The types of political behavior which are discussed with apparent approval by Machiavelli in "The Prince" were regarded as shocking by contemporaries, and its immorality is still a subject of serious discussion. Although the work advises princes how to tyrannize, Machiavelli is generally thought to have preferred some form of republican government. Some commentators justify his acceptance of immoral and criminal actions by leaders by arguing that he lived during a time of continuous political conflict and instability in Italy, and that his influence has increased the "pleasures, equality and freedom" of many people, loosening the grip of medieval Catholicism's "classical teleology", which "disregarded not only the needs of individuals and the wants of the common man, but stifled innovation, enterprise, and enquiry into cause and effect relationships that now allow us to control nature".