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Comparing Machiavelli And Hobbes

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Comparing Machiavelli And Hobbes
Jessica Thomas
Friday April 26, 2013

Machiavelli and Hobbes understood the natural state of the world to be conflict. How does this shape their understanding of human beings, politics, ethics, and morality? Does this idea and itself towards liberal or conservative ideas? Explain.

Machiavelli’s understanding of the natural state of the world to be conflict causes him to look and access the world differently than others. His understanding of the natural state of the world bleeds over into his understanding of human beings, politics, ethics, and morality. His belief of human beings is that they are simple-minded fickle creatures, whose attention span is almost non-existent. He also believes that politics and ethics and morality cannot …show more content…
It is easy to persuade them of something, but it is difficult to stop them from changing their minds, (Machiavelli, P.20).” To Machiavelli people are very simplistic, it is easy to change their minds but hard to hold and maintain their attention on any one thing. Anything new or shiny can cause them to shift their attention, and because of this you have to constantly do something to keep their attention on you.
He believes that human beings respond to two things, pampering and violence. But to ensure complete control and a lack of resistance, a short period of extreme cruelty is the best to ensure this. The prince needs to be calculating and make sure that when and the length of time of the extreme cruelty that he inflicts, because too much can cause the prince to never gain/regain the trust of the people. He also believes that the state is not for the people, it’s for the ruler. Machiavelli divides the people into two classes, the nobles and the masses. The prince has a precarious balancing act between these two. Because the nobles may help him get to power but the people who keep him in power are the masses. So he should not try and disregard him and instead try to gain their affection, because they are indeed the masses and they hold the greatest level of protection for the prince. So even if the nobles were to turn against him, he still has a chance to maintain
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