The Fragility of Love
In Chapter XVII Machiavelli poses the question that has defined his reputation: should a prince prefer to be loved or feared? His answer is that both would be ideal, but the two are rarely found together, and when forced to choose, fear is the safer foundation. Love is a bond men break when self-interest turns against it — it is held together by obligation, which is fragile precisely when it is most needed, under pressure and at cost. Fear, by contrast, is held together by the dread of punishment, which is always present.
This is not an endorsement of cruelty. Machiavelli is careful to distinguish the prince who uses violence sparingly and effectively — Cesare Borgia, who reconciled the Romagna with a few well-chosen executions — from the prince who allows disorder through excessive mercy, causing murders and robberies that harm everyone. True mercy is economical; false mercy is sentimental and catastrophic.
The Logic of Control
Returning to the question of being feared or loved, I come to the conclusion that, men loving according to their own will and fearing according to that of the prince, a wise prince should establish himself on that which is in his own control and not in that of others; he must endeavour only to avoid hatred, as is noted.
The logic is one of control: a prince governs best by acting on those things within his own power. He cannot govern men's loves, which are produced by their own wills and shifted by their own interests. He can, however, govern the conditions that produce fear — his own behaviour, his own consistency, his own calculated use of force. The one qualification is absolute: the feared prince must avoid hatred. Hatred is what turns subjects into enemies, and enemies into conspirers. Fear without hatred is stable power; fear with hatred is a slow countdown to assassination.
Cruelty Well Used
Machiavelli later distinguishes "cruelties well used" from cruelties that escalate over time. Cruelty used at a single decisive moment — at the seizure of power — can stabilise a regime. Cruelty that drips on continuously poisons it. This temporal dimension is often missed: the argument is not that brutality is good but that concentrated, purposeful, time-limited force is preferable to the prolonged suffering that results from weakness, indecision, and misplaced clemency.
Chapter XVII of The Prince contains the analysis of cruelty, clemency, and the loved-versus-feared question. It should be read alongside Chapter VIII on cruelties well and badly used.
Related Concepts
