Comparative political philosophy: frameworks and traditions

¶ … Plato and Machiavelli can be considered theorists of the ideal state, and each gives a high position to the military and military arts in achieving and maintaining order in society. However, they do have different views of the ultimate place and purpose of the military. What each has to say about the military reflects on the nature of the rest of their philosophies as expressed by Plato in The Republic and by Machiavelli in The Prince.

In Plato's Republic, the philosopher uses Socrates to investigate the nature of the city-state and what the ideal city-state should be. The philosophical inquiry in this dialogue addresses two primary conceptions, conceptions which are linked under the heading of idealism, with one detailing Plato's epistemology and the other his political philosophy. The first is a metaphysical consideration of the nature of life and the world and how we can know what we know, while the second is the practical application of various concepts to the state to demonstrate the relationship between the individual and his or her society in a utopian city-state. Plato's Republic describes a society that is completely rational, based on Plato's concept of the good life and developed to create and protect that sort of life within the context of a civil state. What Plato seeks in this dialogue is a definition of the perfect life and the perfect state to promote and sustain that life, and in the broadest sense, the subject of the dialogue is justice.

Inherent in Plato's analysis if the view that relations among human beings are subject to conflict, and he seems to see war as a permanent feature in human affairs. The city-state he develops will be the target of other city-states, and so the needs of war have to be considered. Machiavelli's view of the state several centuries later has changed little, for he also sees the state as subject to constant warfare, though he may also see war as a legitimate tool of diplomacy so that the state itself may seek to annex territory and influence affairs through war. Both ideal states are ruled by a strong central authority, which for Machiavelli is the prince, the benevolent despot, while for Plato it is a professionalized class known as the Guardians, with the philosopher-king part of an oligarchy at the top.

The Guardians are the rulers and protectors, and they exist to prevent strife in the Republic. Minimizing the threat of or possibility of strife is an important component in the state envisioned by Plato, and he sees the avoidance of strife as deriving from unity in the community. Plato's city-state is based on a certain view of the relationship between the individual and society. There is a different way of thinking about the individual and his or her relation to society that has infused Western political thought in the last three or four centuries and that is embodied in our own political system. The individual who lives under Plato's system, on the other hand, is placing himself or herself completely under the domination of the Guardians and as accepting the idea that everything society does is right and beneficial for the individual as well as for the majority. Clearly, the thrust of political development since the time of Plato has been otherwise as people have sought a way to curtail the power of government and to gain a voice in deciding what government can and cannot do.

The ideal state projected by Plato is based on his concept of the good life, and it has been developed in a way that would protect that sort of life within the context of a civil state. Plato sets forth a definition of the perfect life and the perfect state. Much of what Plato embodies in the Ideal State is a reaction to imperfections in the government and society of his time, a time of turmoil and warfare, and he created a society that would be free of all such strife. One problem with this ideal society is that it would have to be made up of perfect people. Plato tries to create perfect people through education and other means, but it is not clear that this could ever be effective.

Education is especially important in the shaping of the Guardians, including their military education. Guardians are to be of both genders, with the best arrangement being "for our men and women to share a common education, to bring up their children in common and to have a common responsibility" (Republic, 466d). Women are to "take part in all the same occupations as men, both in peace within the city and on campaign in war" (Republic, 466d). Children are to be taken to war along with the parents "to let them see, as they do in other trades, the job they will have to do when they grow up" (Republic, 467a).

Socrates even delves into the conduct of war, making a distinction between war and civil strife, "the one internal and domestic, the other external and foreign; and we call a domestic dispute 'civil strife,' and an external one 'war'" (Republic, 470c). Socrates says further that all relations between Greeks even from different regions are internal, while all relations "between Greek and barbarian" are "foreign and external" (Republic, 470d). The way a good city-state conducts itself in civil strife might be called very civilized, for the people will not "devastate Greek lands or burn Greek dwellings; nor will they admit that the whole people of a state -- men, women, and children -- are their enemies, but only the hostile minority who are responsible for the quarrel" (Republic, 471b).

The army in Plato's conception is a professional organization, a standing army with a dual purpose -- to defend the city-state from external enemies, and to put down civil strife and punish those responsible. In the latter role, the Guardian army would be acting more like a police force or local militia. Interestingly, Plato depends on the essential goodness of human nature in his city-state, though at the same time he believes others are not necessarily so good, hence the need for a standing army and the concern that war is a continuing enterprise. Machiavelli differs from Plato in that he believes in the citizen soldier or citizen militia rather than a standing professional army, though he also sees war as an ongoing enterprise, in his case because of a basic mistrust of human nature.

Plato's description of the tyrant who must scheme to hold onto power has resonance when one reads The Prince, for Machiavelli gives advice to such a ruler on how to achieve and retain power. In The Prince, Machiavelli emphasized the strong king, or prince, as the individual charged with control of government and required to take whatever means he deemed necessary to accomplish his goals. As a humanist educator, Machiavelli details the nature, goals, and responsibilities of such a leader in The Prince. In examining this issue, Machiavelli took a basically amoral approach to the issue, considering what the record showed regarding the activities of the sovereign and using this as a basis for determining how the Prince would be most successful. Machiavelli wanted to provide the basis for the foundation of a new science of statesmanship. He looked to history in terms of the facts rather than theological or moral interpretations or implications. He accepts immoral behavior from the Prince if that behavior promotes the interests of the state, while he rejects moral behavior on the part of the Prince if that behavior does not further the interests of the state.

Machiavelli is thus above all a pragmatist in his approach to statecraft, and the essence of his argument rests on the way people are viewed by others in terms of their actions and the consequences of those actions. He notes that men are spoken about and marked for qualities that bring them either praise or censure. For every good attribute that can be attributed to someone, there is a bad attribute that is its opposite and that can be attributed to someone else. This is true of the Prince as it is of every other human being, and as with any human being, the mixture of qualities includes both the good and the bad. Machiavelli writes:

And I know that every one will confess that it would be most praiseworthy in a prince to exhibit all the above qualities that are considered good; but because they can neither be entirely possessed nor observed, for human conditions do not permit it, it is necessary for him to be sufficiently prudent that he may know how to avoid the reproach of those vices which would lose him his state; and also to keep himself, if it be possible, from those which would not lose him it; but this not being possible, he may with less hesitation abandon himself to them. And again, he need not make himself uneasy at incurring a reproach for those vices without which the state can only be saved with difficulty, for if everything is considered carefully, it will be found that something which looks like virtue, if followed, would be his ruin; whilst something else, which looks like vice, yet followed brings him security and prosperity (Prince, Chapter 15).

Machiavelli further recognizes the importance of arms and an army to protect the kingdom. Machiavelli admonishes the prince to prepare well for his role, and part of this process is to have a standing army to preserve order:

We have seen above how necessary it is for a prince to have his foundations well laid, otherwise it follows of necessity he will go to ruin. The chief foundations of all states, new as well as old or composite, are good laws and good arms; and as there cannot be good laws where the state is not well armed, it follows that where they are well armed they have good laws. I shall leave the laws out of the discussion and shall speak of the arms (Prince, Chapter 12).

Machiavelli classifies the arms utilized by the prince-based say, therefore, that the arms with which a prince defends his state based on their source -- they are either his own arms, they are mercenaries, they are auxiliaries, or they are a mixed army. How effective each will be also depends on the source:

Mercenaries and auxiliaries are useless and dangerous; and if one holds his state based on these arms, he will stand neither firm nor safe; for they are disunited, ambitious, and without discipline, unfaithful, valiant before friends, cowardly before enemies; they have neither the fear of God nor fidelity to men, and destruction is deferred only so long as the attack is; for in peace one is robbed by them, and in war by the enemy (Prince, Chapter 12).

The proper army for the prince and for the protection of the realm is a citizen army, people who act out of loyalty to their homeland if not their leader. Machiavelli suggests "when arms have to be resorted to, either by a prince or a republic, then the prince ought to go in person and perform the duty of a captain" (Prince, Chapter 12). The army he should command consists of his citizenry, for "the republic has to send its citizens, and when one is sent who does not turn out satisfactorily, it ought to recall him, and when one is worthy, to hold him by the laws so that he does not leave the command" (Prince, Chapter 12).

Machiavelli also rejects auxiliaries, and he offers reasons for this when he writes,

Therefore, let him who has no desire to conquer make use of these arms, for they are much more hazardous than mercenaries, because with them the ruin is ready made; they are all united, all yield obedience to others; but with mercenaries, when they have conquered, more time and better opportunities are needed to injure you; they are not all of one community, they are found and paid by you, and a third party, which you have made their head, is not able all at once to assume enough authority to injure you (Prince, Chapter 13).

Of course, Plato is also assuming that his soldiers are also loyal to their city-state and that mercenaries and the like would not be, but he still holds that a professionally trained class is preferable to a citizen army conscripted to serve. Machiavelli believes that the prince can protect himself only with an army of his own making:

conclude, therefore, that no principality is secure without having its own forces; on the contrary, it is entirely dependent on good fortune, not having the valour which in adversity would defend it. And it has always been the opinion and judgment of wise men that nothing can be so uncertain or unstable as fame or power not founded on its own strength. And one's own forces are those which are composed either of subjects, citizens, or dependents; all others are mercenaries or auxiliaries (Prince, Chapter 13).

Machiavelli elevate the art of war to a high degree in the life of the prince. He writes, A prince ought to have no other aim or thought, nor select anything else for his study, than war and its rules and discipline; for this is the sole art that belongs to him who rules, and it is of such force that it not only upholds those who are born princes, but it often enables men to rise from a private station to that rank (Prince, Chapter 14).