Rousseau’s Vision of the Human Philosophy 224 Rousseau’s Vision of the Human

Jean-Jacques Rousseau Rousseau was a historical contemporary of Hume’s (1712-1778). Like many of his fellow moderns, Rousseau was diversely talented, making important contributions to literature, music and philosophy. In philosophy, his primary contributions are to political theory (through the vehicles of Discourse on Inequality and The Social Contract).

Social Contract Theory Rousseau is an advocate of an approach to political theory known as social contract theory. He’s part of a discussion taking place across Europe at the time (a discussion that included Thomas Hobbes and John Locke). This discussion had a significant influence on the founding fathers of the U.S., though Rousseau’s direct influence is more notable in the context of the French revolution. Social contract theory accounts for political forms in terms of a hypothetical ‘contract’ entered into by the participants in the polity. Common Assumptions: State of Nature Theory of Human Nature Rational Agents (?)

From the “Discourse” to the “Contract” In the “Dedication” to the Discourse Rousseau writes that he wants to live in a country where “the interest of the sovereign could not be separated from that of the subject.” What would have to be true for such a situation to obtain? When the subject is the sovereign. What political system embodies this principle? Democracy, like his hometown Geneva’s, “I feel happy…always to find in my researches new reasons for loving that of my own country!”

The Existing Contract “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains” (The Social Contract). (We get the crisis, before we get the ontology!) The basis of this failed project is the power made possible by the inequalities produced by social relations. All such inequalities produce power. To the extent that certain inequalities are natural, there will inevitably be power accumulation and disproportionality. Not all such accumulation need be onerous. The task of The Social Contract is to specify how this power can be legitimated as authority.

You Can’t Go Back As already noted, there is a sort of inevitability, based in our perfectibility, to the development of social relations. As Rousseau recounts the development of ever more complex social forms (family-rule of the strong-the self-subordination of an individual in slavery), he makes it clear that a return to the “state of nature” is impossible. Inevitable development requires a social contract.

The Pact The challenge is to “Find a form of association which defends and protects with all common forces the person and goods of each associate, and by means of which each one, while uniting with all, nevertheless obeys only himself and remains as free as before.” This is possible only by exchanging my natural liberty for civil liberty: the freedom to do what the laws allow (freedom limited by law). This exchange has to be total: I give up myself and my rights to the community (becoming equal in this “alienation” with everyone else). This exchange then gives me access to civil rights, which gain the protection of whole of civil society, which is nothing other than me (and everyone else) as a collective social whole.

Emile, or On Education Emile (1762) was thought by Rousseau to be the most important of his works. It focuses on the question of what sort of education would enable the ‘natural man’ to navigate the complexities of social relations. It was very controversial when it was published, being banned and burned in Paris and Geneva.

The Starting Point “Everything is good as it comes from the hands of the Maker of the world but degenerates once it gets into the hands of man” (110). This opening sentence of Emile encapsulates both the theory of human nature Rousseau assumes and the crisis to which he is trying to respond. Human nature is, on this view, fundamentally good. Like as with Mencius, this goodness should be understood as a capacity rather than as an accomplished fact. This explains why this fundamental goodness can degenerate (if the capacity is unrealized or even corrupted). This corruption is to be explained by the problems of inequality and illegitimate power accumulation.

Diagnosis As we’ve seen, though it’s possible to articulate the natural state of human beings, the state is never in fact one that we occupy. Rousseau is much more realistic about this than many other social contract theorists. The state we do occupy is always already constituted by existing inequalities and power accumulations, and these require the following diagnosis: “Prejudices, authority, necessity, example, the social institutions in which we are immersed, would crush out nature in [humans] without putting anything in its place” (110).

The Prescription “Plants are fashioned by cultivation, men by education” (110). Though existing human relations are the source of the problem, a special form of this relation is also the cure: education. Rousseau surveys the various ways in which we gain knowledge and identifies three primary modes: The Education of Nature consists in the development of our faculties of knowledge and sensibility. The Education of Men consists in developing the use of these faculties for specific purposes. The Education of Things consists in learning through experience how the things around us affect us or can be affected.

Human Education Obviously, the first and the last of these are, at least in their most fundamental forms, not under human control. It’s our conscious self-education that we must consider, and Rousseau is not particularly optimistic about its chances. It seems obvious to him, that nature’s ends are addressed only when the three forms of education are animated towards the same goal: development of our natural faculties and capacities. The problem, when there is one, obviously lies in the “Education of Men.” It’s the only one we have any control over.

Communal Vs. Individual In pursuit of educational harmony, we can choose to be educated in common according to prevailing social norms, or we can seek a more individualized educational context. For reasons which should be evident, Rousseau is skeptical about communal education, insisting that “exceptional” people (those that are both individuals and citizens) are produced in a more individualized context. What is produced? Not content or training, but human beings (112-13).

An important qualification We’ve been talking somewhat generically about human nature, but Rousseau, like many others of his time, was convinced that there were two different human natures: that of men and that of women. On the basis of observed differences between the behaviors and capacities of men and women, Rousseau attempts to specify the specific differences of men and women. Men are active and strong; women passive and weak. Men are masterful; women are pleasing. Men are forceful; women are charming. Men are bold; women are timid Etc.

A different Education “Men and women are unequally affected by sex. The male is only a male at times; the female is a female all her life and can never forget her sex” (114). This claim conditions the different educational models Rousseau proposes for men and women. The specific differences are less important than the principle with distinguishes them. See p. 115-116.