Machiavelli maintained that the distinction between good and evil originated with the coming together of men in a political association.⁶⁷ Politics is the necessary foundation of morality.⁶⁸ If there is a tragic dimension to the relationship between the two, it is to be found precisely here: On the one hand, politics without moral sanction is liable to deteriorate into a destructive tool for the advancement of private interests that have nothing to do with the general good. Politics of this sort will create precisely the kind of situation that it was meant to avoid. On the other hand, giving the demands of ethics pride of place endangers the political order that safeguards morality.⁶⁹

The real Machiavellian distinction, then, is not between politics and morality, but rather between a moral politics—that is, a politics that is subservient to moral codes and is therefore itself a threat to the very conditions which allow morality to exist—and political morality, which is to say, a morality that makes room for Machiavellian virtù. Machiavelli is not an enemy of morality as such. More than once he expresses his wish that men behave according to conventional moral norms; that is, that they be honest and decent.⁷⁰ Yet he is undoubtedly an enemy of those ethical principles that are likely to thwart fundamental political objectives, and in so doing to destroy the essential basis for moral, civilized behavior. It is a deeply human paradox that politics has often to behave as if the morality that depends on it is neither a relevant consideration nor a significant goal.

For this reason, political morality of the type envisaged by Machiavelli is not a stable system. There are no universally applicable rules of conduct. And if one has to judge anew in every situation whether it is necessary to violate the conventional moral laws, then moral behavior is, in effect, a matter of expedience. Moreover, the nature of politics makes these situations fluid, and the dilemmas they present even more complicated: The instability and uncertainty that are characteristic of politics renders behavior that does not conform to a recognized moral code nothing unusual; it is frequently not easy to draw a clear distinction between “ordinary” political situations—in which people behave in an acceptable and predictable fashion—and “extraordinary” political situations that necessitate unusual measures. To Machiavelli, the life of a political community is indeed in a permanent state of crisis.⁷¹ The relevant distinction is not between security and danger, but between a present danger and a latent one. There will therefore always be a need to resort to “immoral” means in order to survive. It thus follows that the threat to ethics posed by politics is a permanent feature of human life. It is a rare thing when a society achieves extended periods of security and stability; then it may transpire that morality will take over. Yet, as Machiavelli points out, history shows that such situations are not just exceptional, but rife with dangers of their own.⁷²

Machiavelli’s conclusion is clear enough, and is presented in moral terms: In a dangerous world filled with people keen to exploit the weakness of others, it is impossible to base morality on morality. In such a world, conscience invites abuse just as weakness invites aggression.⁷³ Without the willingness to use what conventional morality would consider wrongful means, it is impossible to guarantee its survival. “I would like to find one who will teach them the way to go to the devil,” Machiavelli wrote on his mission to recruit a preacher for the Florentines, “For I believe that the following would be the true way to go to paradise: Learn the way to hell in order to steer clear of it.”⁷⁴

Evil can never be eliminated, so one must know it in order to deal with it properly. Machiavelli does not—indeed cannot—draw a clear line between the moral and the immoral.⁷⁵ He is well aware of the peril inherent in the fact that in the life of a state it is impossible to achieve good results without recourse to “evil” means. As he explained in the Discourses,a state whose political spirit has wilted, whose institutions have ossified, can be saved only by extraordinary and cruel means. It is difficult, however, to find a good man willing to use such means. Rather, it takes an evil man to succeed in that enterprise, but then it is difficult to believe that such a man, after he has imposed order, will suddenly begin working toward the common good.⁷⁶

If Machiavelli’s is a morality without a stable foundation, that is because it is grounded in politics itself, which is in constant flux.⁷⁷ It is a morality without definite rules, without a transcendent moral underpinning; it has neither an Archimedean point nor an unbending framework. Our only guide is politics, and the imitation of the lion and the fox.

Hillay Zmora is a senior lecturer in history at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, and a Contributing Editor of Azure. He is the editor of a new Hebrew translation of Machiavelli’s The Prince (Shalem Press and Dvir, 2003).

 

1. Niccolò Machiavelli, Florentine Histories,trans. Laura F. Brandel and Harvey C. Mansfield (Princeton: Princeton, 1988), III 13, p. 123.

2. For a comprehensive interpretation of this passage see Gennaro Sasso, Niccolò Machiavelli (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1993), vol. ii, pp. 312-330. [Italian]

3. Benedetto Croce, Politics and Morals,trans. Salvatore J. Castiglione (New York: Philosophical Library, 1945), pp. 59-60. See also Norberto Bobbio, “Ethics and Politics,”in Praise of Meekness: Essays on Ethics and Politics, trans. Teresa Chataway (Cambridge: Polity, 2000), pp. 39-71.

4. Isaiah Berlin, “The Originality of Machiavelli,” in Against the Current: Essays in the History of Ideas, ed. Henry Hardy (London: Hogarth, 1979), p. 45.

5. In this context it is worth noting that Leo Strauss defended the popular conception. See Leo Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1958), p. 10.

6. Brian Richardson, “‘The Prince’ and Its Early Italian Readers,” in Niccolò Machiavelli’s ‘The Prince’: New Interdisciplinary Essays, ed. Martin Coyle (Manchester: Manchester, 1995), p. 35.

7. William Shakespeare, Henry VI,Part 3, Act III, Scene 2.

8. Norman Cohn, Warrant for Genocide: The Myth of the Jewish World-Conspiracy and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (London: Eyre and Spottiswood, 1967), p. 74. See also Daniel A. Doneson’s review of The Dialogue in Hell later in this issue.

9. Mark Hulliung, Citizen Machiavelli (Princeton: Princeton, 1983), pp. ix-x, 219-256.

10. See Emanuele Cutinelli-Rèndina, Church and Religion in Machiavelli (Pisa: Instituti Editoriali e Poligrafici Internazionali, 1998), especially pp. 183-184, 201-252. [Italian] See also Irving Kristol, “Machiavelli and the Profanation of Politics,” in Neoconservatism: The Autobiography of an Idea (New York: Free Press, 1995), pp. 151-164.

11. Niccolò Machiavelli, Discourses II 2.

12. Berlin, “Originality of Machiavelli,” pp. 25-79.

13. Berlin, “Originality of Machiavelli,” pp. 52-53.

14. See Vittorio Hösle, Morals and Politics: Foundations of the Political Ethic for the Twenty-First Century (Munich: C.H. Beck, 1997), p. 41. [German] See also Paul A. Rahe, Republics Ancient and Modern: Classical Republicanism and the American Revolution (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1992), pp. 17-54.

15. Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, trans. Benjamin Jowett (New York: Prometheus, 1998), p. 129.

16. Berlin, “Originality of Machiavelli,” p. 45.

17. A similar position is taken by Felix Gilbert, Machiavelli and Guicciardini: Politics and History in Sixteenth-Century Florence (Princeton: Princeton, 1965), p. 197.

18. For criticism of Berlin, see Hulliung, Citizen Machiavelli, pp. 8, 250-254. For another angle, see Sasso, Niccolò Machiavelli, vol. i, pp. 464-465, 473-477.

19. According to Hulliung, Machiavelli’s hope was that the Christian worldview would be crushed and replaced by another.Hulliung, Citizen Machiavelli, p. 245.

20. Compare with Sasso, Niccolò Machiavelli, vol. i, pp. 475-476. See also George H.R. Parkinson, “Ethics and Politics in Machiavelli,” Philosophical Quarterly 5:18 (1955), pp. 37-44.

21.On Machiavelli’s anti-Aristotelian approach, see below. Compare with Rahe, Republics Ancient and Modern, pp. 262-263; Harvey C. Mansfield, Machiavelli’s Virtue (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1996), passim; M. Fischer, “Machiavelli’s Political Psychology,” Review of Politics 59 (1997), p. 798.

22. For precisely this reason it is also difficult to agree with Berlin, “Originality of Machiavelli,” p. 45, that Machiavelli was one of the Renaissance humanists, looking for a “middle way” and trying to integrate Christianity with classical culture. On this, see Hulliung, Citizen Machiavelli.

23. Quentin Skinner, Machiavelli (New York: Hill and Wang, 1981), p. 36.

24. See, for example, Cicero, De Officiis,III.iii. 19-22, III.xviii. 75-xxii. 87; Cicero, On Duties, trans. Walter Miller (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard, 1997).

25. Felix Gilbert, “The Humanist Concept of the Prince and the ‘Prince’of Machiavelli,” Journal of Modern History 11 (1939), pp. 449-483. Reprinted in Felix Gilbert, History: Choice and Commitment (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard, 1977), p. 97.

26. Allan H. Gilbert, Machiavelli’s ‘Prince’ and Its Forerunners: ‘The Prince’ as a Typical Book de Regimine Principum (Durham, N.C.: Duke, 1938), pp. 126-127.

27. Gilbert, “Humanist Concept of the Prince,” pp. 99-103; Skinner, Machiavelli, pp. 42-43.

28. Lorenzo Valla (1407-1457), for example, one of the most illustrious of the Italian humanists, stressed that the objective of Christian virtue was not itself or tangible reward; it was a step towards the next world: J. Kraye, “Moral Philosophy,” in The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy,eds.Charles B. Schmitt and Quentin Skinner (Cambridge: Cambridge, 1988), pp. 303-386.

29. Giorgio Inglese, “The Prince (De principatibus),” in Italian Literature from Its Origins to 1500, ed. Alberto Asor Rosa (Turin: Einaudi, 1992), vol. i, p. 927. [Italian]

30. Machiavelli, The Prince, trans. Harvey C. Mansfield (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1998), p. 65.

31. Machiavelli, The Prince, p. 65.

32. See Machiavelli, Discourses I 27.

33. See Machiavelli, The Prince, ch. 21, for a condemnation of King Ferdinand of Aragon’s “pious cruelty” coupled with praise for his political effectiveness.

34. See Machiavelli, Discourses III 37.

35. Gilbert, Machiavelli’s ‘Prince,’ p. 119.

36. Machiavelli, The Prince, p. 69.

37. Machiavelli, The Prince, p. 69.

38. Cicero, De Officiis,I.xi. 34, I.xiii. 41; Hulliung, Citizen Machiavelli, pp. 212-214; Inglese, “Il Principe,” p. 928; Gennaro Sasso, “Centaurs, Lions, and Foxes: On Some Sources of the Eighteenth Chapter of ‘The Prince,’” in Machiavelli, the Ancients and Other Essays (Milano: Riccardo Ricciardi, 1987-1997), vol. iv, pp. 153-188 [Italian]; E. Raimondi, “The Politician and the Centaur,” in Machiavelli and the Discourse of Literature,eds. Albert R. Ascoli and Victoria Kahn (Ithaca: Cornell, 1993), pp. 145-60. See also Machiavelli, Discourses II 13.

39. Machiavelli, Discourses I 52.

40. Compare with what Leo Strauss said concerning the United States: “Machiavelli would argue that America owes her greatness not only to her habitual adherence to the principles of freedom and justice, but also to her occasional deviation from them. He would not hesitate to suggest a mischievous interpretation of the Louisiana Purchase, and of the fate of the Red Indians. He would conclude that facts of this kind are an additional proof for his contention that there cannot be a great and glorious society without the equivalent of the murder of Remus by his brother Romulus.” Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli, p. 14. See also Mansfield, Machiavelli’s Virtue, pp. 181-182.

41. Machiavelli, The Prince, p. 61.

42. Machiavelli, The Prince, p. 70.

43. Machiavelli, The Prince, p. 70.

44. In chapter 18, Machiavelli assumes that a balance can be struck between the need to break the moral code and the need to appear moral. Michel de Montaigne was critical of Machiavelli on this score, arguing that the profit from deceit is short-lived and that it does not pay in the long term. Michel de Montaigne, The Complete Works of Montaigne: Essays, Travel Journal, Letters,trans. Donald M. Frame (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1958), p. 492. Machiavelli himself was aware of the problem, as seen in Machiavelli to Francesco Vettori, April 16, 1514: Niccolò Machiavelli, Opere,ed. C. Vivanti (Turin: Einaudi, 1997-1999), vol. ii, p. 318. [Italian]

45. In his comedies, which are about private life, people do not behave differently in any essential way from how they do in public. Physical force is not used within the family, but deceit is a central element of the plot. See M. Fleischer, “Trust and Deceit in Machiavelli’s Comedies,” Journal of the History of Ideas 27:3 (1966), pp. 365-380.

46. The title of chapter 15 of The Prince (which opens with a resounding statement of political realism) is testimony of this: “Of Those Things for Which Men and Especially Princes Are Praised or Blamed.”

47. The reference is to Ferdinand II, king of Aragon.

48. Machiavelli, The Prince, p. 71.

49. Machiavelli, The Prince, p. 70.

50. Compare with Baruch Spinoza, “Theological-Political Treatise,” in Spinoza: Complete Works, ed. Michael L. Morgan, trans. Samuel Shirley (Indianapolis: Hacket, 2002), p. 533: “And even if piety and religion are taken into account, we shall still see that no one who holds the reins of government can, without doing wrong, abide by his promises to the harm of his country. For he cannot keep whatever promise he sees likely to be detrimental to his country without violating his pledge to his subjects, a pledge by which he is most firmly bound, and whose fulfillment usually involves the most solemn promises.”

51. Machiavelli, The Prince, p. 69.

52. Machiavelli, The Prince, p. 69.

53. Machiavelli, The Prince, p. 61.

54. See Sasso, Niccolò Machiavelli, vol. i, pp. 448, 460.

55. Machiavelli, The Prince, p. 66.

56. For a discussion of Machiavelli’s anthropological pessimism, see Stelio Zeppi, “The Anthropological Pessimism in Machiavelli Before the ‘Discourses,’” Political Philosophy 6 (1992), pp. 193-242. [Italian] Another interpretation, according to which Machiavelli did not consider the source of evil to be in human nature, can be found in Sasso, Niccolò Machiavelli, vol. i, pp. 455-468. See also Emanuele Cutinelli-Rèndina, Introduction to Machiavelli (Rome: Laterza, 1999), p. 68. [Italian]

57. Machiavelli, Discourses I 37. Compare with Discourses III 21. See also Machiavelli in a letter to Giovan Batista Soderini, September 13-21, 1506.

58. Paul A. Rahe, “Situating Machiavelli,” in Renaissance Civic Humanism: Reappraisals and Reflections,ed. James Hankins (Cambridge: Cambridge, 2000), pp. 270-309; Fischer, “Machiavelli’s Political Psychology,” pp. 808-810; Rahe, Republics Ancient and Modern, pp. 28-54, 261-267; Sebastian de Grazia, Machiavelli in Hell (Princeton: Princeton, 1989), pp. 269-270, 296. See also Sheldon S. Wolin, Politics and Vision: Continuity and Innovation in Western Political Thought (Boston: Little, Brown, 1960), pp. 226-227.

59. Niccolò Machiavelli, “Speech to a Magistrate,” in Machiavelli, Opere, vol. i, pp. 713-715 [Italian].Compare withJ.A. Parel, “Machiavelli’s Notions of Justice: Text and Analysis,” Political Theory 18:4 (1990), pp. 528-544. See also Maciavelli Discourses II Pr.

60. Machiavelli, On Ambition, lines 97-99; Discourses II 19. See also Discourses II Pr., III 16. Compare Fischer, “Machiavelli’s Political Psychology,” p. 827.

61. Machiavelli, Discourses I 2, 4, 6.

62. Machiavelli, Discourses I 1; “Words to say to her over the provision of the money, after some poetry and apologies,” Opere, vol. i, p. 13: “Without strength, the cities do not keep alive, but come to their end.” [Italian].

63. Machiavelli, Florentine Histories, v 1. See also VII 28; The Ass V 63; Discourses I 6, 18, III 16. Compare Fischer, “Machiavelli’s Political Psychology,” pp. 821-822. Compare Churchill: “As in the Roman state, when there are no more worlds to conquer and no rivals to destroy, nations exchange the desire for power for the love of art, and so by a gradual, yet continual, enervation and decline turn from the vigorous beauties of the nude to the more subtle allurements of the draped, and then sink to actual eroticism and ultimate decay.” Quoted by Paul A. Rahe, “The River War: Nature’s Provision, Man’s Desire to Prevail, and the Prospects for Peace,” in Churchill as Peacemaker, ed. James W. Muller (Cambridge: Cambridge, 1997), p. 91.

64. Machiavelli, Discourses III 1.

65. A distinction must be made between preserving the state and the regime on the one hand, and the fatherland on the other, the latter being, for Machiavelli, the supreme value. See Machiavelli, Discourses III 41.

66. Machiavelli, The Prince, p. 71.

67. Machiavelli, Discourses I 2.

68. Compare Herfried Münkler, Machiavelli: The Rise of Modern Political Thought Since the Crisis of the Florentine Republic (Frankfurt: Europaische Verlagsanstalt-Fischer, 1982), p. 266. [German]

69. Wolin, Politics and Vision, p. 226.

70. Machiavelli, The Prince, p. 62: “I know that everyone will confess that it would be a very praiseworthy thing to find in a prince all of the above-mentioned qualities that are held good”; pp. 68-69: “How praiseworthy it is for a prince to keep his faith, and to live with honesty and not by astuteness, everyone understands”.

71. Machiavelli, The Prince, p. 91: “Nor should any state ever believe that it can always adopt safe courses; on the contrary, it should think it has to take them all as doubtful. For in the order of things it is found that one never seeks to avoid one inconvenience without running into another.”

72. Rahe, “Situating Machiavelli,” p. 305; Fischer, “Machiavelli’s Political Psychology,” pp. 808-810; Rahe, Republics Ancient and Modern, pp. 261-267, 542-548; de Grazia, Machiavelli in Hell, pp. 269-271, 296. See also Wolin, Politics and Vision, pp. 226-227.

73. Machiavelli, Discourses II 14. See also Machiavelli’s warning to the government of Florence in “Words to Be Spoken on the Law for Appropriating Money, After Giving a Little Introduction and Excuse,” in Machiavelli: The Chief Works and Others, ed. Allan Gilbert (Durham, N.C.: Duke, 1989), vol. iii, p. 1442: “Among private men laws, writings and agreements make them keep their word; but among princes nothing but arms makes them keep it.”

74. Machiavelli to Francesco Guicciardini, May 17, 1521 in Machiavelli and His Friends: Their Personal Correspondence, trans. and eds. James B. Atkinson and David Sices (De Kalb, Ill.: Northern Illinois University, 1996), p. 336.

75. Machiavelli, Discourses III 37; The Ass V, lines 103-105.

76. Machiavelli, Discourses I 18.

77. Machiavelli, Discourses I 6; II Pr.