Synopsis
Machiavelli was the most important philosopher of the Renaissance influencing later philosophers on the left (Marx), the right (Hobbes) and one who doesn’t fit into either of these categories—just those born to be the creative leaders of change (Nietzsche). All three had similar views about the failings of human nature. Machiavelli is significant because he brings philosophy into the messy world of political realities where, he advises the Prince, it’s sometimes necessary to do bad things for the good of the country (or business). In doing so he lowered the bar on expected ethical behaviour of leaders to what’s expedient for the greater good. The Prince can’t afford to be nice to everybody all the time. Sometimes it’s necessary for leaders to take exceptional decisions outside normally accepted moral standards. In case you feel this sort of behaviour doesn’t fit your leadership modus operandi. Read this chapter and see if you still feel that way.
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Notes
- 1.
Some historians limit the Renaissance to the fifteenth and sixteenth century. I’m extending it here until the late seventeenth because that’s when various Renaissance crises, natural and manmade, settled down to usher in the European Enlightenment. Some scholars, like Leo Strauss, mark the start of Modernity as an intellectual movement with Machiavelli’s more famous works. As such it bridges into the Enlightenment (or the Age of Reason) into the mid-twentieth century where, according to which side of the philosophical divide you are on, Postmodernity is said to have taken over from Modernity—an assumption subject to bitter dispute. Unfortunately, despite fleeting dalliances with pragmatism, there’s no common sense school of philosophy waiting in the wings to resolve the debate.
- 2.
Luther is often said to have initiated individualism in the West (undoubtedly unwittingly) because of his teaching that an individual’s access to God is subject to their reading of the Bible. In other words, a connection not subject to the interpretation of the Bible handed to believers by the hierarchy of the Catholic Church. An idea, interestingly, motivating Muslims on the opposite side of the Danube to where Luther spent much of his time. Muslims are essentially guided by the sacred texts of the Koran and the Hadiths (sayings and acts of the prophet Muhammad).
- 3.
Protagoras, the most famous sophist of fifth century BCE Athens, an acknowledged philosopher of relativism, was criticised by Socrates, a critique which is relayed in Plato’s dialogue: Theaetetus. See Plato, “Theaetetus” in Great Books of the Western World, Vol. 7, p. 517, segment 152.
- 4.
Copernicus’s ground breaking work situating Earth in orbit around the sun, On the revolutions of Celestial Bodies, was published just before his death in 1543, Newton’s Principia initially published in 1687, was regarded as the last word in physics until Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. Copernicus and Galileo earned the ire of the Catholic Church for undermining its orthodox Biblical worldview. Interestingly, Newton was a polymath with diverse interests, one of which was theology.
- 5.
- 6.
Machiavelli (1972, Ch. 17, p. 105). Parenthetical addition, and emphasis is mine.
- 7.
Ibid, p. 100. Emphasis is mine.
- 8.
Ibid, p. 110.
- 9.
Ibid, p. 109.
- 10.
In the world of Realpolitik theory this is often said to be the reason why liberalism will eventually be overrun by a political force that doesn’t have the same high regard for morality, like the use of disproportionate devastation in war to bring about victory, for example. My interpretation of Machiavelli’s Discourses on the First Ten Books of Titus Livius, a notoriously difficult read compared to his The Prince, is based on Leo Strauss’s essay: “Niccolo Machiavelli” in History of Political Philosophy, ed. L. Strauss and J Crospey, (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1987), pp. 305–17. See similar themes in Sun Tzu’s classic: The Art of War, 2013, (London, Harper Collins), written around the sixth century BCE when Chinese kingdoms were in constant conflict. Some of the tactical advice is just as applicable to today’s art of business management as it was to the Chinese military leaders Tzu was addressing.
- 11.
N. Machiavelli, The Prince, p. 101.
References
Dawson, Lindsay. 2006. Philosophy, Business and Ethics: Balancing the Rational and the Thymotic. Geelong: Deakin University Press.
Machiavelli, Nicolo, ed. John Plamenatz. 1972. Machiavelli the Prince, Selections from the Discourses and Other Writings. London, Collins.
White, Howard B. 1987. Francis Bacon. In History and Political Philosophy, ed. Leo Strauss and Joseph Cropsey. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
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Dawson, L. (2023). Introducing Machiavelli: Distinguishing Leaders from Followers. In: A Business Leader’s Guide to Philosophy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-33042-1_1
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