More vs Machiavelli

During a time of conflict and turmoil in sixteenth-century Europe, both Niccolò Machiavelli and Sir Thomas More provided competing definitions of what constitutes the ideal individual. While Machiavelli emphasized the idea of the individual within the secrecies of the private domain, More leaned toward the notion of the individual as a part of the conforming mass of the public society.
Machiavelli assumes at base that people are not inherently good. For humans innately place their self-interests ahead of the benefit of the public. As a result of this assumption, Machiavelli dismisses the notion of an imaginary world and replaces it, in contrast, with things as they truly are. He writes, “For the gap between how people actually behave is so great that anyone who ignores everyday reality in order to live up to an ideal will soon discover he has been taught how to destroy himself, not how to preserve himself” (The Prince 48). Machiavelli takes a pragmatic view of the private individual. He is someone whose first priority is self-preservation and to maintain power at all cost. More, in contrast, sees the public individual as someone who must think of the good of the whole. Rather than recognizing one’s flaws as self-centered, More believes in an idealistic society where everyone is entirely good-natured. He seems to share this belief with Plato. He values the essence of a pure soul, where people learn things the hard way-- in true experience that benefits the public good. More talks of how the king, “had spent the rest of his life in the public service, learning wisdom the hard way, by having to cope with a long series of crises. And what one learns like that isn’t easily forgotten” (Utopia 43). He believes in the idea of a unified public, where the benefit of the whole is imperative among each individual.
In relation to More’s idea of the public individual, he also states his belief on the ideal individual, someone whom seeks peace and generosity for the good of humanity. He talks of the unfairness of personal benefit and the importance of maintaining a productive public interest. In More’s Utopia he speaks of war as the very antithesis of peace, a sort of tool that destroys the good of the society. When Raphael is talking to the Cardinal, he states, “I don’t see how it can possibly be in the public interest to prepare for a war, which you needn’t have unless you want to, by maintaining innumerable disturbers of the peace-- when peace is so indefinitely more important” (Utopia 46). More emphasizes the importance of preserving the public as opposed to the individual. He identifies self-interest as the chief means by which societies become dissolute. Thieves would not need to steal if resources were shared more equally. In stark contrast, Machiavelli talks of the idea of the individual as someone whose top priority is always personal well being, taking care of number one--before the well being of humanity. He believes that using force in order to maintain power and control is appropriate, even when society may not agree with one’s actions: “So we see a ruler cannot seek to benefit from a reputation as generous without harming himself. For, as time goes by, he will be thought of as growing ever more generous, for people will recognize that as a result of his parsimony he is able to live on his income, maintain an adequate army, and undertake new initiatives” (The Prince 49). Machiavelli places a large emphasis on private interest, with the notion that having the power to control society will in the long run benefit the whole of the public.