Isaiah Berlin: The Question of Machiavelli

The nonpareil Isaiah Berlin wrote an incisive essay on Machiavelli in the November 4, 1971 issue of The New York Review of Books. It is excellent.

The following quote does not do justice to the full work or even the thesis, but it does provide a taste of both:

Machiavelli's cardinal achievement is his uncovering of an insoluble dilemma, the planting of a permanent question mark in the path of posterity. It stems from his de facto recognition that ends equally ultimate, equally sacred, may contradict each other, that entire systems of value may come into collision without possibility of rational arbitration, and that not merely in exceptional circumstances, as a result of abnormality or accident or error—the clash of Antigone and Creon or in the story of Tristan—but (this was surely new) as part of the normal human situation.

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For those who look on such collisions as rare, exceptional, and disastrous, the choice to be made is necessarily an agonizing experience for which, as a rational being, one cannot prepare (since no rules apply). But for Machiavelli, at least in The Prince, The Discourses, Mandragola, there is no agony. One chooses as one chooses because one knows what one wants, and is ready to pay the price. One chooses classical civilization rather than the Theban desert, Rome and not Jerusalem, whatever the priests may say, because such is one's nature, and—he is no existentialist or romantic individualist avant la parole—because it is that of men in general, at all times, everywhere. If others prefer solitude or martyrdom, he shrugs his shoulders. Such men are not for him. He has nothing to say to them, nothing to argue with them about. All that matters to him and those who agree with him is that such men be not allowed to meddle with politics or education or any of the cardinal factors in human life; their outlook unfits them for such tasks.

I do not mean that Machiavelli explicitly asserts that there is a pluralism or even a dualism of values between which conscious choices must be made. But this follows from the contrasts he draws between the conduct he admires and that which he condemns. He seems to take for granted the obvious superiority of classical civic virtue and brushes aside Christian values, as well as conventional morality, with a disparaging or patronizing sentence or two, or smooth words about the misinterpretation of Christianity.[foonote omitted] This worries or infuriates those who disagree with him the more because it goes against their convictions without seeming to be aware of doing so—and recommends wicked courses as obviously the most sensible, something that only fools or visionaries will reject.

If what Machiavelli believed is true, this undermines one major assumption of Western thought: namely, that somewhere in the past or the future, in this world or the next, in the church or the laboratory, in the speculations of the metaphysician or the findings of the social scientist or in the uncorrupted heart of the simple good man, there is to be found the final solution of the question of how men should live. If this is false (and if more than one equally valid answer to the question can be returned, then it is false) the idea of the sole true, objective, universal human ideal crumbles. The very search for it becomes not merely utopian in practice, but conceptually incoherent.

Beautiful!

Thoughts on the Praetorian Guard and Chapter XIX of The Prince

After a hiatus, I am making a detour from the Blogging the Discourses posts.

The question on my mind today: How does a state protect its leader without creating an organization that will kill or depose the leader to further its own interests?

The creation of a group of armed men dedicated to the protection of the head of government also involves the creation of a group that can murder that head of government at will.

To further complicate matters, this group of armed men can, in most cases, be destroyed only with another body of armed men dedicated to the protection of another individual or group of individuals, e.g., the legions of Septimius Severus. Thus, the new body of armed men immediately takes the place of the body they eliminated. (Note that this body may be loyal to the one that first commanded them, but may not share that loyalty with his or her successors.) This dynamic appears to derive from the fact that one man alone, no matter how well-armed, cannot physically destroy or politically eliminate a group of armed men. The leader's protective detail thus effectively holds him or her hostage, unless some other force restrains them.

So what can counterbalance the power of the leader's bodyguard?

Loyalty to person: As noted above, personal loyalty to the leader is one such force. This dynamic is often seen in the retinue of a military strongman, whose troops are loyal to him (or, far less often, her) based on years of military service together. Thus, the strongman usually is the founder of his own bodyguard, much like the Emperor Augustus enjoyed the full loyalty of the Praetorian Guard he created. Roman history alone, however, suffices to demonstrate how this loyalty often will not extend to the original leader's successors.

Loyalty to regime: Loyalty to the ideals of the regime is another counterweight. Most Western democracies seem to exhibit this dynamic. The U.S. Secret Service could assassinate the President any time it pleased, but that scenario seems almost unthinkable in the present day. The Secret Service agents are loyal to the United States of America; they do not kill even Presidents they might personally or politically despise. This stands in sharp contrast to the aggrieved bodyguard Julius Martialis, who assassinated the Roman Emperor Antonius Caracalla after the latter had caused him personal offense.

Money: Cold, hard cash can sometimes buy the allegiance of the bodyguards. There is something weak inherent in using bribes, however, and the practice usually demonstrates the leader's political vulnerability. Unlike loyalty to the leader's person or to the regime, a ruler who pays for his bodyguards' allegiance may be defeated at the auction by a higher bidder, e.g. the bidding war between Titus Flavius Sulpicianus and Didius Julianus for the empire of the assassinated Pertinax.

Other armed men: You can, of course, use other armed men to break the power of a bodyguard. But inherent in this method is the danger of replacing the old guard with these new men. If the newcomers are loyal to you, then you have simply founded a new bodyguard whose forbearance (you hope) will last through the end of your reign. But it appears more difficult to break the old guard without creating a new one in its place. Indeed, this state of affairs -- where the bodyguard no longer serves on the basis of loyalty -- recalls Machiavelli's commentary in Chapter XIX of The Prince on the reign of the those emperors who could safely ignore the needs of everyone but the Roman legions.

One apparent exception to this rule is Constantine's extirpation of the Praetorian Guard after his victory at the Milvian Bridge -- he dispersed the troops, who had fought against him, to the far corners of the Empire, and razed their barracks. What sort of power structure replaced them, however, lies beyond my knowledge.

Size restrictions: Keeping the bodyguard small is other methods of checking its power. Restrictions on size function as a brake on the sheer amount of manpower the bodyguard can muster to control politics. After all, deposing a leader does not often further a group's self-interest unless they can control the aftermath of the deed, as Brutus and Cassius found out to their detriment. The Emperor Augustus is reputed to have kept his Praetorian Guard small for this reason.

Rotating the group's membership: Augustus also took pains to keep most of his bodyguard outside the Roman capital, and to rotate those members serving within the walls of Rome with those outside. This presumably keeps the bodyguard less organized, and less likely to choose a leader whose authority over the others could be used to strike against the ruler.

This topic feels ripe for further study. I am unaware of any serious publication examining the relationship between leaders and their personal bodyguard, although I am sure one must exist. If anyone knows, please tell me. Otherwise, go out and write something!

More Original Texts from La Sapienza!

Following up on my previous post, La Sapienza has compiled full texts of thirteen works by Machiavelli, including The Prince, The Florentine Histories, and The Art of War.

To find the Machiavelli texts, just search for "Machiavelli" in the "Autore" field of this search engine.

These full texts are part of a collection of over 1,700 Italian texts available online through their website. The same search engine can be used to peruse all of them, provided you can understand a little Italian.

Original Text of the Discourses Available Online through La Sapienza!

The Biblioteca Italiana of the Università degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza" features the full text of the Discourses in Italian on their website!

The site also features a search function that I found quite useful.

The site suffers from only one problem that could cause confusion. Book Three has been incorrectly grouped with Book Two, so that the initial page you see as a visitor only appears to contain a collapsible table of contents for Books One and Two. If you want to access chapters in Book Three, simply expand the table of contents for Book Two and scroll down; Chapter One of Book Three will immediately follow Chapter Thirty-Three of Book Two.

Enjoy!

Blogging the Discourses: Book One, Chapter Five (Part 1 of 2)

Whether the Guard of Freedom May Be Settled More Securely, in the People or in the Great; and Which Has Greater Cause for Tumult, He Who Wishes to Acquire or He Who Wishes to Maintain

A discussion of what constituted the "guard of freedom" in the Roman Republic takes place at the end of Chapter Four and throughout Chapter Five. But what, exactly, does it mean to be the "guard of freedom?" What qualities does such a guard possess?

Machiavelli never precisely defines what the term means. Hints appear in the text, of course. Machiavelli says explicitly that the tribunes were a guard of freedom in early Rome. And he asserts that the longevity of a "free way of life" in a state directly corresponds to how well the guard of freedom has been placed in the proper institution.

So it seems reasonable to reach two initial conclusions: (1) some function or functions of the Roman tribunes are those of a guard of freedom generally, and (2) the guard of freedom does not necessarily create freedom rather than simply preserving what freedom already exists.

Machiavelli provides another clue in the middle of Chapter Five, however, when he refers to the guard of freedom as a "stick" through which powerful people can satisfy their ambition. The guard thus appears to have some sort of offensive function -- a power to elevate oneself at the expense of others -- instead of a purely defensive tool to keep one from being offended.

Where would one find such a "stick" in the Roman tribunes, then? As I understand it, among their most important powers were the authority to (1) veto measures proposed by the Senate, (2) convoke and preside over the Plebeian Council, and (3) arrest, try, and pass judgment upon those who offended the rights of the plebeians through that Council.

Of these, the last power appears to be the most closely associated with Machiavelli's idea of freedom. The veto, while powerful, was hardly unique to the tribune, given that either consul also held identical or similar authority. The power to convoke and lead the Council as a popular legislative body also carries great political weight, but that legislative function does not seem particularly germane to the tribunes' role as a guard of freedom given that Machiavelli deemed that the nobility could hold the guard of freedom as well, such as in Venice and Sparta.

Rather, the tribunes' judicial role strikes me as the heart of their ability to preserve liberty. I say this based on Machiavelli's comments, scattered throughout the Discourses and The Prince, indicating the critical role that judicial power plays in suppressing the rule of one alone. Book One, Chapter Seven, for example, states that those charged with the guard of freedom

cannot give a more useful and necessary authority than that of being able to accuse citizens to the state, or to some magistrate or counsel, when thy sin in anything against the free state.

This is essentially a judicial function, for the ability to accuse is inextricably entwined with the power to judge and to condemn. Moreover, the details of that chapter leave little doubt that Machiavelli included what moderns would recognize as the judicial power in the power to accuse. For he references the legendary case of Coriolanus, whom the tribunes called before the people to receive their judgment for alleged wrongs, as told by Shakespeare:

Sicinius [a tribune]: Draw near, ye people.
Aedile: List to your tribunes. Audience ! peace, I say !
Coriolanus: First, hear me speak.
Both Tribunes: Well, say. Peace, ho !
Coriolanus: Shall I be charged no further than this present?
Must all determine here?
Sicinius: I do demand,
If you submit you to the people's voices,
Allow their officers and are content
To suffer lawful censure for such faults
As shall be proved upon you?
Coriolanus: I am content.

A few paragraphs later, Machiavelli again ties the power to accuse with the power to judge, noting that in Florence "there was no mode of accusation against the ambition of powerful citizens" because there were not enough judges in that state. Half a book later, in paragraph three of Book One, Chapter Forty, Machiavelli again links the importance of the tribunes to their judicial power when he states that the Roman people initially agreed to the tyrannical rule of the decemvirate in part because the decemvirs had given to them the power to judge cases. Thus, he asserts, the people no longer felt the need for tribunes, who usually held such authority. The reader is left to conclude that the Roman plebs considered this judicial power a key component of their freedom.

Further, the importance of judicial power to the freedom of a state does not confine itself to instances where the people exercise the guard of freedom. In Venice, Machiavelli claims in Book One, Chapter Forty-nine, the powerful were held in check by the powerful themselves -- or, more specifically, by the powerful who exercised the judicial function. In the Venetian example, this judicial authority stemmed from a council of "ten citizens who could punish any citizen without appeal.[.]" Although the council delegated this power to a larger body, the root of that power, and thus the root of the Venetians' guard of freedom, came from the great citizens of that state.

Two excerpts from The Prince strongly buttress this conclusion. The first and most conspicuous of the two lies in the notorious last paragraph of Chapter XVIII, where Machiavelli writes that "in the actions of all men ... one looks to the end" and not to the means. This statement, breathtakingly bold and impious, receives one -- and only one -- caveat. "[O]ne looks to the end" when considering the actions of a prince, Machiavelli states, but only "where there is no court to appeal to ....." Any mention of a legislature, senate, or council of commoners exercising such power remains conspicuously absent. Only the judicial authority is cited as an ultimate brake on absolute princely power.

The second excerpt is found in Chapter IX. At the end of the chapter, Machiavelli discourses on the ability of a prince in a "civil principality" -- i.e. a principality ordered by some form of law -- "to ascend ... to an absolute one" -- i.e. a principality where the prince exercises power to the exclusion of all other sources, including the law. Such a power grab becomes more difficult, he says, when the prince has ruled "by means of magistrates," which should include judges, rather than through his own person. In that instance, the citizens "are accustomed to receive commands from the magistrates" (e.g., judges) and are thus less likely to obey the extralegal commands of the prince. Again, the judicial power restricts the prince's ability to overthrow the rule of law.

Taken together, these passages at the very least create the impression that Machiavelli saw the "guard of freedom" as resting to a large degree on the suppression of the excess ambitions of the powerful, and that he thought this purpose best accomplished through the exercise of judicial power. So it stands to reason that Machiavelli understood the judiciary to play a preeminent role in safeguarding republican liberty. Thus, it links Machiavelli to Chief Justice John Marshall, who centuries later cemented the American judiciary's role as ultimate arbiter of our country's rule of law through the concept of judicial review.

Machiavelli Conference at Yale -- October 17-18, 2008

The Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale is hosting a Machiavelli conference this weekend, entitled "Machiavelli: Philosophy, Rhetoric, & History." I would love to hear any reports of what went on -- or even better, copies of handouts, transcripts, or articles that were made available!

The Prince and the "Political Question Doctrine"

I had the honor of co-teaching a seminar at Yale last week with my good friend Dr. Danilo Petranovich. The seminar, titled "Democracy, Statesmanship, and Greatness," focuses on leadership and the idea of greatness in democratic political systems.

My talk centered around the concept of political virtue in The Prince, and whether that concept was viable (or desirable) in the modern American context. I chose the "political question doctrine"--a legal concept holding that the federal courts should abstain from deciding certain cases over which it has jurisdiction under Article III of the U.S. Constitution--as a vehicle for these ideas. The federal courts have applied this doctrine to many cases involving the Presidential war-making powers and authority over other issues of foreign policy, and thus its scope defines in many respects the ability of the U.S. President to act as the Machiavellian Prince.

The topic seems ripe for additional research, and if anyone is interested, have a look at the handout I distributed to the class on the subject. (I took the liberty of correcting a typo in the first paragraph, however.) If you are a lawyer, you may find the discussion of the federal courts' Article III powers a bit over-simplified. Nuances could (and should) be added to any formal writing on the topic, but I deemed them distracting for a presentation of the topic to non-attorneys.

Worth Reading -- Machiavelli as Revolutionary

I recently read this lecture on The Prince, given in October 2006 by Professor Steven B. Smith of Yale. It is an excellent read, especially the portion referencing Robert Kagan's article "Cowboy Nation," where Dr. Smith suggests that the American republic, and all others like it, are by their very nature expansionist and aggressive.

Blogging the Discourses: Book One, Chapter Four

That the Disunion of the Plebs and the Roman Senate Made That Republic Free and Powerful

Does Machiavelli favor bicameralism? Chapter Four suggests so. Here he explains why he does not believe that a republic can govern in a united, “bipartisan” manner absent some external threat. There are, he says, “two diverse humors” in every republic:

1. that of the people, and
2. that of the great.

The "humor" of the people is rarely pernicious in and of itself, because it "arise[s] either from [their] being oppressed or from suspicion that they may be oppressed." In other words, the people want to be left alone. They only threaten the republic with disorder (tumults, or tumulti, in Machiavellian parlance) when this ability to be left alone is or appears to be under attack.

Thus, civil disorder—"running tumultuously through the streets, closing shops, the whole plebs leaving Rome"—permits the people to express these desires and frustrations without jeopardizing the state's integrity. Without these outlets, the people might be tempted to empower a citizen to overthrow the nobility entirely and set up a popular government, a type of government that, as Machiavelli noted in Chapter Two, rapidly descends into license and chaos.

Thus, Machiavelli advocates the creation of people’s assemblies that, along with the occasional "tumult," allow the people to express their desire to be left alone without risking regime change. In this way, Machiavelli appears to be a proponent of bicameral republics. The people's assembly stands as a formal counterpoint to the aristocratic upper house, and gives the people a voice within the confines and regulation of the republic.

The great, on the other hand, are not so easily managed. Unlike the people, they are ambitious. They therefore threaten the state by their very existence, even when they have their own legislative assemblies to vent their ambitions.

Unlike the people, who desire merely to be left alone, the humors of the great naturally undermine the state because—as noted in Chapter Three—they are presumably bad. As a consequence, without some external compulsion, the great will use their ambition to better themselves or a private group at the state’s expense.

The state therefore cannot manage the great simply through creating a legislature. More complicated measures are required, measures which are closely intertwined with Machiavelli’s idea of creating liberty through the struggle between the great and the humble. He continues to develop this idea in Book One, Chapter Five, to which this blog now turns.

Blogging the Discourses: Book One, Chapter Three

What Accidents Made the Tribunes of the Plebs Be Created in Rome, Which Made the Republic More Perfect

Central to Chapter Three is Machiavelli’s statement that:

[I]t is necessary to whoever disposes a republic and orders laws in it to presuppose that all men are bad, and that they always have to use the malignity of their spirit whenever they have a free opportunity for it.

Machiavelli provides a single example to support his thesis: the temporary unity of Rome upon the expulsion of the Tarquin kings. The seeming union of the nobility and the plebs—the two political factions in early Republican Rome—was not, Machiavelli posited, the result of a natural goodness of either faction, but rather of the fear that the deposed Tarquins inspired in the nobility. Antagonizing the plebs, the nobility thought, might induce them ally with the dethroned royalty to accomplish a Tarquin restoration at their expense.

To avoid this possibility, the patricians allied with the plebs until the Tarquins passed away. But once the Tarquins had died, and the fear of their return dissipated, the nobles once again opposed the plebs politically.

This renewed opposition resulted in “many confusions, noises, and danger of scandals [] arose between the plebs and the nobility[.]" To keep the peace, and protect the plebs against the nobility’s power:

[T]hey arrived at the creation of the tribunes for the security of the plebs. They ordered them with so much eminence and reputation that they could ever after be intermediaries between the plebs and the Senate and prevent the insolence of the nobles.

Three thoughts on this vignette:

First—

Who are “they” to whom Machiavelli refers in his statement about the creation of the tribunes? The language, both in the Mansfield & Tarcov translation and the original text, reads as if the tribunes were the brainchild of some far-thinking men with the incentive, wisdom, and foresight to create a position to mediate early Rome’s political conflict. This appears to contradict not only the title of Chapter Three itself, which ascribes the creation of the tribunes to “accidenti” (“accidents” or “incidents,” according to both Mansfield & Tarcov and my own understanding), but also to Livy’s own account, which attributes the creation of the tribunes to political compromise in the wake of the plebs’ threat to leave Rome over the military levy.

Second—

What exactly is meant by “bad”? The Italian word Machiavelli uses is “rei,” an archaic word that does not survive in modern Italian dictionaries like Lo Zingarelli. Does it simply mean being selfish, as in the “self-interest properly understood” championed by Alexis de Tocqueville, or in Adam Smith’s classical view of selfish economic behavior as expressed in An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations? Or does it denote a tendency for “corruption” (corruzione), in the sense Machiavelli appears to use it—that is, having ultimate allegiance to any entity other than the state?

Third—

Machiavelli does not assert that all men are bad. He merely says that whoever rules a state must assume that they are. Thus, men can be good in Machiavelli’s eyes, especially those common people that are ordered under good laws like those in the as-yet-uncorrupt Roman Republic. (See Chapters 25, 55, and 58 of Book One for Machiavelli’s discussion of their alleged goodness.) Moreover, as noted in Book One, Chapter Two, Machiavelli believes that individuals who overthrow a state that has sunk into degeneracy can act virtuously in founding a new one, much like Lucius Junius Brutus did after the expulsion of the Tarquins.

Once can assume, however, that a ruler cannot easily discern who is good from who is bad, much less predict how future generations will behave. Indeed, as noted in the previous chapter, the generations that follow the foundation of a new order tend to exhibit a degeneracy lacking in their forebears. Machiavelli’s purpose, therefore, seems less to make a philosophical pronouncement on the morality of all men, but simply to make a policy recommendation based upon the tendency of the majority of people. While virtue exists, the state must act as if it did not.