Reply to My Response to Luther

My reply seemed pretty good after reading it (i.e. i seemed to agree with Luther as i read... i was like Yea, Yea, Yea the entire time), but then there was some light shed on it in the discussion. Now, to be perfectly honest, i have no idea what to think. Why can't this whole thinking thing be easier, and the Professor not be so much the devil's advocate? This seems to be an impossible undertaking, which is fine because that is what thinking is, but its just so difficult. I just want an answer but a bunch of people have tried, and no one seems to be able to answer it... Are all the people to ever walk this earth just retarded?

Response to Luther

I agree. Luther is correct. What else can I say?

Machiavelli Quiz

"The Prince is a concise statement of Machiavelli's belief that classical and Christian political theory is unworkable in a world that defines politics as the exercise of power and the struggle for power. It is also implicitly a rejection of a nihilistic counterethic, that only power and brute force matter." (Dante Germino, Machiavelli to Marx: Modern Western Political Thought, p. 32)

Discuss to what extent you agree or disagree with this statement. What evidence can you bring to support your position?



Assuming I understand Germino in this quote, which I probably do not by the way, I disagree with his assertion that Machiavelli uses moral ethics in The Prince. Machiavelli makes it abundantly clear throughout his book that the only ethic governing a prince is practical rather than moral. It is the prince’s job to remain in power once power has been obtained, disregarding, for the most part, those who may be hindering. However, he will still have to make his subjects look on him in favor so that they support him being in power.

If one defines politics, in that which a prince would mingle, as “the exercise of power and the struggle for power,” there does not seem to be a lot of room to discuss right or wrong, healthy or harmful in a purely objective sense, in that the morality would remain for the prince to decide. If politics simply deals with power, then one dealing in politics only has a commitment to power, leaving moral ethics up to personal beliefs or convictions of the particular prince. However, if the definition of politics did contain a certain moral standard, I believe Machiavelli’s book would have to deal with the issue. How it is now, though, Machiavelli does not deal with morality; Machiavelli’s only ethic is a practical one.