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42:50
Transcript
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[Music]
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machiavelli's the prince is one of the
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most important turning points in the
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history of western political philosophy
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it was written
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while machiavelli himself was in
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retirement from active political life
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1532
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and prior to that he had worked for the
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medici family in florence
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and he was one of the great dark
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characters
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in the history of western thought in
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some respects he's kind of like the
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darth vader of philosophy he represents
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all that is evil and unholy
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in some respect the spiritual antipode
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of someone like marcus aurelius
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machiavelli is a very secular this
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worldly sort of thinker
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he's the kind of person that plato
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warned us about
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the kind of man who self-consciously
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seeks only the gratification
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of his desire for political power
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a man who
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turns ruthlessness and treachery into
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matters of principle
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and that's what makes him so good at
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them it doesn't it's not that he's
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treacherous or lying or faithless or
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ruthless once in a while he's that way
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all the time
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he's turned it into a system
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in that respect
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the writings of machiavelli which are
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not limited to the prince he also wrote
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a number of historical works a work
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called the discourse on livy he studied
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roman history a great deal
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machiavelli's works our kind of handbook
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on how to be bad particularly
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how to be politically treacherous
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how to gain power
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for machiavelli the ultimate good for
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human beings is the attainment of
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political power and he is not choosy
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about the means whatever works works he
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is
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among the most practical of men
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his idea of an of an excellent
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politician is someone like caesar borgia
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caesar boys mentioned many times in the
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prince and if you know what caesar
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voyager was like he has quite an
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interesting career
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his father is pope alexander vi
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we won't discuss how that could be the
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case of course but he's the illegitimate
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son of alexander vi
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his sister is lucrezia borgia a most
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unpleasant woman who spends a good bit
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of her time poisoning their friends and
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political rivals
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and uh caesar borgia
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was the sort of guy who wouldn't let
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mere family ties get in the way of
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political power his older brother was
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the one who was destined or
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chosen by the father alexander vi to get
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most political performance and
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seize a boy who didn't like that so he
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killed his older brother conspired
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against him and killed him machiavelli
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thinks that's wonderful machiavelli says
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that warms his heart makes him feel
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that's finally somebody sees through
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the lies and the illusions and the
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pretensions of conventional morality for
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machiavelli we live in the jungle we
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live in a totally amoral universe
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independent of scripture independent of
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revealed religion independent of the
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will of god there's only the will of man
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in that respect machiavelli is a
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path-breaking political philosophy no
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matter how evil or pernicious his
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teachings
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we ignore him at our peril
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and
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like it or not there is a dark and
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sparkling brilliance to this like black
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diamonds
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you look at it and you realize that
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however horrifying his conclusions
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there's a certain grim truth in what he
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says
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and we may not accept the entirety of it
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but like it or not the world of politics
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isn't ugly
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profane immoral place at least to a
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great extent
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and those of us who wish to be practical
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politicians will find it very hard to
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keep our hands completely clean
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machiavelli wishes to liberate us
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from
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what he views as being childish insipid
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guilt feelings
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about
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political morality there are no rules in
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politics in the same way and for the
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same reason there are no rules in nature
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with machiavelli we have one of the
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great restatements
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of a political theme introduced in
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western political thought in the first
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book of the republic
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if you stretch your memory back to
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professor rakuti's lectures last
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time when he talked about the republic
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in the first book of the republic
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socrates primary antagonist is a man
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named thrasymachus
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he's a sophist anthrosimicus holds the
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view that justice is the advantage of
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the stronger in other words whoever it
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is that has the most force the most
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military power makes the rules and
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justice is whatever they tell you to do
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so when the nazis win whatever they tell
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you to do is just if the stalinists win
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whatever they tell you is just if
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machiavelli wins or the borgias win
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doesn't matter as long as they have the
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power to coerce you whatever they tell
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you is just
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so simica's view then
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is that
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justice is a simple matter of coercion
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and there is no moral order to the world
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now this view is
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thoroughly criticized
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and at least apparently refuted in the
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first book of the republic
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but
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like all profound ideas resonance of it
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is always at least implicitly in the
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western political tradition
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and machiavelli regains
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the nerve to say there is no moral order
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to the world
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he's the first man to reassert what
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thracemica said in the first book of the
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republic that we live peculiarly and
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exclusively here in the realm of nature
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that there is no metaphysical realm by
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which to judge the good and evil of
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human actions there's only power force
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brutality
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you adjust to it or you succumb to it
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those are your choices
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machiavelli wants to teach us how to
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become tyrannical men and if you stop
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and think about the first book of the
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republic i believe you will recognize
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that thrasymachus has the tyrannical
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soul the soul is driven entirely by
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passion that thinks reason is something
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is an afterthought for the feeble who
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want to make up stories about why we
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ought to be good rather than evil
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machiavelli and thrasymachus both wish
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to liberate us from metaphysics and
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morality
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both of them say
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in this world of
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darkness flux
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double crossing and backstabbing
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the only way to get ahead the only way
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to achieve human felicity human
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happiness human
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goodness is to get them before they get
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you
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donald trump
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recently wrote a book called the art of
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the deal
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you could say that machiavelli's book is
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the art of the double cross
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he not only
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explains how to be treacherous he gives
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you examples
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he calls them from history he calls them
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from
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contemporary politics as well but in
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every case
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he shows that crime not only pays but
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that goodness is a waste of time and
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goodness will ultimately be your
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downfall
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in some respects machiavelli's project
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is like that of friedrich nietzsche
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it'll be a re-evaluation of all values
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he's going to stand the christian and
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the platonic view of righteousness
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of political morality on its head
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all the things that we previously
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thought to be good turn out to be evil
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all the things that we previously
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thought to be evil turn out to be good
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or if not good pleasurable practical
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useful
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handy
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machiavelli
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has written a number of works the prince
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which is his most famous work is a
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remarkably brief piece of work usually
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when a great philosopher has some
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important message to
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give
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he can't control his pain and if you
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look at say aquinas's theologica it goes
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on and on and on it's interminable
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machiavelli has not written that sort of
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a book it's a 90-page book in and out
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it's meant to be a practical handbook
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for the tyrant
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machiavelli's book
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the prince was joseph stalin's favorite
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work he kept it on his night table
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and it's not hard to see why it shows
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you how to be a good tyrant a good in
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the sense of effective good in the sense
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of practical not good in the sense of
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morally good because that's only for old
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ladies and kids
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nobody seriously believes that stuff
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now this may sound like a very cynical
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set of ideas in fact it is
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but although it is very cynical there is
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an element of it which is practical
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which is true like it or not
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if you are completely good completely
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virtuous i am not certain that you will
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be a completely effective and efficient
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politician i don't know that i want the
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president to be as kind and as
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thoughtful and as philosophical as
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marcus aurelius maybe we would be harmed
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as much as benefited by that
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i am sure on the other hand that i don't
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want the president to be like
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machiavelli's prince because it's a sure
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thing we will be harmed rather than
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benefited by that
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prior to going into seclusion and
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writing this book
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machiavelli had
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worked for the medici family in florence
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who were influential figures in
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florentine and thus in italian politics
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and
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although he had been serving them and
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helping them out and advising them on
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political matters the medici had been
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thrown out of florence had been chased
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out and with them goes machiavelli he
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goes into retirement
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now there's a definite sense here that
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here's a man who's very intelligent very
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bright but awfully frustrated he gives
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you that sense when you read the book of
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being a monday morning quarterback god
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how he wants to go back into there in
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practical politics he hates being among
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the musty books in the library it's not
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interesting to him what he primarily
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wants is to run people's lives what he
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primarily wants is political power and
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after he gets political power what he
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wants then is more political power
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because you can never have enough
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as socrates pointed out about the
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tyrannical man this is a thirst that can
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never be slaked no matter how much
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satisfaction you get for these desires
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nothing is ever enough you're like
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someone that can't get enough to eat or
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can't get enough to drink no matter how
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much you eat a drink it's never
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satisfactory so here's one of the great
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dissatisfied individuals and he's even
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more dissatisfied because he's forced to
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be an armchair quarterback and no one is
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more practical than nicola machiavelli
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he dedicates his book
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to one of the medici family and it's one
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of the most flowery and flattering and
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adoring introductions one could possibly
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imagine
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and of course it's no less cynical than
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the rest of the book
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the book itself tells the wise prince
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the monarch the he who would be tyrant
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that he must be very careful to avoid
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flatterers because flatterers are
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dangerous men
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your noble highness
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a clever fellow like the medici for whom
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machiavelli is writing the book
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is going to see through
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the introduction but then wonder do i
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want this guy on my side or do i want
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him on someone else's side this is a
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very difficult thing to consider a
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difficult concern for a real prince look
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at the examples that we get in the in
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machiavelli's the prince
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he gives examples of how to take over
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countries that you are born to for
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example if your father is the king and
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your f and your your father dies how you
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take succession there very easy the
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people will accept it you won't have any
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problem with them and when you are
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trying to establish your rule as a new
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ruler in this legitimate government the
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best thing to do
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is to establish fear because you can
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count on fear
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machiavelli says it would be very nice
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if you could be loved
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having being loved by your people by
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your subjects is a very handy thing for
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ruler and machiavelli says it's not that
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love is intrinsically good but rather
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love is handy and practical and if you
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people love you they're less likely to
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give you a problem so you should
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cultivate love
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now
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love is is a nice thing to have but
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fear fear is the kind of thing
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machiavelli really understands he likes
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fear because fear is one of those things
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you can count on and if as machiavelli
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points out you are forced to choose
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between having the people love you and
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having them fear you make sure you have
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them fear you
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because you can count on fear people's
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love you'll never be sure enough about
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that but fear you can count on so it's
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important to be
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feared the next best thing is to be
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loved the only thing the prince must
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avoid according to machiavelli the
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prince cannot afford to be hated when
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the people hate you they will come and
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get you one way or another they will
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depose you and the whole name of this
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game is to take power and to control
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power and to make it your own and then
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to absorb more power
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there's a part in which he says well
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it's nice if you can inherit a kingdom
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from your father if your father has to
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be the king but very few of us are lucky
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enough to have that circumstance now you
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must think back to your head that in
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your head that machiavelli's father
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was the pope which is very handy
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circumstances just the problem is you
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you can't get to the papacy by
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hereditary succession so we have kind of
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a difficulty there yeah they've been
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careful about that
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well
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machiavelli says if you don't have to be
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born to the throne if you don't get the
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royal purple by matter of birth there's
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always usurpation which is a great
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favorite activity for him he really
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likes usurpation so the idea of getting
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close to the throne of gradually
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weaseling your way into the court
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and telling of course the king or the
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prince or the legitimate ruler how much
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you admire him and how well you think of
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him and how important it is to
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constantly be pursuing machiavellian
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political policies
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the more you'll become important
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indispensable the more you could stab
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him in the back and take control of the
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government yourself
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machiavelli's
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moral universe
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is the moral universe of the wolf of the
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predatory animal
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machiavelli
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and his political philosophy
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has
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a horrifying brilliance through it on
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account of the fact that it's consistent
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with much of what we see in political
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life on an everyday basis
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the drawback of this conception of
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political philosophy and the contempt
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and conception of an amoral universe is
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that it makes people
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no longer social animals
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stop and think about what the
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machiavellian wants us to do he wants us
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to constantly betray others
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both above us in the political structure
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and below us in the political structure
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in order to satisfy our own lust for
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power a lust which is never satisfied
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which only grows bigger and bigger as
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its objects become bigger and bigger
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that's one of the reasons incidentally
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where machiavelli likes roman history so
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much roman history is full of creatures
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like this machiavelli thinks they're
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wonderful he thinks that the italy of
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the 1500s 16th century italy is feeble
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prostrate broken up into fragmented
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warring little cliques
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that prevent real political glory from
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coming into being the reason why he
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likes a horrifying figure like caesar
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borgia is that caesar borgia
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is the man of virtue virtu virtue is
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exactly the opposite of platonic virtue
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it is much more like thrasamakian virtue
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it is the virtue of the man that tells
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lies that stabs people in the back that
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does whatever it takes to satisfy his
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unquenchable desire for power
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so what we need is a man of year two and
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this book is designed to create veer two
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the problem is that this viewer ii is
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the virtue of the predatory animal not
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of the rational human being or it's the
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rational human being insofar as that
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rationality is completely
14:55
subjugated or subordinate to one's
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irrational desires and if you stop and
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look back at what the soul of the
15:02
tyrannical man was supposed to look like
15:04
in the republic you realize that the
15:05
desiring part is really running the
15:06
rational part the rational part of the
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soul is just an instrument in the hands
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of his desire for power or sex or money
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or what have you machiavelli takes that
15:15
same conception of the soul desire comes
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first my desire for power
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determines all my other activities and
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my rationality is subordinate to that so
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machiavelli wants us to have that kind
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of veer too the virtue of the leopard
15:28
the
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the guiltless killing of the hawk
15:32
the hawk doesn't feel bad about killing
15:33
sparrows that's the way hawks are the
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way of nature is the way of cruelty we
15:37
must learn to live with that or die with
15:39
that if you get if you get your way
15:40
through machiavelli
15:42
excuse me
15:43
now
15:44
let's come back to the problem of italy
15:47
italy is fragmented italy is broken up
15:49
italy is in a historically horrible set
15:51
of circumstances and machiavelli is
15:54
sounding a clarion call to break through
15:56
from old ecclesiastical borrowings old
15:59
scriptural conceptions of virtue old
16:02
greco-roman conceptions of morality what
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machiavelli wants is a good practical
16:07
politician that will scheme and lie his
16:09
way to the top and once he gets to the
16:11
top of a particular italian city-state
16:13
he will attack one city-state after
16:15
another and unify italy and create
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something like a new roman empire there
16:19
can be new glory a new this worldly
16:22
satisfaction of the potential for human
16:24
greatness remember that machiavelli is
16:26
completely opposed to all metaphysical
16:28
interpretations of the world machiavelli
16:30
does not believe in heaven and hell
16:32
machiavelli does not believe in god
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machiavelli does not believe in the
16:35
realm of the forms all machiavelli
16:37
believes in is here and now
16:39
the main chance how are we going to get
16:40
what we want right now and machiavelli's
16:43
conception of virtue of the blessed
16:45
human condition of the well-organized
16:47
human soul and of the practically run
16:50
political society all come together in
16:53
this figure of the ruthless tyrannical
16:56
prince
16:58
now this tyrannical prince
16:59
will be
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as machiavelli says like a lion and a
17:02
fox when he's faced with military
17:06
dangers or threats that are direct and
17:07
obvious he's a lion he can withstand
17:10
anyone else's direct coercive force
17:12
because he's a military man machiavelli
17:14
likes blood and gore he's a very
17:16
military kind of fellow he really likes
17:17
military solutions but in addition to
17:19
that
17:20
being a being a lion is not enough in
17:22
addition to that it's also necessary to
17:24
be a fox what we mean by being a fox is
17:26
that one must be clever
17:28
sly cunning deceitful and when you're
17:32
powerful and at the same time deceitful
17:34
when you can confuse them when you can
17:37
confuse your opponents and defeat them
17:38
in a practical coercive sense then you
17:40
are the man of realver2 this is the kind
17:42
of guy that's going to go straight to
17:44
the top he's going to climb a pile of
17:46
corpses on his way there but then again
17:48
he has no moral compunctions about it
17:50
there is no god to judge him there is no
17:53
metaphysical standard by which to judge
17:54
this he either succeeds or he doesn't
17:56
it's a sort of nihilistic approach to
17:59
politics in which the gratification of
18:00
the individual ego is raised the status
18:02
of a principle
18:04
in some respects this is why the
18:06
renaissance and particularly the the
18:08
human-centered political science that's
18:10
characteristic of the renaissance which
18:12
is a big change from that of the middle
18:14
ages is such a turning of the corner in
18:16
the western political tradition we're
18:18
moving away from god-centered politics
18:20
toward man-centered politics and
18:22
man-centered politics is ugly
18:24
man-centered politics is bloody and
18:26
man-centered politics serves no ends
18:29
but human ends and human desires there
18:31
is no
18:33
ultimate
18:34
summum bonum
18:36
no ultimate good that politics gestures
18:39
at
18:41
machiavelli gives a very fine example of
18:43
a of an action which he considers to
18:45
have great political wisdom in it i
18:47
think you'll like this
18:48
there was a ruler
18:50
who
18:51
attacked and conquered another
18:52
city-state
18:53
but there's still a great deal of
18:55
banditry a good bit of outlawy uh
18:58
political chaos in the countryside
19:01
so this ruler and machiavelli thinks
19:03
this rule is a very wise fellow
19:05
he sends his second in command his
19:06
lieutenant to that city and he says i
19:08
give you complete power of life and
19:10
death over all the citizens of that city
19:11
because now they're mine
19:14
and i want you to go down there and lay
19:15
down the law i want you to ruthlessly
19:17
exterminate all of my enemies i want you
19:20
to to make the decrees i think
19:22
appropriate and whatever degrees you
19:23
think are appropriate make them all and
19:25
lean on these people
19:27
go in and coerce them intimidate them
19:29
frighten them
19:31
until they
19:32
concede that
19:33
i am the legitimate ruler here and that
19:35
you rule in my name and i give you
19:37
complete power if any of them complain
19:38
about you tell them i've given delegated
19:40
my authority to you and if they give you
19:43
any more problems beyond that kill them
19:45
now that's only half of the story
19:47
there's more to it
19:48
after doing that the prince lets this
19:51
guy do it for a couple of months three
19:52
four five months and this very cruel
19:55
very bloodthirsty very ruthless second
19:57
in command
19:58
dominates the people lots of mass
20:00
executions
20:02
cruel tortures
20:03
horrible bloody spectacles which
20:05
frighten the people there out of their
20:06
wits
20:08
now here's a problem this is part of
20:10
machiavellianism fear is a good thing
20:12
you can count on people's fear and this
20:14
guy's made him plenty afraid but we have
20:16
a problem here the potential for hatred
20:18
certainly if you've killed someone's
20:20
father mother son daughter husband wife
20:23
it's going to be payback time
20:25
machiavelli has no conception of
20:27
forgiveness no idea that charity ought
20:30
to be extended to us sinners he thinks
20:32
that's for children and old ladies no
20:34
machiavelli says the right way to handle
20:36
this is the way the prince in this case
20:38
handled it he went to that second city
20:41
and he asked the people in that city
20:43
what do you think of my new ruler here
20:44
is he a nice fellow a real charmer isn't
20:46
he and it turns out
20:48
that
20:49
the people were
20:50
horrified by the terrible cruelties the
20:53
tortures and the murders the public
20:54
executions that he had imposed on them
20:57
so secretly that night
20:59
the prince was sitting back there
21:00
thinking about this and he orders his
21:03
secret police or his private guardsmen
21:05
the ones he can really trust whoever
21:07
they are
21:08
it tells them i want you secretly to go
21:10
to the room of my second in command the
21:12
man i gave this bloody authority to
21:15
and i want you to take him out to the
21:16
center of the square of this town and i
21:18
want you to cut him in half and leave
21:20
him there
21:21
next morning the people of the town get
21:23
up
21:24
and what do they see but a man who is
21:26
the object of intense hatred to them
21:29
pieces of him all over the center of the
21:31
square
21:33
and then our prince sets out a decree
21:35
that he had heard
21:37
through some source which he isn't going
21:39
to name that this man had been very
21:41
severe and very violent and we can't
21:43
have any of that in a well-run state he
21:45
had heard that this man had usurped
21:47
power that the prince had never given
21:49
him and because the second command had
21:51
been so bloody-minded and such an evil
21:52
cruel fellow the prince's justice the
21:54
prince's mercy and the person's prince's
21:56
honesty required that he'd be cut in
21:58
half
22:00
the art of the double cross you send a
22:02
guy out to do the dirty work you cut his
22:04
throat you throw them to the wolves you
22:06
give them to the people that are left
22:07
over and then you clean up the gravy at
22:09
the end of it this is machiavelli's
22:11
conception of good politics he specifies
22:13
that particular example as an example of
22:16
a man who really knows his way around
22:18
political stuff first you'll first you
22:20
conquer people that you have no right to
22:22
and then you send somebody out there to
22:23
do extremely evil and unpleasant and
22:26
violent things to them
22:28
and you lie to him and say that
22:29
you do it with my blessing
22:31
and then you go to the people and you
22:32
act like you're blameless so they won't
22:33
hate you
22:34
and then you kill this guy throw him to
22:36
the wolves and the people lap it up and
22:37
say what a nice failure i'm glad we got
22:39
a prince like you
22:40
much better than the guy we had here we
22:42
thought he was acting with your
22:43
authority but of course now we see that
22:44
he wasn't
22:45
that's what the word machiavellian means
22:48
two three four levels of meaning
22:51
all devoted to the same task
22:53
to the organization and acquire
22:56
acquisition of political power
22:58
by any means necessary
23:00
this man is not careful about the means
23:03
that he uses to achieve his ends
23:07
so machiavelli writes his prince
23:09
90 pages in order that a practical
23:11
politician can have this around for
23:13
inspiration and isn't it inspirational
23:15
reading those of you who have looked at
23:16
it before will find that like it or not
23:19
it is in some respects inspirational
23:21
reading simply because of the
23:23
single-mindedness the ruthless pursuit
23:26
of practical political power as a
23:28
handbook for doing that
23:30
i think it has never been excelled
23:33
the difficulty of course with this is as
23:35
i said a little earlier it prevents
23:37
human beings from being social animals
23:39
stop and think about it for a minute
23:41
suppose you're a member of the medici
23:42
family
23:43
and suppose this guy machiavelli writes
23:46
the prince and dedicates it to you and
23:48
tells you to beware of flatterers and
23:50
beware of people that are trying to get
23:51
in good with you because you can never
23:53
trust them they may stab you in the back
23:55
suppose you were a political ruler and
23:56
he wrote it to you would you hire him to
23:58
work for you
23:59
what would happen if you had him on your
24:01
staff where's where your staff is going
24:02
to start disappearing
24:04
right unforeseen accidents they're all
24:06
going to start as he moves up the ladder
24:07
of command
24:09
bad things happen to good people all
24:11
kinds of stuff could happen here and
24:12
then it may well be
24:14
that some horrible misfortune may occur
24:17
while you're out riding while you happen
24:19
to be asleep well you happen to have
24:20
your back turned in other words
24:22
he is here so he can usurp your position
24:25
why oh why if you had any brains at all
24:27
would you choose to have him on your
24:29
staff there is no man who is less
24:32
appropriate to the staff of a politician
24:35
than machiavelli and yet in some
24:37
respects
24:38
there is a lure he does show you a
24:41
horrible worldly wisdom
24:43
which maybe you want on your own side
24:45
rather than on your other rather than on
24:47
your opponent's side but if he's on your
24:49
side
24:50
well i guess he really can't be on your
24:51
side i guess he's always on his own side
24:54
which is part of the problem machiavelli
24:55
is not a team player
24:57
if you were a ruler you would never in
24:59
your right mind have to keep work for
25:00
you
25:01
turn it around suppose
25:03
a ruler is foolish enough to bring a
25:05
machiavellian in the machiavellian kills
25:07
him makes it look like someone else did
25:09
it he takes over the throne
25:11
a person would have to be crazy to work
25:14
for machiavelli as opposed to have him
25:16
in
25:17
in addition to having him work for you
25:18
in other words suppose he were to become
25:20
the prince of the king what's he going
25:22
to do with you when you become his
25:23
number two or number three or number
25:24
four man you are expendable everyone is
25:27
expendable to the machiavellian you have
25:29
no intrinsic value except as a vehicle
25:32
by which he can satisfy his desires by
25:35
which he can gratify his lust for power
25:37
so the machiavellian soul is the
25:39
tyrannical soul in some respects when
25:41
you go back and look at plato's republic
25:43
almost all the great themes in western
25:45
political philosophy are to be found
25:46
there machiavelli is nothing really new
25:50
machiavelli is a codification
25:52
not quite a systematization but a
25:54
handbook for the would-be tyrant he's a
25:57
handbook of it's a handbook of sophistry
26:01
right because he says one thing it means
26:02
another and in fact the meaning of his
26:04
statements doesn't matter so long as it
26:05
gets the practical result of achieving
26:07
political power and it's an entirely
26:09
this worldly orientation
26:11
if we had to look at the ancient
26:12
political tradition
26:14
both platonism and christianity
26:18
organized the political theory with
26:20
reference to the will of some
26:22
giant metaphysical law giver in the case
26:25
of plato it's the form of the good in
26:27
the case of christianity it's god's
26:29
omnipotence
26:30
but in either case the key issue is
26:34
making our behavior and our souls and
26:37
our lives consistent with the
26:38
obligations imposed by this thing in the
26:41
metaphysical realm
26:42
once we abolish the metaphysical realm
26:45
there is no law or ultimate standard by
26:47
which to judge our actions and by which
26:48
to judge our good and evil and that
26:50
means there's only the satisfaction of
26:52
desires down here and this leads
26:54
straight to the softest political
26:55
position that political power is an end
26:57
in itself that the satisfaction of
26:59
people's desires has an end in
27:00
themselves and the real true state of
27:03
human felicity is having profound
27:06
vehement extraordinarily
27:09
forceful emotions passions and then
27:11
satisfying them and the continuous
27:13
satisfaction of vehement passions is
27:16
what machiavelli and the sophists and
27:18
all of this cynical political tradition
27:21
cynical not in the literal sense but in
27:23
the broad general sense this cynical
27:25
political tradition
27:27
enjoins us too
27:28
so all of you who are would-be rulers
27:31
this is the book for you the difficulty
27:33
is is that it tells us all
27:35
or perhaps not all of us but all of us
27:36
who have the nerve
27:38
not to succumb to metaphysics
27:41
who are willing to break free of the
27:43
mold of mere morality it tells us how to
27:46
become
27:47
chiefs and no longer indians and of
27:49
course if we were all to follow that
27:50
there'd be all chiefs and no indians but
27:52
machiavelli is under no illusions
27:54
about everybody having the capacity to
27:57
do this it's only the extraordinary
27:58
individual like himself or like caesar
28:01
borgia or like a handful of the other
28:03
great tyrants in history that have
28:05
really shown us what human beings are
28:06
capable of
28:07
in some respect
28:09
machiavelli is similar to plato in that
28:11
both plato and machiavelli are trying to
28:13
show us something buried deep in the
28:16
marrow of the human soul at the very
28:18
center of it
28:19
plato thinks there's an eternal goodness
28:22
a final
28:23
spark of the divine soul which allows us
28:26
to get some access to the mind of god
28:29
and to the understanding of ultimate
28:30
truth and wisdom
28:32
machiavelli believes that at the core of
28:35
the human soul
28:36
in the marrow of the psyche
28:39
there is a beast
28:41
an untamed animal which wants only the
28:44
satisfaction of its desires
28:46
in some respects this is a very
28:48
prescient theory because it anticipates
28:50
many of the views that will later be
28:52
held by sigmund freud
28:54
underneath our superego underneath this
28:58
veil of civility
29:00
this
29:01
veneer of righteousness in fact we are
29:03
animals exclusively concerned with the
29:05
satisfaction of our physical desires
29:08
we are beasts
29:10
with a very very thin shell of rational
29:14
morality
29:16
machiavelli suggests that we should
29:18
become on the outside what we are on the
29:21
inside except in such cases when it's
29:23
inconvenient if it's convenient to look
29:25
pious gentle kind and good well that's
29:29
just fine the important thing is not to
29:30
be gentle kind and good the important
29:32
thing is to be ruthless and rapacious
29:35
and treacherous
29:38
if you are familiar with the play king
29:40
lear
29:41
the edmond and edgar characters
29:43
particularly the uh the bastard son i
29:45
think it's edmund
29:47
gives a wonderful speech in which he
29:48
talks about legitimacy in which he talks
29:50
about the order of political right and
29:54
the circumstances of inheritance and
29:57
social status
29:58
and
29:59
when he says in the beginning of that
30:01
soliloquy thou nature art my goddess and
30:03
to thy law my services are bound
30:06
that prayer was about the only prayer
30:08
that machiavelli could say with a
30:09
straight face nature red and fang and
30:12
claw is
30:13
the goddess to whom his services are
30:15
bound
30:17
nature which is
30:20
the fundamental reality we are human
30:23
physical things that's remember where
30:25
that's where the word nature comes from
30:26
from the greek word phusis
30:28
right so we are physical beings we are
30:31
not spirits in a material world we are
30:33
rapacious bits of meat that do whatever
30:35
we can to take advantage of each other
30:37
except when we're deluding ourselves
30:39
with things like morals religion
30:41
kindness gentleness milk of human virtue
30:44
that sort of thing but apart from
30:45
delusions like that and silly poetry
30:47
appropriate for the feeble the weak the
30:50
christians
30:52
in life there's only
30:54
blood
30:55
gore
30:56
power
30:57
the intoxication of not only surviving
30:59
but conquering
31:01
we might say that machiavelli's
31:02
conception of virtue harks back not to
31:05
the socratic conception of virtue but to
31:08
the conception of virtue characteristic
31:09
of homer in the iliad in the odyssey
31:11
it's the lying treacherous virtue of
31:13
odysseus
31:15
it's the powerful lion-like virtues of
31:18
achilles
31:19
if you are a good warrior able to coerce
31:22
other people able to impose your will
31:25
on
31:26
a universe that is both indifferent to
31:27
you and indifferent to
31:29
any moral structure you might create
31:32
then and only then are you a man worth
31:34
taking seriously he enjoins us to create
31:37
to go back to the earlier pre-socratic
31:40
pre-christian virtues we hear the drums
31:43
of a primitive heroism in this book it
31:47
is a blast from the past and at the same
31:49
time it is one of the most modern of
31:51
political works
31:53
if we take for granted and i think it a
31:55
fair assumption that at this point in
31:56
time we live in a secular age we live in
31:59
an age which is contemptuous of
32:01
metaphysics which is contemptuous of
32:03
references to abstract morality then in
32:06
some respects we live in a machiavellian
32:08
universe
32:09
even if we have some sort of ativistic
32:12
connection back to an earlier morality
32:14
that meant something more than personal
32:16
self-gratification
32:18
in that respect machiavelli is a very
32:20
modern political thinker he is the first
32:22
political thinker to break from that
32:24
metaphysical tradition towards a
32:26
completely physical tradition to move
32:28
from a sacred politics to a profane
32:31
politics
32:33
or you might say that he undoes the
32:35
distinction between the sacred and
32:36
profane by abolishing the sacred so the
32:39
world around us is neither sacred nor
32:41
profane it just is what it is
32:44
and you are what you are and what you
32:46
are in fact
32:47
is a wolf guarding the sheep if you
32:49
remember the analogy that thrasymachus
32:52
makes in the first book of the republic
32:54
that the ruler relates to the citizens
32:56
that he that are his subjects the way a
32:58
shepherd relates to a sheep or to a
33:00
flock of sheep he keeps them there not
33:02
because he likes the sheep not because
33:04
he has any moral obligation to the sheep
33:06
but because he likes pork he likes lamb
33:07
chops he likes to turn these things into
33:10
his sustenance well other people the
33:12
subjects in the machiavellian state will
33:14
exist only in order to satisfy the
33:16
physical carnal carnals are well chosen
33:19
where they're carnal desires of the
33:21
machiavellian prince achilles might have
33:24
liked machiavelli if he had understood
33:26
what was being said
33:28
odysseus i think certainly would have
33:29
liked machiavelli because he brings
33:31
together both the lion and the fox i
33:33
would say not so much achilles because
33:35
achilles is a little on the dumb side
33:37
but odysseus as the perfect
33:39
machiavellian hero brings together the
33:41
willingness to lie the willingness to
33:43
violate oaths the willingness to break
33:45
whatever social conventions are around
33:47
you in order to achieve your ends
33:50
the centered focused fierce desire to
33:55
satisfy your innermost longings in some
33:58
respects machiavelli is what people
34:00
would be like in the freudian sense if
34:02
you took away the superego altogether or
34:04
if you only kept the superego the
34:06
conception of righteousness of moral
34:08
virtue as a veneer to protect you from
34:11
other people's
34:12
condemnation
34:14
but what we are down deep
34:16
is a mass of desires that we neither
34:19
choose nor control
34:21
and human felicity simply exists in the
34:24
satisfaction of these desires
34:26
oxen are happy when you give them straw
34:28
machiavelli is happy when you give them
34:29
a government fundamentally there is no
34:31
difference
34:32
each animal gravitates towards its own
34:34
appropriate object
34:36
machiavelli
34:37
in that respect is the is an ancient
34:40
political theorist at the same same time
34:41
a modern political theorist
34:43
he represents nothing new in politics
34:45
but rather an ever-present temptation
34:49
it is always tempting
34:51
for human beings to take the easy way
34:53
out and decide that they're going to be
34:55
meat that they're going to give up
34:57
the attempt
34:59
to kindle the divine spark which is what
35:01
marcus aurelius called the soul
35:04
called the disposition to moral virtue
35:06
machiavelli doesn't want to climb
35:09
what plato called the ladder of
35:11
beauty in the symposium
35:14
because he finds the world ugly
35:18
violent
35:19
and evil
35:20
and he likes it
35:22
so in other words not only does he know
35:24
that he's in the cave but he thinks that
35:26
any attempt to move out of the
35:28
cave is a kind of letting down of nature
35:32
it's an attempt to move away from nature
35:34
towards
35:35
some sort of shemerical poetic i know
35:37
not what and machiavelli is the saint is
35:40
a patron saint of all politicians who
35:43
would be exclusively and immorally
35:45
practical
35:47
one of the great
35:48
difficulties in evaluating machiavelli
35:51
is to give him his due in other words to
35:53
be intellectually fair fair to him
35:54
because he is a great genius there's no
35:56
way that we can honestly take that away
35:58
from him
35:59
but it's also a mistake to say that
36:02
while he's a great genius
36:05
we can in practice use this as a guide
36:08
to life
36:09
if people were to take this seriously
36:10
and although god help us some of us do
36:13
it would be a disaster for the social
36:15
structure and it would be disaster for
36:16
politics
36:17
the difficulty is is that we seem to
36:19
vacillate between one and the other when
36:21
the better angels of our natures take
36:23
over we can see how marcus aurelius is a
36:25
fine politician and how plato offers us
36:27
something real solid substantial in
36:30
organizing our emotions organizing our
36:32
lives organizing our standards of
36:34
judgment the problem is that we tend to
36:35
vacillate back and forth every once in a
36:38
while when we think nobody's looking we
36:40
have a sneaking suspicion that
36:42
machiavelli may be right
36:44
let him who is out who is without sin
36:46
cast the first stone i think every one
36:48
of us has done stuff that we knew was
36:50
wrong at one time or another machiavelli
36:52
is saying i wish to liberate you from
36:54
the guilt of thinking that that is a
36:56
mistake your mistake is in not doing
36:58
that all the time
37:00
do not succumb to the temptation
37:02
to be an angel you have no chance of
37:04
doing that you are meat
37:06
you are meet with a rational soul but
37:08
your rational soul is nothing that glows
37:10
in the dark it's nothing metaphysical
37:12
it's just the rational part of you that
37:13
allows you to decide
37:15
how to best satisfy your irrationally
37:17
developed desires
37:19
so machiavelli is a kind of standing
37:21
temptation
37:23
he is a great political genius and we
37:25
must give the devil his due almost
37:27
literally speaking
37:29
but at the same time we have to
37:30
understand the limitations of this
37:32
limitation number one is it prevents us
37:34
from being what we really are which is
37:35
social animals
37:37
a machiavellian would be unfit and
37:39
subordinate and would be unfit as a
37:40
superior nobody in his right mind would
37:42
work for machiavelli or have machiavelli
37:43
work form
37:45
number two
37:48
it is a denigration in some respects of
37:51
human nature
37:53
it is a cynical analysis of what people
37:56
have done in worst case circumstances
37:59
it is almost an entirely hopeless
38:01
philosophy
38:02
by rejecting the christian virtues of
38:04
faith hope and charity well
38:07
i suppose we might get by without
38:08
charity i suppose in this case we might
38:10
get by without faith but the problem
38:12
with this philosophy that i think even
38:13
bothers those who
38:15
acknowledge its brilliance is that it is
38:16
entirely hopeless philosophy what can we
38:19
expect from the next government the same
38:21
thing we can expect from this government
38:22
which is that it will be rapacious that
38:24
it will be treacherous that it will be
38:25
evil and that it will be
38:27
powerful and that it will dominate us
38:30
the only way out of that merry-go-round
38:31
is to dominate everyone else
38:33
nature red in fang and claw enjoins us
38:38
to make a meal of our own
38:40
and joins us to become the wolf among
38:41
the sheep
38:43
and if we have
38:44
both the inclination and the
38:46
unwillingness to philosophize in the
38:48
platonic
38:49
sense then it seems to me that the only
38:52
logical conclusion is the one that
38:53
machiavelli draws
38:55
so if you wish to go for the strictly
38:58
physical strictly anti-metaphysical
39:00
politics we're going to have a hard time
39:02
connecting politics and ethics
39:05
one of the great achievements of plato's
39:06
republic is that politics turns out to
39:09
be ethics writ large that what is good
39:11
for the soul of the individual man the
39:13
organization of the reasoning the
39:14
spirited and the desiring parts it also
39:17
turns out to be isomorphically good for
39:19
the society because we will organize the
39:22
rulers the rational folks at the top of
39:24
society who will have the guardians
39:26
their auxiliaries the spirited part and
39:27
we'll have the bronze people at the
39:28
bottom getting as many of their desires
39:30
satisfied as possible for plato there's
39:32
a one-to-one connection between politics
39:34
and ethics
39:36
that will be true of all the
39:37
metaphysical thinkers also be true of
39:39
the christians
39:40
on the other hand
39:42
if one wishes to adopt the single world
39:45
entirely physicalistic interpretation of
39:47
human life and of ontology and of
39:49
politics of necessity there will be a
39:52
disjunction between politics and ethics
39:54
we will hear this again when we deal
39:56
with david hume's theory of justice
39:59
so if you wish
40:00
politics to be moral
40:02
if you complain that politicians take
40:05
too many bribes and cut too many corners
40:08
and are unwilling to do what they ought
40:11
to do and meet their moral obligations
40:13
you are implicitly making an argument
40:15
which is founded on some sort of
40:17
metaphysical conception no matter how in
40:19
koat
40:20
you might as well fess up to it now
40:22
you're all metaphysical believers
40:24
if you don't wish to be a metaphysical
40:26
believer that's another possibility be
40:28
careful you don't move down the slippery
40:30
slope to machiavellianism because we
40:33
move from the state of society to the
40:34
state of nature and the nature that
40:36
machiavelli has destined for us will be
40:39
worse than any hell because it will be
40:41
immediate and tangible and there's no
40:43
way around it it's a necessary element
40:45
in the human condition
40:47
machiavelli offers us
40:49
a secular substitute for salvation
40:53
machiavelli offers us a chance
40:56
for this worldly gratification
40:58
and since there's no other world for us
41:00
to go to no final judgment of god no
41:03
ultimate moral order this is the best
41:06
that the human species can attain
41:09
the homeric virtues the military virtues
41:12
the treacherous political virtues
41:15
those elements of
41:17
roman history which are the most
41:18
disgraceful
41:20
and the most appalling machiavelli
41:22
wishes to raises those to the status of
41:25
universal human
41:27
felicity
41:28
and unusual well perhaps not an unusual
41:31
unnecessary but lamentable temptation
41:35
and insofar as we wish to avoid that
41:38
we must go back and think about the idea
41:40
of
41:41
politics and ethics
41:44
the implications that it holds for
41:45
ontology because it implies metaphysics
41:48
the implications that metaphysics have
41:50
for our conception of the rest of
41:52
philosophy and the way in which
41:54
knowledge holds ethics virtue
41:57
and
41:58
human
41:59
experience together the way it connects
42:02
our conception of the individual soul
42:04
and political
42:06
order
42:07
and the way
42:09
in which our own lives would be
42:10
influenced by a decision to either
42:13
succumb to the lure of this world
42:16
or to take the chance
42:18
that another better one awaits us
42:21
it is not a decidable proposition
42:24
machiavelli wishes to offer us one
42:26
possible solution to the set of
42:28
intellectual difficulties
42:49
you
— end of transcript —
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