Machiavelli on natural relativism.
As regular readers know, I tend to distinguish between modern social contract theories and pre-modern ones (recall). While the distinction is largely chronological (the modern kind, unsurprisingly, starts with Hobbes), it is meant to be conceptual. Modern social contract theories presuppose that (i) in the state of nature there is a contract among (ii) free and equal (iii) individuals who (iv) transfer (some of their) rights to a collective and/or some sovereign and in (v) the process are transformed from a multitude to a unity. The key point is (vi) consent is required for submission or obedience to legitimate authority/rights, forms of natural equality, and (despite their political significance) tend to be juridical in character. The list (i-vi) is schematic in character. So, for example, I treat an ‘original position’ as structurally analogous to a state of nature. And there is a wide diversity of views about who is included qua free and equal individual in natural equality.
Pre-moderns tend to reject most of these commitments, although the details will be quite significant. For example, many medieval social contract theories (see for example Manegold) reject all of (i-vi), but involve a contract between God or the Pope and a sovereign in which the King promises good performance in his rule. (The King may be, as it is in Manegold, an elective monarch—this is an important similarity with(recall) the writings of Master Mo (also here; here; and here.)) Whereas Master Mo and Suarez (recall) tend to embrace most of these, but do without (iii) and (iv). But in my blogging I have not always been as explicit as I need to be that, in addition, pre-moderns may well embrace a state of nature and reject an explicit social contract.
Anyway, in preparing my new cycle of introductory lectures on the history of political thought, I was delighted to read the following passage in Machiavelli’s (ca 1517) Discourses on Livy, published posthumously in 1531:
These varieties of government sprang up by chance among men because in the beginning of the world, since the inhabitants were few, they lived for a while scattered in the fashion of the beasts. Then as their numbers increased, they gathered together, and so that they could better defend themselves, deferred to him among them who was strongest and bravest, and made him chief and obeyed him. From this came understanding of things honorable and good, as different from what is pernicious and evil, because if one injured his benefactor, there resulted hate and compassion among men, since they blamed the ungrateful and honored those who were grateful. Moreover, since they thought also that these same injuries could be done to themselves, they undertook, in order to escape such evils, to make laws and to establish punishments for those who broke them. Thence came the understanding of justice. As a result, when afterward they had to choose a prince, they did not prefer the strongest, but him who was most prudent and most just. Machiavelli, Discourses, 1.2, translated by Allan Gilbert, The Chief Works, p. 197
Machiavelli here combines elements not just from Polybius (Histories book 6), as is commonly remarked, but also in non-trivial ways Plato’s Laws (III) 680-681 (recall), and Lucretius, On the Nature of Things, Book V, 1011-1027 (recall). Unlike his classical counterparts, Machiavelli makes no mention here of the natural cycle of catastrophes, and rather than introducing cyclicality at a cosmological level, he insists there is a beginning. Unlike his providential contemporaries, Machiavelli sees this ruled by chance. In what follows I won’t remark on the subtle echoes and/or deviations from these authors. (That’s for another digression.)
In Machiavelli’s state of nature population growth is the primary dynamic engine of change. It causes the first emergence of what we may call ‘natural polities,’ which are soon ruled by elective (“made him”) monarchies. What is left a bit ambiguous is to what degree it is resource scarcity as an effect of population growth that leads to the need of defense, or whether the need for defense arises from the perceived power of large numbers elsewhere based on a judicious understanding of human nature. In either case, it is fear that alongside population is the secondary cause that leads from a state of nature to natural polities with elective monarchies. (This fear is also present in, for example, Polybius and Plato, but there it is explicitly wild animals that induce self-herding of people.)
Once there are elective monarchies population stops being the driver of change. With some back-ground security, or reliable expectations, a system of merit/demerit as well as morality is developed. And only subsequently is a system of law is developed to prevent freeriding on and secure the compliance with the system of merit/demerit as well as morality. Once morals and laws are established the character of elective government changes from a preference for strong kings toward a preference for those who are “most prudent and most just.” Since these come in degrees, this hints at a kind of or relative natural inequality in natural polities.
So, lurking in the final transformation within elective government is a political revolution of the many against the strong. (In Glaucon’s version of the pre-modern social contract (recall) at Republic, 358E-359B. this occurs already in the state of nature.) Somewhat oddly, Machiavelli does not dwell on this not even make it explicit despite dwelling on subsequent revolutions in the natural cycle of constitutions.
One peculiarity about this narrative is that it actually does not explain the great variety of governments at all yet. Now, one may well think that Machiavelli explains this as he goes through the natural cycle of constitutions that follow. For, he goes on to write that “But when later they set up princes by inheritance and not by choice…” all the way through the cycle to “Hence, forced by necessity, or according to the suggestion of some good man, or to escape such abuses, they returned once more to the princedom; and from that, step by step, things went on again toward abuse of freedom, in the ways and for the reasons given.” (p. 198) And so on.
But there may be a more subtle point in Machiavelli. There is no guarantee that in what I have called natural polities, or in the very first elective monarchies, there will be agreement in different locations about what natural systems of merit/demerit and natural justice will be. I am not denying there may be rough agreement, but it would be miraculous if there were exact agreement. (Not the least because the local strongman may well have an outsized say in the matter.)
That is, in Machiavelli’s account there is no coordinating mechanism to ensure that natural polities agree on their laws (or systems of merit/demerit and justice). It is worth contrasting this — okay so I lied above — with Plato’s Laws. At 681b, Plato’s Athenian Stranger is pretty sure that the different clans that make up an original natural polity will have different mores and so will have to explicitly coordinate on a common law. This need for coordination is part of natural necessity in all natural polities for the Athenian Stranger.
One may well be tempted to argue that if Polybius is Machiavelli’s template here, then we should expect some such natural coordination on natural justice and natural systems of merit in natural polities. In these matters Polybius really does seem to anticipate Adam Smith (there is a lovely (2020) paper by Benjamin Straummann that points to this.)
But in Polybius (and later Adam Smith) the work to secure such natural justice and natural systems of merit in natural polities is done by the work of our natural reasoning powers, and the operation of natural resentment and natural gratitude. It’s not wholly obvious that Machiavelli agrees with this, although somebody could make the case that he does have natural resentment and natural gratitude; but since Machiavilli’s narrative is so focused on preventing injury to oneself (“they thought also that these same injuries could be done to themselves”) I see no reason to suppose he thinks there is a natural measure for injury rather than an overwhelming fear of it. So, Machiavelli does explain, then, the great variety of mores even in natural polities even before the cycle of constitutions gets started.