Relation to others· Power and justice
Force as an instrument of politics
Axis: Violence — Can violence be legitimate?
Politics cannot be moralized: every order rests, in the last resort, on coercion, and the state is defined by its monopoly on legitimate violence. The question is not whether force is good, but whether it is used aptly: whoever governs must know how to wield it, sparingly and lucidly, or surrender the city to chaos or to someone more violent.
Philosophers 1
Machiavelliexplicit
Cruelty is not praised in itself: it is judged by its use. Well used are those inflicted all at once, out of the necessity of securing oneself, and then turned to the greatest benefit of the subjects; badly used, those that grow with time. Injuries are done all together, benefits are meted out slowly; and since love hangs on a bond that men break to their advantage, whereas fear hangs on the dread of punishment, it is safer to be feared than loved, provided one avoids being hated.
The Prince, ch. VIII (Agathocles) · The Prince, ch. VII (Cesare Borgia, Remirro de Orco) · The Prince, ch. XVII (to be feared or loved)
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Calliclesinferable
Since nature gives the strong the right to take, coercion and conquest are not an evil to be contained but the normal expression of order: Pindar's line and the example of Xerxes marching on Greece serve him to legitimate force as the ground of right. The violence of the powerful need not justify itself before a morality: it is justice itself.
Plato, Gorgias, 483d-484b