Machiavelli's Prince Is Merely A Cynical Analysis

Machiavelli’s Prince is merely an exercise in cynicism. Discuss.

Machiavelli is a character that has gone through history despised, demonized and reviled. To have one’s actions deemed “Machiavellian” is no great compliment. However, while some have proclaimed him to be “the preceptor of Barabbas” (Butterfield 1955), I believe that they seek to take Machiavelli out of context, and also to purposefully misinterpret his arguments to create emotive appeals to a morality that Machiavelli rejects (Parkinson 1955, Lukes 2001, Butterfield 1940). To call Machiavelli cynical is to say that he holds an overtly scornful, or jaded negativity ; instead Machiavelli holds a view of human nature that, while undeniably not optimistic, is pragmatic, and from
For such people Machiavelli is a cynic because he rejects the notions of morality and any lofty ideals of an international code of ethics which should govern the actions of statesmen; instead they argue he appeals to our basest emotions, power-grabbing and exploiting whenever there is personal gain to be made. They “indict his claims of success by exposing what are thought to be his shallow aspirations” (Lukes 2001 p. 561), and make it seem as if Machiavelli is “the source of the miser’s sins and ingenuities” (Butterfield 1940 p.104). However this is a shallow reading of his work, and one that I believe is in many cases plagued by misinterpretations and a lack of context (Parkinson
Parkinson (Parkinson 1955) argues that the most undervalued word in the whole of “The Prince” is the word “necessity”. Machiavelli does not espouse policies of power grabbing, breaking ones word, or duplicity for their own sake, but only when these policies fall in line with that of ensuring the “strong and lasting state” (Parkinson 1955). For example let’s take Machiavelli’s much cited argument that at times one must “break faith” with another. This argument, if taken to it’s logical extreme, that we should make promises with others, but always break them if there is any gain to be made, is surely an incredibly cynical and a-moral one. However this is not the argument that Machiavelli makes. Instead he only advocates, “breaking faith”, when “the observance of it may be turned against him” (Machiavelli [c. 1513] 1985 Chapter 18). When couched in these terms we see that Machiavelli is not demanding that all ethical perceptions be thrown away verbatim, but instead they should be seen through a light of transparency; there are times when it is necessary to get rid of them (Parkinson