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Machiavelli's Medieval Philosophy And Politics

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Machiavelli, in his medieval philosophy and political thought from the prince, departs from the ‘approaches of others’, with the cynical doctrine ‘the ends justifies the means’, viewing power politics through successful princely behaviour, with scheming, shrewd, manipulative, and egotistical, private profit-cantered genre of leadership practices. This is contrasted with Salisbury’s moral and political philosophy in the ‘Policraticus’, which adopts the Ciceronian moderate perspective to offer an unselfish and egalitarian leadership system, with its marked proclivities for sociologically democratic, classless and common good philosophies.

Machiavelli, in his Politics, claims that deceits and hypocrisy, are legitimate approaches in politics, hitherto he does not overlook ill-advised uses of them. Therefore, a prince should embrace good virtues and qualities such as “merciful, faithful, humane, sincere, religious” (Machiavelli, 1988); just appear to have them. Machiavelli emphasizes the importance of having the qualities of both the fox and the lion in order to rule as best as possible, “One needs, then, to be a fox to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten away wolves” (Machiavelli, 1988). Here he exemplifies the importance of flexibility for a prince not to rule under a monolithic view and for a prudent ruler to not keep faith when it is against his interest. This illustrates the importance of the well being of a state for Machiavelli to not have any moral or ethical

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