[peritonlogon]

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It can definitely be ethical in situations where the general public aren't intelligent enough to correctly interpret the actual information.

If you give them the truth they will act in ways which are detrimental to themselves, so false information can be better.

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Not to be argumentative, but could you give me an example.

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Thats all Machiaveli really said, he got a bad reputation from misunderstanding of the idea.

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So all that stuff about fortune being like a woman and using everything to your advantage meant nothing? And substituting 'convenient' for 'good' was all in the interest of public good? In the Discources on Livy, he does come closer to what you're claiming, but in The Prince he was claiming quite the opposite.

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A good example is telling communities that a God exists, in order to encourage them to follow the law, put full effort in to battles, avoid food poisoning, etc. This seems to be pretty much why Constantine encouraged the cult of Christianity into a main-stream religion.

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WHAAA? the Romans at the time were quite stoic... ie that was the wide spread religion/philosophy of the time from Emperors to Slaves.... literally... And this has been a long time claim of the intelligentsia that, as far as I can see, has no proven truth to it, but has certainly been used as a rational for some serious swindling and other types of screwing over of unwitting people.

BTW, "no atheists in a fox hole" is just a load of crap that a lot of atheists find offensive..... didn't stop the Russians in WW2 they certainly put in full effort. And in WW1 when a whole lot more people were God fearing, there were alarming rates of soldiers not firing their weapons in battle. IMHO religion plays, if not no role, then next to no role in getting people to follow laws or fight for their cause.

I will agree that a little philosophy is a bad thing...But I think information is different.