Machiavelli And his View Of Human Nature

MACHIAVELLI AND HIS VIEW OF HUMAN NATURE
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Introduction
In a book titled Darwin’s dangerous idea, Dennett (1996) argues that the idea of evolution through natural selection was a “global acid”. According to him, this idea ate through most things and destroyed popular convictions and nations, leaving in its wake the all transformed. The Prince by Machiavelli has also come to present a similar effect by mirroring humanism, political aspects, traditional virtues and Christianity in a state context. However, the book is more perspective with regard to its view on human nature.
In the book the Prince, Machiavelli offers a view of how a state ought to run or govern in his own perspective. His views greatly differ from those of the humanists that were existing in his time. Among some of these views are that the ruling prince ought to have an exclusive authority to determine each of the state’s aspects. In this perspective, he expected the prince to put in effect a regulation that could be used to serve his exclusive interests. Apparently, the major interests for the prince included acquiring, maintaining and widening his political territories (Heilbroner, 1999).
Machiavelli understands and presents human nature in a very different way and which contradicts the views and beliefs of the existing humanists in his time. According to his views and perceptions, he has strongly advocated for a secular society and has a feeling that morality is not essential and instead, it was an obstacle to an efficient governing of the state. As one analyst put it, Machiavelli's views are actually immoral and harsh but it should be taken into consideration that his views emanated from the concern of Italy, which was utterly unstable at that time (Heilbroner, 1999). This means that his perceptions were driven from the incompetence of Italy’s prince as the cause for instability of that nation. This paper essentially evaluates Machiavelli’s views on human nature, role and characteristics of a state in his own accord.
Machiavelli and Human Nature
According to Machiavelli, men are untruthful, ungrateful lot. They are “fickle, ungrateful, deceivers, liars and greedy”. He goes on to articulate that men are self-centered who would act for their own and not the state’s interest given the slightest opportunity. He posts that men cannot care even in the case when the prince lands in danger. This is why he reinforces the idea that the prince need to be feared by the citizens by arguing that men do not care to injure one who wants to be loved in comparison to another who wants to be feared. Since men are wreaked creatures, he argues, they will break the existing bond of love no matter what level it was for their own interest if an opportunity arose. This therefore makes fear be an effective element since it cements the trepidation of discipline.
Machiavelli also articulates that an effective prince ought not to tell the citizens the truth always and instead should be ready to deceive them. In other words, he should not endeavor to exercise the virtue of honesty as a matter of pleasing citizens. A sense of fear is important in making him be honored among the citizens. He should encourage citizen who work hard and triumph in their work or careers for increasing the state’s prosperity. Prosperity of the state will in turn bring the prince honor from these citizens (including his opponents) as it will be perceived that he was the one behind the success (Machiavelli, 1961).
Machiavelli goes on to argue that virtuousness is not a fundamental element of humanity. This as he perceives is due to the assumption that if a man tries to be good or virtuousness, those who are not so virtuous may still grieve him. If a ruler wants to be effective, he must not be virtuous among citizens. In other words, the prince should not be morally bound in governing the state (Machiavelli, 1961).
Despite the fact that other humanists during his time had a believe that an individual was very much significant to the well running of the state, Machiavelli utterly mocked human nature. For instance, according to humanists, any person develops to maturity both morally and intellectually through “involvement” in the state’s operations. Apparently, Machiavelli does not trust any citizen to be involved in the state. Interestingly, he argues that a prince ought not to mistreat the state’s citizens. This view is however, also aimed at serving the interests of the ruling prince. According to him, it would be better if the citizens feared him instead of being loved by them ( HYPERLINK "/Robert-L.-Heilbroner/e/B000APQA7M/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1" Heilbroner, and  HYPERLINK "/s/ref=ntt_athr_dp_sr_2?_encoding=UTF8&field-author=William%20Milberg&search-alias=books&sort=relevancerank"  Milberg, 2011).
Role of the Prince and the state
Machiavelli observes that a state is one of the highest forms of human relations. It is an indispensable element with regard to the promotion of man’s welfare. A state is so important in the sense that any person ought to sacrifice his or her interests to meet those of the state. He goes on to postulate that a ruler ought to conceive that anything ...