It is often complained that Machiavelli fails to provide any definition of virtú, and even that he is innocent of any systematic use of the word. But it will now be evident that he uses the term with complete consistency. Following his classical and humanist authorities, he treats it as that quality which enables a prince to withstand the blows of Fortune, to attract the goddess’s favour, and to rise in consequence to the heights of princely fame, winning honour and glory for himself and security for his government.
It still remains, however, to consider what particular characteristics are to be expected in a man of virtuoso capacities. The Roman moralists had bequeathed a complex analysis of the concept of virtus, generally picturing the true vir as the possessor of three distinct yet affiliated sets of qualities. They took him to be endowed in the first place with the four ‘cardinal’ virtues of wisdom, justice, courage and temperance — the virtues that Cicero (following Plato) had begun by singling out in the opening book of De Officiis. But they also credited him with an additional range of qualities that later came to be regarded as peculiarly ‘princely’ in nature. The chief of these — the pivotal virtue of Cicero’s De Officiis — was what Cicero called ‘honesty’, meaning a willingness to keep faith and deal honourably with all men at all times. This was felt to need supplementing by two further attributes, both of which were described in De Officiis, but were more extensively analysed by Seneca, who devoted special treatises to each of them. One was princely magnanimity, the theme of Seneca’s On Clemency; the other was liberality, one of the major topics discussed in Seneca’s On Benefits. Finally, the true vir was said to be characterized by his steady recognition of the fact that, if we wish to reach the goals of honour and glory, we must always be sure to behave as virtuously as possible. This contention — that it is always rational to be moral — lies at the heart of Cicero’s De Officiis. He observes in Book II that many men believe ‘that a thing may be morally right without being expedient, and expedient without being morally right’. But this is an illusion, for it is only by moral methods that we can hope to attain the objects of our desires. Any appearances to the contrary are wholly deceptive, for expediency can never conflict with moral rectitude (II.3.9–10).
This analysis was again adopted in its entirety by the writers of advice books for Renaissance princes. They made it their governing assumption that the general concept of virtus must refer to the complete list of cardinal and princely virtues, a list they proceeded to amplify and subdivide with so much attention to nuance that, in a treatise such as Patrizi’s on The Education of the King, we find the overarching idea of virtus separated out into a series of no less than forty moral virtues which the ruler is expected to acquire. Next, they unhesitatingly endorsed the contention that the rational course of action for the prince to follow will always be the moral one, arguing the point with so much force that they eventually made it proverbial to say that ‘honesty is the best policy’. And finally, they contributed a specifically Christian objection to any divorce between expediency and the moral realm. They insisted that, even if we succeed in advancing our interests by perpetrating injustices in this present life, we can still expect to find these apparent advantages cancelled out when we are justly visited with divine retribution in the life to come.
If we examine the moral treatises of Machiavelli’s contemporaries we find these arguments tirelessly reiterated. But when we turn to The Prince we find this aspect of humanist morality suddenly and violently overturned. The upheaval begins in chapter 15, when Machiavelli starts to discuss the princely virtues and vices, and quietly warns us that ‘I am well aware that many people have written about this subject’, but that ‘what I have to say differs from the precepts offered by others’ (54). He begins by alluding to the familiar humanist commonplaces: that there is a special group of princely virtues; that these include the need to be liberal, merciful, and truthful; and that all rulers have a duty to cultivate these qualities. Next he concedes — still in orthodox humanist vein — that ‘it would be most praiseworthy’ for a prince to be able at all times to act in such ways. But then he totally rejects the fundamental humanist assumption that these are the virtues a ruler needs to acquire if he wishes to achieve his highest ends. This belief — the nerve and heart of humanist advice books for princes — he regards as an obvious and disastrous mistake. He agrees of course about the nature of the ends to be pursued: every prince must seek to maintain his state and obtain glory for himself. But he objects that, if these goals are to be attained, no ruler can possibly possess or fully practise all the qualities usually ‘held to be good’. The position in which any prince finds himself is that of trying to protect his interests in a dark world filled with unscrupulous men. If in these circumstances he ‘does not do what is generally done, but persists in doing what ought to be done’ he will simply ‘undermine his power rather than maintain it’ (54).
Machiavelli’s criticism of classical and contemporary humanism is thus a simple but devastating one. He argues that, if a ruler wishes to reach his highest goals, he will not always find it rational to be moral; on the contrary, he will find that any consistent attempt to cultivate the princely virtues will prove to be a ruinously irrational policy (62). But what of the Christian objection that this is a foolish as well as a wicked position to adopt, since it forgets the day of judgement on which all injustices will finally be punished? About this Machiavelli says nothing at all. His silence is eloquent, indeed epoch making; it echoed around Christian Europe, at first eliciting a stunned silence in return, and then a howl of execration that has never finally died away.
If princes ought not to conduct themselves according to the dictates of conventional morality, how ought they to conduct themselves? Machiavelli’s response — the core of his positive advice to new rulers — is given at the beginning of chapter 15. A wise prince will be guided above all by the dictates of necessity: if he ‘wishes to maintain his power’ he must always ‘be prepared to act immorally when this becomes necessary’ (55). Three chapters later, this basic doctrine is repeated. A wise prince does good when he can, but ‘if it becomes necessary to refrain’ he ‘must be prepared to act in the opposite way and be capable of doing it’. Moreover, he must reconcile himself to the fact that, ‘in order to maintain his power’, he will often be forced by necessity ‘to act treacherously, ruthlessly or inhumanely’ (62).