WWWBoard/LT

Renaissance Forum   Humanities & Classics 1002

[ HOME] [ POST ] [ SEARCH ] [ HELP ]

In (The Prince), Machiavelli claims that a prince sometimes has to avoid virtue in order to keep power. He writes:

"The fact is that a man who wants to act virtously in every way necessarily comes to greif among so many who are not virtous. Therefore if a prince wants to maintain his rule he must learn how not to be virtous, and to make use of this or not according to need." (Prince 48)

The example he uses to demonstrate his point is the idea of generosity. He claims that a prince who is generous tends to over tax his subjects to make way for his generosity. Since the taxes make the people angry, the prince loses power do to his generosity. Machiavelli then makes the claim that a prince should avoid the virtue of generosity, and be a miser in order to secure power(Prince 49-50).

****Machiavelli does not understand the idea of virtue ethics. The idea of virtue being applied to ethics is credited to Aristotle in (Nicomachean Ethics).Aristotle claims that virtue is the "Golden Mean" between two extremes.

For example, look at the virtue of courage. A person could be a RASH solider and run into battle. That solider would die quickly and be considered a fool. A person could be a COWARDLY soldier. That solider would flee the battle before it even started and be considered timid. The virtous soldier would be COURAGOUS in battle. He would run into battle when it was intelligent to do so, and would retreat when it was called for. Courage is the mean between Rashness and Cowardice.

When Machiavelli talks about the Generous Prince he talks about a prince who is generous to the extreme. That prince was not showing virtue. If he were showing virtue he would have been generous enough to satisfiy foreign neighbors, yet not too generous to over tax his citzens. By being virtous, the prince would avoid both foreign and domestic problems. If the Prince were to take Machiavelli's advice and act miserly, he might offend his foriegn neighbors and get into a war. Since virtue is the "Golden Mean," I don't see how tha could adversly affect the prince.

Follow Ups:

POST FOLLOWUP

NAME:
E-MAIL:
SUBJECT:

RESPONSE:
: In (The Prince), Machiavelli claims that a prince sometimes has to avoid virtue in order to keep power. He writes: : "The fact is that a man who wants to act virtously in every way necessarily comes to greif among so many who are not virtous. Therefore if a prince wants to maintain his rule he must learn how not to be virtous, and to make use of this or not according to need." (Prince 48) : The example he uses to demonstrate his point is the idea of generosity. He claims that a prince who is generous tends to over tax his subjects to make way for his generosity. Since the taxes make the people angry, the prince loses power do to his generosity. Machiavelli then makes the claim that a prince should avoid the virtue of generosity, and be a miser in order to secure power(Prince 49-50). : : ****Machiavelli does not understand the idea of virtue ethics. The idea of virtue being applied to ethics is credited to Aristotle in (Nicomachean Ethics).Aristotle claims that virtue is the "Golden Mean" between two extremes. : For example, look at the virtue of courage. A person could be a RASH solider and run into battle. That solider would die quickly and be considered a fool. A person could be a COWARDLY soldier. That solider would flee the battle before it even started and be considered timid. The virtous soldier would be COURAGOUS in battle. He would run into battle when it was intelligent to do so, and would retreat when it was called for. Courage is the mean between Rashness and Cowardice. : When Machiavelli talks about the Generous Prince he talks about a prince who is generous to the extreme. That prince was not showing virtue. If he were showing virtue he would have been generous enough to satisfiy foreign neighbors, yet not too generous to over tax his citzens. By being virtous, the prince would avoid both foreign and domestic problems. If the Prince were to take Machiavelli's advice and act miserly, he might offend his foriegn neighbors and get into a war. Since virtue is the "Golden Mean," I don't see how tha could adversly affect the prince. :

LINK URL:
LINK TITLE:
IMAGE URL:

---

[ HOME] [ POST ] [ SEARCH ] [ HELP ]

---

[ FOLLOW UPS ] [ POST FOLLOWUP ]

---

 

v 1.1 is made possbile by:

Original WWWBoard design and code by Matt Wright.  See the original at Matt's Script Acrhive. WWWBoard v2.0a © 1998 Matt Wright. WWWBoard/LT Upgrade by Lion Templin of Leonine Computational Resources.  © 1998 Lion Templin. Tom Bacig, University of Minnesota, Duluth.  © 1998 Tom Bacig.