Machiavelli v. Hobbes Essays - Niccol Machiavelli, Calvin And Hobbes

Machiavelli v. Hobbes: Of Princes, Prudence, and Populist Parallels Or Moral Elasticity and the Limitation of the Infinite Though it may be considered obvious that both Niccolo Machiavelli and Thomas Hobbes are true giants in the field of political philosophy, what is not so obvious is the interchangeability of their ideas across time. The historical context of the lives of each of these men contributes heavily to their individual content and modes of writing, and in that sense it is easy to make claims regarding their differences; And yet the contexts of both works are perhaps more similar than differing. In fact, both The Prince and Leviathan could easily be considered to each contain a mutual causality-to be written in ?response? to one other. In this paper I will demonstrate both: that the most successful state operated by a Machiavellian prince would in fact be Leviathan, and that the only leader capable of controlling Leviathan effectively would indeed be a Machiavellian prince. This concept is based primarily on three core arguments: that the natural state of man is the same for both Hobbes and Machiavelli, that this state results in the historically accepted or traditional interpretations of morality becoming infinitely flexible, and that only one who wholly embraces these truths will prevail. While Hobbes uses this moral elasticity to help define the state of human nature, Machiavelli uses it to justify administrative objectives. Viewed singularly each work stands on its own merits, one, a tract on the art of leadership, the other, a treatise on the science of government. Merged together they can become a formidably realistic political concept-an unbreakable state with an unbreakable leader. When Machiavelli wrote The Prince in 1513, the Italian peninsula was the whore of Europe. Her legs spread wide, she was violently and repeatedly entered by France, Spain, and the Holy Roman Empire. Her compensation paid to Swiss and German mercenaries, her selfish children could not rise above their petty squabbles and lustful desires for power to unite and protect her. Amidst the pusillanimous politics of popes and princes, it is no small wonder that Machiavelli observes that ?one can generally say this about men: that they are ungrateful, fickle, simulators and deceivers, avoiders of danger, greedy for gain# A cynical view of human nature to be sure, yet Machiavelli had a purpose in mind when penning this work. Though that purpose has been debated# surely we can trust in this statement reflecting his true mind. One thing Machiavelli teaches us in The Prince it is that politics is perception, so perhaps we should not be so trusting. What a man says in public and in private could be two completely different things could it not? Fortunately, Machiavelli left a copious amount of personal correspondence. In a private letter to Soderini#, Machiavelli writes, ?I believe that as Nature has given every man a different face, so she also has given each a different character and imagination. From this it follows that each man governs himself according to his particular character and imagination.?# Each man governs himself according to his character and imagination. This statement has profound implications when interpreted correctly. First, we must assume that his use of the word ?governs? is not in a sense of state sovereignty, but refers rather to the methods and motivations of human action, both the liberties one has the potential to take with himself and others, and the specific restraints that one places on those liberties. The adjective ?particular? conveys a sense of specific uniqueness (like a face) in both character and imagination. ?Character? is referring to a personal code of ethics, what a man deems good or evil. Imagination in this context relates mostly to desire; For what is desire, but the imagining of that which is currently lacking? So this statement could be rewritten as: All men choose their own actions, and these chosen actions are dependent upon who they are and what they want. Every operant in this statement is both differing and infinite: action, identity, and desire. Machiavelli is portraying a world where anyone at anytime can do anything, motivated solely by desire, and constrained only by identity. Combined with his previous assertion that men are ?avoiders of