Machiavelli and the Double Politics of Ambition

This article explores the early modern political science of vice by setting out Machiavelli’s treatment of ambition, which can be harnessed but never finally tamed. Even though ambition always aspires to tyranny, Machiavelli argues that it can serve the common goods of freedom and prosperity if it is reined in at home and unleashed abroad. This solution requires a combination of sound political orders and civic prudence. To grasp all of his two-part account of managing ambition, this study mines Machiavelli’s poetry and his Florentine Histories. Machiavelli not only agrees with his liberal heirs that political institutions defuse the threat and capture the energies of ambition in the short run but also adds that the most stable solution needs a dynamic of reinforcement between orders and civic character.