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Nature of Virtue in The Prince & The Discourses

This essay will discuss the nature and uses of the term virtu, or virtue, in MachiavelliÆs The Prince and The Discourses. It will also discuss what Machiavelli considers the relation between the concepts of virtue and fortuna, or fortune, to be, and it examines how Machiavelli uses these two terms.

Machiavelli clearly uses the term ôvirtueö in several senses. First, he uses it with its usual meaning of a trait that is an aspect of moral excellence, or sometimes he uses it as a synonym for moral excellence in general. Second, he uses it in the more general sense of an ability or capacity to do something. For example, in Chapter XX of Book I of The Discourses, he comments as follows:

if, as has been seen, two successive good and valorous princes are sufficient to conquer the world, . . . a republic should be able to do still more, having the power to elect . . . an infinite number of most competent and virtuous rulers one after the other; and this system of electing a succession of virtuous men should ever be the established practice of every republic (pp. 174-75).

Machiavelli is greatly concerned with distinguishing between what a man earns by means of his abilities or virtues and what accrues to him by mere fortune or happenstance. His approach is very commonsensical, not absolutist. He emphasizes elements of both virtue and fortune in all situations, each ineffectual without the other. For example, in Chapter VI of The Prince, he says that great princes ôowed nothing to fortune but the opportunity which gave them matter to be shaped into what form they thought fit; and without that opportunity their powers would have been wasted, and without their powers the opportunity would have come in vain" (pp. 20-21). However, the difference between what results from an exercise of virtue and what results from merely taking advantage of good fortune is clear enough.

An exercise of a virtue or ability always seems to invo...

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Nature of Virtue in The Prince & The Discourses. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 06:26, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1711817.html