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Machiavelli's Political Psychology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Extract

Systematic analysis shows the psychological premises of Machiavelli's political theory to be fairly consistent and to transcend historical circumstance. Above all, the apparent contradiction between its rapacious and consensual sides can be resolved by unearthing his distinction between necessary properties and contingent attributes qua habits. Following medieval medical theory, necessary properties include: spirit that animates the body; mind with faculties of ingenuity, imagination, and memory; desires for preservation, glory, power, freedom, wealth, and sexual pleasure; and four humors received from the stars. While serving the desires, mind stimulates them to expand into the limitless ambition characteristic of Machiavellian individuals. Habituation to laws and gods makes possible the institutional life of republics, in that cooperative habits solve the collective-action problem faced by a multitude of self-ruling citizens. However, such republics are ultimately alliances for joint gain rather than structures of virtue—challenging the ascendant view of Machiavelli as a “civic humanist” and Aristotelian.

Type
Research Article
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Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1997

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References

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7 Hence, “accident” has two meanings in Machiavelli's writing: (1) an acquired characteristic that comes into being and passes away; (2) a chance event, originating in Fortune's whim, that cannot be foreseen by human beings. On a deeper level, these two concepts find common ground in Aristotle's assumption that accidental attributes are made to adhere to nature by an accidental event. In Machiavelli's thought, this adhesion occurs when lawful habits are forced onto a licentious multitude by a founder rising by chance. For the metaphysical thought undergirding Machiavelli's nature-accident distinction, see Aristotle Metaphysics, D, 4, 8, 30; E, 2, 3; K, 8 and Aquinas, , On Being and Essence [“De ente et essentia”], I, 511; VII, 99–113.Google Scholar

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9 Cf. D, I, 21.1; D, III, 36.1; FH, II, 1; AW, I, 581; AW, VII, 703, 718; Tercets on Ambition, p. 737.

10 See P, VII, 26; D, 1, 12.1, 19.3, 33.2, 37.1, 40.7, 56; D, II, preface.3, 3, 5.2; D, III, 27.3, 30.1; FH, II, 1; FH, III, 13,16; FH, V, 1,34; FH, VII, 33; AW, VII, 726; Golden Ass, pp. 771–72; Tercets on Ingratitude, p. 743; Mandragola, IV.I; FL 116, 896; FL 159, 961; DL, 175.

11 See P, XIV, 59; D, 1, 1.4; D, II, 17.5, 32.1; D, III, 6.19, 37.1, 39.2; AW, II, 603.

12 Cf. P, III, 14; P, X, 44; D, I, preface.l, 33.2; D, III, 12.1,21.3,29; AW, IV, 662; FH, IV, 10; FH, VII, 23; Tercets on Ambition, p. 737; FL 131, 920.

13 Cf. P, XXIII, 95; D, I, 24.2, 58.2; D, III, 8.2, 9.1, 22.1, 22.3; AW, VI, 694; Tercets on Fortune, p. 745; Appropriating Money, p. 1441; Raffaello Girolami, p. 116; FL 116, 897.

14 Cf. D, I, 29.2, 57, 58.1–3; D, III, 29, 36.1; FH, II, 25, 34; FH, III, 1; FH, IV, 27; FH, VI, 18.

15 Cf. P, XVIII, 69–70.

16 Cf. P, VI, 24; P, XXV, 99; D, I, 40.2.

17 Cf. P, II, 7; D, II, 6.2; Remodeling Florence, p. 104; FL137, 930. Historically, this usage goes back to Cicero's dictum that “custom makes something like a second nature” (consuetudo quasi alterant¨ naturam effici) in Definibus bonorum et malorum, V 25.74Google Scholar, as well as Galen's stronger claim that “custom is second nature” (consuetudo est altera natura) in De tuenda valetudine, 1. Also, note that, strictly speaking, “custom” refers to normative patterns on the level of society whereas “habit” stands for unthinking behaviors at the level of individuals; Machiavelli does not observe this distinction, however. On second nature, see also Funke, Gerhard, Gewohnheit, Archiv für Begriffsgeschichte, ed. Rothacker, Erich, vol. 3 (Bonn: H. Bouvier, 1964), pp. 14, 84, 96–99.Google Scholar

18 See Strauss, , Thoughts on Machiavelli, p. 246Google Scholar; Münkler, , Machiavelli, pp. 255–56, 269Google Scholar; Baricelli, Gian Piero, “Rereading ‘The Prince’: Philosophical themes in Machiavelli”, Italian Quarterly 52 (1970): 5859Google Scholar; Prezzolini, Giuseppe, Machiavelli, trans. Savini, Gioconda (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1967), pp. 5154.Google Scholar

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20 Cf. FH, III, 8; AW, I, 568. Also, Machiavelli informs none other than the pope that “the greatest good to be done and the most pleasing to God is that which one does for one's fatherland” (Remodeling Florence, pp. 113–114, my translation).

21 For the passages most pertinent to Machiavelli's doctrine of the incompatibility of political and Christian/moral ends, see D, I, 9, 26; for its principal study, see Berlin, Isaiah, “The Originality of Machiavelli”, in Studies on Machiavelli, ed. Gilmore, Myron P. (Florence: Sansoni, 1972 [1953]), pp. 149206.Google Scholar

22 See Parel, Machiavellian Cosmos, esp. chap. 3.

23 See D, 1,12.1; D, II, 5.1.

24 See D, I, preface.2; D, II, 2.2; AW, II, 623.

25 See Strauss, , Thoughts on Machiavelli, pp. 31, 200Google Scholar. Cf. Mansfield, Harvey C. Jr, “Machiavelli's Political Science”, American Political Science Review 75 (1981): 293305, esp. 303–305.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

26 Sampling only the Discourses, we find a large number of discursive uses of “reason”—at D, I, 4.1, 5.2, 6.4, 11.3, 12.2, 23.4, 24.1, 31.2, 34.1–2, 38.2, 40.5, 46, 49.3, 53.2, 55.4, 55.6, 58.1; D, II, preface.2, 1.1, 2.1, 12.1, 12.3, 16.1, 17.1, 17.5, 18.1– 2, 22.2, 23.3, 24.1, 27.1, 32.1; D, III, 5, 8.1, 10.2, 16.1, 21.2, 33.1–2—but only one psychological use at D, I, 6.4. See also Fleisher, , “Passion for Politics,” p. 133.Google Scholar

27 Cf. P, XXV, 98; P, XXVI, 103. Machiavelli's most explicit denial of free will occurs in the Golden Ass: “the mind of man, ever intent on what is natural to it, grants no protection against either habit or nature” (p. 752).

28 Skinner, , Renaissance, pp. 9798Google Scholar; cf. Kemp, , Medieval Psychology, p. 82Google Scholar. Among humanist authors, see especially Mirandola, Giovanni Pico della, “Oration on the Dignity of Man” [De hominis dignitate, 1486], trans. Forbes, Elizabeth Livermoore, in The Renaissance Philosophy of Man, ed. Ernst Cassirer et al. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948), pp. 223254Google Scholar; Pomponazzi, Pietro, Libre quinque de fato, de libero arbitrio et de praedestinatione (Lugano: R. Lemay, 1957 [1525])Google Scholar; Valla, Lorenz, “On free will” [De libero arbitrio, 1483], trans. Trinkaus, Charles Edward Jr, in Renaissance Philosophy of Man, pp. 155–82.Google Scholar

29 See Hobbes, , Leviathan, XIV.2.Google Scholar

30 Cf. D, I, 27.2; D, II, proemium.3, 2.1. Note also that Machiavelli substitutes spirito for animo in a few places; for instance, while he writes in the Prince that Fortune provided founders with occasions without which their “virtue of animo would have been eliminated” (P, VI, 23), he states in the Discourses that Fortune “elects a man of so much spirito and so much virtue that he recognizes the occasions that she proffers him” (D, II, 29.2, my translation; cf. D, III, 31.4; FL 131, 919).

31 On conspiracies, see P, XIX, 73; D, III, 6.2, 6.6, 6.8,6.12–16, 6.20. On combat, see P, X, 44; P, XIII, 56; D, 1,15.1, 31.1; 43.1; D, II, 12.3–4, 16.1, 32.1; D, III, 12.1, 14.1, 31.2, 31.4, 33.1, 36.2, 37.3, 38.1.

32 Cf. P, VII, 28; P, X, 44; D, 1,27.1, 29.3, 38.3, 59; D, III, 2, 6.4, 6.20, 28, 48.2; FL 131, 919.

33 Cf. D, I, 57.1; D, II, 19.2; AW, I, 581.

34 Cf. Mansfield, , “Machiavelli's Political Science,” p. 304.Google Scholar

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36 Cf. Fleisher, , “Passion for Politics,” pp. 133–43Google Scholar; Parel, , Machiavellian Cosmos, pp. 8990.Google Scholar

37 See D, dedication; D, I, poemium.l; AW, I, 568.

38 Cf. D, 1,40.7, 42; D, II, 20.1, 27.1, 32.1; D, III, 6.3; 6.16; Second Decennale, p. 1461. On the connection between the humors and faulty imagination, see also Parel, , Machiavellian Cosmos, pp. 9092.Google Scholar

39 See D, 1,1.4,10.2, 27.2, 29.3; D, II, preface.l, 4.1—2; D, III, 6.14, 8.1–2; FH, VI, 29.

40 See D, I, 2.3, 32.

41 Cf. P, IV, 19.

42 See P, VI, 22–23; D, 1,9.2.

43 See P, XVIII, 70–71; D, 1,12.1, 48; D, III, 49.4.

44 Cf. D, I, 58.4; D, III, 34.4.

45 For the ability of the people to discern particulars, see D, 1,12.1,47, 58.3; D, III, 34; FH, I, 25.

46 See Strauss, , Thoughts on Machiavelli, p. 129.Google Scholar

47 See Fleisher, , “Passion for Politics,” p. 135Google Scholar; Minogue, K. R., “Theatricality and Politics: Machiavelli's Concept of fantasia,” in The Morality of Politics, ed. Parekh, Bhikhu and Berki, R. N. (London: Allen & Unwin, 1972), p. 152Google Scholar; Wolin, Sheldon S., Politics and Vision: Continuity and Innovation in Western Political Thought (Boston: Little Brown, 1960), pp. 211–13Google Scholar. For a study of the apparent in opposition to the real in Machiavelli's thought, see Vissing, Lars, Machiavel el la politique de I'apparance (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1986).Google Scholar

48 For essays exclusively devoted to Machiavelli's concept of virtù, see Gilbert, Felix, “On Machiavelli's Idea of virtù,” Renaissance News 4 (1951): 5356CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mansfield, Harvey C., Machiavelli's Virtue (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996) chap. 1CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Plamenatz, John, “In Search of Machiavellian virtù,” in Political Calculus, pp. 157–78Google Scholar; Price, Russell, “, The Senses of virtù, in Machiavelli,” European Studies Review 3 (1973): 315–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Whitfield, J. H., “The Anatomy of Virtue,” Modern Language Review 38 (1943): 222–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wood, Neal, “Machiavelli's Concept of virtù Reconsidered,” Political Studies 15 (1967): 159–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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50 See P, I, 6; P, VI–VII, 21–33; P, XXV, 98–101; D, II, 1; Tercets on Fortune, pp. 745–49. On the traditional opposition of virtus and fortuna, see Pocock, , Machiavellian Moment, pp. 3641, 86–88, 92, 95–97Google Scholar; Skinner, , Renaissance, 9598, 119–20, 186–88.Google Scholar

51 Cf. P, XXV, 99–101; FL116, 897

52 Cf. D, I, 6.3; D, III, 11.1, 37.1.

53 See P, VI, 22; P, VII, 27; P, XVIII, 69; D, 1,9.2, 38.2, 60.1; D, II, 1.2, 10.1, 19.2; D, III, 23.1; Castruccio Castracani, p. 535.

54 Cf. D, 1,19.4. According to Eduard Mayer, Machiavelli later merged force and prudence in the concept of virtü. See Mayer, Eduard Wilhelm, Machiavelli's Geschichtsauffassung und sein Begriff virtù: Studien zu seiner Historik (Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 1912), p. 899, cf. 20.Google Scholar

55 For the seminal work, see Olson, Mancur, The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1965)Google Scholar; for a more developed account, see Hardin, Russell, Collective Action (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982).Google Scholar

56 See D, II, 1.2; D, III, 11.1–2; FL154, 953.

57 See Olson, , Logic of Collective Action, p. 2Google Scholar; Hardin, , Collective Action, p. 2.Google Scholar

58 See Polybius, , Histories, VI, 5Google Scholar; cf. Mansfield, , Machiavelli's New Modes and Orders, pp. 3540.Google Scholar

59 See P, IX, 39; P, XIX, 76–77; D, I, 5.2; FH, III, 1; FH, IV, 1. On the medieval corporation, see Post, Gaines, Studies in Medieval Legal Thought: Public Law and the State, 1100–1322 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1964), chaps. 1–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pennington, K., “Law, legislative authority and theories of government, 1150–1300,” in The Cambridge History of Medieval Political Thought c. 350—c. 1450, ed. Burns, J. H. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 424–54.Google Scholar

60 William Bluhm even claims that Machiavelli followed the nominalist school of William of Occam (d. 1349), who reduced all universals to mere names (nomina); See Bluhm, William T., Theories of the Political System: Classics of Political Thought and Modern Political Analysis, 3d ed. (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1978), pp. 2223.Google Scholar

61 See Petrarca, Francesco, “The Ascent of Mont Ventoux [1336],” trans. Nachod, Hans, in Renaissance Philosophy of Man, pp. 3646, esp. 44–46.Google Scholar

62 See Burckhardt, Jacob, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (New York: Random House, 1954), p. 100Google Scholar. On Machiavelli and Renaissance individualism, see also Mayer, Machiavelli's Geschichtsauffassung, chap. 1.

63 Aristotle Politics 1253a.

64 See D, 1, 10.4, 11.1, 29.3, 43; D, II, 2.1, 3, 33.

65 See P, XIX, 72; D, I, 16.3; D, III, 6.2; FH, III, 13, 25. Note, however, that Machiavelli makes no consistent terminological distinction between glory and honor.

66 Cf. D, I, 16.3; D, III, 8.1, 22.4, 28, 34.1–4. Cf. Strauss, , Thoughts on Machiavelli, pp. 280–82.Google Scholar

67 On the passion for domination, see also D, I, 1.4; D, III, 4; Tercets on Ambition, p. 739.

68 See D, II, 2.1, 2.3–4; cf. D, I, 16.3.

69 Cf. P, XXV, 99.

70 See Pitkin, Fortune Is a Woman, passim; Hulliung, Citizen Machiavelli, chap. 4.

71 Cf.P, XVII, 67;P, XIX, 72.

72 See Parel, , Machiavellian Cosmos, p. 89, chap. 6.Google Scholar

73 Cf. P, XXV, 100; D, III, 9.3; FL 116, 897.

74 Cf. D, I, 2.5–7.

75 Cf. D, I, 37.2; FH, II, 10, 12, 17, 21; FH, III, 21; FH, IV, 7, 28; FH, VII, 12; FH, VIII, 27.

76 See D, I, 7, 8.

77 Cf. Minogue, , “Theatricality and Politics,” p. 155.Google Scholar

78 See Mandragola, I.1.Google Scholar

79 See FL 113, 919–20.

80 Cf. Pitkin, , Fortune Is a Woman, pp. 320–24.Google Scholar

81 Gianfrancesco Pico, for instance, had asserted in a widely read essay that “depraved imagination is the mother and nurse of ambition.” See Mirandola, Gianfrancesco Pico della, On the Imagination [De imaginatione, 1501], trans. Caplan, Harry (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1930), VII, 45.Google Scholar

82 Cf. D, 1, 5.4, 37.1; D, II, 8.1; D, III, 8.1, 20; FH, III, 5; AW, 1, 574–75; AW, VII, 725; FL 131, 919; Castruccio Castracani, p. 543. Accordingly, Russell Price is quite mistaken in limiting Machiavelli's notion of ambition to “office, power or domination;” see Price, Russell, “Ambizione in Machiavelli's Thought,” History of Political Thought 3 (1982): 383'445, esp. 389.Google Scholar

83 Cf. D, I, 29.1; 35, 37.1, 46.1; FH, II, 32; FH, IV, 2; FH, V, 21; FH, VII, 23; Tercets on Ambition, p. 736; Golden Ass, pp. 771–72.

84 Cf. P, IX, 39; FH, IV, 1.

85 Cf. Prezzolini, Giuseppe, “The Christian Roots of Machiavelli's Moral Pessimism,” Review of National Literatures 1, (1970): 2637Google Scholar. For further evidence of Machiavelli's familiarity with Christian themes, see his Exhortation To Penitence, pp. 171–74.

86 See St. Augustine, , City of God, XIV, 11, 13.Google Scholar

87 Cf. Parel, , Machiavellian Cosmos, pp. 106,125–26.Google Scholar

88 See FH, preface; FH, III, 5, 8, 12, 18, 21, 22.

89 Machiavelli lists the goods of Fortune (bona fortunae) as “power, honor, riches, and health” (Tercets on Fortune, p. 747; cf. P, VI, 25). See also Skinner, Quentin, Machiavelli (New York: Hill and Wang, 1981), p. 25Google Scholar; Flanagan, Thomas, “The Concept of fortuna in Machiavelli,” in Political Calculus, pp. 127–56, esp. p. 143.Google Scholar

90 Aristotle, Politics 1267b, 1323a.Google Scholar

91 See Strauss, , Thoughts on Machiavelli, 296.Google Scholar

92 Aristotle, Ethics 1103bGoogle Scholar; Politics 1269a. Cf. Strauss, , Thoughts on Machiavelli, pp. 254–55.Google Scholar

93 Cf. Remodeling Florence, p. 104; FL 159, 962.

94 See D, I,19.

95 Cf. FH, III, 5; Golden Ass, p. 763. In addition to republics, law-abiding habits also maintain “civil principalities” like France, whose kings governed in accordance with laws; see P, IX, 42; D, I, 25; D, III, 1.5.

96 See D, 1, 11.4.

97 Cf. Golden Ass, p. 764.

98 See D, I. preface.2; D, II, 2.2.

99 Cf. Meinecke, Friedrich, Machiavellism: The Doctrine of Raison d' Etat and Its Place in Modern History, trans. Scott, Douglas (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1984), p. 32Google Scholar; Strauss, , Thoughts on Machiavelli, pp. 265,267,269, 279Google Scholar; Skinner, , Machiavelli, p.59Google Scholar; Wolin, , Politics and Vision, p. 231.Google Scholar

100 Cf. D, III, 8.2.

101 Cf. D, II, 4.1.

102 See D, III, 1.2.

103 Cf. D, I, 29.3,42; D, III, 8.2, 49.1–3.

104 Cf. D, 111, 1.1.

105 See D, I, 9.2, 18.4–5.

106 See D, III, 41. For other instances of patriotism, see D, III, 8.1; FH, III, 5, 7, 8; AW, I, 568; FL 225,1010; Nature of Florentine Men, p. 1438.

107 See DL, 185, 187, 188–90; cf. FH. I, 5.

108 Cf. D, I, 16.5; D, II, 2.1, 20.2; D, III, 5, 6.19, 8.1, 24.

109 On the humanist notion of vivere civile, see Focock, , Machiavellian Moment, pp. 5688, 114–17, 122–38Google Scholar; Viroli, Maurizio, From Politics to Reason of State: The Acquisition and Transformation of the Language of Politics 1250–1600 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), chap. 2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

110 For passages that mention “civil way of life” and “civil life” (vita civile), see D, 1, 3.1, 7.3, 9.1–2, 19.1, 26, 34.title, 55.4, 58.3; D, II, 2.2; 19.1. For “civil” (civile), as well as its derivatives “civility” and “civilization” (civilità or civiltà), in the sense of lawful and non-violent modes of conduct, see D, I, 2.3, 11.1, 11.3, 24.1, 37.2, 45.1, 49.2, 55.4; FH, II, 21; FH, III, 11; FH, V, 6; FH, VIII, 6. Note also that Machiavelli uses several synonyms for the civil way of life: the “political way of life” (vivere politico) at D, I, 6.1, 6.4, 18.4, 25, 55.3–4; D, II, preface.2; and the “free way of life” (vivere libero) or “free life” (vita libera) at D, 1, 2.7, 5.1, 6.1, 7.2, 9.2, 16.3, 17.3, 25, 33.2, 36, 49.1, 49.3; D, II, 2.1, 2.3; D, III, 1.2, 7, 24, 25.

111 See P, XV, 61; P, XVII, 66–67; P, XVIII, 69; P, XXIII, 95; D, 1,18.1,18.3; D, III, 1.3; FH, VII, 30; Tercets on Ambition, p. 736; Exhortation to Penitence, p. 173.

112 See Pocock, , Machiavellian Moment, p. 184Google Scholar. For a critique of Pocock that parallels mine, see Sullivan, Vickie B., “Machiavelli's Momentary ‘Machiavellian Moment’: A Reconsideration of Pecock's Treatment of the Discourses,” Political Theory 20 (1992): 309–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

113 Cf. FH, II, 10.

114 Aristotle, Politics 1280a–1281a.Google Scholar

115 On the constancy of human nature, see D, I, preface.2, 11.5, 39.1; D, III, 43.1; Clizia, prolog.