We've been reading about the southern Renaissance in the 1300s on in Europe recently in my world history class. It spurred some thinking and internal conflict for me.

My book tells me that Niccolo Machiavelli wrote in his book [i]The Prince[/i] that morality and politics should be separated. I'm very torn between both sides of this discussion. Theoretically, if politicians could successfully and completely do this, there would be a few positive and negative effects.

Positive:
-Personal bias wouldn't be a problem.
-Machiavelli believed that the state would exist more sturdily.

Negative:
-Immoral decisions would almost certainly be made. Cruelty to citizens would perhaps be a result.
-If cruelty to citizens was a result, rebellions would occur and the state would fall apart.

The bottom line is I don't think I agree with this. I think that we should settle with separating personal bias from politics. I certainly don't believe that this is the case now.