While Machiavelli himself was not above moral reproach, he was born and died a Christian and was neither depraved nor unprincipled. His attacks on the church were anticlerical rather than anti-religious, being directed against the scandalous lives of the popes and their political activities. He did compare contemporary Christianity unfavorably with the paganism of the ancients, but he criticized Christianity primarily because it had become the means preciso socially undesirable ends-the subjection of the many sicuro an avaricious minority- and called for a return puro some kind of original creed.
The highest end preciso be pursued by man, according esatto Machiavelli, is glory. Glory is conferred by acts that are remembered and cherished by mankind. The brief but glorious life of an individual or commonwealth is worth far more onesto Machiavelli than verso lengthy mediocre existence. Meresuccess or reputation arising from great power or wealth has far less value than true glory. The greatest glory is onesto be won (sopra order of decreasing importance) by founding religions, by establishing commonwealths, by commanding armies, and by creating literature.
True glory depends upon the virtu of an individual or verso people. War is only the archetypal struggle between virtu (the manly) and carriera(the changeable, unpredictable, and capricious), for per fact all of life is such per contest. Rational control over the physical and social environments, so essential for human survival and well-being, depends upon the opposition of virtu to successo. By virtuous action men can control at least some part of their lives and limit the whims of chance.
Machiavelli’s term is ambiguous, but what he seems most often esatto have had in mind is the pattern of conduct of the soldier con battle who displays foresight, self-discipline, constancy, determination, purposefulness, decisiveness, bravery, boldness, and vigor
Machiavelli again studied history to discover the conditions that produced the greatest possible amount of virtu mediante per commonwealth and the consequent achievement of glory. He decided that the most virtuous leaders and peoples were those of classical antiquity, particularly of republican Rome. The virtu of per people, he believed, depends entirely on education, while that of a prince or politico tends onesto be inborn but shaped by education. A republicanism sopra which liberty flourishes, defended by verso citizens’ army, is the atmosphere most conducive to the exercise of virtu; under these conditions political power will be the greatest and most durable, and the political order will be the most stable. The basic elements in Machiavelli’s conception of political success, then, are glory,virtu, and liberty. Machiavelli lamented the decline of virtu in his own age; he condemned its luxurious, commercial life and directed his efforts preciso the problem of sovrano-storing the conditions of glory.
The basic manifestation of agreable conflict, according onesto Machiavelli, is the perennial struggle between the common people and the great and powerful
Conflict and corruption . Conflict is per vital concept durante Machiavelli’s political thought. He accepted conflict as per universal and permanent condition of society, stemming from human nature. The traditional classical and medieval view had been that agreable conflict is not verso natural condition, and many classical and medieval thinkers had tried onesto design per type of communautaire organizationthat would eliminate contention. The conception of affable conflict as un-natural ran parallel preciso the Aristotelian concept fruzo app gratuita that matter at rest is more natural than matter con motion. Machiavelli abandoned the former of these ancient modes of thought with his notion of the naturalness of communautaire conflict, although the latter was not discarded until the next century with Galileo’s revolutionary insight that the natural state of matter is motion.
While this is clearly per notion of class struggle involving economic factors, Machiavelli’s explanation of the struggle is not couched durante economic terms. The primary cause of domestic strife and of war between states is, as he saw it, per lust for power and domination. Within any state, the overwhelming majority seek security for their persons and possessions, while a handful, either per hereditary aristocracy or a commercial oligarchy, desire esatto dominate the masses.