BY RINA MUKHOPADHAYAY MAHESHTALA COLLEGE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

Jean Jacques Rousseau ( ) Born in Geneva Runs away at 16 and lives on his own Hooked up with various women for support Was a tutor, civil servant, composer, music teacher, botanist, linguist, novelist, memoirist, and philosopher

* In 1762 publishes “On Social Contract” and “Emile” * Both are condemned, books burned, leaves Paris for Saint Pierre, then on to England with David Hume (1766) * Returns to France (1767) * Publishes a series of autobiographical works, including Confessions (1782)

* “Man is born free but everywhere is in chains” * Rousseau from- “The Social Contract”

The General Will The Natural State of Man

* In order for men to abstain from society’s corruption, and truly abide by political rules, they must agree to “The Social Contract” * In this contract, they agree to live under the laws created by themselves and the people, or the “General Will”

* Life in society was corrupting – people are born kind, without impulse to do bad, but are changed from this ‘natural’ and superior ‘state of man’ by society’s oppression, private ownership and inequality In ‘Discourse’, Rousseau challenged and refuted France’s Estate system by naming two types of inequality: Natural Inequality – of strength, intelligence, etc. Artificial Inequality – of which the French system was based Rousseau states we cannot return to our natural state, and hence must reform our current system according to the General Will

* According to Rousseau the ‘only reason human beings were willing to give up individual freedom and be ruled by others was that they saw that their rights, happiness, and property would be better protected under a formal government rather than an every-person-for-themselves type of society’.

* He argued that ‘we have rights and individual liberties because the rest of society agrees that you have those rights and liberties’.