the prince Essay -- essays research papers

Niccolo MachiavelliThe PrinceIn The Prince, Niccolo Machiavelli approaches, the topic of political morality and human constitution in a rattling different way than thinkers preceding him. His debate on political morality and human character is made very clear in the early part of his book. For him politics is war, no look which way you look at it. You must, therefore, know that there are ii means of fighting one according to the laws, the other with force the graduation exercise way is proper to man, the second to beasts but because the first, in galore(postnominal) cases is non sufficient , it becomes necessary to have recourse to the second. (Machiavelli, p.351-352). He clearly points kayoed towards mans poor behavior in politics and accepts it as a fact, saying that law is a type of combat. He does non look up to matinee idol or any other godlike countenance for the political morality, like Augustine in his book the city of god or try and look at things the way they s hould have been in the ideal state, but instead probes into the individual. He aims straight at the public of politics.Machiavelli In his vision, to guide the actions of men in general, turns to the actions of the strong prince. Machiavellis high political morality is to pursue the means to gain and hold power. He is of the view that the ruling prince should be of the sole authority and to gain this authority the prince has to command a certain fear from his citizens.Machiavelli believes that good laws follow of course from a good military machine. His famous statement that the presence of sound military forces indicates the presence of sound laws describes the relationship between developing states and war in The Prince. Machiavelli reverses the conventional understanding of war as a necessary, but not definitive, element of the development of states, and instead asserts that successful war is the very ass upon which all states are built. Much of The Prince is devoted to descr ibing exactly what it means to accept a good war how to effectively fortify a city, how to plow subjects in newly acquired territories, and how to prevent domestic insurrection that would distract from a successful war. But Machiavellis description of war encompasses more than yet the direct use of military force, it comprises international diplo... ...oodwill is never absolute. While Machiavelli backs up his political arguments with concrete historical evidence, his statements about society and human nature sometimes have the character of assumptions rather than observations.He concludes that with so many wretched men around virtue is hard to create in oneself. "The fact is that a man who wants to act virtuously in all way necessarily comes to grief among so many who are not virtuous." Overall, Machiavelli is very pessimistic about the abilities of the people. He feels that after examining people through history, his conclusions of wretched men is correct.The Prince i s an extremely practical book because it does not evidence the reader what the ideal prince is, but it explains to the reader what actions and qualities have enabled a prince to silk hat rule. Machiavelli, however, was a realist. He was concerned with how things were in reality, not how things could be if the orbit was perfect. His reasoning was right for his time because his time was a time of patronize war. Today that advice would not work, for now we are a world intimately often ruled by laws not war.