Niccolo Machiavelli: Moral or Immoral

Machiavelli's famous saying "The end justifies the means" has been used to vindicate, sometimes solve, many moral issues in the world. Examples including the ruthless bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 and ongoing battle between religion and science to solve morality of stem Cell Research. Parties that suffered from the bombing, the church, and others who do not follow this belief would claim that Machiavelli was a gravely immoral person, while others praise his moral views. It is not unheard of that Machiavelli had passionate drive and obsession towards achieving complete unity in Italy despite the Medicci's mediocre intelligence. But would the intention of Italy's unification justify his teachings? In the Prince, Machiavelli's moral perceptions are elucidated in between the lines of his political "do's and don'ts".

To understand Machiavelli's moral perception it is only fair to state all his morally-related teachings, both the ethical and unethical. In his book, The Prince Chapter 19, Machiavelli teaches 'you' that in order to rule a nation-state well, 'you' have to be both feared and loved. However, if both cannot be attained, being feared is the better alternative. But the line between being feared and being hated is both thin and vague. While people will surrender to your rule while feared, they would overthrow while hated. Thus being hated is not a trait fit for a ruler. He teaches that to avoid being hated, 'you' must avoid taking one's property and woman. Similarly, in Moses's given Ten Commandments it states "Thou shalt not steal" and "thou shalt not covet your neighbor's wife". Later in the future, a philosopher named John Locke, was also praised for his belief that men should have rights to life, liberty and property. Because this teaching of basically "not stealing" - of property and of women- has been socially accepted since the Bible until the present time, Machiavelli , in this aspect, can be deemed moral. But it cannot be ignored that his immoral teachings outweigh his moral ones.

One of Machiavelli's immoral teachings is that rulers and civilians have a different set of morals. What is morally right to civilians may not be morally right to rulers, and vice versa. This implies that he does not believe that all men are equal. This in itself is immoral, according to both the Bible and Aristotle's teachings. Aristotle believed that all men are subject to the understood moral law, equalizing men of all status. Religion also teaches us that all men are equal and under the same God. The immorality of this particular teaching is aggravated by his belief that a Prince should not burden himself with the welfare of his citizens, stating " unless extraordinary vices cause him to be hated, it is reasonable to expect that his subjects will be naturally well disposed towards him" (Machiavelli, pg.3) .

Another evidence to prove Machiavelli's immortality is his option , when a prince wants to rule a state with common languages and culture, is to have "destroyed the family of the prince who was ruling them" and have "the family of their former lord extinguished" (Machiavelli, pg. 6). This shows, first, his indifference to the value of life, or, second, that a life is unequal to the state as a whole. One can argue that he emphasizes importance on the state as a whole because he cares for the welfare of the people in it, but that is easily countered by my first point, that if analyzed, means that the success of the state is determined by how stable it is and how strong a ruler is, instead of the security, safety and prosperity of the people in it.

However what is moral and what is not is very controversial. As long as man is given the power of choice, morality will always depends on the perception of the majority in society. One can deem Machiavelli moral,only if they believe that both life and human equality are less important than the stability of only the state and its rulers - and not its people.

Isabel Luna, 2010-79583