Rousseau

RousseauIvan Paul Manaligod

LifeHe was born in the Swiss town of Geneva in 1712 and appreciated its civic virtue.He lived the life of a vagabond philosopher and had a long lasting affair with the Swiss Baroness Madame de Warrens.He later had five children with the maid and washer woman Therese Levasseur.

Life - continuedBefriended and quarreled with Denis Diderot.In 1750, his celebrity began when he wrote an ironical essay addressing the question Has the restoration of the sciences and arts tended to purify morals?In 1762, he published The Social Contract and Emile.His works were condemned as heretical and Rousseau became an international fugitive.Stayed with and quarreled with David Hume.He wrote his Confessions as the first autobiographical defense of the modern self.He died on July 2, 1778, leaving an intellectual and political legacy as complicated as his life.Rousseaus Garden: Worldview and Human NatureOriginal innocence and solitude in the state of nature: Mans original condition was marked by natural goodness, self-sufficiency, radical freedom, and amour de soi the sentiment of his own existence.The fall sociality and private property: The qualities of reason and amour propre (vanity or pride) emerge. All vice greed, lust, jealousy, envy, wrath, gluttony, and sloth stems from amour propre the prideful comparison of oneself to others. Natural goodness and innocence are lost. Compassion and pity are weakened. The human condition is now marked by war, inequality, inner division between ones public duty and private inclination, and dependence on others. A bogus social contract provides legal sanction to inequality. These inequalities reach high levels of corruption in civilized bourgeois society, where money defines morality and where there is dependence on elites.Rousseaus Garden: Worldview and Human Nature - ContinuedRedemption and liberation the general will: Mans condition in the good society is marked by political equality, civic virtue, and the reconciliation of ones particular will with the general will. This prescription for the good society will break down the evils of mass dependence on organized economic, social, and political elites. A legitimate social contract will be based on the general will, in which it will be necessary to force individuals to be free.Rousseaus Savage ManThe stage of human development associated with what he called "savages" was the best in human development.The mediator between the less-than-optimal extreme of brute animals on the one hand and the extreme of decadent civilization on the other. Nothing is so gentle as man in his primitive state, when placed by nature at an equal distance from the stupidity of brutes and the fatal enlightenment of civil man.

Rousseaus Savage Man continuedRousseau said that this savage stage of human societal development was an optimum, between the extreme of the state of brute animals and animal-like "ape-men" on the one hand, and the extreme of decadent civilized life on the other.

Rousseaus Savage Man continuedRousseau never suggests that humans in the state of nature act morallyTerms such as "justice" or "wickedness" are inapplicable to prepolitical society as Rousseau understands it. Morality proper, (such as self-restraint), can only develop through careful education in a civil state. Humans "in a state of Nature" may act with all of the ferocity of an animal. They are good only in a sense that insofar as they are self-sufficient and thus not subject to the vices of political society.Rousseaus Natural Man Rousseau's natural man is virtually identical to a solitary chimpanzee or other ape, such as the orangutan as described by Buffon; and the "natural" goodness of humanity is thus the goodness of an animal, which is neither good nor badDefinitions for good and evil do arise from nature - good is that which promotes the long-term survival of life. Because man must be able to cope with extreme competition in order to survive, the emotions that cause him to inflict pain and dominance are also innate. That does not make them good. So a solitary chimpanzee can be said to do bad in the same way that man does.

Amour de soi and Amour de propreIn Rousseau's philosophy, society's negative influence on men centers on its transformation of amour de soi, a positive self-love, into amour-propre, or pride. Amour de soi represents the instinctive human desire for self-preservation, combined with the human power of reason. In contrast, amour-propre is artificial and encourages man to compare himself to others, thus creating unwarranted fear and allowing men to take pleasure in the pain or weakness of others.Amour de soi and Amour de propre - continuedIn Discourse on the Arts and Sciences Rousseau argues that the arts and sciences have not been beneficial to humankind, because they arose not from authentic human needs but rather as a result of pride and vanity.Proposed that the progress of knowledge had made governments more powerful and had crushed individual liberty; and he concluded that material progress had actually undermined the possibility of true friendship by replacing it with jealousy, fear, and suspicion.The Birth of Conventional Inequality and the SwindleNatural inequality exist but such inequalities do not give anyone the right to rule over others.Conventional inequality robs human beings of original freedom in the state of nature.A bogus social contract is entered into:The first person who, having fenced off a plot of ground, took it into his head to say this is mine and found people simple enough to believe him, was the true founder of civil society. What crimes, wars, murders, what miseries and horrors would the human race have been spared by someone who, uprooting the stakes or filling in the ditch, had shouted to his fellow men: Beware of listening to this impostor; you are lost if you forget that the fruits belong to all and the earth to no one!The Birth of Conventional Inequality and the Swindle - ContinueThe institution of property leads to the despotism of the rich over the poor.If we follow the progress of inequality in these different revolutions, we shall find that the establishment of the law and the right of property was the first stage, the institution of the magistracy the second, and the third and last was the changing of legitimate power into arbitrary power.The Bourgeois and the Corrupt SocietyThe people consented to their servitude in order to enjoy tranquility.Modern society produces the bourgeois, a soulless product of a commercial society that measures happiness and success in terms of the market.The public good is used as a mask for private interests.Bourgeois life is filled with petty pleasures built upon the slavery of the poor.

The Bourgeois and the Corrupt Society - ContinuedSelf interest diminishes pity that binds us to our fellow citizens.The original freedom, innocence, and felicity of the state nature is lost.Man is born free and yet everywhere he is in chains.Rousseau finds this step desirable because intelligence raises us above the animals.The selfish society can be transcended by a society dedicated to the common good.

Discourse on InequalityIn this essay, which elaborates on the ideas introduced in the Discourse on the Arts and Sciences, Rousseau traces man's social evolution from a primitive state of nature to modern society.The earliest solitary humans possessed a basic drive for self-preservation and a natural disposition to compassion or pity.Discourse on Inequality - ContinuedThey differed from animals, however, in their capacity for free will and their potential perfectibility.As they began to live in groups and form clans they also began to experience family love, which Rousseau saw as the source of the greatest happiness known to humanity.Discourse on Inequality - ContinuedAs long as differences in wealth and status among families were minimal, the first coming together in groups was accompanied by a fleeting golden age of human flourishing.The development of agriculture, metallurgy, private property, and the division of labour and resulting dependency on one another, however, led to economic inequality and conflict.As population pressures forced them to associate more and more closely, they underwent a psychological transformation: They began to see themselves through the eyes of others and came to value the good opinion of others as essential to their self-esteem.Discourse on Inequality - ContinuedRousseau posits that the original, deeply flawed Social Contract (that of Hobbes), which led to the modern state, was made at the suggestion of the rich and powerful, who tricked the general population into surrendering their liberties to them and instituted inequality as a fundamental feature of human society. Rousseau's own conception of the Social Contract can be understood as an alternative to this fraudulent form of association.Rousseaus Social Contract The General WillThe aim of the Social Contract is to determine whether there can be a legitimate political authority, since people's interactions he saw at his time seemed to put them in a state far worse than the good one they were at the state of nature, even though living in isolation.General Will (volont gnrale) is the will of the people as a wholeRousseaus Social Contract The General Will ContinuedRousseau posits that the political aspects of a society should be divided into two parts. There must be a sovereign consisting of the whole population (women included) that represents the general will and is the legislative power within the stateThe government should be distinct from the sovereignRousseaus Social Contract The General Will ContinuedThis division is necessary because the sovereign cannot deal with particular matters like applications of the law. Doing so would undermine its generality, and therefore damage its legitimacy. Thus, government must remain a separate institution from the sovereign body. When the government exceeds the boundaries set in place by the people, it is the mission of the people to abolish such government, and begin anew.Rousseaus Prescription: The General WillThe Social Contract offers a public path of redemption through the mechanism of the general will.Civil freedom is to replace natural freedom according to this construct.Rousseau effort is an attempt to reconcile duty and freedom.Private person is transformed into the public citizen and the interest self is replaced by an interest in the common good.Rousseaus Prescription: The General Will - ContinuedThe bogus social contract needs to be replaced by the true social contract.Civil freedom is obedience to a law that one prescribes to oneself. Any other law is despotism.The legitimate social contract is a contract among equals committed to the public good.The most general will is also the most just, and that the voice of the people is the voice of GodThe will of all or selfish interests are contrasted with the general will or the common good.Property rights are limited by the common good and the general will.Citizens who have given their consent to the general will may be forced to be free.Rousseaus Good SocietyThe General Will is only possible under rare and special circumstances:It can only be operative in a small territory.Participatory democracy is the only legitimate form of association.Government is ministerial and sovereignty cannot be divided.Factions are dangerous and worthless and should be avoided.Rousseaus Good Society - continuedA lawgiver will be needed to illuminate the general will.Rousseau is a criticizer of a vulgar enlightenment but believes in the beneficial role of rare geniuses like himself.The lawgiver must repress peoples desires to act selfishly.Only a great artist is capable of helping human beings to reconcile freedom and duty within a moral and communal existence.Citizens must be virtuous and their sense of pity and amour propre needs to be guided toward patriotic ends.Appropriate habituation is key to the good society. Statecraft is soulcraft for Rousseau. Society needs to guard against that which arouses selfish desires. Private life must serve public virtue.Rousseaus Good Society - ContinuedInequalities of wealth must be minimized since they weaken social bonds.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712 1778)