The Most Important Goals Of Politics In Machiavelli's The Principe

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In the book Il Principe (the prince) written in sixteenth century Florence, Machiavelli writes about how principalities should be governed. It is mainly a book of advice and instructions to new princes in how to maintain power in a principality. Thus, power is considered to be one of the most important goals of politics to Machiavelli. Machiavelli’s second book Discorsi (Discourses) was written slightly after the prince also in Florence. In the Prince he wrote briefly about Republics by saying, “discussed them at length on another occasion” , this other occasion is in the discourses. The discourses is about republics which gives people liberties and the people are more free than the subjects of principalities. This shows how another important…show more content…
This shows its importance above all other goals. Another way to see how Machiavelli thinks power is important is the great lengths he goes to in trying to legitimize a prince’s power. The first way Machiavelli legitimizes power is through military defence, “If a prince has fortified his town well…then an enemy will be very circumspect in attacking him…it is obviously not easy to assault a town which has been made into a bastion” , this shows that a prince can use as much power to further any goals if he tells his subjects it is to protect them from a potential attacker. A new prince especially is prone to any attackers and therefore must be on his guard. The second way to legitimize power is; creating laws to keep order, which is exerting power, as long as some of the laws are good laws subjects won’t be willing to revolt, shown by “You cannot have good laws without good arms, and where there are good arms, good laws inevitably follow” , and therefore ends justify
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