Comparing Machiavelli And Piico's Views Of Human Nature

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Have you ever wondered what exactly human nature is? It can be defined as “distinguishing characteristics, including ways of thinking, feeling and acting that humans tend to have naturally, independently of the influence of culture. (Wikipedia)” When discussing Machiavelli and Pico’s views on human nature one may notice that their views are completely opposite. In this essay I will discuss how Machiavelli and Pico would view the characters in Hamlet.
Machiavelli sees human nature as a negative, whereas Pico sees human nature as a positive aspect in life. Each of the two has done works in their time of life that expressed their ideas of the man and their actions. One of Machiavelli works includes The Prince and one of Pico’s works in On the Dignity of Man. Each one of these works will be discussed further. As for an overview of the two men, they both have views that are completely opposite. One believes that man is selfish, greedy, fraudulent and etc. the other believes that man makes mistakes and things happen for a reason. Do you believe that man can be deceitful but still loving and caring? Or do you believe that man is deceitful and that’s just what they do to get ahead of the game? Some may say they believe in living a life of freedom, and there is no right or wrong way to live, but why wouldn’t there be a right or wrong way? Let’s look further into examples of each of these beliefs.
First of all, Machiavelli had a negative view on human nature. He believed that people are only interested in themselves; they are trustworthy only when everything is all good, they tend to be deceitful. Machiavelli overall believed that people actions were only good when it benefited themselves. In Hamlet the character Claudius may be looked a...

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...e her break up with him. Not only may this seem despiteful or deceiving to someone but one may respond to it as loving and protection. Either way Pico believes that there are “no rules how to live because humans possess free will. (Pico, On the dignity of Man)”
All in all, human nature can be taken in as a positive aspect in life or a negative aspect. Sometimes in order to find what your belief is you have to ask yourself certain questions about the actions of mankind. Over-viewing the examples used from the film Hamlet, one may agree with Machiavelli that Claudius was a powerful fraudulent man, or one may believe that Claudius is just Claudius and life goes on. Machiavelli and Pico had very strong views as to what was the right way about human nature. Machiavelli and very negative thoughts about human nature whereas Pico had very positive outlooks of human nature.

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