[Also see my entry Machiavelli’s
Disappointed Utopia in the Wishful Thinking section.]
Part I.
The great Niccolò Machiavelli
(1467-1527) is the subject of this entry, and I can find nothing more fitting
than to introduce him by quoting Bertrand Russell’s opening of his Machiavelli
Chapter in his History of Western Philosophy:
“The
Renaissance, though it produced no important theoretical philosopher, produces
one man of supreme eminence in political philosophy, Niccolò
Machiavelli. It is the custom to be shocked by him, he certainly is sometimes
shocking. But many other men would be equally so, if they were equally free
from humbug. His political philosophy is scientific and empirical, based upon
his own experience of affairs, concerned to set forth the means to assigned
ends, regardless of the question whether the ends are to be considered good or
bad. When, on occasion, he allows himself to mention the ends that he desires,
they are such as we can all applaud. Much of the conventional obloquy which attaches
to his name, is due to the indignation of such hypocrites who hate the frank
avowal of evil-doing. There remains, it is true, a good deal that is genuinely
demanding criticism, but in this he is an expression of his age. Such
intellectual honesty--- about political dishonesty--- would have been hardly
possible at any other time, or in any other country, except perhaps in Greece,
among men who owed their theoretical education to the sophists, and their
practical training to the wars of petty states, which in Classical Greece as in
Renaissance Italy were the political accompaniment of individual genius.”
In his glowing endorsement of
Machiavelli’s honesty, Russell may have taken a cue from Francis Bacon’s
comment along the same lines: “We are much beholden to
Machiavelli and others, that write what men do, and not what they ought to do.”
This is not altogether true, however, as, besides writing what men do,
he is also writing about what they ought to do, as we can find easily in
his Discorsi.
My own knowledge of Machiavelli
started at a very early age of thirteen, not with his most famous work Il
Principe, but with his historical Istorie Fiorentine and the utopian
Discorsi. As I already mentioned in my earlier entry Machiavelli’s
Disappointed Utopia in the Wishful Thinking Section, I owed my
acquaintance with both to an old family friend and my personal mentor Maria
Yevgenievna Grabar-Passek, editor of the splendid Soviet literary series Monuments
of Historical Thought. (She actually recommended to me earlier editions of
these works as her own Machiavelli project had not yet been realized by
then. Also, she did not recommend his most famous work Il Principe to me
at that time, probably deciding that its cynical quality may not have been
quite appropriate for my young age.)
Machiavelli’s Istorie
Fiorentine is undoubtedly a colossal Monument of Historical Thought, and
it presents his historical genius as by no means inferior to the best in this
genre, being both a literary masterpiece and a fine example of source
scholarship, although some critics have complained that too much purely “political
history” has been stuffed in it, and not enough “cultural history.”
But then let us remember that Machiavelli was first and foremost a political
philosopher, and his History, naturally, reflects primarily that
side of his professional interest.
The popular impression of
Machiavelli as an amoral cynic is the least likely conclusion one can draw from
actually reading his great work Discorsi, which offers us
incontrovertible proof that there is a large moral dimension to Machiavelli,
the assumed amoralist. There are certain political-moral values which he holds
dear: national independence and liberty above all, security and constitutional
guarantee of law over whim. The best constitutions ought to distribute rights
not only among the rich and the powerful, but also give a substantial share to
the poor and powerless, or else political instability will necessarily ensue.
Surprisingly to those who are not aware of it, Machiavelli gets the credit for
being the first to formulate the doctrine of “checks and balances.”
Princes, nobles and people must all have their part in the Constitution: “then these three powers will keep each other
reciprocally in check.” As Bertrand Russell aptly notes, there are whole chapters (in the Discorsi) which seem
almost as if they had been written by Montesquieu (!!!); most of the book could
have been read with approval by an eighteenth-century liberal… The word ‘liberty’
is used as denoting something precious… The love of liberty and the
theory of checks and balances came to modern times largely from the
Renaissance, though also directly from antiquity (they came to Machiavelli himself, and through him to the Renaissance,
naturally, also from antiquity). This aspect of
Machiavelli is at least as important as the more famous “immoral” doctrines of Il
Principe.
It is unfortunate that very few
modern students of the American Constitution are aware of the fact that the
term “checks and balances” was coined by the Frenchman
Montesquieu, but even fewer know that this idea comes from antiquity via
Machiavelli. Repeating after Bertrand Russell that “this aspect of
Machiavelli is at least as important as his more famous immoral
doctrines,” it calls for a radical readjustment of our popular view
of the great Florentine and of his political, philosophical, and ethical
legacy.
End of Part I. To be continued
tomorrow.
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