Being a Good Prince

I agree with the Machiavelli's argument that “a prince should appearing to be good but be prepared to be evil if necessary”which can be supported by certain ideas of Machiavelli and specific examples. Alberti’s idea of one to many which is choosing the perfect body parts and put them together to have a greatness and beauty is not suitable for being a great prince. The way of being a good prince is not based on choosing the perfect characteristics of a human being. Machiavelli believes that a leader should see the situation from different perspectives like a painter does during his study of a view so a leader should make his choice according to that perspective and choose right method (which could be evaluated as good or bad but must lead to efficacy) for each different circumstance. Thus, it could be possible to use political force to prevent disorder and provide sustainability in a society. Kant also supports the essentiality of this kind of force while mentioning public and private reason which is simply knowing the balance between “obey” and “argue” as enlightenment process requires an order and prosperity as well as public sphere. It leads to the idea of Machiavelli saying “…he has to have a mind to ready to shift as the winds of fortune and the varying circumstances of life may dictate.” (p.49)which means in order to be a good leader/prince, it might require sacrificing minority to reach certain happiness and good of majority.

I think one of the best examples for Machiavelli’s argument is unusual way of succession practices in Ottoman Empire. Most of sultans kill their brothers or sons in order to have only one candidate for the throne. It could be seen as brutal and relentless for a sultan or a leader to kill his brother. However, the aim of this application is to prevent future internal conflict and power struggle in the empire. It is because in previous Turkish governments, the brothers divided the land up among themselves which results in devastation of that empire due to disorder and confusion. It could be accepted that there could be other solutions for a problem like keeping other candidates of throne in house-arrest (kafes) which is also kind of arrogant way but as each of applications were done according to the conditions of that time and we might not judge brutally based on today’s circumstances. However, some kind of cruel applications requires sacrifice to reach unique goals like providing empire to live about 600 years for Ottoman Empire and the good for the society. Likewise, Machiavelli supports this idea with the example of Cesare Borgia by saying that “People thought Cesare Borgia was cruel, but that cruelty of his reorganized the Romania, united it, and established it in peace and royalty.” (p.45).

 A leader is responsible for the good of their society and a land is belonged to the society of that nation which means that the leader might apply something evil so as to protect future unity of that land and society. This also demonstrates the idea of “a person cannot possibly be a good person/Christian and an effective ruler at the same time” as being a leader requires political thinking and cunning action. This idea is also supported by Machiavelli by saying that “Since a prince must know how to use the character of beasts, he should pick for imitation of fox and the lion “(p.48). Machiavelli believes that a leader must have a virtu which may not bring you to heaven but put it directs to efficacy. Thus, he separates politics from four cardinal values and Christian values because a leader must obey the laws of politics independent of religion and psychology and know how to gain/keep power that enable him to accomplish the task and be effective, efficient, pragmatic and practical. Machievelli says that “It is good to appear merciful, truthful, humane,sincere and religious; it is good to be so in reality. But you must keep your mind so disposed that, in case of need, you can turn to the exact contrary.”(p.48) In my opinion, this leads to the idea that although Machiavelli assumes rulers to be good as he says that they must “learn how to not be good”, they should be aware of the fact that being ideal leader requires being realist and using virtu.