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Machiavelli Research Paper

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Niccolo di Bernardo dei Machiavelli was an Italian philosopher, writer, diplomat, historian and a Politician, who lived during the ‘renaissance era’ in Italy. He had been born in Florence on May 3, 1469. He was the eldest son of his family. His family was rich and had owned large tracts of land in the rolling. But Machiavelli was not such rich man. He described himself as a “without gainful employment”(King, 2007, p3). To many, Machiavelli is seen as an ‘evil person’, who is widely known for his maxims of politics, where he believes that for one to be considered as a strong rule, he must possess the necessary guts and bravado to rule with an iron fist, and be harsh to his subjects (King, 2007). His philosophy on politics and how …show more content…
His ideology was on how leaders should rule harshly and how immorality should be embraced at times, is a clear indication that Machiavelli was ‘unemotional’ to other people, and he can be said to have lived all his life trying to detach himself from what is normally referred as ‘conventional morality’, which made him feel that it was his duty to manipulate and deceive others, into doing things, which can be simply be interpreted as inhumane. For example, the massacre which happened on the St. Bartholomew Day in 1572, can be said to be as a direct result of what Machiavelli was ‘teaching’ people at the time. Such evil acts which happened because of the spread of the ‘Machiavelli philosophy’ to the people of Italy, and in general the world, are some of the factors that seem to taint Machiavelli’s historical reputation (King, 2007 …show more content…
His philosophy can be said not be based on the logical thing to do, but was normally based on doing the illogical thing as long one achieved what he desired. His philosophy on politics was that the ‘the ends justify the means’, and that is why he came up with some of his philosophies, like where he states that at times, violence was necessary for the stabilization of power. Such philosophies can be directly connected to the Italian humanism, which seems to have shaped his beliefs on what he considered as ‘urban politics, and which he said was necessary for promoting the much-needed secularism, and freedom of doing what one wished, whether it was immoral or moral (Cole & Symes, 2011

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