Introduction and The Prince

 Welcome to Pol 227 Modern Political Philosophy. My name is Barry Murdaco. Hopefully, by now you have had a chance to view the syllabus on Blackboard. If there are any questions, please let me know. Before we get started I would like the class to create their own blogs. Some of you have already, thank you to those who did. I will make a list of the blogs soon, so if you are having trouble (totally normal if this is your first online class) seeing the other blogs might help. Since we will not have regular class discussions, seeing what the other students are up to will help provide a kind of virtual discussion for the class. As is says on the syllabus, each week the class will complete writing assignments based on the readings. Simply choose a quote from the readings each week, write out the quote, explain the meaning of the quote, and then why you chose it. I strongly encourage the class to read each other's posts and comment on them, that will count towards your overall participation grade, as well as how much you write and how consistent you are on your own blogs. Generally, each week's assignment should be about a page long (about 250 words).

Now that is out of the way, what exactly is political philosophy, specifically modern political philosophy. Political philosophy seeks to investigate basic beliefs and questions about the state and society. Some of the questions political philosophy seeks to answers:

1. What is human nature? Is there even such a thing as human nature? Depending on how you answer this question relates to almost every other important question in political philosophy. Most people would agree that we are all "made" by society to some extent, but to what extent is that? Are we "blank slates" in which social values are "written" on, or determined by biology, or do we have some degree of autonomy, or control over our selves?

2. What is the state and society? Are these artificial creations, or are they natural constructs that all humans inevitably create? Are all societies political, or is it possible to have a non-political society? Is there a difference between a community and a society? Furthermore, is society real or are we just collections of isolated individuals?

3. What kind of state should we have? What kinds of limits should we put on political authority?

4. Is democracy the best form of government? The word democracy comes from the ancient Greek language meaning "rule of the people." Is this the best form of government? Are governments that we call democracies (like our own) really democratic?

5. To what extent should we allow or tolerate economic inequality to exist in society? Should the state be tasked with balancing out inequalities and creating (even using force) a more equal society?

There are other questions to be sure, but I think these cover the most important, or at least the core questions of political philosophy, and again probably none more important than questioning human nature. In this way, the study of political philosophy can be quite interesting as it gives you insight into humanity.

Political philosophy is generally believed to begin with the ancient Greek philosophers, most notably Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. This is also generally considered to be the beginning of so-called "Western culture." Right at the outset, I would like to push back against the idea of Western culture as some kind of sealed concept that is separate from non-Western culture. I am not trying to diminish the importance of the Greeks but see them as more like the nexus point of various ancient cultures. A simple geography lesson I think shows this to be the case. The Greek peninsula is located between Europe, Africa, and Asia, and modern scholarship shows that the Greeks were influenced by many cultures from the Egyptians, Persians, even far off India and China.

Greece

 

Greece is orange, Egypt is green

Of course, during the life of Alexander the Great (356-323BCE), he created an empire that encompassed most of these territories (except China), and trade routes had existed for centuries prior so it is not unlikely at all to think that these cultures would have had contact. Furthermore, there is evidence that languages as distinct as Greek, Latin, Persian, and Sanskrit (ancient Hindi) all share similarities, leading some to argue there was some kind of shared "proto-language" spoken before these languages developed. The Greeks being situated almost midway between these three continental landmasses would be ideally situated for being exposed to all these cultures, combined with access to the sea, and the citizens of Athens especially being known for trade and commerce over the sea.

However, we are not talking about ancient but modern philosophy. Strangely enough, modern political philosophy generally begins around the 16th century during the time period know as the Renaissance, which obviously would not seem very modern to most people so why is it called so? I suppose to some extent it is just a tradition which is still with us today, and there probably is good reason to revise this definition, but I suppose if you had to make a defense of this classification it would probably be because during this period of time you saw the earliest rise of what we today call "nation-states," the questioning of religious authority in the form of the Protestant reformation, as well as the genesis of the modern idea of individualism and individual rights. During the time of the Greeks, most people lived in city-states, meaning that the political boundaries of the government and citizenships extended no further than the city people lived in, whether it was Athens, Sparta, Corinth, Thebes, etc. In reality, powerful city-states like Athens and Sparta both expanded to comprise significant territory. Athens was also known for "inventing" democracy, or a political system where all citizens voted in the Popular Assembly (Ecclesia). Again, though, the reality somewhat undermines these claims. Women, slaves, and foreigners who lived in the city were not allowed to vote, so in reality maybe only about ten percent of a population of 500,000 were allowed to vote.

 Today the idea of a nation, or one people unified by a common culture, and in many cases language, forms the basis of most states, and also in most cases comprises much more territory than cities. City-states were more or less unique to the Greeks, people outside of Greece lived under some kind of "empire" meaning a large territorial mass usually of different ethnicities under one political authority, and needless to say subjects of empire had very little or no rights at all. As it happens, even in the city-states of Greece, there was very little understanding of individual rights as we would know them today. Citizenship was very important and there was much more of a collective understanding of citizenship, meaning that your duties and obligations as a citizen outweighed your private individual concerns. This was during a time when warfare between city-states, or between Greek city-states and empires was quite common. By the way, the Greek word for city-states was "polis" and serves as the foundation of the modern politics, or political. Even to this day the politics means the process of making collective decisions by a people as a whole for their welfare and prosperity, or as Aristotle would say to live the "good life." This actually introduces a new element of complexity in modern definitions of politics as we try to grapple with the contradictions between our individual needs and wants, and our collective role as citizens. Finally, religious and political authority were usually one and the same, even if the Greeks and other ancient cultures were polytheistic meaning they worshipped many gods as opposed to monotheistic religions (one god). There was no such thing as the separation of church and state which is also a modern conception of politics, even though it is likely that the more philosophical minded Greeks did not take the idea of many gods seriously.

I do not want to get stuck talking about the Greeks, obviously there is a lot that can be said. Anyway, among modern political philosophers the first one we usually encounter is Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527).

Right off the bat we can say that there is even some debate whether Machiavelli can be considered a philosopher. Most of the time we think of philosophers as theorizing about politics in an abstract way, but Machiavelli was much more concerned with the practical applications of politics and saw little value in theorizing. Still, Machiavelli cannot help but lay out some definitions and ideas about politics that have enriched our understanding of political philosophy, and helped redefine political philosophy as a field of knowledge which should be concerned with real life.

A little background on Machiavelli, he lived in the city-state of Florence in Northern Italy. I am skipping around a bit, but after the fall of the Roman Empire who came after the Greeks political institutions in Europe fragmented, or broke apart into smaller kingdoms and in some cases saw the re-emergence of city-states, particularly in parts of Germany, Italy and Switzerland. Most of these city-states would hardly be considered democratic and were controlled by single rulers or wealthy families that constantly feuded with each other. One famous family from this time period that at various times ruled over Florence was the Medici family, Machiavelli even dedicates his most famous work book The Prince (written in 1513 but only published in 1532 five years after his death) to Lorenzo Medici. Another famous family active in politics during this period was the Borgia family, who Machiavelli spends some time talking about particularly Cesare Borgia, whose father was the Pope of the Catholic Church (strange that a Pope would have kids!). As mentioned, this was also during the time when there was a growing protest movement (as in Protestant) against the corruption of the Catholic Church, which pretty much everyone knew was a massively corrupt institution (arguably still is) and was very much involved in so-called worldly affairs and functioned as another center of political power in Western Europe along all the various kingdoms and city-states.

Machiavelli is known for denouncing Christian morals as having no application to political affairs and for introducing the idea that politics should be studied for what it is rather than what it ought to be. Oddly enough the leaders of the Catholic Church seemed to be the least guided by Christian morality. Machiavelli was not reacting against these leaders however, instead he was taking a medieval literary genre known as the "mirror for princes" and subverting it. The typical example for this genre would be a text providing ethical lessons for a new ruler always urging them to be a wise and just king, things like that. Machiavelli took this genre in a completely new direction.

Machiavelli argues that a good political ruler needs to do immoral things: lying, cheating, breaking promises, bribery, even violence and murder in order to stay in power. He bases his argument on the actual deeds of political rulers, looking at examples of both successful and unsuccessful rulers and trying to identify the qualities that made them successful. Machiavelli famously argues that rulers need to be animalistic, and even recommends specifically the lion and the fox. These are symbolic metaphors obviously, and what he means is that rulers must be strong like a lion and crafty like a fox. As he says in Chapter 18 (XVIII):

A prince, therefore, being forced knowingly to adopt the beast, ought to choose the fox and the lion; because the lion cannot defend himself against traps and the fox cannot defend himself against wolves. Therefore, it is necessary to be a fox to discover the traps and a lion to frighten the wolves. Those who rely simply on the lion do not understand what they are doing. Therefore a wise lord cannot, nor ought he, keep faith when such promises may be turned against him, and when the reasons that caused him to promise no longer exist. If men were entirely good this principle would not hold, but because they are bad, and will not keep faith with you, you too are not bound to observe it with them. There will never be a shortage of good reasons to excuse going back on your word. Endless modern examples of this could be given, showing how many agreements have been broken by princes, and how he who has known best how to employ the fox has succeeded best.

Being that Machiavelli introduces the distinction between "is" and "ought" in political philosophy he is generally thought of as pursuing a value-free idea of politics, meaning he is not committed to any moral values or norms. That is not entirely true however, and a careful reading of his work shows clearly that he prefers order over disorder, and to that extent there is a value preference that can be discerned. In other words, we can say that Machiavelli prefers an "ends justify the means" morality, meaning that as long as the goal (the ends) is good any means used to produce this end can be justified even the most ruthless. In fact, Machiavelli is credited with coining the phrase ends justify the means, or at least a simplified version of this quote near the end of Chapter 18: "In the actions of all men, and especially of princes, which it is not wise to challenge, one judges by the result. For that reason, let a prince have the credit for conquering and holding his state, the means will always be considered honest, and he will be praised by everybody." It should also be said that Machiavelli saw situations where violence and other ruthless means could lead to disorder and should be avoided in those instances, and certainly was not a sadist who enjoyed violence for its own sake, although these are the kinds of caricatures of Machiavelli that have been created since. The term Machiavellian has entered our language as a term synonymous with ruthlessness, even Shakespeare makes reference to "murderous Machiavel" in plays like Henry VI, and according to one source there are over 400 references to Machiavelli in Elizabethan literature (http://openliterature.net/2012/06/01/word-of-the-day-machiavel/index.html).


The Prince is a rather short text which is surprising given its importance in political philosophy. Next week, we will go over another work by Machiavelli known as The Discourses, which is much longer, written after The Prince, and actually favors a republican type of government than the type of monarchy he describes in The Prince. Strangely enough, Machiavelli prefers a republican government, or representative government by the people (somewhat different from a democracy) than the kings and princes discussed in the present text.

As for the reading by Mark Twain (1835-1910), "A Fable" (1909), Twain is a writer I am fairly sure everyone has at least heard of. I will leave it up to the class to figure out how the meaning of this short story relates to the class.

For the first assignment choose a quote by Machiavelli or Twain. Write out the quote, explain the meaning of the quote, and why you chose it. The assignment is due before class next Friday. This will be the format to follow for all assignments. The assignment should be posted on your blog.