Ethical Communication: Moral Stances in Human Dialogue

9. Machiavelli: Pragmatic Realism

68 Machiavelli Pragmatic Realism John C. Merrill What, you might ask, is Machiavelli (1469–1527) doing in a book such as this? What did he, or can he, teach us about ethics? And, what’s more—what is he doing in this part of the book representing the Egoistic Stance? All good questions. Let us look briefly at each one in order. Why Machiavelli in an ethics book? Because, in spite of his renown in the area of pragmatics rather than ethics, he did in fact deal with ethics—the ethics of self-enhancement, of the importance of ends, and the difference between private and public ethics. We’ll go into that later. But it is almost impossible to deal with ethics without having to consider alternative options for action that will help us achieve our ends. Machiavelli can teach us much about ethics, about the difficulties of making ethical decisions and about the importance of consequences . In fact, many writers include him as a utilitarian because of his practical approach to ethics. He is perhaps the most important writer on the consideration of “ends” and the necessity of pragmatic “means.” Success is the key word in Machiavellian ethics. What is Machiavelli doing here as an example of the Egoistic Stance? It seems natural that “Old Nick” (as he was called by Catholics of his age) should represent the stance of personal and institutional success. Egoism generated his public ethics, the ethics of self-fulfillment, and a strong survival motivation. The ends justify the means, as the saying goes. But what are the proper ends? Those, says Machiavelli, that please the ego and satisfy the basic desires of the ethical agent. 9 .   69 Machiavelli The world of communication today is filled with the presence of Machiavelli: gaining power and keeping it; setting goals and reaching them; persuading people by any and all means; respecting normal ethics when they work, disregarding them when they don’t; being goal oriented and self-confident; being certain of one’s own actions; sharing power reluctantly; believing that might is right; and camouflaging weakness by assertive communication. Machiavelli represents the extreme opposite of those thinkers in this book who are called communitarians. And his stance is certainly not one of altruism. He is even more fundamental than other egoists and self-development thinkers profiled in this section of the book. Machiavelli’s best-known book, The Prince (1514), set the political stage for the pragmatic, expedient, and success-oriented practitioner in social relations—and that includes the communicator who provides grist for the mill of social thinking and action. In the broad field of mass communication today, Machiavellian thinking is prominent, and is often the main, viable ethical stance. For example, journalism’s power is used variously in different societies , but the common factor everywhere is contained in this basic question: How can we achieve our ends? In the United States, a businesslike , impersonal, bottom-line-oriented corporate journalism has grown greatly since the nineteenth century. Increasingly it has become a journalism of groups, chains, and ever-growing media networks where decisions are made in boardrooms by lawyers and businessmen and businesswomen instead of in newsrooms by editors. The goal is viability and profits. If journalistic quality has to be sacrificed for these ends, then so be it. Even a poor newspaper is better than none. Raw Machiavellianism at work. This mentality is not new. American journalism has always been practical, competitive, success-driven, and power-hungry. It has only become more expansive, more efficient in its business operations, and more concerned with “democratizing” than in the past. It could be said that Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan has today become the Press. American communicators, from politicians to bloggers to TV newspersons, show Machiavellian tendencies. Although normally we associate these tendencies with evil or unethical ends, this may be somewhat unfair. Even the most socially conscious, altruistic editor may use Machiavellian tactics from time to time. We must remember that ends can be good. For instance, if a communicator is attempting to get people to stop smoking, he or she may use means that are 70 . John C. Merrill propagandistic, biased, or misleading to a degree—all to bring about an ethical end. Niccolò Machiavelli was an Italian political philosopher, poet, playwright, and historian born in Florence in 1469. He developed the idea that political leaders are not bound by conventional morality and insisted...