In the 20th century, The Prince became a seminal text for understanding modern politics. The profound political upheavals of the century—the dissolution of the liberal state, the rise of totalitarian regimes, and the emergence of mass movements—highlighted the relevance of Machiavelli’s reflections on power and political action. The treatise is no longer regarded as a manual of government, but as a boundary-pushing text capable of questioning the relationship between moral politics and modernity.
The German political philosopher Leo Strauss (1899–1973) developed his interpretation of Machiavelli in a context marked by the crisis of the Weimar Republic and the rise of National Socialism, as a response to the crisis of Western modernity and the perception that the loss of objective moral foundations had paved the way for relativism. In Thoughts on Machiavelli (1958), he interprets Machiavelli as the founder of a new political science, capable of consciously breaking with the classical and Christian philosophical-political tradition, which was centered on a theological-moral conception of politics. The Straussian reading thus highlights a radical tension between morality and politics, which becomes one of the central theoretical pillars of the twentieth-century reception of The Prince. The German philosopher does not contest Machiavellian realism as such, but denounces its philosophical legitimation: Machiavelli transforms realism into a normative criterion, replacing the good with utility and justice with effectiveness.
The “effective truth” and the break with tradition
Machiavelli’s expression of the “effective truth” of the matter (Chapter XV of The Prince) constitutes one of the most dense and pragmatic passages in the entire work and represents the starting point for a new methodology of political reflection. With it, Machiavelli marks a break from the tradition of normative political philosophy, founded on the development of ideal models of government and on orienting political action toward the moral good:
“…since my intention is to write something useful to those who understand it, it seemed more appropriate to me to follow the effective truth of the matter rather than an imagination of it”.[1]
The contrast between actual truth and imagination is not merely rhetorical: it signals an explicit rejection of the philosophical tradition that, from Plato to Aristotle and on to medieval scholasticism, had conceived of politics as a branch of ethics, oriented toward the realization of justice and the common good. Political reflection was based on normative models, and the ruler was judged according to his conformity to an ideal of moral virtue. Machiavelli overturns this approach: his goal is not to describe the prince as he ought to be, but to understand how power actually functions under concrete historical conditions. Politics is thus removed from the realm of the ideal and brought back to that of experience, conflict, and necessity. This shift must be interpreted as a radical philosophical stance, and to ignore this choice would be to trivialize the text, reducing it to a mere political manual.
“Machiavelli was a teacher of evil […] If it is true that only an evil man will stoop to teach maxims of public and private gangsterism, we are forced to say that Machiavelli was an evil man.” [2]
In other words, the Machiavelli of The Prince is a practical philosopher: he presents politics as an autonomous sphere, linked to the reality of governance and not subordinate to universal moral values. Machiavelli, in fact, does not merely observe that rulers do not respect moral precepts, but theoretically legitimizes this divergence, adopting it as a criterion of truth. “Effective truth” becomes a new form, an alternative to traditional morality: what is politically true is what works, what allows power to be preserved and asserted. We witness a profound transformation of the relationship between knowledge and political action, in which politics is judged on the basis of its effectiveness. Effective truth does not eliminate moral judgment, but shifts it entirely to the plane of historical outcome: what matters is not the good in itself, but the concrete political result.
“We are in sympathy with the simple opinion about Machiavelli, not only because it is wholesome, but above all because a failure to take that opinion seriously prevents one from doing justice to what is truly admirable in Machiavelli: the intrepidity of his thought, the grandeur of his vision, and the graceful subtlety of his speech”. [3]
The methodological break effected by Machiavelli thus affects the very foundation of political philosophy. Whereas the classical tradition viewed justice as the criterion of politics—epistemological rather than normative—Machiavelli renders it autonomous, endowed with its own laws, independent of private ethics and religion. Politics becomes a technique of action, founded on knowledge of human passions, power relations, and historical circumstances.
Strauss interprets this choice as deliberately provocative. Machiavelli does not ignore the moral implications of his method, but fully embraces them. He knows that following the “effectual truth” means accepting the possibility—and sometimes the necessity—of morally reprehensible actions. The Florentine secretary cannot therefore be reduced to a mere historian of power: he is a founder, the one who inaugurates a new way of thinking about politics. “Effective truth” marks the beginning of a modern politics that renounces any foundation in a natural or divine order and confronts historical contingency head-on. It is this renunciation that makes Machiavelli a central figure for the twentieth century, a century in which the autonomy of politics reached extreme and often dramatic consequences. Political modernity, understood in this way, thus arises from a methodological choice that is both theoretical and moral—namely, the decision to take power seriously as it is, without masking it behind consolatory ideals. Politics cannot be understood—nor practiced—without engaging with the dimensions of conflict, force, and necessity.
The Autonomy of Politics and the Crisis of Traditional Morality
One of the most significant and controversial features of Machiavelli’s political philosophy is the full autonomy of politics from traditional morality. Whereas in the classical and medieval philosophical tradition politics was conceived as an integral part of morality—subordinate to justice and the realization of the common good—in the Florentine secretary’s view it becomes a realm governed by its own laws, autonomous from private ethics.
Machiavelli demonstrates that political success cannot always coincide with adherence to conventional moral principles: “wherefore it is necessary for a prince, if he wishes to maintain himself, to learn how to be unprincipled, and to employ or refrain from such behavior as necessity dictates.” [4] Politics no longer follows criteria of good and evil derived from religious or ethical norms, but depends exclusively on necessity and effectiveness. Traditional morality thus becomes a secondary or optional parameter, subordinate to the demands of the state’s survival. Strauss interprets this innovation as the true Machiavellian revolution: Machiavelli demonstrates that political action cannot be judged according to the criteria of traditional moral philosophy. To achieve his ends and preserve the state, the good politician must be prepared to act in ways that conventional morality would condemn, because politics follows its own logic, independent of classical or Christian moral virtue. The Florentine secretary is aware of the tension between private morality and public necessity; in fact, when discussing the use of cruelty and generosity, he argues that a prince, to maintain power, must sometimes employ well-measured cruelty and moderation in generosity. This principle introduces an operational distinction between what is morally right in private life and what is necessary in the governance of the state. Politics thus becomes an autonomous sphere, with its own rules, which may conflict with individual ethical norms without thereby losing legitimacy in the eyes of practical reality.
The full autonomy of politics implies that the prince must know how to use tools that would be considered immoral in private life, such as deception or manipulation. Machiavelli does not celebrate evil for its own sake, but rather considers it a necessary tool for political success. Strauss emphasizes that Machiavelli does not propose these behaviors as mere tactical expediency, but as part of a conscious theoretical framework aimed at training the modern politician—one who must act under difficult conditions, where the survival of the state requires choices that are often painful or morally ambiguous. This conception makes the prince a responsible agent, capable of weighing the costs and benefits of his actions in terms of political effectiveness.
A further dimension of the separation between politics and morality concerns the question of contingency. Machiavelli does not merely prescribe immoral means, but shows how the modern politician must know how to operate within an unpredictable reality, where virtue consists in the ability to adapt to circumstances and to transform fortuitous events into political opportunities. The German philosopher defines this perspective as the core of “tragic politics,” in which choices must be judged based on their effect on the survival of the state and the stability of the political order.
In this context, religion and moral institutions are excluded from political reflection and repositioned within an instrumental logic, subordinated to the needs of government. Machiavelli explicitly recognizes the political value of religion as a factor of order, discipline, and cohesion among subjects, not as a source of ethical or normative truth. Religion implicitly appears as a useful tool for strengthening authority, insofar as the prince must cultivate the appearance of virtue and piety to consolidate consensus. Strauss observes that the Florentine secretary displays a substantial indifference toward religious truth. This approach marks a break with the classical and Christian tradition, in which religion provided the ultimate criteria for the legitimacy of political action. In Machiavelli, by contrast, legitimacy derives exclusively from political success and the ability to maintain order. Moral institutions, including religious ones, are therefore subordinate to the function of government and are useful as long as they contribute to the preservation of the state, but they do not absolutely constrain the prince’s actions. This shift implies a desacralization of politics, which is measured on the basis of its historical and practical consequences:
“Although Machiavelli admitted that the Biblical religion cannot be understood in purely political terms, he did not reject the view that it can be characterized with regard to its political implications.”[5]
Religion, therefore, no longer serves as a criterion for judging political action, but rather as a subordinate means, whose value is measured by the effects it produces on collective behavior.
Strauss emphasizes that Machiavelli does not merely observe this separation but theoretically legitimizes it, transforming it into a founding principle of the new political science. However, it is precisely this autonomy that makes political action inherently risky. Indeed, with the absence of an absolute moral foundation, the modern politician is called upon to make decisions without external ethical guarantees, assuming full responsibility for his or her choices. This exposure to moral risk lends Machiavellian politics a tragic dimension. Machiavelli implicitly acknowledges this condition when he states that the prince must be ready to act “against faith, against charity, against humanity, against religion.”[6] This is not a glorification of evil, but rather a recognition that political action takes place in a realm where perfectly just solutions do not exist. Strauss interprets this passage as the point at which modern politics reveals its most problematic aspect: autonomy from morality does not free the politician from the burden of judgment, but rather imposes a graver responsibility, since every decision must be evaluated exclusively in light of its historical consequences. The separation between morality and politics therefore does not eliminate the ethical question, but radically transforms it. It no longer concerns adherence to universal norms, but rather the politician’s ability to consciously shoulder the weight of their own choices in a world dominated by contingency and conflict. It is precisely this full assumption of responsibility, devoid of transcendent foundations, that Strauss identifies as one of the distinctive features of political modernity inaugurated by Machiavelli.
[1] N. Machiavelli, op. cit., chap. XV, pp. 50
[2] L. Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli, The University of Chicago Press, 1958, pp. 9
[3] Machiavelli, op. cit., pp. 13
[4] Ibid., pp. 50
[5] Strauss, op. cit., pp. 207
[6] Machiavelli, op. cit., chap. XVIII, pp. 58–59
