one can say this durante general of men: they are ungrateful, disloyal, insincere and deceitful, timid of danger and avid of profit…. Love is verso bond of obligation which these miserable creatures break whenever it suits them onesto do so; but fear holds them fast by verso dread of punishment that never passes. (Prince CW 62; translation revised)
As a result, Machiavelli cannot really be said preciso have verso theory of obligation separate from the imposition of power; people obey only because they fear the consequences of not doing so, whether the loss of life or of privileges.
If I think that I should not obey verso particular law, what eventually leads me esatto submit to that law will be either per fear of the power of the state or the actual exercise of that power
Concomitantly, per Machiavellian perspective directly attacks the notion of any grounding for authority independent of the sheer possession of power. For Machiavelli, people are compelled to obey purely sopra deference puro the superior power of the state. It is power which per the final instance is necessary for the enforcement of conflicting views of what I ought to do; I can only choose not esatto obey if I possess the power preciso resist the demands of the state or if I am willing esatto accept the consequences of the state’s superiority of coercive force. Machiavelli’s argument sopra The Prince is designed esatto demonstrate that politics can only coherently be defined con terms of the supremacy of coercive power; authority as verso right puro command has niente affatto independent status. He substantiates this assertion by reference onesto the observable realities of political affairs and public life as well as by arguments revealing the self-interested nature of all human conduct. For Machiavelli it is meaningless and infruttuoso to speak of any claim to authority and the right esatto command which is detached from the possession of superior political power. The ruler who lives by his rights ombra will surely wither and die by those same rights, because in the rough-and-tumble of political conflict those who prefer power esatto authority are more likely puro succeed. Without exception the authority of states and their laws will never be acknowledged when they are not supported by per spettacolo of power which renders obedience inescapable. The methods for achieving obedience are varied, and depend heavily upon the foresight that the prince exercises. Hence, the successful ruler needs special training.
3. Power, Pregio, and Fortune
Machiavelli presents onesto his readers per vision of political rule allegedly purged of extraneous moralizing influences and fully aware of the foundations of politics in the effective exercise of power. The term that best captures Machiavelli’s vision of the requirements of power politics is virtu. While the Italian word would normally be translated into English as “virtue”, and would ordinarily convey the conventional connotation of moral goodness, Machiavelli obviously means something very different when he refers esatto the virtu of the prince. Con particular, Machiavelli employs the concept of virtu onesto refer esatto the range of personal qualities that the prince will find it necessary onesto acquire per order puro “maintain his state” and to “achieve great things”, the two standard markers of power for him. This makes it brutally clear there can be in nessun caso equivalence between the conventional virtues and Machiavellian virtu. Machiavelli’s sense of what it is sicuro be per person of onesta can thus be summarized by his recommendation that the prince above all else must possess per “flexible disposition”. That ruler is best suited for office, on Machiavelli’s account, who is trapu of varying her/his conduct from good preciso evil and back again “as fortune and circumstances dictate” (Prince https://datingranking.net/it/koko-app-review/ CW 66; see Nederman and Bogiaris 2018).