essence meant for each other.¹⁴ “We [Athenians] alone,” declared Pericles in a famous speech, “regard a man who takes no interest in public affairs, not as a harmless, but as a useless character.”¹⁵ The polis is the source of man’s identity, and it is from this political commonwealth that he derives his ultimate values. In this political tradition, there is no room for the disassociation of the spiritual from the mundane, let alone a distinction between politics and morality.

If we accept Berlin’s argument that Machiavelli considers the existence of another, pre-Christian ethics to be self-evident, then the distinction he makes is not between politics and ethics, but between two different moral approaches: Pagan morality, which exalts the values of “courage, vigor, fortitude in adversity, public achievement, order, discipline, happiness, strength, justice, above all the assertion of one’s proper claims”; and Christian morality, which idealizes “charity, mercy, sacrifice, love of God, forgiveness of enemies, contempt for the goods of this world, faith in the life hereafter, belief in the salvation of the individual soul as being of incomparable value….”¹⁶ In Berlin’s reading, Machiavelli thinks that those who adopt Christian ethics are unfit for the construction of a society that is best suited to human beings. Machiavelli, in this reading, does not judge one way of life to be intrinsically more desirable than another, but rather insists only that the two kinds of ethics cannot coexist. A choice must be made between them.¹⁷

But while Berlin goes some distance toward identifying the source of tension in Machiavelli’s political thought, he fails to follow the long trail of Machiavelli’s argument to its end, and as a result fails to appreciate the depths of Machiavelli’s originality.¹⁸ Machiavelli is not satisfied with a “liberal” presentation of two equally good but contradictory ethics, each of which is legitimate in its own right. Neither is he satisfied with demonstrating the incompatibility of Christian ethics with the real world. Machiavelli is in fact engaged in a bitter critique of Christianity, which he holds solely responsible for the world’s maladies in his time.¹⁹

 

A more accurate assessment of Machiavelli’s assault on both the Christian and classical value systems centers on his concept of virtù, which translates, albeit poorly, as “virtue.” An examination of what exactly he meant by this term takes us into the heart of his approach to morality and politics.

A fundamental concept of Western culture, virtue is a complex notion comprising layers of meaning that have accumulated and intermingled over many centuries. According to classical Roman thought, virtue is a synthesis of wisdom, justice, courage, and temperance. Over time, other traits considered particularly desirable in a leader also came to be associated with the concept, including magnanimity, generosity, and honesty. In his De Officiis, which enjoyed canonical status during Machiavelli’s time, Cicero deemed honesty the only means of achieving the higher objectives of honor and glory. ²³ The central argument of De Officiis is that there is no clash between moral rectitude and self-interest, for one who follows the principles of virtue will end up being successful as well.²⁴

Christianity inherited from the Romans the doctrine of four cardinal virtues, but their assimilation into Christianity was neither easy nor without significant modification. The Christian notion of virtue was aimed at the attainment of happiness in the next world, not glory in this one. Even the ruler, despite his responsibility in this world, was not exempt. This is most evident in the “mirrors of princes” (specula principis), advice books for rulers commonplace in Machiavelli’s day. They called, as a matter of course, upon rulers to eschew earthly power, riches, and honor, and instead to adopt those attributes best suited to functioning as intermediary between God and man.²⁵ Goodness had now won its independence from expediency; there was no longer a need to value it in worldly currency.

Renaissance humanists, however, reclaimed some of virtù’s original, Roman meanings. Once again, we see evidence of this evolution most clearly in the “mirrors of princes” genre, whose emphasis on virtue became even stronger over time, and shifted back to the world of man: Unlike the rulers of the Middle Ages, who cultivated virtue as a means of ensuring their place in heaven, Renaissance rulers were counseled to guarantee themselves glory on earth as well. The prince was accordingly required to display “secular” virtues. A dimension of realism was thus added to the recommendations of the specula principis in the form of an acknowledgment that rulers could not always refrain from taking measures generally considered to be manifestations of vice.²⁶ Nonetheless, such measures were considered a deviation from the norm, and should thus be confined to exceptional circumstances. Despite all the intellectual changes that occurred during the Renaissance, then, the image of the ruler cast by virtù remained essentially idealistic; he was still chained to conventional morality, as binding on him as on his subjects.²⁷ The humanists’ admiration for the texts they inherited from ancient Rome did not make them pagans; they remained good Christians.²⁸

Machiavelli, however, rejected Christian humanism outright, and The Prince—which ironically purports to belong to the genre of “mirrors of princes”—is largely dedicated to a swinging attack on that tradition. Here it would be useful to address some of the more prominent aspects of Machiavelli’s rhetorical strategy in his most famous work.

In the notorious chapters 15-18, Machiavelli discusses the virtues a prince ought to have, and systematically refutes the main tenets held by authors of the specula principis.²⁹ They had high regard for liberality, for example, as a necessary virtue for a ruler; Machiavelli, however, considered it a vice: The ruler, once he has spent all his money, will be forced to increase the burden of taxation on the people, which will in turn engender hatred and lead to his downfall. They claimed, furthermore, that the virtue of mercy was preferable to heavy-handed policy, severity, and cruelty; Machiavelli insists that “each prince should desire to be held merciful and not cruel; nonetheless he should take care not to use this mercy badly.”³⁰

He takes as his example Duke Cesare Borgia, who was a skillful user of cruelty; and his brutal deeds achieved results that are difficult to write off as immoral. To demonstrate this, Machiavelli draws a comparison between Borgia’s policies and those of the Florentines: “Borgia was held to be cruel; nonetheless his cruelty restored the Romagna, united it, and reduced it to peace and to faith.”³¹ Anxious not to appear inhumane, the Florentines did nothing to check the violence between opposing factions in Pistoia, a city then under their rule. A quick body count, says Machiavelli, reveals that Borgia was in fact more “merciful” than the Florentines: Borgia’s cruelty preserved the social order, whereas the Florentines’ mercy brought about its collapse.

Machiavelli’s point is not that cruelty is invariably a good thing, but that it is impossible to determine a priori whether it is good or evil. Of course, mindless cruelty is bad; but wickedness can be “honorable.”³² Machiavelli accepts the ordinary senses of moral terms and employs conventional value judgments. He does not sanitize violence and deceit: Cruel acts are for him cruel acts whatever the circumstances or benefits.³³ But this is precisely what enables him to question their meaning as they enter the political field of vision. He reveals the interdependence of good and evil. “Good” and “evil” exist, Machiavelli in effect says, but they are not absolute categories, and in fact they are frequently bound up together.³⁴