On Law, Morality, and Politics

Rating:
Summary: Essay: Nature of Man as Viewed by Machiavelli and Aquinas
Review: Editions Used:
The Prince, translated by Harvey C. Mansfield, University of Chicago Press; 2nd edition (September 1, 1998)
On Law, Morality, and Politics, translated by Richard J. Regan, Hackett Pub Co Inc; 1 edition (April 1, 1988)

The Nature of Man as Viewed by Machiavelli and St. Aquinas

The Prince by Machiavelli and the Summa Theologiae by Saint Thomas Aquinas ostensibly offered differing visions of the nature of men; Machiavelli believed men were naturally selfish and Aquinas believed men naturally strived for the common good. However, a deeper look would reveal that their ideas of personal and common interest match, and furthermore, the unnatural and "immoral" actions supported by Machiavelli resulted from necessities, and hence were allowed by Aquinas.

To Machiavelli, men in nature were "half beast, half man" (M69), and his theory developed specifically in regard to the nature of the prince, their subjects and rivals.

Machiavelli was concerned with the nature of the prince the most. From Oliverroto to the Romans, Machiavelli described the prince as a hungry political animal who advanced his interests in jungles of beasts. He gave approval to the prince's desires for enlargements, writing, "it is a very natural and ordinary thing to desire to acquire, and always, when men do it who can, they will be praised or not blamed." (M14)

To Machiavelli, the prince was also justified in employing harsh and cunning methods against the others who became fearful of him. Among Machiavelli's paragons for rulers was Oliverotto of Fermo, who killed his uncle and "the first men of Fermo" in a backroom (M36), and the Roman emperor Severus, who suppressed his people for the benefits of his soldiers (M78), and also Cesare Borgia, who fooled his people into blaming his minister Remirro for the injustices inflicted on them and then "cut into two pieces" the minister to appease them. Concerning the consequences of these actions, Machiavelli wrote, "So let a prince win and maintain his state: the means will always be judged honorable, and will be praised by everyone." (M71)

Since a prince must know his subjects in order to dominate them, Machiavelli also spent much time discussing the nature of the people in relations to the prince. To Machiavelli, the people were like tall grasses on a windy plateau: they had no ambitions, only wanting "not to be oppressed" (M39); their nature was "variable" (M24), and could be blown from one prince to another "when they find good in the present" (M96); the simple common people were also "taken in by appearance" (M58) and so could be easily fooled (Mchapter 18); however, despite the weakness of each person, the people were powerful as a whole, and a prince must rely on them to achieve glory, because "a prince who founds on the people...will never find himself deceived by them." (M41)

The prince must also consider the nature of his rivals, including other princes, mercenary troops and the lords surrounding him. His rivals were "wicked and do not observe faith with you (him)" (M69), and since they also desired "to command and oppress the people." (M39), the prince must be both "the fox and the lion" (M69) in his battles against them. He must cunningly trap his enemies, and must also be skilled in the art of war (M58), since only "armed prophets conquered". (M24)

To Aquinas, however, human were not animals because "irrationals creatures, however, do not partake thereof (reason) in a rational manner" (T20). Men should be ashamed when they were "compared to senseless beasts and made like to them", because that meant they had refused the grace of heaven and "turned his (their) back on God". (T28)

To Aquinas, the higher goals in life must never be glory or honor. Just like Plato and Aristotle before him, Aquinas said, "perfection of virtue consists chiefly in withdrawing man from undue pleasures, to which, above all, man is inclined." (T57). To Aquinas, since God "is the creator of all things" (T34), and since "man is ordained to an end of eternal happiness which is inproportionate to man's natural faculty" (T23), the ultimate goal of life should be to get invited "to the kingdom of heaven" (T25).

St. Thomas put forth his version of human nature as he treated the question of "Natural Law". To him, central to human nature was reason; he wrote, reason "is the first principle of human acts" (T12). As Aristotle pointed out before, reason was what differentiated men from other animals, and Aquinas believed that from reason arose men's natural striving toward common interest. Aquinas wrote,

"The first principle in practical matters, which are the object of the practical reason, is the last end, and the last end of human life is bliss or happiness, as stated above. Consequently, the law must needs regard principally the relationship to happiness. Moreover, since every part is ordained to the whole as imperfect to perfect, and since a single man is a part of the perfect community, the law must needs regard properly the relationship to universal happiness." (T14)

Aquinas's sanguine outlook that men were brothers with a common happiness to share stood in stark contrast to the bitter picture that Machiavelli drew. Furthermore, not only would Aquinas have rejected the ends of the prince as unnatural, since the prince's methods were not virtuous and unjust, the methods were also unnatural (T146). Inheriting the principles of Aristotle, Aquinas wrote, "justice is a habit whereby a man renders to each one his due by constant and perpetual will" (T145). This principle demanded that one must naturally not take more than he had given, and also that men should never be unfaithful or lie, because by lying one took away from others the information that rightly belonged to others. Machiavelli's shrewd political advices for the prince to "appear all mercy, all faith, all honesty" (M70) was therefore unnatural and detrimental to natural happiness.

Be natural was important, because to Aquinas, although natural reason itself was not salvation, but this road of justice and common good lead men to the divine law, which was "about men in relation to God either in this life or in the life to come". (T87) The "intellectual virtues" gained from reason was the basis for the "moral virtues" (T87) which through the "the revelation of grace" (T25) saved men from "original sin".

Shaking the house of men with ostensibly different concepts about good and bad, God and glory, Machiavelli and Aquinas ostensibly pointed the world in opposing directions. One in a Machiavellian world might expect constant World Wars, while one in Aquinas' world might expect living peacefully and working with others for "common good" as they reserved the energies for eternal happiness in heaven. Nevertheless, despite their differences, Machiavelli and Aquinas had great similarities.

Most importantly, in reality, private interest and common interest bear little differences. To succeed, the prince must give benefits to the people, and for the prince to always succeed, he must always give benefits to the people. The preservation of the regime, which was Machiavelli's central goal, necessarily resulted in the prince's interest matching with the people's. Machiavelli gave the prince his formula for success with the following,

"He should inspire his citizens to follow their pursuits quietly...So that one person does not fear to adorn his possessions for fear that they be taken away from him, and another to open up a trade for fear of taxes. But he should prepare rewards for whoever wants to do these things, and for anyone who thinks up any way of expanding his city or his state." (M91)

From this, Machiavelli clearly believed that it was vital for a successful prince to not just care about his private good, but the interest of every individual, which together made up the common interest of the city. Aquinas supported the same view that the prince had the same interest as the people when he wrote, "common good belongs either to the whole people or to someone who is the vicegerent of the whole people." (T15) Clearly, the ruler or vicegerent could carry out the "common interest" of the people.

Against the above point, one could argue that the people never made the prince their "vicegerent", but according to Aquinas, the people were not to choose their prince, for he said, "the Lord did not leave the choice of a king to the people but reserved this to Himself." (T117) One could still argue that God did not choose Machiavelli's princes either, but according to Saint Augustine, all earthly events happened under God's divine foreknowledge; that meant men like Hiero of Syracuse and Agathocles, who strived to be princes, were princes that God planned for. Machiavelli wrote, "God does not want to do everything, so as not to take free will from us" (M103), but still, free will itself was a gift from God, and so God was always choosing princes.

In the same vein of thought, from Aquinas's arguments, it was also obvious that common interest was only valuable because each person would be benefited as a member of the common pool. He wrote,

"it is necessary for man to live in society with his fellows, because by himself he could not secure those things necessary for life if he would remain in a solitary existence....In a city, however, (which is a complete community), there is as much as suffices for all the necessities of life, yet still much more in a province because of the need for defense and of the mutual aid of allies against the public enemy." (T266)

From the above, one could without doubt see that although Aquinas did not allow for "honor or glory" to be the ends of life, selfishness in itself should not be dismissed as unchristian and unnatural. In fact, Christianity could only be valuable in that it can save one who believed in it, but not anyone else.

Despite common interest, many people might still consider the faithlessness and suppression of prince antithetical to Aquinas's teachings of human nature. But in Aquinas's description of the natural law, he stated that although "certain proper conclusions" of the natural law could not be changed, but "it may be changed in some particular cases of rare occurrence." (T53) Men were naturally reasonable, and reason commanded man to be flexible according to situations. Aquinas gave the example that although normally the gate of a city must be closed, it should be opened for "certain citizens who are defenders of the city" at times of war. (T75) Therefore, it would be wrong to condemn Machiavelli without "consideration of the various circumstances" (T85).

The violence that Machiavelli supported arose from necessity, thus making them "various circumstances". Machiavelli wrote, the prince should "not depart from good, when possible, but know how to enter into evil, when forced by necessity." (M70)

Machiavelli's most appalling example of proper violence regarded the Romans; Machiavelli said the emperors should "escape the hatred of the most powerful class" (M62) and therefore must support the soldiers even at the cost of suppressing the people. However, the emperors did not do this out of their will, but Rome's giant standing army forced them to choose. The alternative of supporting the army was internal war, which was worse for the people.

Aquinas gave full approval to this kinds of actions when he wrote, "if, indeed, there is not an excess of tyranny, it is more profitable to put up with a milder tyranny for the time being than, by opposing the tyrant, to run into many dangers more grievous than the tyranny itself." (T267) And certainly, Machiavelli criticized those Roman emperors, such as Commodus and Antoninus, who went beyond the boundary of necessary and milder tyranny and exercised their "rapacity on the people". (M80) Since these emperors did not comply with common interest, they "fell victim to conspiracy" (M80).

The necessity to act against nature did not last for ever, and Machiavelli wrote that evil should be "done at a stroke, out of the necessity to secure oneself" (M37); When the necessity for severe suppression did not exist, Machiavelli warned that the prince must always "abstain from the property of his citizens and his subjects, and from their women; and if he also needs to proceed against someone's life, he must do it when there is suitable justification and manifest cause for it." (M67)

Machiavelli's support for future happiness at the cost of
one time evil was also supported by Aquinas. The Saint wrote, "it may happen, however, that even a good king, without being tyrant, may take away the sons and make them tribunes and centurions and may take many things from his subjects in order to secure the common weal." (T119) He also wrote "the purpose of human law is to lead men to virtue, not suddenly but gradually" (T68). Aquinas' words were right, any goals took time to achieve, and sometimes, the path toward good might even lead in the direction of evil in order to avoid the greater danger of crossing a deep river or snow-peaked mountains.

When necessities did not exist, the political systems that Machiavelli supported were just and good, and hence natural. In one example that Machiavelli mentioned, after his initial acts, Cesare Borgia "set up a civil court in the middle of the province, with a most excellent president, where each city had its advocate" (M30). Thus, although Cesare Borgia found Romagna "full of robberies, quarrels, and every other kind of insolence" (M29), after his initial harsh measures have been put in place, the citizens "had begun to taste well-being". (M29) In another case, Machiavelli praised the French king for his establishment of a parliament for the interest of the noble and "a third judge" to protect the interest of the people. (M75) Machiavelli also said that in regard to his ministers, the prince must also "become upset when he learns that anyone has any hesitation to speak it (truth) to him." (M95). Aquinas wrote that "rule of one man ought to be what we above all choose", but only feared that the prince might "easily stoop to tyranny" (T267). Here, Machiavelli's ideal monarchies aimed at avoiding tyranny.

After the naturalness of the means and ends of the Machiavellian prince has been discussed, some might still worry that by allowing people to pursue their desires, Machiavelli's world would be filled with constant warfare. However, they should note that Machiavellians' methods would only be useful when existing nations were not benefiting their people and were not armed. Machiavelli mentioned the German principalities that "fear neither him [their emperor] nor any neighboring power, because they are fortified" and because there was "provision for the common people" for a year. (Mchapter 9) He concluded by saying, "thus a prince who has a strong city and does not make himself hated cannot be attacked." (M44) And internally, as long as the prince was not "rapacious and not a usurper of the property and the women of his subjects" (M72), he needed to have little fears of conspiracies. Therefore, Machiavellian wars only rose when there existed deep problems in states, problems the Machiavellian princes must resolve with necessary actions.

As said before, there exist fundamental differences between Aquinas' and Machiavelli's ideas: despite the similarity between selfishness and common interest, Machiavelli's prince's selfish interest lay in the glory he searched, while Aquinas's men's selfish interest lay in the salvation they gained. To Christian, men's salvation through the eternal grace of God was far more important than any practical happenings on earth; but to Machiavelli, it seemed that the salvation of life lay not in heaven but in the glorification of one's deed in the eternal eyes of posterity. However, the God-talk was a part of the divine law, and if one merely compared Aquinas's of human and natural law which supported the common good and allowed for necessities to Machiavelli's support for necessary evils and private interest, it should be clear that both the means and temporal ends of the Machiavellian prince were within Aquinas' boundaries of human nature; they were simply looking at the same human world from different angles.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting but hard read
Review: The excerpts of Thomas Aquinas' "Summa Theologica" are well-presented in this book. Aquinas blends together his Christian faith and ancient philosophy, especially Aristotle, to examine questions about law, human nature, faith, politics, and ethics. I read this for a class on political philosophy and found it particularly interesting, a bridge between the ancients (Aristotle, Plato, Sophocles) and the more modern philosophers (Machiavellie, Locke, Hobbes).

It is also a hard read. The structure of each section is rigid: Aquinas poses a question, gives three objections to his answer, quotes other sources to support his answer (be it Greek philosophers, early Christians like Augustine, or the Bible) and then explains his answer and refutes the objections. To read it straight through is tedious, but to read several sections and consider Aquinas' whole thoughts on subjects can be very interesting, especially in the study of philosophy or theology.

For a student of theology or philosophy, I think Aquinas is important to read and understand, even if from another version of his writings. This book does a good job in presenting Aquinas. Aquinas and his beliefs are more interesting than the reading itself, but it's worth a look if you are interested in studying faith and theology or philosophy. As a light read, though, this is not the book.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting but hard read
Review: The excerpts of Thomas Aquinas' "Summa Theologica" are well-presented in this book. Aquinas blends together his Christian faith and ancient philosophy, especially Aristotle, to examine questions about law, human nature, faith, politics, and ethics. I read this for a class on political philosophy and found it particularly interesting, a bridge between the ancients (Aristotle, Plato, Sophocles) and the more modern philosophers (Machiavellie, Locke, Hobbes).

It is also a hard read. The structure of each section is rigid: Aquinas poses a question, gives three objections to his answer, quotes other sources to support his answer (be it Greek philosophers, early Christians like Augustine, or the Bible) and then explains his answer and refutes the objections. To read it straight through is tedious, but to read several sections and consider Aquinas' whole thoughts on subjects can be very interesting, especially in the study of philosophy or theology.

For a student of theology or philosophy, I think Aquinas is important to read and understand, even if from another version of his writings. This book does a good job in presenting Aquinas. Aquinas and his beliefs are more interesting than the reading itself, but it's worth a look if you are interested in studying faith and theology or philosophy. As a light read, though, this is not the book.

Rating:
Summary: High quality writing on these subjects
Review: To my knowledge only a threesome authors-philosophers (Sartre, Nietzsche and Macchiavelli) would have been able as well to tell "useful" words on this combination of topics Aquinas chose.

The author - few are more original than Thomas - looks back on, examines some of the most basic, important questions that interest humanity (human nature and ethics, politics and law..) and explores them in the light of Christian faith, as well as ancient philosophy. Of the "ancients" he looks in particular close to Aristotle, whom's version the Bible was of till then. So one could say that he was sort of a predecessor for the great humanists...
Aquinas tries to restore the autonomy of nature and reason, in full harmony with (Christian) faith. The result of his work is genial, both what concerns the scholastic ànd "thomistic" style as well as for the special way of exploring and investigation through which he succeeds to "restore in faith".

Everyone who wants to read Aquinas should know that the author writes in a very specific, difficult way. It looks from time to time he opposes to himself, but after studying his readings one can only conclude that this is REAL top-of-the-shelf literature (for those esp. who like theology, philosophy, politics,...).