Machiavelli Study Question 1

      1) What place do general moral principles have in Machiavelli’s analysis? How do they figure into political strategy, and how in becoming a moral person? What would he say to the torture of the US used in Guantanamo, or the beheadings by ISIS on videos?

A lot of what Machiavelli is concerned with is the rejection of deontology in favor of practical means by which a state can promote their collective goodwill which he deems allows to retain power. Because goodwill is at the center of how Machiavelli decides how a political power should be and how its ruler should be, rather than say the inherent goodness within specific acts, he is promoting a consequentialist view in this text. This means that he views right as what produces the most good (such as a utilitarian does). For example, in Chapter 15 he speaks of what qualities men, especially rulers, should have. He states that it is not always within the populace’s goodwill to have a virtuous ruler. Instead, he makes the case for a ruler to not possess virtuous qualities such as generosity (mentioned in Chapter 16), as generosity causes lavishness and thus, the depletion of resources. The depletion of resources is obviously not within the the goodwill or “welfare and peace of mind” of the those within the state, so it is actually good for a ruler to not be virtuous.

Thus, Machiavelli's moral principles come from a consequentialist viewpoint that puts what action causes the most aggregate good as the right or moral action. In this way, Machiavelli would likely condone the mentioned awful acts. He would argue that the inherent wrongness in these acts doesn’t matter (as a deontologist would). Instead, these acts help increase the “welfare and peace of mind” of the people in the state, deeming the action right. In this way, the ends justify the means for Machiavelli, as it does for other consequentialists—including many  famous and influential contemporary thinkers/philosophers (for example Peter Singer).