Short Analysis of the Prince

Our good Italian advisor tells us that he is not describing the world, human nature, politics, and princely behavior (or ‘governance’) not as they ought to be, but the way that they are.   This is the is/ought distinction he draws.   He considers himself (his thinking) absolutely realistic and truthful and honest.   He bases this in his theory of human nature and in his observation of history and current society. Write an essay in which you lay out Machiavelli’s views in The Prince selections, and then go on to respond to this in the last half or one-third of your essay.   Do you agree or disagree (and with what parts of his text?) and why or why not? Why are his views significant, bold, brilliant, deplorable, illogical, or so on? You do not have to try and summarize or even respond to all of his ideas.   Pick a big idea of his and stick to that one.


The famous Italian historian, politician, diplomat, philosopher, humanist and

writer, Niccolò Machiavelli wrote his best-know book, “The Prince” (II Principe).

In this book, he stated the qualities that a proper leader should have.


Machiavelli had at least twenty nicknames in the past four hundreds years, such

as devil, supporter of dictator power, evil tutor, and the “Brutal Machiavelli” by

Shakespeare. These names are all because of his support for the dictatorship,

negligence of moral and advocate of violence in “The Prince”. He believed that a

leader should learn from lions and foxes: as cunning as foxes and as ferocity as

lions.


Machiavelli’s ruling approach can be described as play instrumental reason to

extreme. He would achieve his goals regardless everything. He was purely

utilitarian and utility is the only motivation for him. He totally ignored the moral

values. As long as it can with governance, by all means, even as if intrigue,

treachery, extortion, intrigues, were perfectly justified.


“The Prince” proposed a set of political trickery and rule...