Comparing Machiavelli and More on Humanism

The Humanism of Machiavelli and More

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Machiavelli and More are each often described as “humanists.” Does it seem reasonable to you to group them together as part of the same “movement” or intellectual trend? Explain why or why not.

A most complete definition of humanism describes it as, “an intellectual movement that stressed enjoyment of all aspects of life, and especially of the ideas and values of pre-Christian civilizations, such as those of Greece and Rome; the interest in individualism, including stress on man as an end in himself, rather than as merely one cog in the vast machine of the Church.” Thus far in this course we have studied two Renaissance figures that are typically described as humanists: Niccolo Machiavelli via The Prince, and Sir Thomas More in Utopia. In The Prince, Machiavelli uses the major…