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| Friedrich II (1712-1786) |
Despite the grand
sound of all these efforts, it might well be asked what this person
is doing on a blog concentrating expressly on philosophical writings.
Well, Friedrich II did write – poetry, but also some more
philosophical works. It is especially his L'Anti-Machiavel that
will now be my topic.
As
the name of the book suggests, target of this critical work is
Machiavelli and especially his most famous work, The
Prince, famous for it utter
immorality. In this work, Machiavelli had declared that a good prince
should use all the means necessary to get to his ends – war,
plunder, deception, murder, slander, you name it. Even if
Machiavelli's advice appears rather cynical, he was in his heart a
republican, and The Prince
was merely an attempt to find a suitable local prince, who could use
it for the honourable end of
uniting Italy under a home-bred rule.
Friedrich
connects his own work with
quite another philosophical
debate – he considers Machiavelli to be even greater threat
than Spinoza, because while latter had erred only in matters of
speculation, the former wrote falsities in important practical
matters. If Spinoza was commonly seen as gateway to atheism,
Machiavelli led to even worse immoralism – to the idea that a ruler
should not strive for the good of his people.
While
Friedrich's motives are clearly based
on morality,
his argumentation is not. Instead, he tries to show that a
Machiavellian prince cannot even fulfill his own ends with the means
of Machiavelli's book. A
prince cannot really rule without the support of his citizens, as is
witnessed by many revolutions against despised rulers, Friedrich
notes. Deceptiveness and cruelty might help one in gaining kingship,
but such qualities cannot be used for retaining one's rule.
Furthermore,
Friedrich notes that Machiavelli's The Prince
does not take into consideration relativistic nature of cultures. In
other words, methods of rule fit for 16th century Italy – a time of
petty principalities fighting for equally petty reasons – do not
work in other lands, let alone at other times. In 18th century, small
principality just couldn't afford to e.g. wage war alone, but should
accept alliances with other principalities.
Interestingly,
Friedrich's book touches even a more metaphysical question. One of
the chapters of Machiavelli's book concerned the role of fortune in
state affairs – and whether a prince could negate its influence.
Here Friedrich notes that Machiavelli assumes, without further ado,
that fortune exists. Yet, he notes skeptically, there has been no
convincing proof showing that true fortune or contingency exists –
nor, for that matter, any proof showing that e.g. providence has
cared for everything
Next
time, we'll move back to aesthetics.
