In the 1920s, the German historian Hans Baron coined the term “civic humanism.” To put things in perspective, Baron was a protégé of Friedrich Meinecke, possibly an essential Machiavelli scholar of the early twentieth century when he developed this new phrase (Hankins 2). Meinecke credited Machiavelli with inventing the notion of raison d’état, which holds that the state’s demands define its action standards, founded on the state’s innate desire to grow and surpass human morality (Hankins 2). He considered Machiavellianism a realistic tradition in contemporary philosophy, separate from and superior to the cosmopolitan moralism of neo-Stoic thinkers like Grotius, who attempted to impose traditional classical and Christian moral categories on inter-state interactions (Hankins 3). In its original form, Baron’s idea of “civic humanism” was intended to help Meinecke’s quest by locating the conceptual roots of Machiavellism in the soil of Italian humanist thinking.
Baron had to debunk a prevalent misunderstanding about humanism at the time (originating with Burckhardt) to demonstrate the humanists’ relevance to Machiavelli. These cosmopolitans went from court to court with little interest in politics and no allegiance to any political ideology. Machiavelli, according to Rousseau, did not distinguish ethics from politics and was seen as a stern republican thinker (Hankins 5). Benner’s preoccupation with Machiavelli’s rhetorical strategies leads to engrossingly comprehensive and clever interpretations of complicated themes. Machiavelli makes a compelling argument for moral autonomy and honest inquiry.
The point is significant because of the concept of a respublica, with its connotations of just government for the sake of the citizen body. Government rule by virtuous rulers and magistrates, of government that valued liberty and ensured it through adherence to law and constitutional propriety; this Roman concept of respublica became a kind of linguistic marker in humanist literature. Even if it dealt with governmental problems, the encouraging word republic invoked the grand idealistic aim of the Renaissance – the restoration of antiquity, the end of the Middle Age (Hankins 5). Crucially, republican thought in the Renaissance was never limited to republics in the modern sense of the word, i.e., regimes that recognize the people’s will as the ultimate source of sovereignty; nor was political participation and vivere civile always confined to the oligarchic regimes that came to refer to themselves as republics during the fifteenth century.
It is true that during Machiavelli’s day, and notably in Machiavelli’s political lexicon, the word respublica had gained a secondary connotation denoting a popular. Rather than a royal type of administration, owed primarily to Bruni and Francesco Patrizi of Siena (Hankins 7). Machiavelli notably compared republics with principalities in the first chapter of The Prince, as did many other Renaissance writers before and after him. The ancient definition of respublica as any virtuous state that upholds the common welfare and citizen liberty remained valid. The term can be applied to any decent rule, whether monarchical, aristocratic, or populist. Renaissance humanists worked for a variety of governments. They applied their neo-classical political principles to a variety of political situations. When we use the word Renaissance republicanism, we should remember that it encompasses both royal and aristocratic republics and famous republics.
Machiavelli is sometimes justified as only reluctantly leaving (and recommending departure) from earlier morals and in a sad, resigned attitude. As a means of distinguishing between private affairs for which this morality is entirely relevant and public things for which it is not, as a means of replacing the more extensive and worldly morality of patriotism and the common welfare for a limited or priestly morality (Hankins 8). Machiavelli is a highly moral guy, so vindicating his critique of morality. In response to them, we must emphasize that Machiavelli’s unique argument is not that noble aims may need dubious means nor that the end justifies the means. Both philosophy and religion had acknowledged, without exulting in, the necessity of yielding virtue to virtue’s inexorable inevitability.
Almost every virtue, for example, was represented by Aristotle as a middle ground between two extremes, one inadequate and the other extravagant. He had meant, in general, the total of the various forms of perfection to which human beings are competent, which tend to a life that is both satisfied and worthy because it finds its happiness in worthwhile things. Liberality is a virtue that pertains to the utilization of one’s possessions (Hankins 9). Superiority to riches as a virtue tool is the essence of wealth virtue. It is an essential tool because virtue necessitates self-sufficiency and the freedom and leisure that comes with it. Seeing riches as only the means to virtue, the good man will be unconcerned if wealth exceeds the requirements of virtue. He receives according to a criterion other than the quality of getting: the economic activity standard is not an economic standard. Extravagance is giving what one needs for oneself; stinginess is not giving what one does not need.
Based on the preceding, it can be said with confidence that Machiavelli was not immoral, as his opponents in the church tried to prove. He was not something close to modern liberals in the context of his time. Machiavelli, like his ideas, was always measured and calm, trying to evaluate his actions and choose the right words and actions. However, we can say that Machiavelli supported republicanism, although he understood it in his way. Machiavelli’s ambiguous and sometimes cruel moral and ethical concepts are a product of their time. The Thinker lived in an era of endless wars, famine, disease, and strange and intricate political games. The author’s views are a product and, simultaneously, a reflection of the time when he wrote his works.
Work Cited
Hankins, James. “Machiavelli, Civic Humanism, and the Humanist Politics of Virtue.” Italian Culture, vol. 32, no. 2, 2014, pp. 98–109. Crossref.