POL200Y1 Lecture Notes - Thrasymachus, Friending And Following, Louis Xii Of France
Document Summary
You seek a means to attaining something from this friendship. So try to make sense of machiavelli s views on friendship as presented in the first three paragraphs of. Here he offers not a shocking teaching but a moral one: while you can punish a friend who has betrayed you, you must never be the first to betray him. What he seems to say: y he argues with great force for our obligation to honour friendship. y obligation trumps interest. y very moral argument: once you friend a friend, you can t unfriend him. But: y friends help you take the city because they think they re instruments will be fulfilled, but you have your own. So when you actually become a ruler, your interests will necessary clash. y so when making friends, you must be able to strike first, or back.
