SISU-105.015 F2019 blog question #4

Today in class we spent some time working out a few of the key points of Machiavelli’s argument, though a deliberately artificial set-up in which I assigned you a position for your side of the class to adopt. (I have posted photos of the board giving the points raised in the exchange on the BlackBoard site in case you want to look back at a them.) For this week's blog question I want to take off that restriction, and ask you the same question — on balance, is Machiavelli basically right? — but without the need to adopt either the pro or the con side as assigned. Now that you understand Machiavelli’s argument a bit better, do you think he’s basically right, or not? Why?