Philosophy
Machiavelli's Civic Republicanism and the Ethics of Political Necessity
Quick fact
In his Discourses on Livy, Machiavelli contends that a republic willing to employ deception and cruelty when its survival is at stake is more ethical than one that clings to moral purity and risks ruin—because its ultimate end is the common good.
Why this is interesting
What if a founder of modern political thought argued that a ruler must sometimes be willing to lie, cheat, and even kill—and then called that virtue? This is the paradox at the heart of Machiavelli's civic republicanism.