In The Prince, Machiavelli writes that a prince can obtain glory
through the keeping and protection of his principality. In order for a prince to maintain his principality
he must be the aggressor. Thus meaning a
prince must invade another state before that rival state attempts to invade his
own. Machiavelli states that upon the conquering of another principality a
prince can occupy the new state, tax the state, or destroy it. Most
of the time in order to assure the ultimate safety for his own state a prince
will make the decision to completely destroy the principality he has seized.
In
the time period Machiavelli is addressing, society could not imagine a world
without war, and therefore I have no problem with a prince causing the
destruction of another state. In this
case, the end justifies the means. If a
neighboring nation is gaining power and is beginning to threaten the security
of one’s own principality then is it not morally justifiable to destroy that
principality? I do not want a great
prince who ruled graciously for years, but was too complacent and caused my
state to be conquered. I need a prince
who is going to go out and squash any threat to my safety and defend my home
and livelihood. If the cost of
protection of the state is the death of others, then the prince is morally
forced to devastate those people and their home. One could argue that the people of the rival
state need not be decimated, but in this time period death to ones enemies
seemed to be the only foolproof way to ensure the safety of your people.
As
said before Machiavelli believes that the most important matter of the prince
is to maintain the state. But without
his people there would be no state. Thus
there is the unwritten obligation of the prince to protect his people above all
else. In order for a prince to uphold his
authority he needs to stay true to this obligation or else his subjects may not
remain loyal. Without the loyalty of one’s
subjects a prince is essentially ruling another a foreign state. Would he then have to abolish his people as
he did to his conquered states, or should he stay true to the obligation
to his people?
No comments:
Post a Comment