Machiavelli's Values

Have you ever wondered that the definitions of morality, ethics, values and virtues are made by men and not by ‘gods’? These are created in order to put a barrier from conflicting interests. That is why, according to Hegel, rules and laws are considered to be a compromise among the differences of men. Although, how can laws of men be seen as “good” when past (some at present) practices of the primitive societies, do not seem ethical right in the twenty-first century. Roman nobility treated slaves as inhuman and it was considered “right”. Sacrificing the slaves and spouses of an Egyptian ruler that passed away was also considered “right” because there was a belief that they will lead them to reincarnation. Bertrand Russell stated that philosophy …show more content…
Is politics much more than their definitions and a baseless ground of values? Political philosophy’s weakness had molded into a breakthrough as Machiavelli (1469-1527) was the first to give a more realistic ground to politics. He gave a normative and “value-free” approach. Gradually and slowly, political philosophy was decaying as many political thinkers had followed in his idea. “What happened to values?” It was still important like according to Hegel (1770-1831), he distinguishes between morality as the standpoint of the will and ethics as the idea of freedom. However, Hegel’s standpoint is still based on reason and in freedom as his dialectical approach had a transcendental being. Science is starting to debunk myths and it grew in the minds of the people — that there is a much more rational way to explain the environment and how men work. The values that gave political philosophy most of their normative stand was given a more empirical …show more content…
The positivistic approach was the first to theorize an empirical method, but it was Behavioralism that made the turning point. What contributed to the behavioralism’s success was that it adopted the objectives of positivism except that they borrowed the systems of natural science as their framework. The popular use of quantitative research methods such as election polls, scales, and sample surveys, etc., drove political philosophy apart from political science because their methods were in contradiction to one another. Ian Barbour (1979) claimed that not only was their content and subject matter different but also their ways of knowing. Behavioralism may have been a success as it contributed to the rise of policy making, political institutions etc., and many called this as a shift of paradigm but it was only a “mood” as Robert Dahl describes. Many started to argue, especially those who supported the political philosophy that if “value-free” was the mindset of political science then ‘good’ and ‘bad’ were useless. Plato’s context of ‘justice’ and other values would be meaningless. It was also considered an irony that Behavioralism was contradicting itself because they are searching