Machiavelli & Hobbes

Machiavelli (1467-1527)

Machiavelli was believed to be the beginning of political science and is best know for his famous work ‘The Prince’ which was written in 1913 when he was in retirement (where he remained until his death) due to being arrested for obtaining a minor post in the Florentine government in 1498, where he was put on diplomatic missions until the restoration of the Medici in the year 1512. At the same time of writing ‘The Prince’ he also wrote ‘The Discourse’, which was more republican and liberal and was considered that you would have a one sided view of the doctrine if both books weren’t read.

His book ‘The Prince’ was designed to please the Medici, where at the time of it being written one had just become Pope. The book was the idea a guide on how to guide rulers, where it informs them of how principles are won, held and lost. This book was to become the key work of the Renaissance period as it brought a new attitude to humanism in which Machiavelli agreed with ‘man is the measure of all things’

The book discusses the idea of princes and how they should rule in order to become popular and succeed. He said that ‘princes don’t need armies because they are upheld by higher causes which the human mind cannot attain to.’ They are ‘exalted and maintained by God’ and it would take the work of a presumptuous and foolish man to discuss them’ He also decided that the best were founders of religion, then the founders of monarchies or republics, then literary men. He believed religion should have prominent place in the state – as a social cement, and that a Prince should seem to be religious as he decided the nearer people are to the Church of Rome which was the head of their religion, the less religious they actually are. His criticisms of the Church on his day are that by its evil conduct that undermine religious belief. The power of the Pope’s he believed prevented the unification of Italy which he had a patriotic desire.

Machiavelli believed that ‘success’ means achievement of your purpose and weather you are a saint or a sinner, you will want to achieve as much in terms of politics and science in order to be seen as a success. To achieve a political end he advised that you ‘have power and do anything to hold onto it.’ He also mentioned that politicians would be better when they depend upon a virtuous population than when they depend upon one that is indifferent to moral considerations. What we learn from Machiavelli is that the world has become more like that of his ideas than it was before, and that the modern man who hopes to refute his philosophy must think more deeply than seemed necessary in the 19^th century.

Hobbes Leviathan (1588-1679)

Now we move onto Hobbes who was born in 1588 and attended oxford at the age of 15, where he learnt scholastic logic and the philosophy of Aristotle. The work of Galileo and Kepler profoundly influenced him that he learnt when he tutored Hardwick at the age of 22. His book Leviathan was published in 1651 however failed to please anyone. It’s rationalism offended most of the refugees (of who were English royalists that he associated with when he fled to France) and its attacks on the Catholic Church offended the French government (this made him flee to London)

He said that the doctrines of Leviathan life were nothing but a motion of limbs- therefore automata have an artificial life. He called commonwealth a creation of art that was seen as an artificial man and sovereignty as the artificial soul. The Leviathan was made up of ruler of the church and the power was given to the military. The book concentrated mainly on the western political philosophy from the perspective of the social contract theory. This is the idea that the state of nature in society before the contract began was a state of no rules or laws where people’s dominant passions were aggressive. There was no respect for anyone or their property which caused society to be like a state of war. Every citizen lived in fear of one another as it was as though ‘every man was against every man’ This made life brutish, nasty and short for all that lived, even though all men were considered to be naturally equal dominating one another made living peacefully impossible. Therefore an authoritative figure needed to be introduced to end the universal war. The citizens allowed a sovereign to have power over everything, with the promise that they would protect people’s lives and property.  This was named ‘the social contract’ that would rule society, but it was agreed it would end if the sovereign ever failed to protect its people.  The Contract allowed the citizens a right to defend themselves in situations outside the contract such as personal feuds that didn’t involve property.

Hobbes decided that the English civil war occurred because power was divided between King, Lords and commons. Therefore he believed the powers were best with the sovereign as they were seen to have supreme unlimited power.