Machiavelli The Prince Research Paper

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Recommended: Plato and rhetoric

The ancient political theorists, Plato, mainstream concerns were the virtues/excellences, personal beliefs, morality and ethics. He was more so interested in how things should be rather than how they actually were. Plato established rhetoric, which is the art of persuasion to produce pleasure. He also placed his interests in justice, virtues and politics.
Machiavelli was the change between ancient and modern philosophers. He is not as concerned with virtues as other philosophers, such as Plato and Aristotle are, but more so with power and the order of the people. He goes to write The Prince as a pathway to fortune explaining ways to maintain power in ways that the ancients, and Medici could not. Machiavelli goes to say that a good prince, “should appear all mercy, all faith, all honesty, all humanity, and all religion.” (Prince. 70.) Then also to “to maintain himself, to learn to be able not to be good, and to use this and not use it according to necessity.” (Prince. 61.) All in an effort to maintain fortune. …show more content…

Plato was an advocate for moral virtue, whereas Machiavelli believed in what was best for the State, being Virtu’. Plato believed that man served the state, and there was no differentiation between private and public life. Machiavelli believed that the states purpose was to serve the citizen. The only thing a ruler was known for was to protect its citizens, therefore justifying the leader by any means necessary. Plato did not believe in the unjust, because he felt that it is not a part of virtue, but Machiavelli felt that a Prince or ruler should do what he feels is necessary to protect his people, even if that means war which is, in Plato’s eyes, an unjust notion. Machiavelli did not think morally, he only thought of what was best and could benefit

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