sophical basis reflective of the changing concepts of his era. Implicit in this schema is a concept that later political interpreters would call ‘reason of state’, i.e. the philosophic rationale that allows the state to take actions in support of its existence that may be contrary to moral or religious postulates. In what follows, I will present an overview of the concept, its historical context and its role in Machiavelli’s diverse writings.
The concept of reason of state implicit in Machiavelli’s represented an essential element in the emerging thought of the modern era. It operated to sever political entities from the religious domination, characteristic of governance during the Middle Ages and thus played a pivotal role in the evolution of independent state systems. Machiavelli presented this break with past political paradigms as a matter of necessity, divorced from normative considerations. Machiavelli sought to define the principles of political leadership appropriate to this new unstable era. He concluded that the primary goal of the ruler is to create a stable political environment in the real world of human beings and not to achieve a spiritual or moral benefit that has implications only for the intangible and abstract world that is the realm of religion and morality. To minimize the seeming radical nature of his views, Machiavelli drew extensively on historical examples to show that the best rulers of the past often operated not only independently from religious or moral precepts, but frequently subordinated religion and morality to the needs of the state.
Although Machiavelli is often credited with the introduction of the concept of reason of state into Western political thought, the idea that there existed a separate reason associated with governance had been an element of late medieval political thought. Earlier Florentine political philosophers such as Brunetto Latini of the twelfth century prop...