machiavelli, Aristotle, August
Niccolo Machiavelli's The Prince examines the nature of power and his views of power in the leadership that he observed in his time. Machiavelli discusses power over the people, dictatorial power, and the power with the people. The struggle to retain, hold, and apply one power is human nature and this nature is agreeable with Aristotle's argument that "man is a political animal." In The Prince, Machiavelli discusses two distinct groups of people, the political elite, including nobles and the public. Machiavelli claims that ambition and dictatorial power drive most nobles and princes. Because shared power is only effective between the prince and his people and not between the prince and the nobles because the people depends on the prince and the prince needs his people but since nobles and the prince are driven by the same motivations shared power would be useless. "Whether men bear affection depends on themselves, but whether they are afraid will depend on what the ruler does" (p.60-61). While Machiavelli emphasizes power over in relations between the political elite, he discusses a different kind of power in the relationship between a prince and the public. Machiavelli notes that a prnice can share power with the people
Like Aristotle Augustine's City of God begins with the individual and develops into a state and at the end return to the individual. Augustine looks a man and the pursuit of political power a little differently then Macheville or Aristotle. The City of God looks at life on earth and its relation to life after death. How "good" we live our life will determine our fate afterwards. "Our final good is that for the sake of which other things are desired, but which is itself desired for its own sake; and the final evil is that on account of which other things are avoided, but which is avoided on its own account" (City of God ch1 p. 481). Augustine explains that final good is when good is perfected and "final evil" is evil to its greatest harm. Aristotle also talks a great deal about equality. "What is right must be constructed as equally right and what is equally right is to be considered with reference to the advantage of the state, and the common good of the citizen...but in the best state he is one who is able and choose to be governed and to govern with a view to the life of excellence" (Politics bkIIIch13ln40 p. 420). While we are in a constant struggle for political power, Aristotle's believe that the good of the state should be the focus. He constantly refered to the "common good" and "the state." Aristotle believed that the state comes before the person but the person must contribute to the state through the status which he was granted through fate with he was born into the world. "The good lawgiver should inquire how state and race of men and communities may participated in a good life" (Politics bkVIIln9 p.447). However, he also make statements like "unlawful it certainly is to rule without regards to justice for there may be might where there is not right" (Politics bkVIIln27 p.447). Throughout Politics, Aristotle preached about natural tendencies and the nature of the state, but at the end of Politics continuing from bkVIIln9 "in the happiness which is attainable by them. His enactment will not be always...the same; and where there are neighbours he will have to see what sort of studies should be practiced in relation to their several characters, or how the measure appropriate in relation to each are to be adopted" Aristotle returns to the person as an individual. According to Augustine, there are only three types of lives that one can follow: The first is the leisurely life devoted to contemplating or seeking the truth. Second is the busy life; devoted to conducting human affairs (such as politics) and the third is the life, which mixes both of these kinds. Augustine said that the best life is the one that brings the least trouble to the final good (City of God ch1 p. 481). What I interrupt about bring the least troubles to the final good is to not complicate things by trying to acquire things that was not giving. For example: a slave should not seek to be a free man. The slave need not seek for freedom because this life is worthless. The life here is a mere stepping stone for the next, which will be in heaven or hell. "Eternal life is the supreme good and eternal death the supreme evil and that in order to attain the one and avoid the other, we must live rightly" (City of God ch14 p482). Aristotle also believed in
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Approximate Word count = 2209
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page double spaced)
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