On Brutus' Sons in Machiavelli, Smith, Hume, and Spinoza
I recently enjoyed reading Quentin Skinner’s (1981) Machiavelli in the Past Masters series. (I believe that’s different from the editions of his A Very Short Introduction.) This work is four short chapters, some of them not much longer than one or two of these Digressions. I found the section, “The prevention of corruption,” in the third chapter, “The Philosopher of Liberty,” the most captivating. But that ought not surprise my regular readers because I have been reflecting on Machiavellian corruption since around 2015.
After arguing that for Machiavelli a mixed constitution is necessary, but not sufficient to secure liberty (p. 67), Skinner then runs through a number of types of risks to liberty diagnosed by Machiavelli. The passage I am about to quote discusses one of these. (The numbers in it are to page-numbers in Allan Gilbert’s (Chief Works, Vol. 1) translation of the Discourses.)
As the example of Rome shows, the initial danger that any mixed constitution needs to face will always stem from those who benefited from the previous regime. In Machiavelli's terms, this is the threat posed by 'the sons of Brutus', a problem he first mentions in chapter 16 and later underlines at the beginning of his third Discourse. Junius Brutus freed Rome from the tyranny of Tarquinius Superbus, the last of her kings; but Brutus' own sons were among those who had 'profited from the tyrannical government' (235). The establishment of 'the people's liberty' thus seemed to them no better than slavery. As a result, they 'were led to conspire against their native city by no other reason than that they could not profit unlawfully under the consuls as they had under the kings' (236).
Against this type of risk 'there is no more powerful remedy, none more effective nor more certain nor more necessary, than to kill the sons of Brutus' (236). Machiavelli admits that it may appear cruel - and he adds in his iciest tones that it is certainly 'an instance striking among recorded events' - that Brutus should have been willing to 'sit on the judgement seat and not merely condemn his sons to death but be present at their deaths' (424). But he insists that such severity is in fact indispensable. 'For he who seizes a tyranny and does not kill Brutus, and he who sets a state free and does not kill Brutus' sons, maintains himself but a little while' (425).—(Skinner, p. 68)
Because Skinner is working with incredibly tight space constraints in this work nothing what follows here about what he omits should be conceived as a criticism of him.
Chapter 1.16 of the Discourses is rather important because in it, Machiavelli establishes the basic compatibility between the Prince and the Discourses in an extraordinarily significant passage: “he who undertakes to govern a multitude, whether by the method of freedom or by that of a princedom, and does not secure himself against those who are enemies to the new government, establishes a short-lived state.” (Gilbert, p. 236) This basic compatibility is repeated near the end of 1.16, “That prince, then, or that republic that does not make itself secure at the beginning of its rule must make itself secure at the first opportunity, as the Romans did.” (p. 238)
More subtly, Junius Brutus is, thus (“new government”), more like a 'New Prince’ than a restorer of the constitution of Rome. Or, more likely, Machiavelli is suggesting with both of these quoted passages that there is not much of a difference between a New Prince and the restorer of the constitution in times of corruption. Later (3.1), Machiavelli calls this Brutus the “father of Roman Liberty.” (p. 420)
In addition, Machiavelli here establishes that political enemies can be domestic and foreign. And he goes on to explain that at least with domestic enemies, in order to restore freedom, “unlawful methods” may be necessary. (p. 236) In a subsequent chapter (1.17), we learn that Junius Brutus lives in relatively corrupt-free times, and in 3.1 that he executed his sons legally. When Machiavelli returns to the killing of the sons (3.2), he treats this as an example of maintaining freedom (not the means for overthrowing tyranny; p. 424).
For Machiavelli (p. 239), one sign of corruption is the way political organization or parties serve the interest of a particular wealthy person (that is, a Marian party). Machiavelli thinks that in corrupt ages the restoration of republican freedom requires unlawful methods, including in dealing with those who benefited from the previous regime. As Machiavelli puts it, “the enemies of present conditions must suffer some striking prosecution.” (pp. 424-5) Popper is fairly unique in upholding the Machiavellian stance (recall here; and here). It is striking that contemporary friends of transitional justice have gone in a different direction.
As an aside, Skinner nicely shows how at the unexpected restoration of Florentine liberty in 1494, when the De Medicis were exiled, Machiavelli is critical of Piero Soderini’s failure on this score (p. 72). But Machiavelli (3.3) also notes that an important reason Soderini’s failed was that Soderini worried that “such action, even if he did not then apply it tyrannically, would so greatly alarm the people generally that after his death they never again would agree to set up a gonfalonier for life-a custom which he judged it well to strengthen and maintain.” (p. 425) Soderini’s attachment to a powerful executive makes it impossible for him to do the right thing when the restoration of freedom requires it. Students of our own time would find it fruitful to reflect on the significance of this episode.
A few years ago, Kristin Collins (GMU) shared with me her fine (2023) paper, “Sensibility and Self-Command in Adam Smith’s Approach to Political Judgment,” The Political Science Reviewer 47(1). This paper has a lovely analysis of Adam Smith’s treatment of Brutus’ execution of his sons at The Theory of Moral Sentiments (hereafter: TMS) My treatment here is inspired by and orthogonal to hers. Smith treats Brutus’ sons as conspirers “against the rising liberty of Rome.”
At first there is no reason to think Smith is reflecting on Machiavelli in his treatment. Collins restricts her attention to Plutarch and Livy who could be Smith’s ultimate sources here. However, there is an oddity in Smith’s account.
Smith makes a point that how we view Brutus’ actions is not uniform. (To avoid terminological confusion, Smith’s use of ‘utility’ is not proto-Benthamite, but rather more akin to ‘'functional to the common good’ or ‘public interest.’)
In these and in all other cases of this kind, our admiration is not so much founded upon the utility, as upon the unexpected, and on that account the great, the noble, and exalted propriety of such actions. This utility, when we come to view it, bestows upon them, undoubtedly, a new beauty, and upon that account still further recommends them to our approbation. This beauty, however, is chiefly perceived by men of reflection and speculation, and is by no means the quality which first recommends such actions to the natural sentiments of the bulk of mankind.—TMS 4.2.11, p. 192
As is well known, Smith’s wider naturalistic, meta-ethical argument here is directed against Hume (who had posited such a utility as the source of our approbation in following, say, the law). And what Hume takes to be the primary psychological source, Smith thinks is a secondary source “chiefly perceived by men of reflection and speculation.” Notice that Smith does not claim the men of reflection and speculation are misled in their judgment, only in their explanation of the propriety of our actions. (This was a point noted in one of my early publications with Spencer Pack.)
However, Smith’s use of Brutus actions in an example to criticize Hume is also odd. Hume actually suggests that by his own times, few people would admire Brutus the tyrannicide: “But history and experience having since convinced us, that this practice encreases the jealousy and cruelty of princes, though treated with indulgence on account of the prejudices of their times, are now considered as very improper models for imitation.” (EMP. 2.19) Now, in context Hume is only writing about tyrannicide, but I think the natural reading of the passage is that he views Brutus as generally an improper model for modern readers.*
That’s all I wanted to digress today.
But there is a plot twist lurking here (that expands on an earlier post here). Hume’s reasoning at EMP 2.19 itself echoes Spinoza’s reception of Machiavelli. In the Political Treatise, Spinoza writes (in Curley’s translation):
Machiavelli, ever shrewd, has shown in detail the means a Prince must use to stabilize and preserve his rule, if all he craves is to be master. Why he did this may not be clear. If his purpose was good, as we must believe of a wise man, it seems to have been to show how imprudent many people are to try to remove a Tyrant from their midst, when they can’t remove the causes of the prince’s being a Tyrant. On the contrary, they give the prince more reason to fear, and so more reason to be a Tyrant. When a multitude has made an example of their prince, and glories in his assassination, as in a deed well done, they give the new prince such reasons. (5.7)
Spinoza’s judgment on tyrannicide and the killing of Brutus’ sons (“stabilize and preserve”) is expressed in the last two sentences is the one that Hume seems to be familiar with (and endorses). Spinoza does not appeal to ‘history and experience,’ so if you want to insist that Hume is unfamiliar with and couldn’t be alluding to Spinoza, you have wiggle room. But Spinoza allows himself explicit disagreement with Machiavelli.
Interestingly enough, then, Adam Smith is tacitly siding with Machiavelli against his more recent modern critics, Hume and Spinoza, on the nature of a New Prince. (To what extent Smith was familiar with Spinoza is an open question.)+ And as I have noted before, this is not the only place where Smith shows a rather keen interest in the restoration and renewal of liberty.
*Having said that, in the infamous, “Of National Characters,” Hume does use Brutus’ actions as an example of the power of the impact of contingent agency on future generations:
*If on the first establishment of a republic, a Brutus should be placed in authority, and be transported with such an enthusiasm for liberty and public good, as to overlook all the ties of nature, as well as private interest, such an illustrious example will naturally have an effect on the whole society, and kindle the same passion in every bosom. Whatever it be that forms the manners of one generation, the next must imbibe a deeper tincture of the same dye; men being more susceptible of all impressions during infancy, and retaining these impressions as long as they remain in the world. I assert, then, that all national characters, where they depend not on fixed moral causes, proceed from such accidents as these. [Emphasis added; by ‘moral causes’ Hume means what we tend to call ‘social causation.’]
But Hume here is neither endorsing Brutus’ actions nor treating it as an example in his meta-ethics.
+Arguably, Johan de Witt is from a Machiavellian perspective a modern Soderini. As Hume reports, “De Wit himself, by giving him an excellent education, and instructing him [William III] in all the principles of government and sound policy, had generously contributed to make his rival formidable. Dreading the precarious situation of his own party, he was always resolved, he said, by conveying to the prince the knowledge of affairs, to render him capable of serving his country, if any future emergence should ever throw the administration into his hands.” By contrast William III is a ruthless student of Machiavelli (as I argued here).