If in fact conspiracies by the subjects of a prince are possible then perhaps when
Machiavelli writes that subjects “may less rashly” engage in them, he doesn’t simply
mean this is in a negative sense. A “less rash” approach to conspiracies may in fact
improve the chances of their success against unpopular princes since—as Machiavelli
informs us-- “everyone may engage in conspiracies against him.” Despite his stated
desire to help princes prevent conspiracies and his advising subjects to avoid conspiracies
altogether, we see that perhaps Machiavelli is offering the subjects something after all.
Perhaps we might even say that Machiavelli appears to be conspiratorial in his
description of conspiracies
The argument that Machiavelli’s sympathies lie with the people, although not
uncontested, is not in and of itself particularly novel.
Readings of Machiavelli by
Straussians such as Harvey Mansfield notwithstanding, many contemporary Machiavelli
scholars acknowledge a thinly or perhaps not so thinly disguised republican sentiment on
Machiavelli’s part (particularly in the Discourses).
Yet many of these thinkers struggle
with his apparent indifference to political outcomes. Some argue that his formal even-
handedness between princes and people is in fact genuine. For example, Victoria Kahn
argues that many of the so-called republican virtues that are associated with Machiavelli
come from misreading him as a humanist philosopher. Kahn argues that Machiavelli
appropriates “the humanists’ rhetorical strategies in order to educate his reader to an
antihumanist conception of imitation and practice.”
In this way, she tells us Machiavelli
seeks to avoid the “ethical domestication of virtù” to allow the prince, as well as the
subjects, a greater ability to act strategically.
If Machiavelli’s sympathies are in question, it may be more fruitful to focus on
the effects and enactments of his text. When it comes to the question of such effects, it
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Convention