Humility and humanity: Machiavelli's rejection and appropriation of a Christian Ideal1
| Author | Ashleen Menchaca-Bagnulo |
| Date | 01 April 2018 |
| Published date | 01 April 2018 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1474885115577145 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
European Journal of Political Theory
2018, Vol. 17(2) 131–151
!The Author(s) 2015
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DOI: 10.1177/1474885115577145
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Article
Humility and humanity:
Machiavelli’s rejection
and appropriation of a
Christian Ideal
1
Ashleen Menchaca-Bagnulo
United States Naval Academy, USA
Abstract
Though Machiavelli is famous for advising the mere ‘appearance’ of certain Christian and
classical virtues (P XVIII), Machiavellian virtu
`inherits the legacy (though neither the
content nor the telos) of the Christian virtue of humility, a virtue that is not present in
pagan Roman accounts of heroism. I am not contending that Machiavelli is a Christian
nor that he is continuing a Christian principle. Rather, I am asserting in this article that
Machiavelli secularises the distinctly Christian virtue of humility, particularly in its affinity
with the virtue of compassion, and that this is particularly true in his Discourses on Livy.
To demonstrate how this is so, I compare Machiavelli’s treatment of the Roman hero
Brutus in the Discourses on Livy to the retelling of the life of Rome’s liberator in
Augustine’s City of God.
Keywords
Machiavelli, Augustine, Discourses on Livy, humility, City of God
The virtue of humility enjoys a contentious status in political theory’s history and
practice and in contemporary political discourse. Conflicts over this virtue’s
worthiness often cite its seeming passivity, impracticality, or disingenuousness; as
Nietzsche (1996: Part I. Aphorism 87) perceptively writes, it is often the case that
‘He that humbleth himself wishes to be exalted’.
2
Contemporary political theorists
find in humility both a medieval scourge and a way forward. While admitting
that Christianity ‘since the age of St. Augustine has celebrated a self-effacing humil-
ity’ as a virtue,
3
towards the end of his book The Stillborn God Mark Lilla (2008:
47–48) calls for humility towards those espousing political theologies. Dana Villa
(2001: xi) argues for a kind of Socratic epistemic humility rooted in ‘intellectual
doubt at the heart of moral reflection’ as a form of good citizenship in
Corresponding author:
Ashleen Menchaca-Bagnulo, United States Naval Academy, Luce Hall, Annapolis, MD 21402, USA.
Email: ashleen.bagnulo@gmail.com
contemporary liberalism. At the same time as these developments, the relationship
between humility and epistemology has found its crystallisation in the influential
Rawlsian concept of the veil of ignorance, which encourages individuals to abstract
out of their particular characteristics to craft just policies (Rawls, 2005: 136–142).
The rhetoric and debate surrounding current issues such as immigration, health
care, and the justice of international markets possess, ancillary to questions of just-
ice, questions about the need for a type of humility which encourages us to identify
and empathise with the less fortunate party of each dispute, in order to arrive at
humane and prudent policy conclusions.
On the other hand, though many contemporary thinkers urge a second look at
humility, the question of its utility, famously raised by Hume, remains with us
today both in explicit rejections of its usefulness
4
and in dramatic modifications
from its original character.
5
When Hume (1902: V. I. 176) states that the ‘monkish
virtue’ of humility fails to ‘advance a man’s fortune in the world’ or to ‘render him
a more valued member of society’, he recalls political thinkers to the facts on the
ground. What is the real value of humility in political and social life?
Normative political realism, a tradition claiming both Machiavelli and
Augustine as adherents, suggests ‘that political theory should beginð. not with
the explication of moral idealsðwhich are then taken to settle the questions of
value and principle in the political realm but in an ðunderstanding of the practice
of politics itself’ (Rossi and Sleat, 2014: 690, 697). In this regard, it would seem that
humility is only salient insofar as it effects politics. Its Christian incarnation is
nearly unilaterally challenged by both deniers of humility’s worth and the virtue’s
modifiers as possessing little political value.
6
However, returning to Nietzsche’s
unmasking of humility, Williams (2002: 15) reminds us that though Nietzsche
believed that Christian virtues were no longer tenable for ‘thoughtful people’,
the ‘secularized political forms’ of Christianity have yet to lose the allegiance of
contemporary persons.
Humility’s inescapable draw is reason enough to try to understand the virtue’s
changing face and its political relevance. Amid all our disagreements about humil-
ity’s usefulness and character, this article attempts to situate Machiavelli, com-
monly depicted as humility’s foe, as a figure who critiques, modifies, and
secularises humility in a way that still influences us. Though Machiavelli (1985)
famously advises the mere ‘appearance’ of Christian and classical virtues,
Machiavellian virtu
`inherits the legacy (though neither the content nor the telos)
of Christian humility, an unrepresented virtue in pagan Rome.
7
I am not contend-
ing that Machiavelli is a Christian, nor that he continues a Christian principle.
Rather, Machiavelli secularises the distinctly Christian virtue of humility, particu-
larly in his Discourses on Livy, where the focus on talent rather than heredity, the
preferential treatment of the poor, and the committing of violent deeds for the
common good become expressions of humility reconceived as humanity.
The comparison between Machiavelli and Augustine is well founded, not only
through their reflections on humility and realism, but because of the connections
noted between Augustinian philosophy and Machiavelli’s thought. De Grazia
(1989: 31, 53, 64, 120) notes similarities between Machiavelli’s texts and the City
132 European Journal of Political Theory 17(2)
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