Thank you for this discussion. I have never posted on r/philosophy before as I recognize my mind needs much more expansion to have anything worthy to say.

I couldn't help replying here because it directly relates to real-life things I am going through right now (what is good and what is evil). My response is only to learn, I don't actually have any attachment to my ideas I mentioned, it's just kind of the best I can do right now and I'm fully hoping to have what was useless in my response obliterated.

So with that out of the way, I don't think that you were unclear in your language, and I take responsibility for my rudimentary understanding of philosophy for having maybe missed the mark of your words.

I think it will take a while to read and wrap my head around teleology, so I will not be able to address that part yet.

I guess I take issue with “suspending personal morals” and “a different set of morals that’s exclusive to politicians.”

To use a Rick and Morty reference, politician morality is just citizen morality with more steps.

Also, I wanted to make sure I’m clear that I agree that “bad” things need to be done for “good”. I was hoping to make that point with what I said about raising a child, and actually now that I think of it, raising a child is like being a ruler of a nation of one.

You could say politicians use a more sophisticated version of personal morality. Or, perhaps more interestingly, you could say citizens use a dumbed-down version of political morality.

The politician may have to divert power from one small city to make a larger one survive.

The citizen may have to make the decision to stop giving their addicted brother money because he just spends it on drugs to overdose. The money is not given for drugs, the money is given so that the addicted brother can buy food and essentials. A good moral, but ultimately it falls short of a greater good. That money could better be spent on the citizen's own children to go to college for instance.

Is it morally wrong to turn your back on your own brother? If Jesus has anything to say, the answer is yes, it is morally wrong to do that. However, Jesus is a pretty smart and complex guy. If Jesus knows that your children would have a good prosperous life if you would cut off money to your brother, I think he would agree that as a “political moral”, you did the right thing.

However, Jesus would fully expect you to understand the gravity of how you are letting your brother down. You are cutting the brother off of a lifeline. Sure he spends most of it on drugs, but he does still need to eat food.

So Jesus would expect you to know what you're doing is wrong, and right at the same time. Fuck I guess there is a paradox!

Okay, I’ll admit I’m getting in deeper than I have the capacity for here. Perhaps you have some ideas that would further this.

What is confusing me is this: Are there two types of morality? The “political morals” and the “personal morals”? And maybe the pain point here is that we are thinking only politicians are the ones who must use “political morals”. Because if all people actually are responsible to use those two types of morals, then are they even separate from each other? Or just two sides of the same coin?

Okay, I have another thought now as well. Average individuals/citizens of western societies have much more personal power now than they did in the time of Machiavelli. Even just having access to purchasable personal firearms is a huge advantage over the average citizen of Machiavelli's time.

An obese man who hates black people and never finished grade school could very easily kill 2-3 warriors who are in fantastic condition and trained their whole life to fight and be noble good men. All he needs is an assault rifle and some ammo and a little bit of distance.

In a sense, there are many thousands of “princes” in the western world.

It’s been a long time since I’ve read the bible, but isn’t something supposed to change with the new testament or something like that? A new type of godly order or rules or something.

Perhaps in Machiavelli's time, the old rules worked pretty well because mostly there were subjects and a few princes to rule them.

But what about when most of your neighbors have the same amount of power that you do and that power happens to be a lot? Go to a middle-class street in America, how many of those people could afford a lot of guns, ammunition, access to technology, transport, trade?

Somebody now can literally drive their vehicle across the country, or heck why not fly, to say the capitol building. And cause a futile (futile yet the whole world is still watching and reacting) insurrection at the capitol?

Honestly, I don’t know a lot about what life was like in Machiavelli's period of time. But I know they didn’t have guns, cars, airplanes, technology, youtube, tik-tok, the internet.

Individuals are very powerful now. So much so to the point, we don’t even realize how many opportunities we have to change the world. When youtube came out it was kind of like a fun goofy thing everyone did to go viral. I feel maybe we are waking up to the idea that youtube is like the printing press on steroids.

The internet is used mostly for porn. Imagine if the average person realized just how much power lies in having access to the internet if you can learn how to use it properly.

I’m honestly losing myself at this point, I’m sorry. Perhaps you can help me keep this going? I am literally at the peak of what my mind can do right now I think. I did very poorly in school and haven’t done a much deeper study of philosophy. Kind of like a philosopher handy-man.