Machiavelli vs. More

Machiavelli thinks of humans as naturally having corrupt impulses; that their number one concern is for themselves. He thinks that people will break bonds of love in order to protect their own interests; that people only care about their private lives. In contrast, More thinks that individuals want to be good at heart, and that they try to put the public good before their own. He thinks that people are not out to corrupt the public state, and they only resort do harm to society when it is necessary for survival.
Machiavelli came to the conclusion that it was better to be feared than to be loved, because men only support those who they are intimidated by, and the kind hearted can be easily used and then forgotten. He proves this by an assumption that men are bad and selfish, that nobody cares about making true friendships and being generous, they only care about personal gain. Machiavelli thinks that the kind men will end up being rejected and friendless because when times get rough they will be deserted, “since men are wicked, they break whenever their interests are at stake” (Machiavelli 52). He thinks that men always put themselves first over their society; and that makes them wicked because they do not care about true friendship, generosity, or the feelings of others, they only care about their private needs.
More thinks that individuals do not want to harm their society; they will only do harm out of necessity. More shows this through the problem of theft in many European countries; the government has thieves everywhere and kills them off as best they can, but it doesn’t deter the others or stop crime. More thinks that it would be a better approach to fix the social cause of the crime rather than killing off individuals. He thinks that people steal because there are not enough jobs, leaving starving homeless left with no choice but to steal for survival. He describes his solution simply; “instead of inflicting these horrible punishments, it would be far more to the point to provide everyone with some means of livelihood, so that nobody’s under the frightful necessity of becoming first a thief and then a corpse” (More 44). The lawyer who More is conversing with disagrees, “they could easily earn an honest living if they wanted to, but they deliberately choose to be criminals” (More 44). More rebuts this, showing that he doesn’t think people are naturally criminals who steal for pleasure or because it is easier than working, he thinks it is because they have to in order to survive. This disagrees with Machiavelli’s belief that all men are inherently wicked and that everyone would ditch their friends and the public good for his private needs. If More believed that he would agree with the lawyer and agree that all thieves deserved the death penalty and he would see the problem as each individual rather than the society as a whole. More’s view is that people don’t act according to their private needs unless it is a matter of life or death; that people don’t want to harm society.