iavelli is concerned with setting out principles and practices which will allow the prince, or political ruler of his time, to maintain his power. As John B. Morral writes,
We are all familiar with Machiavelli's doctrine of raison d'etat [reason of the state], the justifying of even an immoral means to achieve a political end, and we are aware that the cynical maxims of The Prince are merely the explicit statement of the habitual political practice of Renaissance Italy (Morral 135).
In other words, the ruler, according to Machiavelli, is permitted to do whatever he needs to do, moral or amoral or immoral, in order to not only achieve power but to maintain his power against threats from within or without. In fact, in Machiavelli's political philosophy, the effective prince is obligated to whatever he needs to do to stay in power, or he does n
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