The word right also has an ethical meaning, in the sense of right and wrong, or good and evil. We use the word in the context of right conduct – that which is good, proper, or just. Either one believes that there is such a thing as universal truth, which determines the proper course of human conduct, or one does not.

Cicero, the ancient Roman orator, essayist and statesman, was the greatest of all Stoic philosophers. In his essay On Duties, Cicero established an ethical code of human behavior that will stand for all time. He regarded this essay, written in 44 B.C., as his spiritual testament and masterpiece.

Cicero agreed with the Stoics that “right is the only good,” that “advantage can never conflict with right,” that “a thing must be right before it can be advantageous.” In his words:

That is why Socrates, as the tradition goes, used to curse the men who had first begun to differentiate between these things which nature had made inseparable. The Stoics agreed with him; for their view is that everything which is morally right is advantageous, and there can be no advantage in anything which is not right.

Cicero went further than this, calling it “sinful even to attempt a comparison between the two things — even to hesitate between them.” And again: “The mere act of believing that some wrongful course of action constitutes an advantage is pernicious.”

…those who habitually weigh the right course against what they regard as advantageous, judge everything by profits and gains, which seem to them just as valuable as what is right.

To Cicero, this code was unrighteous. To take something away from someone else — to profit by another’s loss — “strikes at the roots of human society and fellowship.” For if we rob or injure one another for our own personal gain, then we demolish “the link that unites every human being with every other.”

“Throughout our lives,” wrote Cicero, “we ought invariably to aim at morally right courses of action. Nothing, not even damage to one’s own person or property, is worse than a moral failure.”

So everyone ought to have the same purpose: to identify the interest of self with interest of all. Once men grab for themselves, human society will completely collapse. Then the whole wicked, godless crowd of people who hesitate which course to follow –the course they know to be right, or deliberate immersion and self-pollution in sin and crime. For the mere fact of their indecision is an offense: some courses of action are wrong even to consider — merely to pause over them is evil.

A contrary world-view was formulated by Niccolo Machievelli, the sixteenth century Italian diplomat and philosopher. Machiavelli is widely regarded as the founder of modern political science, for unlike all his predecessors, he dealt with men as they are, not as they ought to be; that is, he treated politics as an empirical science, not as a normative philosophy.

Machiavelli’s most famous and influential work is his book The Prince. It is completely dissevered from all previous political theory, being a detached and cynical examination of all available methods of gaining and maintaining political power, and generally devoid of any sense of right and wrong.

To Machiavelli, the state is not an instrument for achieving the good life. The state has no inherent purpose; its only function is to remain in power. It is an amoral force, subject to any direction imposed upon it by the ruler. The prince is not obliged to follow the same moral code that governs the conduct of private individuals. Machiavelli completely divorced the study of politics from the study of ethics. To Machiavelli, they have nothing in common.

…for how we live is so far removed from how we ought to live, that he who abandons what is done for what ought to be done, will rather learn to bring about his own ruin than his preservation. A man who wishes to make a profession of goodness in everything must necessarily come to grief among so many who are not good. Therefore it is necessary for a prince, who wishes to maintain himself, to learn how not to be good, and to use this knowledge and not use it, according to the necessity of the case.

Machiavelli’s code of conduct derives from his dark view of human nature, that “men will always be false to you unless they are compelled by necessity to be true.”

For it may be said of men in general that they are ungrateful, voluble, dissemblers, anxious to avoid danger, and covetous of gain; as long as you benefit them, they are entirely yours; they offer you their blood, their goods, their life, and their children…

But, “men being selfish,” they will break faith with you whenever it becomes necessary and convenient for them to do so; therefore…a prudent ruler ought not to keep faith when by doing so it would be against his interest, and when the reasons ‘which made him’ bind himself no longer exist. If men were all good, this precept would not be a good one; but as they are bad, and would not observe their faith with you, so you are not bound to keep faith with them.

To Machiavelli, the faithlessness of Princes is easily disguised, for “men are so simple and so ready to obey present necessities, that one who deceives will always find those who allow themselves to be deceived.”

It was Machiavelli who said that the ends justify the means. This is the fundamental tenet of what we now call situational ethics, or moral relativism – the denial of all absolute truths, the dissolving of all norms and standards, the idea that the morality of an act depends entirely upon the circumstances.

This is the divergence point for all of humanity. Some are believers in universal truth; others are seduced by situational ethics. There is no middle ground. We ask that our readers examine their principles and come down on one side or the other.

We do not subscribe to the Machiavellian world-view, which accepts as inevitable the imperfections of human nature. We want a code of ethics and a system of government that incorporate the highest ideals of human nature. We are idealists, and we make no apologies for it. ©Rogue Scholars 1994, Journey to Freedom