Resumen de Machiavelli's consequentialist ethics of responsibility

Manuel Knoll

• In the vast literature on Machiavelli, three lines of defence have been offered in support of the Florentine against his anti-Machiavellian critics: he is 1) a political realist; 2) a replublican; 3) an Italian patriot. This article, building on these lines of interpretation and bringing them together, adds a fourth line of defense. It argues for three theses: 1) Machiavelli's political writings contain a new type of political ethics, which is a precursor of what nowadays is called a consequetialist ethics; 2) Machiavelli's political ethics inspired Max Weber's conception of an 'ethics of responsibility'; 3) Machiavelli's political ethics is not only a consequentialist ethics, but can be conceptualized, using Max Weber's terminilogy, as an ethics of responsibility. In arguing for these theses, this article also critically engages with opposing views that Erica Benner defended in Machiavelli's Ethics.