Comparing Machiavelli´s The Prince And Sir Thomas More's Utopia
517 Words3 Pages
In Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince and Sir Thomas More’s Utopia the authors discuss what constitutes an ideal society for humanity. Both books were written during the Renaissance, a time of rebirth for European countries. The Renaissance was “a time of the revival of classical learning and wisdom after a long period of cultural decline and stagnation” (Guisepi 1). The arts were prospering along with new philosophical and political ideas. Machiavelli and More contributed to these new philosophical and political ideas--both had rather distinct points of view on how a society should run. In Machiavelli’s The Prince he portrays human nature in a much more accurate way compared to Sir Thomas More’s representation of human nature in Utopia. Machiavelli describes the cruelness of human nature and its inherent destructiveness. He asks and answers the question, “whether it is better to be loved than feared, or the reverse…But since the two rarely come together, anyone compelled…show more content… In comparison with Machiavelli, More thought that the ruler or leader would run the state, keeping in mind what is best for the people in the state, rather than keeping control through fear tactics. Sir Thomas More, “would say, it is the king's duty to take more care of his people's welfare than of his own, just as it is the duty of a shepherd who cares about his job to feed the sheep rather than himself”(33). He is discussing how the king will always have his people’s best interest at heart and consider them, before considering himself. Unfortunately, in a world where power goes to individuals’ heads, More’s concept is not exactly realistic. According to More, “a happy state of society will never be achieved, until philosophers are kings, or kings take to studying philosophy" (57). He believes that the state will never be entirely happy until the kings are philosophers or some sort of