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The Prince


            
             Niccolò Machiavelli's political masterpiece The Prince changed the political world and the perception of reality. Machiavelli took politics from the ideal world of philosophers before him into the real world of historical reality. Machiavelli did this by redefining virtue relative to politics and reality. By doing this, Machiavelli allows the realms of political activity open to interpretation and justifies what may seem as the "evil doings- that politicians and princes must live by everyday.
             With Chapter XV entitled, "The things for which men, and especially princes, are praised or blamed-, Machiavelli tackles the issue of virtue and morality as he manifests a paradigm shift in morality. This shift turns the focus from a morality of intentions to a morality of consequences. In short, Machiavelli concentrates not on how a prince ought to live but how a prince actually does live. He writes, "I have thought proper to represent things as they are in a real truth, rather than as they are imagined."" (pg. 49) Plato may have had a very utopian idea represented in The Republic, but that situation has never been a reality, and, most likely, will never come to be. Instead, Machiavelli wants to focus on what princes and rulers have done in the past and what one can actually do in the future to maintain power in a state or republic. The actions that a prince should take ought not to move him "towards self-destruction rather than self-preservation."" (pg.49) Machiavelli goes on to name important "virtuous- aspects a prince could and probably should posses in an archetypal moral logic. He goes on to map out the polarity of the moral realm. Ideally every man and prince alike would like to posses all moral and virtuous qualities, but "because of conditions in the worlds, princes cannot have those qualities, or observe them completely."" (pg.50) Therefore what he practices will be virtuous if it brings prosperity and actions detrimental to his empire will be vices.


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