Where is the Common Good in Machiavellis Prince?

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Where is the ‘Common Good’ in Machiavelli’s Prince?

In the Discourses, on Livy Machiavelli argues that the purpose of politics is to promote a ‘common good’.  This essay shall show how this statement relates to the ideas presented in The Prince.

Niccolò Machiavelli was born in Florence in 1469 and died there in 1527.  This was a very turbulent time in Italy.  No central government existed; however, each district had its own leader.  Some of these leaders were oligarchic, others dictatorial.  In addition, France and Spain were making hegemonic attacks upon Italy, against which she was unable to defend herself due to the internal political instability.  For a time, Machiavelli worked for the Borgia family in Rome as political advisor.  The head of which was the Pope, Alexander Borgia.  His eldest son, Cesare Borgia, was a heartless rebel and his daughter had reputedly poisoned several husbands in order to secure more wealth for her family.  Machiavelli saw that although all around him anarchy was the order of the day, the Borgia family managed to hold on to power very well.  It was on their practices that he based his ironically-titled, famous work, The Prince, which he wrote to ingratiate himself with the ruling Medici family.  It is for this reason that the work differs so sharply from the Discourses, in which it is believed he expressed his personally held views when he cites the best political system to be a republic.

The Prince was written at the end of 1513 and the Discourses on Livy were written over a longer period from approximately 1515 to 1518.  Both pieces were published posthumously in 1531.  But while The Prince focussed on attributes a statesman should employ in order to retain power; the Discourses was written for the citizen who wished to live a life of liberty free from interference from the state.  Machiavelli advocated the idea of a republic where checks and balances were put into the system; he particularly liked the ‘tribunes of the plebs’ (lower classes) in Rome who kept a check on the grandi (upper classes).

Machiavelli was a realist.  He wanted to write,

something useful for anyone who understands it’ for ‘there is such a gap between how one lives and how one ought to live that anyone who abandons what is done for what ought to be done learns his ruin rather than his preservation: for a man who wishes to profess goodness at all times will come to ruin among so many who are not good. Hence it is necessary for a prince who wishes to maintain his position to learn how not to be good, and to use this knowledge or not to use it according to necessity.’ 

How then can this art of maintaining power by cunning and ruthlessness; Machiavelli’s idea of virtù, be reconciled with promoting the common good?  Crick and Walker perceive this common good as nothing more than the aggregate good of the population; that there is no direct philosophical discussion in the Discourses on what this common good actually is.  Fontana’s view is that, ‘Machiavelli attempts to construct, or to reconstruct, a politics directed toward… the common good. According to Viroli, for Machiavelli ‘politics pertains only to the preservation of a community of men grounded on justice and the common good.’’  This is what Rousseau (1712-1778) was later to call the ‘general will’. 

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In the broadest sense, the maintenance of power by one Sovereign (be that an individual or a group) ensures order in society and prevents a state of anarchy from occurring.  This idea is referred to as ‘the State of Nature’ by Hobbes (1588-1679) in his work Leviathan.  Although written some time later, Hobbes argued that obedience to the Sovereign should be man’s highest moral purpose, as in his mythical State of Nature the life of man would be ‘solitary, poore, nasty, brutish and short’.  Hobbes’ State of Nature was akin to that of a Civil War of which the ...

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