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Machiavelli, however, was a realist. He was concerned with how things were in reality, not how things could be if the world was perfect. He was greatly influenced by his failures in public life. He had served as head of the second chancery of the Florentine republic, but was dismissed after it fell in 1512. The Medici family was again ruling Florence, and a Medici also sat on the papal throne in Rome. The Prince was an attempt to prevent form those failures being repeated in the future. Machiavelli tried unsuccessfully to use this treatise to gain an advisory appointment either to the papacy or the court of the Duke. He was not concerned with moral virtue, if it meant the destruction and defeat of his state
According to Locke, "If one is to act in such a way that appears contrary to the natural laws, it is the right and responsibility of all men affected by these actions to judge and punish the offender. In this sense, each man will be the judge of whether his 'rights', as described by nature, have been violated. The right of each man to interpret and enforce the laws of nature as they see fit, may be a source of much chaos. So, in order to regulate the implementation of these laws, man agrees to a social contract, under which all men are governed by one common ruler"
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