Politics and ethics in Aristotle and Machiavelli: a counterpoint to think political happiness.

This article centers on the comparative analysis between the works of Aristotle and Machiavelli, taking into account the notion of happiness as its backbone. Although the Stagirite's remarks regarding eudaimonia are widely known, we can't state the same about the Florentine. Hence, our point of departure will be the formulation of a brand new hypothesis: Machiavelli's thought involves a consideration of happiness, though in a shaded fashion if we compare it with the thorough approach developed by the Stagirite. The comparative analysis between both authors is how we intend to grasp this new conception, political happiness. To this end, our paper is articulated in three main sections. In the first one, we briefly recount the category of eudaimonia within the Aristotelic philosophy in order to introduce the issue of happiness in Machiavelli. In the second part, we take a few steps into the prospect of thinking the category of political happiness by relating some of the essential inputs of both Aristotle's eudaimonia and Machiavelli's thoughts on happiness. At this stage, we place the political happiness in the frame of the broader scenery of the schism between religious morality and political morality.