Medieval Political Thought

Barons of King John:

• Free men have a right to liberty protected by law.
• A despotic monarch can exploit his subjects and punish them arbitrarily.
• A monarch’s power should be limited by the law of the land.
• Thus, no free man shall be imprisoned, except by the law of the land.

Thomas Aquinas:

• External law is divine, and comes directly from God. The eternal law rules the entire universe.
• Natural law is made clear to us through our God-given gift of reason. It guides our moral and ethical behavior.
• Thus, human laws on crime and punishment must be based on reason, so that they relate to the values we deduce from natural law.

Niccolo Machiavelli:

• The well-being of the state is the responsibility of the ruler…
• …and should be achieved by any means possible including deception and intrigue.
• The ruler’s own morality is less important than the good of the state…
• …and he will be judged on the results rather than the means he has used.
• Therefore, a prudent ruler cannot, and must not, honor his word.

Source: The Politics Book.

Machiavelli also thought that people are like sheep in that they can be manipulated by harnessing the weaker traits of humanity such as credulity, instinct for self-preservation, lack of individuality, and fickleness. Machiavelli advised rulers not to be deceptive in their private life, but only in their public political life. Well, I would think to pull that off you would have to be a border line sociopath. Otherwise, a ruler would eventually have a spiritual breakdown. It’s true that a leader is responsible for the well-being of a state, but  Machiavelli’s advice is I believe twisted.