Raison d’état doctrine long preceded Locke and undercut personal faith

Evidence

In this setting Locke’s insistence upon the centrality of trust was already in some respects archaic by his own day. Even in the feudal monarchies of medieval Europe the impress of Roman public law had prompted a strong theory of the priority of claims of public utility over those of private right, in determining the content of the rationes status, and thus in guiding the ruler in the discharge of his or her responsibilities (Post 1964: 241-309, 316-18). … In the trenchant pages of Machiavelli’s The Prince (Machiavelli 1961: chapter 18) the idea that a ruler would be well advised to (or even that he could possibly afford to) confine himself to telling the truth and keeping faith with his subjects was held up to vivid scorn. — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 1211

Categorization

• XREF: The early-modern priority of public utility over private fides parallels the reader’s own argument structure about when trust in persons must yield to institutional/collective logic.