De Nicola Family Lecture: Machiavelli on Necessary Evil - Harvey Mansfield

again for those of you don't remember I'm Carter Sneed the director of the center for ethics and culture and tonight is our as we always do conclude we will conclude the fall conference with the de Nicola family lecture and we would like to remember the de Nicola family in their extraordinary generosity Toni Christie Kaylee Ted and CJ wonderful family who has made this evening possible as well as many other aspects of the work of the center for ethics and culture it's a great and extraordinary honor for me to introduce our final guests of the conference Harvey Mansfield is the William R Kenan jr. professor of government at Harvard University where he has been a member of the faculty since 1962 professor Mansfield first came to Harvard in 1949 after receiving his bachelor's degree in 1953 he spent a year in England on a Fulbright fellowship and then served in the United States Army for two years in the US and in France and on this Veterans Day weekend on behalf of the University of Notre Dame and the center for ethics and culture we would like to thank professor Mansfield as well as all veterans here tonight and elsewhere for their service to our country [Applause] the name harvey Mansfield is synonymous with the very best in political philosophy from his first work statesmanship and party government published in 1965 he has made the study of parties and partisanship central to his work he is the leading scholar of the theory of modern executive power which was the theme of his 1989 work taming the prince and many articles since with his late wife Elba Winthrop he published a definitive translation of Alexis de Tocqueville as democracy in America but he is perhaps best known for his scholarship on niccolò machiavelli the theme that brings him to the center for ethics and culture tonight he's published translation of Machiavelli's Prince discourses on Livy and Florentine histories as well as two book length studies of Machiavelli and dozens of articles in 2004 he accepted the National Humanities medal from President George W Bush and in 2007 he delivered the Jefferson lecture at the National Endowment for the Humanities this year is he is returning to the subject of his first book as he finishes work on the state of our political parties Harvey has never stopped teaching in the classroom in which he is a devoted and beloved teacher like almost every year since 1962 he is teaching the history of ancient medieval and modern philosophy to students this fall and spring he has supervised generations of graduate students as well and has left his mark his effectual truth through the education of scholars and statesmen educating the prince was the title of his first Festschrift he has taught would-be statesmen why they must care for the soul and would be philosophers what they must learn from the city above all he has provided a lifelong example of uniting seriousness about politics with a pursuit of the truth accompanied by his famous gentleman leanness and manliness please join me in welcoming an extraordinary man and an extraordinary scholar please welcome harvey mansfield [Applause] Thank You cards sometimes the frame of the picture is more beautiful than the picture itself so I hope I can live up to what you have said of me the phrase necessary evil sometimes used loosely simply to mean a choice between two good things a lecture and a football game for example and I'm hoping that Notre Dame has better luck than Harvard did today in my lifetime barely in my lifetime a necessary evil was for Britain and the United States to ally with Stalin to defeat Hitler that alliance made it necessary to pretend that Stalin was not evil it's easy to think that your ally is your friend you have to tolerate his evil it seems impossible to oppose every evil at once and necessary evil is the Communist excuse for evil alasdair macintyre is talk earlier at this conference said that evil as opposed to bad is intentional but evil that is imposed on you is not intentional you have no choice but then what do we say of a man who generalizes the necessary evil intentionally and profoundly morally politically and philosophically in his books to declare emphatically that necessity should replace the good as the standard of human behavior not the necessities necessity of evil but instead he says the necessity of being not good this man made himself the prince or the captain of an army a master conspirator who laid the foundation 500 years ago for the politics ethics and philosophy that today we call modernity I have somehow been awarded the Harding shot at this conference on good and evil and now I'm using it to explain the thought of a man who invited the nickname of old Nick the devil's advocate par excellence so what I say about necessity won't exhaust the subject in Machiavellian but I'll discuss a few familiar passages in the prince and the discourses on Livy in order to outline the complexity of that notion his appeal to necessity is designed overall to simplify not just our politics and morality but our thinking in general necessity will give us access to the truth without having to sort out dialectical disputes or to consult high-minded rationalizations or judgments and the policies of princes will have a clearer standard than ever before by which to see the world and act in it through the foggy confusion fostered by religion and philosophy yet in fact word not quite invented but prepared by Machiavelli necessity is not so simple as it first appears I begin from the last sentence of Machiavelli's clarion call to modern morality and modern politics taken from the first paragraph in Chapter 15 of the prince in which he says how and why he departs from the orders of others and here's the last sentence in that first paragraph hence it is necessary for a prince if he wants to maintain himself to learn to be able not to be good it's not enough just not to be good you have to learn and use this and not use it according to necessity so he's used necessity it's necessary to choose according to necessity in this sentence he identifies his departure as moving to a new standard of necessity and he makes it emphatically twice and in two different meanings the first is what one is compelled to do it is necessary and the second as the standard for choice according to necessity when not compelled by necessity it appears one must choose it this double meaning is the first item of complexity in necessity that necessity is not always compelling and does not in every case do away with choice Machiavelli gives a reason for adopting the focus of necessity in the exercise of one's choices quote a man who wants to make a profession of good in all regards must come to ruin among so many who were not good that's from this same fifteenth chapter of the Prince a man one knows not only a prince the scope of this statement is not confined to politics indeed the focus may be beyond politics at politics as well as or more than politics for he says that his intent is quote to write something useful to whoever understands it this person could be a political scientist or a philosopher like himself and he immediately mentions quote the many who have imagined Republic's and principalities that have never been seen or known to exist in truth these are the ones who's ordering orders he departs from one thinks of the orders in Plato's Republic if a king would rule a republic in cinnaminson Eric Augustine's City of God if God could be a prince the advice he is about to give applies to philosophers and ordinary citizens as well as to Prince's Machiavelli will divulge a universal standard of behavior a new one quote a profession of good is what is the standard Machiavelli departs from it represents a choice made regardless of necessity even in defiance of necessity as when one acts and defend and defends one's action by professing that it is good regardless of the sacrifice of one's own well-being and the risk of coming to ruin for let us not suppose that the reason Machiavelli cos for following necessity that it will bring you to ruin if you don't is brand new and has never occurred before to humans facing difficult choices making a sacrifice taking a risk is what is known as nobility though Machiavelli does not mention it here Plato and Aristotle seem clearly to be Machiavelli's adversaries particularly Aristotle who begins his politics by declaring that political science must speak nobly in order to be true Machiavelli to put it mildly is no friend of the gentlemen the noble and the good on which poly Aristotle's politics rests and to whom it is addressed also included in the category of those nobly resisting necessity might be Christian martyrs though it may well be true that noble examples are rare they are impressive and are able to set the standard by which the gentlemen and ordinary people to judge others and themselves despite its focus on the noble few this standard has made itself universal encompassing all humans by taking advantage of human admiration for the best Machiavelli departs from this standard and creates a new one to replace it now in the old standard what is the reason for making a profession of good rather than merely doing good a noble deed might seem to shine by itself just as doing a good deed is doing it in order to be good not for some cause or incentive outside its goodness in speaking of a profession of good however Machiavelli implies that the profession is needed goodness does not stand on its own unaided it needs the support of a profession that makes it possible or reasonable to attempt if you work good what is the guarantee that others particularly the many who are not good will make it reasonable to be good will the wicked not gladly proceed to take advantage of you you must therefore presuppose a good society one not in the hands of Rascals and rogues that will make it possible for you to be good without coming to ruin and the good society must be compatible with human nature which too must be good and then the goodness of human nature must be compatible with or comforted by the goodness of non-human nature the whole for what can human goodness accomplish on its own so to speak without nature's cooperation nature must contribute an environment in which good men can thrive powerful inclinations toward good in the human soul and irregularity of motions and seasons permitting good men to live in confidence understanding rather than fear for survival in blind ignorance so Machiavelli rightly extends the required reason behind doing good to a profession that is an explanation of the contextual support and that profession of the good must be quote in all regards the reassurance that morality needs is a profession of the whole clearly a philosophical task if Machiavelli is going to dispute the profession of good that philosophers especially Plato and Aristotle the classic ones have provided he will have to cover the same ground in order to show that he is right and they are wrong he will have to make a profession of necessity in all regards counter to the profession of good in all regards one may quickly compare Aristotle the professor of good with Machiavelli the professor of necessity where as artists Aristotle starts his Nicomachean Nimet Nicomachean ethics from the existence and practice of moral people implying that morality exists is viable and a going concern that one merely has to examine rather than create Machiavelli begins this critical passage with a critique of morality denying that it is viable and asserting that it will bring you to ruin to ruin rather than begin from the assumption that moral people exists he tells you that you will suffer for being quote among so many who are not good Machiavelli did not live in a secular age like ours in which it is assumed that ruin in this world will not will not be redeemed in the next world in his circumstance and with his ever-present awareness his statement of sure ruin implies a flat denial of redemption rather than mere Duras disregard of that possibility together with Christianity he disagrees with Aristotle that morality exists and adopts the Christian view of the sinfulness of the world but he seems to foreclose the redemption in the next world promised by Christianity the Redeemer he promises in the prince is the worldly one for Italy in the last chapter in chapter 26 of the prince in the prince and the discourses on Livy Machiavelli speaks of quote the world rather than of quote this world which implies another world beyond this one necessity then has the character of a presumption Machiavellian making his departure fears he may be held presumptuous and in fact he has a presumption the presumption of necessity as opposed to the rival presumption of the good as a presumption necessity is not a determination that in each case one who chose chooses the good will inevitably come to ruin with luck the good man might be safe from the many who are not good and prosperous to boot but one cannot count on such luck for the good man it isn't a strong sense fitting convey a name that he come to ruin for holding the wrong presumption he deserves it Machiavelli does not expel fortune but he also does not suffer it prudence for him is not to take account of risk when necessary but rather to do so in principle always avoiding evil by presuming that it will be encountered thus this passage anticipates his nearly explicit statement that one must do evil to the other fellow before he does it to you you may not succeed to be sure but the contingency of things may go against you because the in contingency may go against you perhaps the good person will not be punished for his goodness but with the correct presumption you have a better chance the presumption of necessity is supported by the impending presence of ruin as the profession of good is not who wants to come to ruin when confronting the stark face of necessity almost everyone is easily persuaded or since persuasion may not be necessary easily move towards safety regardless of imaginary or imaginative persuasions to do otherwise if necessity is not apparent it can be made so and often with actions better than words it's being a parent or easy to make a parent is part of the simplicity that gives it power and makes its truth quote effectual necessity has the spontaneity of animal nature behind it whereas the good needs to be thought about and deliberated so the presumption of necessity is less presumptuous than the presumption of good one could ask what the presumption of good would provide if it were not for necessity enlisted on the side of the good one could also ask what the presumption of necessity would do without the presumption that necessity brings good Machiavelli takes pains to show that those who presume on the power of good actually tried to endow the good with necessity when they promise preservation with a profession of good the higher presumption of good he points out depends on the lower presumption of necessity the higher good depends on the lower good it might seem that Machiavelli does not and does not have to deny the higher good the good life beyond the necessity of preserving one's life he merely shows that the good life depends on being alive but this means that the good life or a life devoted tuned to nobility not possible among so many who are not good for to stay alive one must learn how not to be good and use this knowledge according to necessity nobility is a delusion that depends on a life beyond life that does not exist it is an imaginary form of self-preservation Machiavelli will teach those who desire nobility how truly to attain it and assure it here speaking so emphatically of necessity Machiavelli takes a long step in the direction of scientific determinism but he does not go the whole way by retaining the need for good fortune he holds to human freedom and virtue in the management of fortune Machiavellian prudence will be rewarded typically but not necessarily in every case what will not be rewarded is the prudence that serves only the good and that cooperates with nobility and welcomes the help of prayer this is the prudence of Aristotle which he distinguishes from cunning in the service of evil but for Machiavelli prudence seems to be the same as shrewdness astute sir not distinct from it as with Aristotle reason and practice and so also in theory is not on the side of goodness Machiavelli shows his awareness of a need to go beyond morality in order to question it by speaking of a new sort of truth that will settle the dispute over morality the effectual truth that eat effectually that phrase he uses just once in all of his writings including his letters all of his writings and his legations just once in this first paragraph in the fifteenth chapter of the prince it's also a phrase very Tophet wolly which occurs only this once in the whole Italian Renaissance and since I'm speaking to a learning audience I would be grateful if anyone could give me a source for this phrase effectual truth not effective but effectual the Italian scholars of various editions of the prints pass over this phrase though it is amazing that it should have occurred only this once they pass over it because it has no source that makes it more interesting not less the effectual truth is opposed to an imagined truth stated in professions of goodness and it is shown in effects for example Machiavelli shows near the beginning of the discourses on Livy that the disputes between the nobles and the plebs in the Roman Republic should not be condemned as did writers under the influence of classical political science including Livy had done this criticism was based on an imagined possible not possible harmony between the two typical repartees in every Republic but Machiavelli contends that in their effects the disputes were the cause of Rome's becoming strong and free the effects were the outcome in practice as we would now say in effect or in fact of conflicting opinions that might be resolved on the level of imagined theory but in the world as it is would be resolved only as they made men act in this case the superiority or nobility of the nobles was not deferred to by the plebs but understood as oppressive and opposed and the result was a contentious Republic that had the power to expand and the prudence to satisfy or at least to appease the people in the prince might give others discussion of morality after announcing the idea of effectual truth explains that the various virtues called qualities in chapter 15 take effect in the ways in which they are held to neutral held to be not as they are for example liberality may be presumed to be the prudent action of a noble Prince benefiting its people his people but it ends up in effect as illustrating the maxim that a prince should be measly with his gifts and make them with other people's money not his own liberality liberality is what it will be held to be its effectual truth not what it is imagined to be this sort of truth will later be known as empirical because it is based on fact to the ancients of fact was that ot to which one could point but that comes and goes and is not truth which is permanent factor ergo and Greek were deeds as opposed to speeches not truth as opposed to imagination as for Machiavelli Machiavelli's profession of necessity develops a context in which necessity will be understood and appreciated rather than ignored set aside or suppressed as happens with professions of good this context is the world which he constantly invokes together with the worldly things cozy del mundo which he says he studied and had experience out of which it is composed the world as we've seen rejects the invisible next world of Christian belief and theology together with the intelligible world of classical rationalism the world is visible and it can be known regardless of any invisible world of platonic ideas hovering above it or air settles essences making it intelligible the world consists of simple and mixed body the simple bodies of nature and the mixed bodies of nature and human forming there are no natural forms to be seen only forms of human conception to be quote introduced the prudence of a prince can put his form on the material of his principality in the political tea that Machiavelli offers to describe human knowing a prince knows what he is doing when he is introducing his form which is making his presence that is his truth effectual knowledge of the world has not distinct from acting upon it for the world's necessities when understood opened the way for the princes intervention into it the neutrality of worldly things which are permanent though not intelligible permits and promotes the enterprises of princes and captain's the world is a hole on its own as the world of since it is not a hole with parts as it is as it is composed of in unintel to unintelligible things that behave according to necessity necessity is divided into necessities especially in regard to humans where each human being has his own necessity for we which he must exercise his own arms we are all set against one another in a matter later to be formulated by Thomas Hobbes his state of nature but there are also groupings of men very relevant to politics particularly the division of humor easily the word humor between those who desire to command other men and those who desire not to be commanded the humor is a medical term that refers to exhalation z' arising from the body not the soul hence indicating a typical necessity rather than a typical choice such our necessities apparent in behave to be compared with rulers and ruled in Aristotle's political science in which those qualities can be found within the soul and begin from it one sees it for Machiavelli rule is necessarily repressive and hence necessarily obnoxious to the ruled the two necessities are contrary and they get and given the necessity of rule or of commanding they cannot be made harmonious in a whole a regime in which a common purpose or way of life can be fostered and pursued conflict between the two parties of nobles and plebs in the Roman Republic made it free as well as strong it was indeed quote the first cause of keeping it free freedom can be found in both the princely and the popular humor as the freedom to commit to command for Prince's ultimately to be alone to be a city solo to be alone at the top and as the freedom to oppose or resist being commanded for the people each humour each aspect of freedom is felt as a necessity that determines behavior rather than a moral choice that guides it thus a free way of life v-very Liebherr oasis is one of disunion the roman republic according to Machiavelli had an accidental rather than a planned or founded perfection that was gained through the experience and adjustment of conflict not from the brain of a founder or perhaps Machiavelli's brainy read ascription of Livy's history constitutes a founding of freedom presented as the two fundamental operational necessities working against each other to produce and an unintended common good the quote the cause of disunion in republics is usually idleness and peace the cause of Union fear and war human freedom is presented as against other humans and opposed to fortune nature or the door the divine human assertiveness and making reasonable claims is presented as irrational human obstinacy the nobility of freedom is reduced to its raw materials deprived of its aspiration and robbed of its tragedy what is necessary for the princely humor is anathema to the popular one but as always for Machiavelli there is a quote remedy it is possible for prudent Prince's to make the people believe that they're being commanded by princes is actually obeying themselves government by others can be made to appear as government by oneself hence free when it is represented as in direct government that merely executes the will of others and does not impose its own will the model for indirect government is the church which claims merely to execute God's will and asks for nothing more than willing obedience to God thus the contrary necessities of princes and people's can be overcome by prudent use of fraud for fraud is a necessary feature of all government with fraud a regime can be seen to be can seem to be a harmonious whole despite its necessary conflicts with religious fraud the whole of things can be induced to make sense to all to those who know as well as to those who believe this is the effectual truth of the whole according to the classical and Christian traditions for in the classical tradition the familiar visible world holds problems that need clarification and thought and in the Christian dispensation the earthly world is racked with sin both try to make greater sense of the visible through the invisible this general attempt Machiavelli rejects when he speaks of hidden causes it is a forces within the world as appreciated by quote knowers of the world yet Machiavelli does not dispense with the word or even the notion of sin on the contrary he appropriates it from Christianity and uses it to his purpose in the prince sin is used twice in an allusion to Savonarola who was unnamed but said to be speaking the truth when he said that our sins were the cause of Italy's being invaded by a foreign power Machiavelli corrects him declaring that the sins were not the ones he described but quote the ones I have told of and these were the sins of princes having thus assumed responsibility from a heretic for renewing redeeming the sins of Italy he then in the discourses uses sin thirteen times in order to supply his understanding of the word to replace the authoritative Christian one first he generalizes the rebellious preaching of Savonarola as a deed of citizens who quote sin against the free state then excuses Prince's who are prompted to sin out of ingratitude as done of out of necessity then denounces the sin of not punishing ambitious captains and identify such sins as errors if people sin it is only because they've been made to do so by princes in some it is the people who believe in sin as an offense to God an invisible explanation of a visible deed this is their necessity which princes must understand and respect to do so to punish or correct as errors the sins that regard the state when will need the help of a prudent individual ooh no Prudente this would be Machiavelli himself speaking in the last chapter of the discourses he understands that necessity cannot do away with the moral explanation as sin that moral people necessarily hold to necessity for Machiavelli is expressed in the world of sense perhaps it is not necessarily expressed there but Machiavelli inflates necessity necessity beyond its normal confines in that world ruined for the body is graver than perfection or salvation for the soul which does not exist in it knowing that the world requires learning how not to be good among the many who are not good this means adopting the goal and practices of acquiring quote and truly it is very natural an ordinary thing to desire to acquire moral calm Dinesh condemnation of it is effectual only when one attempts to acquire and fails one might believe in Machiavelli at first says that a nareta tarry prince who hardly disturbs the prank the people he rules is a natural prince because he has quote less cause and less necessity to offend but in view of the natural and ordinary necessity to acquire Machiavelli corrects his view of the natural prince it is not the red eteri prince but the new Prince on his arrival and power the new Prince cannot help offending both his enemies whom he is displaced and his friends who may be human a disappoint the necessity to acquire applies to the hereditary Prince as well because he must take care to stay ahead of those who desire to acquire will operate against him he must anticipate them and do to them first what they plan to do to him maintaining his state will necessarily require the same means as used by others to displace him an anticipation becomes the rules of the rule of those who hold an acquisition as much as those who seek to gain one the fear of losing generates the same ambition as the desire to acquire but to greater effect since the holder of the state has greater means how new must the new Prince be how far does the necessity to acquire extend it seems at first that the new Prince must depend on his opportunity to acquire for example that Moses found the people of Israel oppressed by the Egyptians but on further reflection we are told that a prince can build his own foundations so as to make his own opportunity those foundations might consist of the customs and opinions of his time as enshrined in religion particularly their Christianity Machiavelli found in his own time which thought so little of the honor of the world that he thought necessary to define to defend a prince then would have to change the thinking of his people creating for them a new sect and becoming himself the prophet of that sect the best way to do this might not be to create a new sect but to take the existing sect and transform it to one's own purpose this is what Machiavelli did to Christianity as he shows by citing the example of David and Goliath in chapter 13 of the Prince there he says that David insisted on using his own arms against Goliath his sling and his knife and of course the Bible says that David went into battle armed only with the slain the ninth knife he picked up from Goliath and used it to cut off his one's own arms for Machiavelli makes that phrase into a motto include the arm of your enemy used against him he becomes a sort of Prince himself whose new foundations reject and replace the reliance of man on God as stated in the Bible by David before engaging Goliath with man's own freedom and independence this is how far necessity extends the necessity to replace enslavement by freedom and to do so by all means necessary the necessity to acquire compels one to use force and fraud especially fraud those who quote rise from small beginnings to sublime ranks and Machiavelli cites his exemple are the Romans always find it necessary to use fraud and are quote the less worthy of reproach the mortis covert obviously they cannot use open force at first when they are weak but they could excuse themselves from from blame for using fraud by remembering that the power they displace also rose to height by the same means and is with a necessity to acquire in order to maintain so with the necessity for fraud a powerful prince needs to use fraud to protect himself against the fraud that will be used against him thus because acquiring means acquiring from others or in competition with others secrecy becomes essential to Prince's when anticipation is the rule one cannot afford to let others that is one's enemies know what is being planned against them the characteristic mode of behavior becomes conspiracy not only in politics but in all society influenced by politics including friendship morality by its effects is politicized and the refuge from the rigors of politics of a private life is denied particularly in the case of quote men who have quality and who might prefer to live quietly and without quarrel the formulation reminding of the epicurean motto of live unnoticed such men will have to be ambitious despite their preference preference and may have to resort to playing crazy one must said far repot so one must make oneself mad and praised speak see and do things against your intent in order to please the Prince it is a very wise thing to live a life of conspiracy and a necessity that must be judged particularly by the few who might prefer the contemplative life in both the prince and the discourses on Livy Machiavelli's master writings because they are the only ones he describes at the beginning as containing everything he knows the longest chapter is on conspiracy conspiracy is pervasive and comprehensive in politics it can be used by a ruling prince as well as against him by and by a republic as well as against it Machiavelli not only justifies conspiracy as did other writers but also shows how to execute one explaining how to act in the three stages of before during and after the event to execute a conspiracy is to execute the object of it two related meanings of se Cuchillo name of course the secret of a conspiracy comes out in its completion but the effect of such a deed is much greater for its having been kept secret beforehand the suddenness of execution adieu no throttle with one stroke adds to the attention it receives for example the spectacle of Cesare Borgias merger of his henchman Ramiro de it's ferocity left the people satisfied and stupefied their hatred for Romero purged from their spirits as opposed to tragedy which purges the spirits of an audience souls to teach them a lesson Machiavelli's purging is merely cathartic and to the advantage of the prince that religion is a kind of purging is shown by Machiavelli's worldly reduction of it for him morality and religion are effectively the same because morality cannot prove that humans are able to afford to be moral without recourse to divinity in the next world the God must be there to punish and reward and to do so he makes commands on humans who has such our imperfect sinners yet most humans the people are imperfect sinners because they are too weak to sin without fearing the consequences so they must have religion but they cannot live by it the necessity of living by religion is counteracted by the necessity impossibility of doing so men being sinners they cannot live without sinning so they need a church and a priesthood that both enforces the commands of religion and provides the relief of forgiveness from those commands necessity must have plot to be applied by sacrifices and must necessarily be relaxed and purged by atonement in Machiavelli's play mantra Eagle of the priests brother Timothy plays a crucial role in the seduction of the beautiful and moral Lucrezia by offering relief from God's sanctions he cites God's approval in the Bible of incest for lot and his daughters as a present a life license for adultery done to produce an heir God's a necessity to reap Appa to repopulate the world justifies that comically corresponding human necessity to reproduce though the deed must be kept secret Machiavelli's play is the unfolding of a conspiracy made possible by the conspiracy with necessity human necessity that is religion for Machiavelli religion is not the overcoming of the world's necessities that it claims to be in its promises as well as its demands it accords with the necessity arising from human weakness it is not concerned with goodness or not so much as it is concerned with predicting and controlling the future hence providing security for human weakness more than finding remedies for their faults humans want to know what is in store for them as they are they prefer security to reform religion is essentially an attempt to master fortune but the present religion as he describes Christianity does this in the interests of priests who do not believe in it his own replacement or reformation of Christianity putting it under the mastery of the princes of the world does no more disrespect to Christianity than Christianity has done to itself Christianity says quote shows the truth and the true way a careful statement that falls definitively short of saying that it is true Christianity will indeed show the truth in the true way as Machiavelli approaches appropriates it to his own news in accordance with its effectual truth as modes and orders of human government with which as we've seen he will redeem the sinfulness of the world his own atheism will take advantage of the atheism of Christian priests who quote do not fear the punishment that they do not see and do not believe but it will not be able to abolish religion and will not try religion and pre Machiavellian morality will continue in the world as the necessary dissatisfaction with its uncertainties and the unpredictability of fortune Machiavelli surely encourages cynicism about morality but he knows that he cannot convince most people to abandon morality goodness is not enough la montaña basta but it will not disappear hence Machiavelli does not attempt to construct a universal new morality as did later thinkers on the basis of a universal right of self-preservation according to him virtue for the princes will always have to contend with goodness for people's the prospect that he might be known as Old Nick and his advice become notorious as Machiavellian would neither have deterred nor surprised him a special instance of this is a Machiavellian speech an unnamed leader of the plebeian Chompy rebellion in florence which because of its repeated reliance on necessity deserves and bears close examination this is in the Florentine histories book 3 chapter 13 an orator there speaks it is said quote to inspire the others but he says that he teaches what necessity requires apparently necessity sometimes needs to be inspired and those to whom it applies necessity does not necessarily make itself effectual but has to be taught in a striking way he begins by saying that if he had to deliberate whether to take up arms burn and rob homes and to spoil churches he would agree quote to put quiet poverty ahead of perilous gain no moral qualms these in these teens would occur to him but speaking now in the midst of rebellion he says that we have no choice but to multiply the evils already committed and add more companions in them so that more will suffer because Universal injuries are born more patiently than particular ones thus can we gain pardon more easily as well as quote live with more freedom and more set faction than we have in the past here a gallon of whitewash is needed to save Machiavelli as the champion of Republican freedom and virtue the orator goes on to disparage the nobles who oppose the plebs don't be dismayed by their antiquity of blood he declares strip all of us naked and you will see that we are all alike forget conscience and possible infamy for whereas with us there is quote fear of hunger and prison there cannot and should not be fear of hell and then he generalizes grandly for faithful servants are always servants and good men are always poor God and nature have put us where we are in the midst of exposure to wickedness so quote one should use force whenever the occasion for it is given to us this is a course of action I confess as the orator that is bold and dangerous but when necessity presses boldness is judged prudence quote spirited men never take account of the danger in great things for those enterprise that are begun with danger always end with reward the original claim that this circumstance is special the initial concession that one should hesitate over perilous gain or entirely withdrawing and this sort of caricature of a Machiavellian speech that is a character a self drawn caricature of Machiavelli himself to be in the midst of a plebeian rebellion is not exceptional but reveals the essential condition of man all of us stripped naked exposed to danger and wickedness here is again as Thomas Hobbes a state of nature not just an embryo but alive and kicking the nature of man's situation is taken from the extreme case and made universal to cover all normal cases in fact the concept of normal as opposed to abnormal is reversed so that the abnormal formerly the exception becomes the rule here to the Future course of modern science is previewed the nature of man is taken from nature script of convention as it were in a laboratory experiment when nature is tortured and everything normally hidden emerges in the practice of experiment scientific fact is disclosed as opposed to ordinary observations made complacently without the benefit of them of the pressure of necessity we should also notice the ambition of the order for great things and is willingness to face great danger and enterprises with the expectation of reward the plebeian orator who inspires the mob by the appealing to necessity shows again the unexpected complexity of Machiavelli's profession of that notion humans must not only choose necessity but also be inspired to choose it that politics is ruled by necessity does not at all mean that political things must be accepted as they are with resignation leading to disdain for the political life in the search for quote quiet poverty in contemplation perhaps that the orator momentarily considered attractive instead Machiavelli seeks to inspire his readers with a spiritedness an anima that will lead them to virtue fear - in this sort of active acquisition and he defines as the political life an emo easily recalls the thumos by which the classical political scientists referred to the spirited part of the soul Machiavelli does not mention the soul in the prince and the discourses on Livy his two chief works and he seems to treat an emo as his replacement for soul substituting honey more for honey ma the necessity for animals further complies complicated by the complacency of routine that all the achievements of virtue induce Machiavelli presents this Universal consequence of virtue in a well-known passage in his Florentine histories there seems to be a cycle in history a cycle in history in which virtue gives birth to quiet quiet to leisure leisure to disorder disorder to ruin and then from ruin arise in Reverse through the stages the danger of leisure is paramount and especially the use of leisure for philosophy illustrated in the protest by Cato against the corrupting presence of philosophy in Rome applying this dilemma between what is good for a republic and what is good for philosophy to his time and to the difference between the virtue and greatness of the Ancients and the weakness of the moderns Machiavelli closes with a suggestion perhaps he says it mean to be no less useful to know the modern weakness than the ancient strength because of the latter excites the liberal spirits to follow the former will excite such spirits to avoid and eliminate it this is a statement of Machiavelli's liberal spirit and apparently he has a remedy for avoiding the cyclical necessity of virtue and disorder the general program for a lasting or even permanent revival out of weakness is supplied in the discourses on living there he concludes that quote nothing is more necessary in any common way of life than to give back to it the reputation it had in its beginnings necessity leaves out of necessity when prudently understood as requiring a return to the beginnings and to the original fear that underlies the complacency of civilization this return has to be a political act a sensational change of regime that catches attention as opposed to the steady accumulation of property that later Machiavelli ins agreeing with Machiavelli as to the necessity to acquire substituted for the riskiness of Machiavellian virtue as virtue is risky the goal of virtue is glory which one might say is a semblance of nobility in the sense of glory nobility is not opposed to necessity but rather gained through necessity and insight for which Machiavelli praises certain moral philosophers he does not name fraud for example might seem to be necessary though detestable but no fraud and managing war is glorious Machiavelli's use of fraud fraud when my proposes the highest degree of his glory so understood Machiavelli can return his profession of necessity to the profession of good the latter having been duly limited and disciplined the new Prince must arm his subjects not all of them because that is not possible but some of them which should he choose on thinking it through he will see that it is easier to gain to himself those would been content with the previous state his former enemies rather than with his former friends who had their own reason for becoming so and would be more demanding of him in Machiavelli's own cases he would have one supposes be thinking of Christian priests as his new friends such a course may not be perfect but one can never seek to avoid one inconvenience without running into another and prudence consistent peak and picking the less bad inconvenience as good the next chapter of the prince on the Secretary's to the prince discusses only one case that of a minister who is more excellent than the prince he advises one knows of necessity Machiavelli says that this prince was either in the first rank of an or the second being able to recognize good deeds though incapable of conceiving them this Minister cannot hope to deceive him and remains good himself so at least in the case of a minister advising a prince it is necessary for the minister minister to appear good and faithful Machiavelli is advisor to Prince's is of necessity faithless to any particular one of them because his advice is general or universal and can be used by the enemies of any Prince hooome advisors but Machiavelli is himself also under the necessity of proving to be good for the princess he advises and not merely offering irresponsible advice in order to make himself look good we see that necessity is judged in the end by how much good it leads to even if the good in this case is only apparent Machiavelli the professor of necessity is obliged to profess the necessity of the good the effectual truth is not the only truth he must admit the primacy of the good over necessity thank you friends we have time for some questions please come to the microphones as you have good evening thank you for your talk dr. Mansfield my name is Isaac Kimmel I'm the first year sociology graduate student here at Notre Dame I was noticing and I mean you said Machiavelli as the father of modernity so this is in no way surprising that I was seeing his intellectual DNA and a lot of different thinkers over the course of the last hour in change I'm sorry I'm not I'm not following it could you speak more slowly into the mic that's okay I was seeing a lot of Machiavelli's intellectual DNA in various modern thinkers throughout your talk yes but for this question I'd like to just highlight Marx and Nietzsche in particular you know just keep it narrow run anyone else I mean William James and Descartes came to mind too but well we'll keep it to just those two you know keep it modest but you were talking about the the need of the prince to be ruthless and you know self-serving and that that reminded me of Nietzsche and I don't know that Machiavelli is quite as broad in his sort of ethics right Nietzsche talks about serving life and the will and he sort of justifies the the ruthlessness that he advocates I don't know if Machiavelli is that profound in his ethics right he's a little he might be a little more shallow than I might be missing some things so I would like you to add some more depth to that and then you've also said that Machiavelli argues that rule is necessarily odious to the ruled and so I was immediately thinking of Marx and how he talks about the rivalry between the booze wanna proletariat and how and then you know I was thinking of Nietzsche again when you know that the the ruler is trying to keep everyone down by whatever means necessary there was just there were a lot of thoughts here but I see Nietzsche and Marx very strongly and I was hoping that you can help me flush those connections out so I know this is broad but well let's take a Nietzsche no I really like to say any philosopher is more profound than Machiavelli that is not a non-controversial statement at all right well that's why I'm asking so I'll make it anyway that but advise you against believing at any rate without investigation yeah so so there's Nietzsche gives a justification for being ruthless man man is characterized by the will to power and this is a kind of new development of necessity and and and I think Machiavelli has a better sense of the strength of morality then Nietzsche does and and and that's why he uses necessity because necessity was an excuse for immorality the will to power needs to be expressed in the will to use one's power you know for some purpose so you know I think Machiavelli has a better recognition of this the will to power is a kind of incendiary invitation to to the young and and to others to to do total recklessness nothing Machiavelli is more humane he wants to improve the condition of morality despite I mean you know for Humanity not the condition of morality but the condition of humanity and I think he would see very perilous consequences or effects coming from a philosophy of will to power look professor Mansfield thank you very much for the lecture and enjoyed it very much I said philosophy in history at Columbia University's an undergrad I have two questions but I guess I was asked about the better one a lot of modern totalitarian rulers have tried very hard to employ this kind of rudeness in the way they governed their polities employment of fraud propaganda etc but still in the end we don't see that working out quite well the state falls apart one way or the other most cases so far and the people are by no means sort of obedient to - to such a rule how would I know how would Machiavelli account for this that you have these people really trying to live up to these principles but not really accomplish not really achieving the kind of I guess stable beating rule that that they're aiming for and I'm not sure if it has something to do with a lot what is it that you that you're complaining of well just that just that you know imagine a totalitarian dictator I play by the rulebook of Machiavelli but still you have you have all these you have people like search in each and proclaiming us was a discontent the citizenship this under this sort of ideological indoctrination but still the fraud doesn't quite seek in CC and make them obedient I don't know if that's a legitimate complaint or not yeah it's hard for me to understand you but really to hear you but I'm inside Solzhenitsyn the possibility of nobility of doing a noble deed even and the concentration camp where everything or existence is beautiful and and and there's nothing to eat there's and little to hope for but one can still show one's generosity say by giving you a little piece of a cigarette but to another prisoner and so and this sort of keeps ones ones free spirit alive and one sense of nobility see morality is for most people a normal thing but the test of morality is whether you'll do it in the face of risk for necessity and so Machiavelli sort of recognizes that and so he doesn't want to do away with nobility that's what distinguishes him from most of the Machiavellian who follow because they want to regularize Machiavelli they want to find they want a virtue that applies to everyone universally so they're not satisfied with a solution like his which maintains this division between someone who understand things and others who don't and need to be you need to be lied to so they invented new the new morality of the morality of self-interest or of the right of self president which doesn't require fraud and but still has the same necessity behind it that Machiavelli wanted to wanted to retain and so but the trouble is to do this they abandon nobility and this leads to terrific problems later on as Rousseau and can't become dissatisfied with the ignoble way of life which Hillman David Hume made a distinction between the eminent virtues and the social virtues and he said the eminent verges that was the ancients and the social virtues the moderns so Machiavelli said begins this the social virtues that is a virtue which understands religion in such a way that it doesn't require all that much from you and and and then gives free license to the ambition of rulers or Princeton's people who want to be so so yes he still has this complexity of distinguishing between types different typical types of humans but the reduction or the universal enunciation which arises from monkey boy is unable to do justice to our desire to be better to admire and even our simple raw desire for excess for for whatever is more than necessary monkey belly while opposing that on the whole understood it better than we do so this is it's a good way to serve see the difference between the moderns and the Asians become more knowing in Machiavelli thank you I have a think a simpler question because I'm not sure of the historical timeline I was wondering to what extent did Machiavelli work out these ideas from his observation of the world around him and his own reasoning about what would work in that corrupt world and then persuaded the rulers of Florence to act accordingly and to what extent was that all already going on from those rulers and he was providing a kind of after-the-fact gloss or justification for what was already beginning to be done well that's good because his understanding of reason is rationalization so if you think about whether to do something and you're not sure whether it's to your advantage or not do it and once you do it the reason will come to you so you're sort of applying a Machiavellian analysis to a Machiavelli himself well but actually actually he was not satisfied the qualities of the renaissance princes that so impress us as as distasteful in roguish running ER there was a chapter and there's discourses on Livy was in which he laments the inability of bad men to be altogether bad they don't they still they suffer from from unexplainable assaults conscience what Machiavelli wants to describe his conscience as confuse the only D check that whole confusion of the brain Luke foster social thought I'll you mister Chicago so you mentioned that the presumption in Chapter 15 involves a picture of the whole implicitly whether we presume that the universe tennis ultimately towards go door towards necessity that's that's a metaphysical picture so the why then is Machiavelli so coy about his metaphysics as compared to say someone like Hobbes whose preferences is hold discussion in the state with a metaphysical argument Machiavelli is not willing to do that and why so coy did you say yes about his metaphysics now yes if I say he has a metaphysics he certainly quarry about it that's true you know that's because he has it in for philosophy as a whole so the statement that he makes in the Florentine industry about lost we being and and its agreement with cato philosophy is means dissatisfaction with the world as it is somehow so asking questions about it is that and that's what makes him a philosopher but he he so wants to change philosophy in the direction of effectual 'ti that he covers over his own philosophy necessary to do that so you have to dig it out he would rather you be dismissive of philosophy than inquisitive in into his own [Music] this concludes our 18th annual fall conference at the center for ethics and culture I'd like to renew my thanks for all the amazing people that made this possible the convention center staff the staff of all the different offices at Notre Dame that that assisted with us are amazing as I said world-class number one in the world Bob maybe even the universe staff including Ken hollenius our communication specialist [Music] Pete lopsy our student program manager Petra Farrell who runs our culture of life programming Tracy Westlake who's our administrative assistant [Music] the indefatigable Lauren Ashe guns Urich I skipped her married name and finally the person who on our staff who is most responsible for all the amazing experiences that we've had throughout days Margaret cabinets [Music] a girl has all the wonderful Notre Dame student workers that help us out please join us next year November 1 through 3 for the 19th annual Fall Conference of the Notre Dame Center for ethics and culture enjoy yourselves we have a reception continue the conversation friends thank you very much [Applause]

Channel: de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture ndethics

Views: 777

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: machiavelli, evil, leadership, government

Id: 9sL0NS2h2FQ

Length: 79min 9sec (4749 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 13 2017