native courses of action along with their consequences. He skillfully avoids being caught in false dilemmas, however. For example, when considering whether it is better to be loved or feared, he first points out that it is desirable--though not easy--to be both loved and feared. Plato believed that the ruler without moral virtue was unjust. A true ruler was just regardless of the circumstances. By doing evil to those evil men, are we not adding to their evil, making them more evil? It follows that justice involves the actual creation of evil. Yet no art can deliberately aim at a negative result. The death of a patient is not a triumph of medicine but a failure. The creation of evil is not an accomplishment of justice, but a failure of justice. (335 D, P. 15-16) Therefore, according to Plato, a just ruler should not seek war, because war is unjust. War is evil, and "The creation of evil is not an accomplishment of justice, but a failure of justice." For Plato, a just ruler, an ideal ruler would be just. He does address war, and feels the Republic should have a standing Army of trained soldiers in order to defend the Republic. Machiavelli believes the state exists to make war, and a good ruler exists for only one purpose to make war, this is his only concern. Machiavelli are writing in two different eras. In Plato's era, man based philosophy on utopian ideals and principles. They were concerned with how things should be, not how they were. If we all behave this way, we will have a perfect society. Machiavelli, however, was a realist. He was concerned with how things were in reality, not how things could be if the world was perfect. He was greatly influenced by his failures in public life. He had served as head of the second chancery of the Florentine republic, but was dismissed after it fell in 1512. The Medici family was again ruling Florence, and a Medici also sat on the papal throne in Rome. The Prince was an attempt to prevent form th...
