Compare and contrast the views on human nature and conflict of any two of the following thinkers: Thucydides, Augustine, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Schmitt, Morgenthau, Kissinger or Mearscheimer. Machiavelli and Thucydides

Conflict in Machiavelli

War…is, as Machiavelli writes in the poem ‘Of the Blessed Spirits’, a ‘pitiable and cruel affliction of miserable mortals’ that displeases God.

War is “the outcome of ambition, …a cruel, inhuman… sufferance, not ‘as an inescapable, grandiose and terrifying force’.”  Machiavelli says that ‘fraud within war is not praiseworthy unless you use it with an enemy who has been fraudulent with you in the conduct of a war.’ And abstinence from war was, in the case of Venice, part of the reason “for its much vaunted social peace.”

As far as national society was concerned, he promoted the good in having rival parties in conflict contained in a society under the condition that they are kept in check by the power of the head of state.

Furthermore in regard of this, in his Discourses, Machiavelli says that this social conflict between state and plebeians is the key proponent of the safeguarding of liberty in the form of laws to suit both nobility and commons:

[Although heterodox]…those conflicts, he remarks, led to laws and statutes in favour of public liberty – that is, laws that satisfied…the people’s and nobles’ interests. From Roman history he derives a general piece of advice for modern republics – namely, that ‘in every republic there are two humours, that of the populace and that of the nobility, and that all legislation favourable to liberty is brought about by the clash between them’.

This mix of power holders and plebeians was not however the only conflict of interest evident in Machiavelli. There are others: of state and law, and of religion.

…ruling and legislating according to justice and reason presuppose the existence of the state as a dominion – that is, a political structure having the power to exercise jurisdiction over a people in a territory…[Machiavelli] applied himself to the study of what comes before legislating and governing, when states are confronted with enemies determined to cause their death…[Therefore] the choice is not between policies that are more or less advantageous, or more or less just, but between the life or death of the state…

The significance here is that elite culture at this time, more specifically at “the beginnings of the second decade of the century”, was verging on the consideration of what we now call ‘raison d'état’ (reason of the state) where the conflict between moral/legal reason and the interest of the state “began to be described not as a divergence between reason and the practice of the state, but as a conflict between moral and legal reason and…‘reason of the state’.”

Lastly we have the conflict between state and religion, and it is of two types:

Machiavelli says of a prince:

        …to those seeing and hearing him, he should appear to be…all religion

And as per quote 5 above:

        …it is not necessary for a prince to possess all of the above qualities, but it is necessary for him to appear to possess them…[but]he should not depart from the good if it is possible to do so, but he should know how to enter into evil when forced by necessity.

The second type is his own relationship to the Church/Papacy as set out in The Prince. He says only a ‘presumptuous and foolhardy man’ would dare discuss ecclesiastical matters, but manages a very cheeky short discourse on them nevertheless.

For Machiavelli, religion is not the be all and end all, but it is somewhat important: he revives the use of pagan ‘Fortuna’ (fortune) as something that is essentially uncontrollable, but may be granted if virtù is present. Yet he uses God throughout The Prince – an apparent anomaly.

Human Nature in Thucydides

Thucydides says, after describing the Corcyra civil war:

…with the ordinary conventions of civilized life thrown into confusion, human nature, always ready to offend even where laws exist showed itself proudly in its true colors, as something incapable of controlling passion, insubordinate to the idea of justice, the enemy to anything superior to itself; for, if it had not been for the pernicious power of envy, men would not have so exalted vengeance above innocence and profit above justice.

We are able to judge for ourselves that ‘human nature’ necessarily depends upon all the forces surrounding it, and this The History agrees. Additionally, Thucydides is thus relating to us how the ‘warring’ part of human nature reveals itself and how it is used to form opinions on its course of action:

But what of Thucydides’ own view of…human character as it affects the course of events? The generalisations in the narrative about human nature or the human condition…imply that although human behaviour changes according to changes in attendant circumstances, the ‘nature of men’ can be made the basis of predictions.

This is a commonly agreed point throughout the text. At the end of Book 1 of the History, Pericles, speaking to the Athenians during Pericles’ Funeral Oration, says this:

“…I am aware that the enthusiastic state of mind in which people are persuaded to enter upon a war is not retained when it comes to action, and that people’s minds are altered by the course of events”

Diodotos, during The Mytilenean Debate, says that it is:

“…impossible…for human nature, when once seriously set upon a certain course, to be prevented from following that course by the force of law or by any other means of intimidation whatever.”

Therefore, in Thucydides, human nature (in the sense which he portrays it) shows itself to be both persuadable and determined. Furthermore, Thucydides believed that human nature was essentially the same across time:

…the events which happened in the past and which (human nature being what it is) will, at some time or other and in much the same ways, be repeated in the future.

Lastly:

“Our responses to Thucydides’ construction of ‘human nature are…political: Thucydides claimed that the horrors of stasis[] would recur ‘while human nature remains the same.’”

Conflict in Thucydides

What mention there is of religion in Thucydides may be used to show how it can be employed in the interests of a state’s actions, and that morality may easily be lost during war.  Also, most importantly, in The Melian Dialogue, the topic of ‘saving Melos from destruction’ is openly discussed and in it Thucydides follows realist lines of thought on power and justice – brought to our attention by the existence of conflict.

The security dilemma, in Thucydides, is more than apparent:

…from the end of the Persian War till the beginning of the Peloponnesian War, though there were some intervals of peace, on the whole these two powers were either fighting with each other or putting down revolts among their allies. They were consequently in a high state of military preparedness and had gained their military experience in the hard school of danger.

Besides the security dilemma in Thucydides, we can also see a clear statement of power, and the way that power is ruled by force:

…the standard of justice depends on the equality of power to compel and that in fact the strong do what they have the power to do and the weak accept what they have to accept.

After this statement of what seems like an instance of ‘honest’ classical raison d'état the Athenians ceaselessly try to reason with the Melians in a bid that Melos would not have to be unnecessarily attacked; they used phrases such as:

        

…it is for the good of our own empire that we are here and it is for the preservation of your city that we shall say what we are going to say.

You, by giving in, would save yourselves from disaster; we, by not destroying you, would be able to profit from you.

…your hatred is evidence of our power.

                

…that by conquering you we shall increase not only the size but the security of our empire.

the Athenians had a clear and precise idea of what they could do, and that they were attempting some sort of moral addition to the events. It is a realistic state of affairs insomuch as the Athenians actually entered into a transparent ‘dialogue’ with the Melians and were presenting things as they really were - a definite attempt to give the Melians an opportunity to save themselves.

Later on in the dialogue, the Melians attempt to appeal to the Athenian sense of justice:

Nevertheless, we trust that the gods will give us fortune as good as yours, because we are standing for what is right against what is wrong…

The furtherance of this argument from the Melians shows how honour between, and trust in allies (as regards the Spartans and Melians) is not always so helpful as it is meant – especially during times of war. They were hoping for the Spartans to come to their aid. The Spartans did indeed try a skirmish on Argos, but only after the Athenians had ‘captured a great quantity of plunder from Spartan territory.’ The Athenians believed in a definite ‘law of nature to rule whatever one can’, and the Melians, to their demise, eventually surrendered unconditionally, victims of their own belief in misguided honour and justice in the theatre of war.

Conclusions

With respect to Human Nature, the two writers agree most strongly on the point that Human Nature is such that Men will turn away from danger if possible. Thus, as Thucydides puts it, you may make assumptions or predictions about the course of human action. How they both tackle human nature is quite similar – using statements on the subject directly, instead of letting us induce what they say from separate instances.

Machiavelli and Thucydides are very similar in their considerations of many points, especially where we look at war. Machiavelli says ‘do not be fraudulent with your enemy in war – unless he has been fraudulent with you’, Thucydides shows the Athenians certainly being more than appealing to a sense of goodwill for the Melians in that dialogue, which is no fraudulent action at all – if anything, it is a genuine appeal for them to consider their future, irrespective of who might be dominant.

The tackling of subjects such as the security dilemma, in both writers, is more apparent from Thucydides’ work – and is more sparsely set out in Machiavelli. By this I mean not that Machiavelli has less of an occurrence of this topic within his writings, but that to find his view of it is harder, as general principles in him are more philosophical than historical – his views have reasons set out in logical order, whereas Thucydides did not write unto this end. He wrote that all may benefit from his teachings – Machiavelli wrote specifically for the benefit of princes.

Bibliography

Ahrensdorf, P. J., The Fear of Death and the Longing for Immortality: Hobbes and Thucydides on Human Nature and The Problem of Anarchy, American Political Science Review, Sept. 2000, v94 i3

Beitz, C. R., Politics and Theory in International Relations, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979

Bondanella, J., C., & Bondanella, P., Niccolò Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003

Bondanella, P., Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005

Boucher, D., & Kelly, P.(ed.s), Political Thinkers, From Socrates to the Present, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003

Gilbert, F., Machiavelli: The Renaissance of the Art of War

Gustafson, L. S. (Ed.), Thucydides Theory of International Relations A Lasting Possession, Louisiana: Louisiana State University Press, 2000

Hornblower, S., Thucydides, London: Gerald Duckworth & Co. Ltd., 2000

Morgenthau, H., J., Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace, Fifth Edition, Revised, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978

Sabine, G. H., A History of Political Theory, Third Edition, New York:  Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1961

Viroli, M., Machiavelli, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998

Warner, R., Thucydides, History of The Peloponnesian War, London: Penguin Books, 1972

 

Online Bibliography

Hilary Zmora, Love of Country and love of Party: Patriotism and Human Nature in Machiavelli, in History of Political Thought, Volume 25, Number 3, 2004, pp. 424-445(22). http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/imp/hpt/2004/00000025/00000003/art00003, Tuesday, October 25, 2005.

Sugarman, H., Thucydides’s Unceasing Grim View of Human Nature:

Passion, Chaos, Injustice, and Envy, 2001, http://www.reed.edu/~sugarmas/Thucydides.pdf#search='thucydides%20on%20human%20nature',

Tuesday, October 25, 2005.

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