The Analects of Confucius vs the Prince of Machiavelli

Machiavelli and Confucius are both recognized and known as being political and moral philosophers. They discussed almost the same themes but in definitely different ways. Indeed, in the Prince of Machiavelli as in the Analects of Confucius, the themes of love, justice, ethics, trust and leadership are analyzed and developed in each of the texts.

In fact, the Prince of Machiavelli is a sort of a “handbook” which is mainly about the best and wisest ways to maintain political power. It is actually considered as the first book of modern political philosophy.

The Analects of Confucius is famous for being considered as the most prominent and influencing texts in Chinese philosophy. Actually, Confucius lived in the period of the Chinese government instability. Centuries after his death, Confucius disciples gathered his sayings into a sort of book called the Analects of Confucius.

After reading the Analects of Confucius, one can think about it as that its major force is to help out the reader in order to be self-cultivated so that he shall become a moral example for his fellow men.

According to Confucius in the analects, a person should find its own way so that he/she becomes a human individual or a “prince of virtue”. For Confucius, the humanity of a person and the goodness are the most significant virtues of all. In fact, no one is born human; however, a person has to learn to be so. Love is one essential key. One should learn to love the other. An infant has to learn each of the brotherhood and love concepts, and then once being adult, he might expand his family love to others.

The concept of the necessity of the humanity of mankind seems to be absent in Machiavelli’s the Prince. In fact, according to Machiavelli, the best thing for a prince in order to keep his authority is to learn how not to be good and to learn to be cruel instead. This way, he will be obeyed, respected, followed and loved. For Machiavelli, if the Prince had to chose between either to be...