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Aristotle vs Machiavelli on Virtue and Survival · Diplomacy and International Relations

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  Welcome to Diplomacy and International Relations by
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  Bastian Freiborg. Now, before we get into today's
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  discussion, I have a quick request.
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  OK, let's let's get into this. When we talk about international
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  relations, we usually think about, you know, the ticker tape
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  at the bottom of the news screen, right?
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  Summits, treaties, maybe a crisis at the UN?
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  Exactly. But today, we're going way back.
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  We're looking at the ancient foundations that, believe it or
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  not, still dictate how nations behave.
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  We're looking at the ultimate clash between the ideal and the
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  real. It's fundamental tension.
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  It is, and here's the question I want you to keep in mind, and
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  it's one that frankly bothers me when I read the news.
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  If a leader wants to be good, morally good, ethical, does that
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  automatically mean they will be weak?
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  The big one. To answer that, we are
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  contrasting 2 absolute Titans of political thought.
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  In one corner we have Aristotle, who thought politics was all
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  about human flourishing, and the other Niccolo Machiavelli, the
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  man who arguably taught the world that politics is about
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  survival and power. It is the heavyweight matchup of
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  history, really, because it defines the two poles of how we
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  even see the world. On one side you've got this
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  aspiration for justice, this idea that we can build a better
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  society, the hoax, and on the other you have the cold, hard
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  requirements of security where, well, morality is often seen as
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  a liability. A liability?
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  Wow. So our mission today is to
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  explore Aristotle's views on war and foreign policy.
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  And frankly, most people get him wrong.
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  He wasn't just some dusty academic.
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  And then we'll pivot to Machiavelli's radical break from
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  tradition, specifically why he argued that learning not to be
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  good is a political necessity. Learning not to be good.
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  There's a phrase that always just sticks in my throat.
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  It should. And to make sure this isn't just
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  abstract theory, we are going to apply these ancient ideas to
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  modern crises like the situation in Syria and this concept of the
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  responsibility to protect RDP. Yeah.
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  And finally, we have to look at maybe the most famous teacher
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  student mismatch in all of history, Aristotle and Alexander
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  the Great. That is a relationship I have
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  always found wild. You have the philosopher of
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  moderation teaching the man who tried to conquer the entire
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  planet. It's the ultimate paradox.
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  But let's start with Aristotle. I feel like most people, myself
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  included, think of Aristotle as the ethics guy.
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  You know, virtue, happiness, being a good.
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  Person. Yeah, the personal stuff.
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  Did he really care about international relations or or we
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  just kind of projecting modern ideas back on Oh he.
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  Absolutely did, but you're right that it's often overlooked.
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  There's some great research that corrects this misconception.
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  Aristotle was actually very critical of other thinkers of
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  his time, like Phileas and Hippodamus.
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  I don't recall those names from Philosophy 101.
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  Most people don't, but Aristotle went after them specifically
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  because they ignored Foreign Relations.
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  They were designing these perfect utopias on paper, but
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  they treated the city like it existed in a bubble.
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  So he was calling them out for being totally naive
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  isolationists. Essentially, Aristotle's whole
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  argument was that you cannot have a perfect city or a best
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  regime without considering your neighbors war and defense.
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  Doesn't matter how great your city is if someone else burns it
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  down. Exactly.
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  He believed military strength was necessary.
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  But, and this is the key nuance, he argued that military power
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  shouldn't be the only goal, and he used Sparta as his prime
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  example of what not to do. Hold on, Sparta, the warrior
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  society guys from the movie 300? I thought they were the gold
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  standard for ancient military power.
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  If you want a strong foreign policy, don't you want to be
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  Sparta? They were the gold standard for
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  fighting, yes, but Aristotle argued that was actually their
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  fatal flaw. He critiqued Sparta and Crete
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  because their entire society, their laws, their education,
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  everything was designed solely for war.
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  But they won. A lot they did, but Aristotle
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  pointed out this system works great while you are fighting.
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  But the moment Sparta achieved its goal, empire and peace, they
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  collapsed. They didn't know how to live in
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  leisure. That sounds a bit philosophical.
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  They didn't know how to live in leisure.
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  Does that just mean they got bored?
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  It's deeper than boredom. It's like, think of a startup
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  that's all about hyper growth. They break things, they move
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  fast, they're aggressive, right Then they win.
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  They become the monopoly. Now they have to manage a stable
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  business and they just implode because they don't have the
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  virtues of peace, governance, culture, diplomacy.
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  Sparta was a war machine that broke down the second you turned
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  off the war. That makes a lot of sense.
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  It's the dog catching the car problem.
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  They caught the car and then had no idea how to drive it.
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  That is a perfect analogy for Aristotle.
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  War must always be for the sake of peace.
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  It's a means, not an end. If you make war the end, you
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  destroy yourself. Oh wait, so that leads into his
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  idea about leadership, doesn't it?
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  The hegemon. Exactly.
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  He believed a state could be a leader, a hegemon without
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  becoming a master or a despot. Let's unpack that distinction,
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  because in modern politics, hegemony usually has a really
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  negative connotation. It does, but for Aristotle it
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  comes down to who benefits. He distinguishes between
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  political rule and despotic rule.
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  Despotic rule is like a master over a slave.
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  It's all for the master's benefit.
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  The slave is just a tool. It's pure extraction.
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  Precisely. But political rule is ruling
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  over free people for their mutual benefit.
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  Aristotle's ideal regime, his city of prayer, isn't
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  isolationist. It engages.
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  It trades. It leads, but it acts as a
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  partner. So a coalition leader, not an
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  emperor. That's a good way to put it.
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  Think of NATO at its best versus an old school empire just
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  stripping resources from its colonies.
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  So the ideal is a strong state that leads free neighbors rather
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  than conquering them. But let's be honest, that sounds
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  incredibly optimistic and sounds nice in a lecture hall.
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  It does. But does it work in the real
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  world? And that brings us to the guy
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  who famously threw optimism out the window, Nicola Machiavelli.
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  Right. And it's so important we don't
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  just paint Machiavelli as a cartoon villain.
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  He was looking at the chaos of Italy in his time, invasions,
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  corruption, weakness and trying to find a solution.
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  If Aristotle was asking how ought we to live, Machiavelli
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  was obsessed with the effective truth.
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  He focused on what is, not what ought to be.
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  Exactly. He's the realist to Aristotle's
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  idealist. But surely Aristotle knew the
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  world was messy. Oh, he did.
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  But Aristotle thought we should still strive for the ideal.
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  Machiavelli thought striving for the ideal would get you killed.
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  So to get Machiavelli you have to understand a the key terms.
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  You do virtue, Fortuna and Necessita.
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  OK, virtue. That sounds like virtue.
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  Like being a good person, being honest, helping old ladies cross
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  the street. It sounds like that, but in
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  Machiavelli's dictionary it means almost the opposite.
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  For Machiavelli, virtue is not moral goodness, It's civic
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  virtue. It's skill, strength,
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  flexibility, the sheer capacity to get things done.
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  It's effectiveness. It's effectiveness, it's the
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  ability to maintain power and deal with Fortuna, which is just
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  the luck or the chaos of the world.
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  So a mob boss could have Vertu. Absolutely.
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  If he runs his organization effectively, protects his
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  territory and outmaneuvers his rivals.
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  He has Vertu, and sometimes dealing with the chaos of
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  Fortuna requires necessitate necessity, the idea that
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  sometimes to survive, you must do evil.
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  Must do evil. That's the part that always gets
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  people. It's not you might have to, it's
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  you must. It is the core of his break from
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  tradition. Look at the example he uses of
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  Agatha Cleese from The Prince Magathocles was a common
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  citizen, a Potter's son who became king of Syracuse.
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  A plotter's son to king? That sounds like a fairy tale.
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  The ending is definitely not. He rose through the military.
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  Then one morning he calls the Senate and all the leading
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  citizens together, supposedly to talk business.
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  At a signal, his soldiers rush in and kill all of them, all the
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  senators, all the richest men in the city.
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  Just like that. Good.
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  Lord wiped out the entire government in the morning.
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  Wiped them out and after that he ruled without any internal
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  opposition. Now here's the twist.
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  Machiavelli asks. Was this virtuous?
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  I'm. Going to go with no.
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  And Machiavelli agrees, sort of. He doesn't call Agathocles
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  virtuous in the moral sense. He says you can't call it virtue
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  to kill your citizens and betray your friends.
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  He says you can get power this way, but not glory.
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  OK, so there's a line. But he acknowledges Agathocles
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  was successful because he used cruelty well.
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  Cruelty well used. That is a chilling phrase.
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  What does that even mean? Is there a good way to be cruel?
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  In Machiavelli's grim logic, yes, it means doing all the
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  nasty stuff at once. Secure your power, eliminate
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  your threats in one big ugly swoop, and then you stop.
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  Why stop? Because of human nature,
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  Machiavelli argues that people have short memories but high
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  sensitivity to ongoing pain. If you drag the cruelty out,
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  killing one opponent every week for a year, people live in
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  constant fear and hatred. They never feel safe.
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  Never. But if you do it all at once,
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  the shock is massive. But then it's over.
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  And if you followed up by providing security and
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  stability, people might eventually forget or at least
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  forgive you because their own lives are stable again.
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  That is dark, but I can see the psychological logic.
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  It's the idea that a bandage should be ripped off quickly.
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  Exactly. So Aristotle says the goal is
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  eudaimonia flourishing. Machiavelli says the goal is
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  security and the maintenance of the state.
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  If the state falls, morality doesn't matter because everyone
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  is dead or enslaved. And this is where he really
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  clashes with the Christian morality of his time, right?
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  Yes, and this is a great point. Machiavelli wasn't necessarily
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  saying he loved evil. He wasn't a sadist.
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  He was arguing that private Christian morality, turning the
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  other cheek, humility, forgiveness is disastrous in
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  public politics. So what's good for your soul is
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  bad for your state. That's it in a nutshell.
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  He basically says if a leader tries to be good in a world of
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  bad men, he will be ruined and he'll take the state down with
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  him. That is the crux of it, isn't
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  it? The responsibility of the
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  leader? If I'm a private citizen and I
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  turn the other cheek, I only risk myself.
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  But if I'm a leader and I do it. You risk your entire nation.
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  Precisely. He would argue that the good
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  leader who lets his country be conquered because he refused to
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  fight dirty is actually the immoral 1.
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  So let's pivot. What does all this mean for us
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  today? We aren't ruling ancient city
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  states. We're watching the news on our
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  phones. How does this apply to, you
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  know, the learner, the listener looking at the world right now?
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  It applies directly to how we view modern diplomacy and
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  intervention. Take the concept of R2P the
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  responsibility to protect. Right.
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  The idea that sovereignty isn't a blank check.
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  If a state is massacring it's its own people, the
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  international community has a duty to step in.
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  It sounds very well, very Aristotelian it.
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  Is it's focused on justice and human well-being.
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  But let's look at the crisis in Syria, specifically that famous
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  red line moment under President Obama regarding chemical weapon.
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  Oh yeah. The red line, Obama said if
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  chemical weapons were used, that would change his calculus.
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  It was a threat, then they were used, but the US didn't launch
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  major intervention. And that moment perfectly
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  encapsulates this tension if we look at it through an
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  Aristotelian lens. We have to ask, does
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  intervention promote living well?
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  Explain that, because surely stopping a dictator from gassing
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  people promotes living well. You would think so on the
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  surface, but Aristotle emphasizes for niece's practical
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  wisdom, a leader has to waive a long term impact.
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  If you intervene, can you actually create a better world?
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  Or do you just blow things up, leave a power vacuum and make it
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  even worse? So Aristotle might say, don't go
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  in unless you can actually fix the house.
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  You can just knock down a wall and leave.
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  Exactly the capabilities approach asks can people
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  actually live decent lives after you leave?
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  If the answer is no, Aristotle might actually advise caution.
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  OK, so that's the Aristotelian view, but what about
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  Machiavelli? How does he look at the red
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  line? Machiavelli looks at it purely
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  through power and reputation. He would ask, does this
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  strengthen our state? When Obama drew a red line and
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  then didn't enforce it, Machiavelli would be screaming.
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  Not because he cares about the Syrian people, but because it
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  showed weakness. It's all about credibility,
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  Machiavelli would say. Armed prophets conquer.
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  Unarmed ones fail. When Obama said the
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  international community was paralyzed, Machiavelli would nod
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  and say, see, reliance on shared norms is a fantasy.
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  If the norms don't have force behind them, they are just
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  words. And you just taught your enemies
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  that your threats are empty. You did.
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  So the dilemma for a modern leader is do we act for the long
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  term global good, the Aristotelian view which is
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  incredibly hard to calculate, or do we act to preserve our
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  national reputation and security, the Machiavellian
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  view, which might mean striking violently just to prove a point?
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  That's the eternal struggle. It's short term survival versus
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  long term well-being, and every leader is stuck right in the
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  middle. Of every single day.
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  Speaking of leaders, we have to talk about the ultimate case
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  study. We can't do this without talking
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  about the fact that Aristotle actually had a student who went
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  into politics. And not just any student.
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  Aristotle was the personal tutor of Alexander the Great.
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  Which is just mind blowing. It's like finding out that
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  Gandhi was the personal tutor of Genghis Khan.
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  It is the ultimate irony of history.
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  Aristotle taught him from roughly age 13 to 16, and we
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  know from sources like Plutarch that Alexander idolized him, at
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  least at first. There's this great detail that
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  Alexander famously slept with two things under his pillow, a
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  dagger and a copy of Homer's Iliad.
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  A dagger in a book that says it all.
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  And that copy of the Iliad was annotated by Aristotle himself.
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  Alexander carried his teachers words into every battle.
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  But did he actually listen to the teachings?
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  Because Aristotle was all about the small city state, the polis.
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  He preached moderation, the golden mean.
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  And Alexander went out and conquered the known world.
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  He created a massive, sprawling empire.
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  He didn't stay in the polis. He smashed the borders.
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  And crucially, Alexander started mixing cultures, encouraging his
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  generals to marry a Persian women adopting Persian dress.
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  Things Aristotle, who is pretty ethnocentric, would have hated.
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  The likelihood of hated. Yes, he viewed non Greeks as
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  Barbarians. So Alexander had Aristotle's
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  book, but he had Machiavelli's instincts.
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  In a way, yes. He had the greatness of soul
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  that Aristotle talked about, but he just he dialed it up to 11
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  and broke the nod off. So did Aristotle fail?
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  That is the big question, isn't it?
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  Did he fail to teach Alexander moderation?
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  Or did Alexander take Aristotle's lessons on greatness
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  and realize that to be truly great, you have to ignore the
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  rules? Ancient historians like Plutarch
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  try to pretty it up, but the reality is Alexander's life
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  became the antithesis of Aristotle's ideal.
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  It really makes you wonder what Aristotle thought as he sat back
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  in Athens getting the news, watching his student become a
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  God king. He likely watched with a mixture
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  of pride and absolute horror. He created a force that he just
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  couldn't control. So bringing it all back home, we
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  have these two massive figures, Aristotle looking for justice in
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  an International Society and Machiavelli seeing a state of
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  nature where survival is the only rule.
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  Which one is right? I don't think we get to choose
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  just one. We are left with a choice in how
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  we view the world. But the world forces both upon
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  us every time you turn on the news and hear a politician
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  talking about national interests.
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  That's Machiavelli speaking. That's Machiavelli, that's
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  survival, and every time you hear them talk about human
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  rights or the international community.
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  That's Aristotle. That's flourishing.
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  We are. Replaying this 2000 year old
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  debate every single day. It really changes how how you
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  listen to a press conference. You stop hearing just talking
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  points and start hearing these ancient ghosts arguing.
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  Absolutely. And I want to leave the listener
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  with a provocative thought. We often judge leaders by their
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  moral intentions. We ask, did they mean well?
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  Were they a nice person? But history, History judges them
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  by their results, the effective truth, the effective truth.
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  So if a leader commits a crime to save a nation, is he a
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  criminal or a savior? And conversely, if a leader
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  stays morally pure, keeps their hands clean, but let's their
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  nation fall into ruin because they wouldn't do what was
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  necessary, is there innocence worth the catastrophe?
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  That is a heavy question to leave you with, but that is why
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  we do this. It's easy to be good when you
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  have no power. It's a lot harder when the
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  weight of the world is on your shoulders.
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  Thanks for listening to this exploration of power and
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  philosophy. Remember, if you want to help us
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  Until next time, thanks for listening.