Niccolo Machiavelli and the Morality of “The End Justifies the Means” in The Prince: A Philosophical Perspective

Abstract

Machiavelli has been, in many academic quarters, fiercely criticized, even vilified as the son of devil (MacDevil) for his frankness and political realism in his “The Prince”. A popular strand of his criticism considers his “The Prince” in its break with traditional morality in the political arena as amounting to some form of nihilism, a complete lack of morality or moral precepts and a dangerous political blue-print for brute use of political power. This paper seeks to prove wrong the foregoing position on Machiavelli by insisting that his “The end justifies the means” doctrine has a moral value of ‘good end’ of human action. If as in Aristotle, every action should be directed towards a good end, Machiavelli has not said anything different from what actually obtains in real life of human behaviourism. It is the position of this paper that Machiavellian conception of political power is not bereft or devoid of morality but rather belongs to a non-absolute, practical and realist, though of
consequentialist moral category