Ancient and Medieval Theories

Name: Alyssa Danielle C. Tolentino 26 Nov 2019

Activity 1 (Answers)

1. Renaissance period

2. The Prince

3. The Great Roman Empire and its leaders

4. Lorenzo de Medici

5. Medici family

6. Lion

7. The Discourses

8. Feared

9. Lorenzo

10. Florence

11. Severities

12. Force

13. Means

14. Government’s Foreign Relations committee

15. Charges of Conspiracy against the Medici government

Activity 2 (Essay)

1. Why is Machiavelli seen in such a negative light with regards his famous remark,
“the end justifies the means”?

 Machiavelli was not always seen in a negative light, in fact, he was seen in a
positive view during 17th and 18th centuries with authors such as James Harrington referring
to Machiavelli as “the prince of politicians” and during the Italian renaissance, humanist
Giovanni Battitsta Busini fondly described Machiavelli as “a most extraordinary lover of
liberty”. The praises mentioned might seem confusing since “Machiavellism” commonly
denotes someone who is cunning and unscrupulous. His infamous remark measures the
morality of the steps taken to complete a project and the principles of those involved. When
the “means” which what was used to reach the ends induce deception, lies, stolen ideas,
slavery, or by harming others in the process or knowing people may be harmed in the future,
the end result cannot be justified by the means.
2. Does President Rodrigo Duterte personify the Prince as described by Machiavelli?
Explain your answer. Give a similarity and difference between Machiavelli and Duterte
on their views on state and political leadership. How will Duterte justify the
circumstances/issues attached to his so-called “war on drugs”?

 Yes? No? I don’t know, somehow-somewhat Duterte’s there but not really THERE
as the Prince personified despite all his chutzpah and billingsgate way of talking to the
public; that is just him flabbergasting to make people think he is the toughest of the tough.
Moving on, starting from the similarities from Machiavelli’s views on how to be a leader and
how much Duterte’s fulfilled these attributes: the leader must know how and when to use
proper cruelty; let’s say he’s fulfilled it, I don’t know; the leader should learn to be other than
good making his capacity or refraining from it according to need; fulfilled, I think; the leader
must be prudent to avoid a reputation of vices that will ruin him and the state, I’ll just say
fulfilled; the leader demonstrates liberality to all whom he does not tax (masses) but
demonstrate miserliness toward all those form whom he withholds largess (oligarchs); also
fulfilled; the leader must gain esteem by acting as a true ally or true enemy that is by
declaring himself openly or against one of the two conflicting parties and never maintain
neutrality; this too is fulfilled, and lastly, seeing as Duterte having almost fulfilled the
similarities, of course there are differences between the both of them, but not so much as
Duterte is somehow-somewhat not THERE. Without further ado, here are the attributes that
makes difference: the leader must always strive to retain an appearance of conventional
morality for it is essential that the ruler being despised or hate; surprised to say he failed to
fulfill this since…get the gist, and lastly, the leader must adopt the method of the fox (use of
fraud or decisiveness) and the lion (use of force); not really fulfilled. On the contrary,
Duterte’s war on drugs in a way is a flabbergasted promise. How do you eradicate such
möbius strip called “drugs” in a span of 3-6 months? That’s utter bull. Those controversies
surrounding the campaign, mainly the extrajudicial killings, on his side, that’s justifiable
since he was the one who gave the orders to the police authorities, but the unjustifiable side
was how the police abused the power that’s given to them. The campaign itself holds
contentious debate locally and internationally, mainly from the human rights activists and
organizations.