Can cruelty be pious? Considerations on the concept of Pious Cruelty in Machiavelli’s The Prince

Abstract

Although cruelty is a kind of irrationality in the human condition, this phenomenon, cruelty, has an instrumental aspect in political literature, according to the theoretical framework of authors such as Machiavelli. In this sense, cruelty acts in different spheres and can be used in favour of objectives that are in line with political reasons, converting something that is admittedly evil into a means to essential ends. However, even a powerful “mechanism” of domination like cruelty can increase its effects when related to a somewhat contradictory phenomenon: religion. In the XXI chapter of The Prince, What befits a prince to be esteemed, we can see a unique example of this association between cruelty and religion in the political actions of the Spanish king Ferdinand of Aragon, “the Catholic king”, against the “Marranos”. It was an action full of the use of the aforementioned elements, religion and cruelty, at their highest level. By “always making use of religion”, “in order to accomplish greater deeds”, Ferdinand of Aragon commits a transgression, but one that is namely pious, being, as the oxymoron itself indicates: Pious Cruelty. Based on this example, we hypothesize that cruelty can be justified through religious rhetoric and, within Machiavelli’s political work, considered to be pious. In the first part of the research, we will generally develop the theme of cruelty and religion in Machiavelli’s political work, while in the second and final part, we will relate cruelty to religion and thus demonstrate how this association between cruelty and piety (religion) culminates in Pious Cruelty.