By on 30.04.2023

And of course, power aureola cannot obligate one, inasmuch as obligation assumes that one cannot meaningfully do otherwise

one can say this per general of men: they are ungrateful, disloyal, insincere and deceitful, timid of danger and avid of profit…. Love is per bond of obligation which these miserable creatures break whenever it suits them esatto do so; but fear holds them fast by verso dread of punishment that never passes. (Prince CW 62; translation revised)

As per result, Machiavelli cannot really be said to have a theory of obligation separate from the imposition of power; people obey only because they fear the consequences of not doing so, whether the loss of life or of privileges.

If I think that I should not obey per particular law, what eventually leads me preciso submit esatto that law will be either per fear of the mylol power of the state or the actual exercise of that power

Concomitantly, a Machiavellian perspective directly attacks the notion of any grounding for authority independent of the sheer possession of power. For Machiavelli, people are compelled esatto obey purely in deference to the superior power of the state. It is power which in the final instance is necessary for the enforcement of conflicting views of what I ought preciso do; I can only choose not preciso obey if I possess the power esatto resist the demands of the state or if I am willing esatto accept the consequences of the state’s superiority of coercive force. Machiavelli’s argument durante The Prince is designed esatto demonstrate that politics can only coherently be defined con terms of the supremacy of coercive power; authority as verso right sicuro command has mai independent condizione. He substantiates this assertion by reference preciso the observable realities of political affairs and public life as well as by arguments revealing the self-interested nature of all human conduct. For Machiavelli it is meaningless and futile puro speak of any claim to authority and the right to command which is detached from the possession of superior political power. The ruler who lives by his rights macchia will surely wither and die by those same rights, because con the rough-and-tumble of political conflict those who prefer power to authority are more likely puro succeed. Without exception the authority of states and their laws will never be acknowledged when they are not supported by verso esibizione of power which renders obedience inescapable. The methods for achieving obedience are varied, and depend heavily upon the foresight that the prince exercises. Hence, the successful ruler needs special pratica.

3. Power, Castita, and Fortune

Machiavelli presents sicuro his readers verso vision of political rule allegedly purged of extraneous moralizing influences and fully aware of the foundations of politics per the effective exercise of power. The term that best captures Machiavelli’s vision of the requirements of power politics is pregio. While the Italian word would normally be translated into English as “virtue”, and would ordinarily convey the conventional connotation of moral goodness, Machiavelli obviously means something very different when he refers esatto the pregio of the prince. In particular, Machiavelli employs the concept of onesta to refer puro the range of personal qualities that the prince will find it necessary puro acquire con order puro “maintain his state” and to “achieve great things”, the two standard markers of power for him. This makes it brutally clear there can be no equivalence between the conventional virtues and Machiavellian lealta. Machiavelli’s sense of what it is puro be a person of castita can thus be summarized by his recommendation that the prince above all else must possess a “flexible disposition”. That ruler is best suited for office, on Machiavelli’s account, who is courtaud of varying her/his conduct from good puro evil and back again “as fortune and circumstances dictate” (Prince CW 66; see Nederman and Bogiaris 2018).

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