one can say this con general of men: they are ungrateful, disloyal, insincere and deceitful, timid of danger and avid of profit.... Love is verso bond of obligation which these miserable creatures break whenever it suits them puro do so; but fear holds them fast by a dread of punishment that never passes. (Prince CW 62; translation revised)
As a 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 to submit puro that law will be either verso fear of the 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 per deference puro the superior power of the state. It is power which sopra 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 preciso resist the demands of the state or if I am willing onesto accept the consequences of the state's superiority of coercive force. Machiavelli's argument mediante The Prince is designed to demonstrate that politics can only coherently be defined con terms of the supremacy of coercive power; authority as per right sicuro command has per niente independent condizione. He substantiates this assertion by reference onesto 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 to speak of any claim sicuro authority and the right preciso command which is detached from the possession of superior political power. The ruler who lives by his rights ombra will surely wither and die by those same rights, because durante the rough-and-tumble of political conflict those who prefer power onesto authority are more likely sicuro 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 https://datingranking.net/it/hookup-review/ obedience are varied, and depend heavily upon the foresight that the prince exercises. Hence, the successful ruler needs special pratica.
3. Power, Pregio, and Fortune
Machiavelli presents puro his readers verso vision of political rule allegedly purged of extraneous moralizing influences and fully aware of the foundations of politics in the effective exercise of power. The term that best captures Machiavelli's vision of the requirements of power politics is castita. 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 to the lealta of the prince. Sopra particular, Machiavelli employs the concept of virtu onesto refer esatto the range of personal qualities that the prince will find it necessary onesto acquire con order sicuro “maintain his state” and sicuro “achieve great things”, the two canone markers of power for him. This makes it brutally clear there can be giammai equivalence between the conventional virtues and Machiavellian bonta. Machiavelli's sense of what it is sicuro be a person of virtu 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 breviligne of varying her/his conduct from good preciso evil and back again “as fortune and circumstances dictate” (Prince CW 66; see Nederman and Bogiaris 2018).