Transcript of Lecture on Machiavelli's Ethics

A lecture on Machiavelli's ethics

0. Introduction

Machiavelli wrote his books to teach the few and not the many. He wrote to teach those rare and marvelous men that come once every few hundred years how to achieve the grandest political projects. The founding of states, civilizations, and even religions. And Machiavelli’s chief lesson for them is this, “Always being good makes you weak and effeminate, and you will lose to those who aren’t. Good people, people who are altruistic, public-spirited, compassionate, make terrible leaders.” As a leader then, you must operate on a different set of rules than everyone else. It is good that you are selfish, it is good that you have a lust for glory. You must be willing to cheat, lie, murder, steal, if necessary. But you must do all of this while appearing to be good, like a wolf in sheep’s clothing. This is what you will learn in our lecture today, why and how to enter into evil.

1. “Evil” Moses

1.1 “Evil” Moses: Massacre

So in part one of this lecture, I’m going to try to ease you in to Machiavelli’s ideas by helping you understand his leader par excellence, Moses. Almost more so than any other leader, Achilles, Caesar, certainly, Alexander, it is Moses that he holds up as the prime model of how to enter into evil. Now I know what you’re thinking, “How can that be?” This is blasphemy. Moses is the greatest political leader in the Jewish tradition. He remains one of the greatest prophets in the Christian tradition. At Jesus’s transfiguration, when his divinity is revealed, this is Matthew, there’s only two people next to him, Elijah and Moses. When we think Moses, we think good, we think honest, humble. We think compassionate, generous. When we think Machiavelli, we think evil, deceptive, prideful, self-absorbed.