Hey, Since Brian isn't here to keep us in line, I decided to change the subject heading to make it easy to identify and delete if one so chooses.
--- Akilesh Ayyar <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: "Hi there. I'm not sure where the Machiavelli quote comes from, but are you sure he wasn't arguing, by a kind of appeal to majority opinion, that there is no debt to people who have done no wrong?" Good question. I almost panicked when I read it. I'm reading it from Niccolo Machiavelli, "The Discourses" translated by Leslie J. Walker, Penguin Classics 1983. Page 154. Let me reproduce the paragraph: "In addition to the difficulty already mentioned [in a state going from servitude to freedom] there is yet another. It is that the government of a state which has become free evokes factions which are hostile, not factions which are friendly. To such hostile factions will belong all those who held preferment under the tyrannical government and grew fat on the riches of its prince, since, now that they are deprived of these emoluments, they cannot live contented, but are compelled, each of them, to try to restore the tyranny in order to regain their authority. Nor, as I have said, will such a government acquire supporters who are friendly, because a self-governing state assigns honours and reward only for honest and determinate reasons, and, apart from this, rewards and honours no one; and when one acquires honours or advantages which appear to have been deserved, one does not acknowledge any obligation towards those responsible for the remuneration. Furthermore, that common advantage which results from a self-governing state is not recognized by anybody so long as it is possessed - the possibility of enjoying what one has, freely and without incurring suspicion for instance, the assurance that one's wife and children will be respected, the absence of fear for oneself - for no one admits that he incurs an obligation to another merely because that other has done him no wrong."(Any typos are my own.) Since he asserts the existence of a common advantage and that no one recognizes it, I think I did the passage justice. Would you agree? I certainly don't want to do violence to an author's work. I've heard that Walker's translation isn't the best, but I've not encountered any others. Best regards, jsh __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com
