Machiavelli: A Very Short Introduction by Quentin Skinner

Author:Quentin Skinner
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Published: 2000-05-09T04:00:00+00:00

3. The title-page of Edward Dacres’s translation of The Prince, the earliest English version to be printed.

Machiavelli’s main concern at this point is to remind new rulers of their most basic duty of all. A wise prince ‘should not be troubled about becoming notorious for those vices without which it is difficult to preserve his power’; he will see that such criticisms are merely an unavoidable cost he has to bear in the course of discharging his fundamental obligation, which is of course to maintain his state (55). The implications are first spelled out in relation to the supposed vice of parsimony. Once a wise prince perceives that miserliness is ‘one of those vices that enable him to rule’, he will cease to worry about being thought a miserly man (57). The same applies in the case of cruelty. A willingness to act on occasion with exemplary severity is crucial to the preservation of good order in civil as in military affairs. This means that a wise prince ‘should not worry about incurring a reputation for cruelty’, and that it is essential not to worry about being called cruel if you are an army commander, for without such a reputation you can never hope to keep your troops ‘united and prepared for military action’ (60).

Lastly, Machiavelli considers whether it is important for a ruler to eschew the lesser vices and sins of the flesh if he wishes to maintain his state. The writers of advice books for princes generally dealt with this issue in a sternly moralistic vein, echoing Cicero’s insistence in Book I of De Officiis that propriety is ‘essential to moral rectitude’, and thus that all persons in positions of authority must avoid all lapses of conduct in their personal lives (I.28.98). By contrast, Machiavelli answers with a shrug. A wise prince ‘will seek to avoid those vices’ if he can; but if he finds he cannot, then he certainly will not trouble himself unduly about such ordinary moral susceptibilities (55).

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