QuestionsWhat makes something right?Better to be feared than loved
What makes something right?Consequences

Better to be feared than loved

Niccolò Machiavelli 1469 · 1527Power is judged by its effects, not good intentions.
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What it claims

If one of the two must be given up, it is much safer for a prince to be feared than loved, provided he is not hated.

Why

Love rests on obligation and breaks when interest demands it, while fear of punishment never lets go.

In short

"Better to be feared than loved" is an argument by Niccolò Machiavelli (The Prince, 17) on the question "What makes something right?" (answer: consequences). Its claim: If one of the two must be given up, it is much safer for a prince to be feared than loved, provided he is not hated. According to AskPhilosophy's logic check (Z3 solver), the argument is valid only if one grants a premise the author leaves unstated (P6). AskPhilosophy presents 4 objections, 2 of them with a documented reply, and the original text behind each premise, checked word for word.

The Prince, 17
Valid with an implicit premise

Machiavelli does not say a ruler should be hated, nor that it is better not to be loved. The ideal would be to be both loved and feared. But if one must choose, he judges fear the safer. He judges this choice by its effects: holding the State together, and the number of victims. It is reasoning by consequences, but centred on the safety of the State rather than on everyone's happiness.

P1The best would be to be both loved and feared, but the two rarely go together: often one must choose.
P2In general, people are ungrateful, fickle, false, they flee danger and love gain: they are yours while you do them good, and turn away when danger comes near.
P3For this reason love, held by a bond of obligation, breaks as soon as interest demands it. Fear, held by dread of punishment, never fails.
P4One can be feared without being hated: it is enough to respect the subjects' property and their women, and to punish by death only with clear cause.
P5A few exemplary punishments do less harm than too much leniency: they strike a few individuals, while the disorders one allows to arise (murders, plunder) strike the whole population.
P6 · implicit premiseFor a ruler, the best support is the one that holds when danger comes and does the least harm to the greatest number: the safety of the State and its subjects is the standard of choice.
Therefore, if one of the two must be given up, it is much safer for a prince to be feared than loved, provided he is not hated.

click a premise to reject it

If you accept every premise, logic forces you to accept the conclusion. So the debate is about the premises.
Checked by a logic solver: the premises cannot all be true while the conclusion is false.
Without the implicit premise: Without P6, the computer finds a case where all the facts are true (people are ungrateful, love gives way, fear holds without hatred, severity makes fewer victims) and yet it is better to be loved: it is enough to judge a ruler by something other than safety, for example by his justice.
With P6 the conclusion follows, and every premise is essential. P6 is not written as such: Machiavelli says fear is "safer", and that a wise prince should rely on what depends on him. Moving from "safer" to "better" assumes that safety is the right standard. That is where the moral objections strike (Erasmus). The political objections target P2 (are people really so ungrateful?) and P4 (doesn't fear always end in hatred?).
Analogy. A teacher can be adored or respected. Best is to be both. But if the class loves him only as long as he grades gently, that love will vanish at the first test, while respect for the rules remains. Still, the rules must be fair, or respect turns into hatred.

Objections

4

Each objection is a conversation: click to see who replies and where the debate stands.

Cicero 44 BC · attacks premise 4

Fear is a poor guardian of lasting power: people hate those they fear, and wish dead those they hate. Only the goodwill of citizens truly protects.

Machiavel replies
Machiavel What Machiavelli writes (without naming Cicero)
Being feared and being hated are not the same thing. One can very well be feared without being hated: it is enough not to touch the subjects' property or their women.
The debate goes on (our summary) Cicero would reply that the line is fragile: whoever rules by fear easily slides into hatred. Machiavelli knows it, since he devotes all of chapter 19 of the Prince to avoiding hatred and contempt.
Erasmus 1516 · attacks premise 6

In The Education of a Christian Prince, Erasmus argues the opposite: the good prince seeks his people's affection, it is the tyrant who rules by fear. A prince is judged by the good of his subjects, not by the safety of his power.

no reply
We have not yet found a direct reply by Machiavel in the texts.
The debate goes on (our summary) The two books cross without reading each other. The Prince (1513) was then circulating in manuscript, and nothing shows that Erasmus read it; Machiavelli, who died in 1527, never cites Erasmus. But chapter 15 of the Prince targets precisely the authors who imagine princes as they ought to be: the "mirror for princes" tradition to which Erasmus belongs.
Machiavelli himself (Discourses, I, 10) attacks premise 2

In the Discourses, Machiavelli writes that the good Roman emperors (Titus, Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus, Marcus Aurelius) needed neither guards nor legions: their way of life, the people's goodwill and the Senate's love defended them. So love sometimes protects better than fear.

Machiavel replies
Machiavel What the Prince, 17, specifies
His rule is aimed first at the new prince: he cannot escape a reputation for cruelty, because new States are full of dangers.
The debate goes on (our summary) The thesis is then narrower than its fame: in a stable State, where the prince lives under the laws, Machiavelli himself thinks the people's love protects better than an army.
F
Frederick II of Prussia 1740 · attacks premise 2

In the Anti-Machiavel, written while he was still crown prince and published in 1740 with Voltaire's help, Frederick answers that people are not all ungrateful: a good and just prince is loved, and that love protects him better than fear.

no reply
No reply possible: objection raised in 1740, after the author's death (1527).
The debate goes on (our summary) Machiavelli had been dead for over two centuries. His readers have often noted the irony: having become king that same year, Frederick invaded Silesia in December 1740, without a declaration of war. This does not prove his thesis false, but shows how hard it is to govern by it.