Kr.s.n.a replied... "If he fights fairly, Bhîma will never succeed in gaining victory. If, however, he fights unfairly, he will surely be able to kill Duryodhana. At the time of the gambling Bhîma promised to break the thighs of Duryodhana with his mace in battle. Let him now fulfil his vow. Let him, by deception, kill the Kuru king who is the master of deception! If Bhîma does not kill him by unfair means, the son of Dhr.tarâs.t.ra will surely retain the kingdom!".....

Kr.s.n.a seeing the Pân.d.avas stricken with remorse, said.... "Out of the desire to do you good, I repeatedly applied my illusory powers and caused them to be killed by various means in battle. If I had not adopted such deceitful ways, you would never have been victorious, nor could you have regained your kingdom or your wealth."

He continued, "You should not mind the fact that your enemy has been killed deceitfully. When one is outnumbered by his enemies, then destruction should be brought about by stratagem. The gods themselves, in killing the asuras, have followed the same methods. The way that was followed by the celestials may be followed by all. We have been crowned with success..."

The Mahâbhârata, translated by Chakravarthi V. Narasimhan, "Shalya Parva" [Columbia University Press, 1965, p.172 & 175]

[John 11:47] Then gathered the chief priests and the Pharisees a council, and said, "What are we to do? For this man does many signs. [11:48] If we let him thus alone, all will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away from us both the Place and the nation." [11:49] But one of them, Caiaphas, being the high priest that same year, said to them, "You know nothing at all, [11:50] nor do you stop to consider that it is expedient for us that one man should die for the people, that the whole nation should not perish."
The Priest Caiaphas, in the Biblical quote above, is often taken as an archetype of the unprincipled person, willing to sacrifice an innocent man for the sake of expediency. Christians have been quite content with that interpretation, which makes Jesus a victim of injustice, and Jews have understandably seen the portrayal as anti-Semitic. However, both of these views are based on a misconception. Jesus can be a tragic victim of wrong without Caiaphas having been a bad person, let alone an anti-Semitic caricature. Caiaphas was in fact doing his duty, as we must construe the duty of a statesman, as opposed to the duty of a private person. There is a difference because of the characteristic moral dilemma that occurs with political power. The lives of many, the "whole nation," depend on Caiaphas; and if he must truly chose between the innocent lives of many and the innocent life of one, then, however unpleasant, disturbing, or regretable, the trust that the many have placed in him must predominate and he must do what is necessary that "that the whole nation should not perish." [note] The reality of the kind of choices Caiaphas had to make is confirmed by the fact that the "whole nation" did perish in the great revolt against the Romans, the Jewish War of 66-73 AD, when the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed and Jews were actually expelled from the city. The peril of Caiaphas' position is revealed when we find that the High Priest Ananus and his colleague Jesus ben Gamaliel were murdered by the Zealots, led by John of Gischala, in 67. This meant that the Revolt would be a fight to the death, with no compromise sought from the Romans.

The clearest expression of the kind of dilemma that Caiaphas found himself in comes in Niccolò Machiavelli's The Prince:

It must be understood, however, that a prince... cannot observe all of those virtues for which men are reputed good, because it is often necessary to act against mercy, against faith, against humanity, against frankness, against religion in order to preserve the state. Thus he must be disposed to change according as the winds of fortune and the alternations of circumstance dictate. As I have aleady said, he must stick to the good so long as he can, but being compelled by necessity, he must be ready to take the way of evil...

In all men's acts, and in those of princes most especially, it is the result that renders the verdict when there is no court of appeal. [Daniel Donno translation, Bantam Books, 1981, pp.63-64]

While this passage especially has often been interpreted as advice to completely unprincipled rulers for the purpose merely of promoting their own power, Machiavelli himself did not admire tyrants and did not endorse an amoral opportunism. Thus, the implication of amorality or immorality in the passage above, although very limited if it is read carefully, contrasts with a passage in Machiavelli's own Discourses: