Machiavelli’s Secret: The Soul of the Statesman

Machiavelli’s Secret: The Soul of the Statesman

Author
Raymond Angelo Belliotti
Publisher
State University of New York Press
Language
English
Year
2015
Page
232
ISBN
1438457219,9781438457215
File Type
pdf
File Size
1.6 MiB

The political statesman, Machiavelli tells us, must love his country more than his own soul. Political leaders must often transgress clear moral principles, using means that are typically wrong, even horrifying. What sort of inner life does a leader who "uses evil well" experience and endure? The conventional view held by most scholars is that a Machiavellian statesman lacks any "inwardness" because Machiavelli did not delve into the state of mind one might find in a politician with "dirty hands." While such a leader would bask in his glory, the argument goes, we can only wonder at the condition of the soul they have presumably risked in discharging their duties. In Machiavelli's Secret, Raymond Angelo Belliotti uncovers a range of clues in Machiavelli's writings that, when pieced together, reveal that the Machiavellian hero most certainly has "inwardness" and is surely deeply affected by the evil means he must sometimes employ. Belliotti not only reveals the nature of this internal condition, but also provides a springboard for the possibility of Machiavelli's ideal statesman.

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