意大利政治哲学家Niccolò马基雅维利因其敏锐的思想家、务实的远见卓识和共和自由的捍卫者而受到一些人的尊敬。他为各地无廉耻的领导人编写手册，教导他们无论行为多么残忍无情，都要不惜一切代价打败敌人，保住政权，因此遭到其他人的谩骂。

His most famous work,The Prince, has been interpreted in all manner of ways. Leo Straus famously called Machiavelli a “teacher of evil,” while Jean Jacques Rousseau consideredThe Prince这是一部精彩的政治讽刺作品，揭露了王公和君主的邪恶。玛丽·迪茨(Mary Dietz)对他的作品有一种最有趣的解读，她认为这部作品是一种政治欺骗或诡计，意在用只会导致他灭亡的建议废黜洛伦佐·德·美第奇(Lorenzo de Medici)。马基雅维利实际上把这本书献给了这位君主(尽管他似乎从未读过这本书)。

So, what should we think of Machiavelli andThe Prince? Should we be handing out copies of this book to every budding CEO and politician? Or is Machiavellian thinking precisely what leads to fraud, corruption, exploitation, pollution, robbery, and worse?

Answering these questions depends on what “Machiavellian” thinking actually is, and given the variety of interpretations there are ofThe Prince，这似乎是一个很难的问题。

当然，与马基雅维利联系最紧密的口号是“目的为手段正名”，这句话在他的任何著作中都找不到。即便如此，当大多数人以贬损的方式使用“马基雅维利”这个词时，这似乎抓住了他们的意思。This also fits with the Strauss interpretation, which takes Machiavelli to be advising leaders “to avoid the common values of justice, mercy, temperance, wisdom, and love of their people in preference to the use of cruelty, violence, fear, and deception,” asCary Nedermanputs it.

Other interpretations ofThe Prince把马基雅维利描绘成一个精明的实用主义者，在政治统治的现实中，传统道德并不总是与政治利益一致。一个好的统治者必须基于现实世界的政治，而不是理想世界的道德来做出决定。为了保护国家的利益，撒谎、操纵甚至暴力有时都是必要的。

Our guest this week, Maurizio Viroli, a leading expert on Machiavelli and author ofRedeeming the Prince: The Meaning of Machiavelli's Masterpiece, provides a different interpretation. He thinksThe Princeis one of the most widely-misinterpreted works in the Western political tradition. What it actually presents is a theory of political redemption and liberty, motivated by Machiavelli’s intense love for his country (which he profesed to love more than his own soul).

According to our guest, Machiavelli wanted to usher in a new era where the various city-states of Italy would cease their warring with one another, and unite into a single state, better able to defend itself from foreign powers such as France and Switzerland.

If you want to know more about Maurizio Viroli’s novel interpretation of Machiavelli, tune in to our show this week!