It appears that kind, paternalistic people like myself have become rooted in the status quo. Is that frustrating for you?

Not at all. I see real kindness in individual acts, not in the advocacy of this or that policy.

Not at all — NOS4A2

Sounds like you've adapted nicely to contemporary liberalism then. :up:

A soft despotism is a despotism nonetheless.

If everybody is cruel, wouldn't that entail, given the idea that cruelty is a vice, that everybody is psychologically deformed. What then would be the cause of that deformity?
— ChatteringMonkey

if everyone is psychologically deformed, would that not suggest, rather than a deformation, everyone has a certain , unappealing, aspect or proclivity to cruelty? How is it a deformity if it is universal? — Book273

That's exactly what I'm asking. A deformity would suggest that something caused it other than 'nature' or evolution, if it were natural we would call it something like a proclivity, yes. Montaigne, and with him a lot people, seem to think it's a deformity though. So the question in that account is then, what caused it?

Happiness? What's that got to do with it? Why such an eccentric question?

It's obvious when someone is basically cleaning his image, he would say as Shklar referred "that the sight of cruelty instantly filled him with revulsion." — ssu

Yeah ok, but I don't think Montaigne is saying that only to clean up his image, I think he means it, or at least it seems like he does to me.

A soft despotism is a despotism nonetheless — NOS4A2

You said you're ok with it, so I guess you're ok with despotism. :confused:

Machiavelli... is not really making normative claims, he sticks to a-moral description and prediction. — ChatteringMonkey

It's not just that Machiavelli isn't making normative claims... — ssu

From SEP:

Machiavelli criticizes at length precisely this moralistic view of authority in his best-known treatise, The Prince. For Machiavelli, there is no moral basis on which to judge the difference between legitimate and illegitimate uses of power.

Seems he was making normative claims.

From SEP:
Machiavelli criticizes at length precisely this moralistic view of authority in his best-known treatise, The Prince. For Machiavelli, there is no moral basis on which to judge the difference between legitimate and illegitimate uses of power.

Seems he was making normative claims. — Banno

Is that a normative claim though? Seem more like a meta-normative/a-moral claim to me.

Looks a bit contrived. Isn't he talking about what the Prince should do?

You do have a-moral or hypothetical shoulds, no? If you want healthy teeth, then you should brush your teeth.... is that a moral claim? I'd say no. And I think it's that kind of should statements he is making. If you want to stay in power as a prince etc...

Sure, a pretence of being amoral as a rhetorical ploy. Are you taken in by that? Surely not.

Seem you didn't get my point.

I'm not sure, I'm not exactly a Machiavelli scholar, I read The prince.

What do you think he is saying then, that a ruler should be cruel, not because that is how you best stay in power (as a matter of causal description), but as some kind a moral imperative? That would be a weird thing to say.

Or maybe you think he says these things as some kind of apologetics for abject behaviour? That could make more sense.

I guess my question is, if it's rethorics, what is it he's trying to sell then? Maybe himself as a potential advisor to the prince, that could make sense too.

Yeah ok, but I don't think Montaigne is saying that only to clean up his image, I think he means it, or at least it seems like he does to me. — ChatteringMonkey

If he was a mediator between the Protestants and the Catholics, he surely meant it.

Yet I think that many politicians could honestly agree with Montaigne and then when engaged in politics follow the advice of Machiavelli.

Ask the obvious question: is he telling the Prince what to do? If so, it's a moral document.

Ask the obvious question: is he telling the Prince what to do? If so, it's a moral document. — Banno

You're agreeing with Nietzsche. :up:

Yeah ok, but I don't think Montaigne is saying that only to clean up his image, I think he means it, or at least it seems like he does to me.
— ChatteringMonkey
If he was a mediator between the Protestants and the Catholics, he surely meant it.

Yet I think that many politicians could honestly agree with Montaigne and then when engaged in politics follow the advice of Machiavelli. — ssu

Ok, so you saying that they are talking about different things then? Machiavelli about how to be effective in politics, and Montaigne more about his own personal view on things. I probably agree with that for the most part.

Isn't he talking about what the Prince should do? — Banno

There has been a long debate as to whether the text should be taken at face value or not:
Interpretation of The Prince as political satire or as deceit

I'm thinking Machiavelli and Nietzsche use the same conceit: that they can tell folk what to do while pretending not to be moralising.

Ask the obvious question: is he telling the Prince what to do? If so, it's a moral document. — Banno

Sure, moral in the widest sense.

My original point was just that Machiavelli's claims like, "It's better to act cruel" could be refuted in a couple of different ways: Either by saying that cruelty is simply bad (which would be a moral evaluation) or by saying that cruelty does in fact not contribute to staying in power (which would be more a matter of causation). If Machiavelli is predominantly making claims in the latter sense, then it would seem more convincing to me to try to refute them on those terms.

'm thinking Machiavelli and Nietzsche use the same conceit: that they can tell folk what to do while pretending not to be moralising. — Banno

Machiavelli was trying to explain how mercy can lead to chaos. You could call that master morality, but I don't think he thought of it that way.

Chaos victimizes everyone.

Ok, so you saying that they are talking about different things then? — ChatteringMonkey

To different audiences, I would say.

We can see this phenomenon quite well even today. What people say publicly and what they say behind closed doors is different. That doesn't mean that they are dishonest, but simply understand that the two are different. There are enough people that eagerly take anything publicly said and portray it in the worst possible light to promote their own agenda.

The opening one turns Machiavelli upside down. In The Prince, Machiavelli had asked whether it was more efficient for a self-made ruler to govern cruelly or leniently, and had decided that, on the whole, cruelty worked best. Montaigne raised the question that the prince’s victims might ask: Was it better to plead for pity or display defiance in the face of cruelty? There are no certain answers, he concluded. Victims have no certainties. They must cope, without guide books to help them. The second of the Essays deals with the sadness of those whose children and friends die. And the third suggests that one might take precautions against the terrors of princes. If there were an established review of the deeds of princes as soon as they died, their passion for posthumous fame might restrain them here and now. Even Machiavelli had noted that an indiscriminate butcher was not likely to enjoy the best of reputations in history, even if he should have succeeded in all his enterprises. Montaigne was only too aware of how cruel the passion for fame made ambitious princes, and he did not really place mush hope in any restraining devices. But by reading The Prince, as one of its victims might, Montaigne set a great distance between his own and Machiavelli’s classicism.Putting cruelty first was thus a reaction to the new science of politics. It did not reconcile Montaigne to revealed religion. Indeed, it only reinforced his conviction that Christianity had done nothing to inhibit cruelty. He could not even admit that his hatred of cruelty was a residual form of Christian morality. On the contrary, it only exacerbated his antagonism to established religiosity.