Machiavelli and Hobbes

Paper Summary:

This paper examines how Thomas Hobbes and Machiavelli gave us some highly acclaimed philosophical works, which contain their views on every subject connected with politics, government and rights of citizens. It looks at how Thomas Hobbes was positively influenced by Machiavelli in his views on politics and government. It also looks at how Machiavelli in his book "The Prince" focused on factors such as fear and force when describing the attributes that he felt a ruler must possess in order to rule effectively.

From the Paper:

"Human nature was another very important subject of the political theories of both Hobbes and Machiavelli. Hobbes and Machiavelli's views on human nature cannot be seen as aligned to each other since the latter basically focused on wretchedness of human soul while the former was more concerned about the factors that influenced or basically created the human nature. According to Hobbes human nature could be explained in terms of voluntary and involuntary motions. (p. 118) He was of the view that men are motivated by passion such as anger, hunger, despair, joy etc. This resulted in action which could be termed either good or evil based on how it affects mankind. Machiavelli on the other hand did not believe in Hobbes' implied equality of men. "

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