1. Second Discourse, Social Contract, chs. 1 & 4
PHIL 2345 Rousseau
Second Discourse,
Social Contract, chs. 1 & 4

2. Inequality up close and personal
The peasant ‘…hid his wine on account of the excise and his bread on account of the duty….All that he said to me on this subject, which was entirely strange to me, made an impression on me which shall never grow dim. It was the germ of that inextinguishable hatred which afterwards grew in my heart against the oppression to which the unhappy people are subject, and against their oppressors’ (Confessions, Book IV, pp ).

3. “Everything daring in the Social Contract
was already in the Discourse on Inequality” (Confs., Bk IX).

4. DOI Frontispiece:

5. Inequality and the philosophical tradition
Plato:
Two cities of rich and poor—intolerable;
Aristotle:
role of middle class in political stability.
Locke:
‘…men have agreed to a disproportionate and unequal possession of the earth’ (par. 50).

6. Critique of Hobbes and Locke
‘…dared to strip man’s nature naked’ (Confs. 8, p. 362)
Hobbes, Locke have not gone far enough:
imported social characteristics into SoN
E.g. seeking after power, possessive individualism, interest in business.
Philosophers must ‘direct’ experiments
Psychology
Anthropology.

7. Hobbes and Locke on S of N
man is by nature fearful, contentious;
state of nature = war of all against all.
Locke:
man is sociable before he enters political/civil society:
e.g. contract b/w a Swiss and an Indian in the woods of America;
protection of property is reason to form governments.

8. Rousseau vs Hobbes and Locke
Man is naturally peaceable and isolated, a lonely hunter-gatherer, not naturally sociable;
2 Obstacles to Sociability:
Languages—Steven Mithen (U. of Reading, UK):
music precedes language; man the musical animal;
Sedentary agriculture
Look ‘how little care Nature has taken to bring Men together through mutual needs and to facilitate their use of speech, how little it prepared their Sociability’ (DOI, I.33).

9. Where does inequality come from?
Is it natural?
Unnatural?

10. What is inequality? Physical, Political:
Yes, by nature, but very slight, and of no importance (agrees w/ Hobbes).
Political:
Very great;
caused by amour-propre [vanity], human institutions, e.g. property;
causes social problems:
Few rule and exploit many; i.e. rich rule poor.

11. The problem with property
Aristotle:
Property relations are fundamental; egalitarian property-holding vs infinite accumulation
Household should w/n limits, not indefinite.
For Locke, property provides the bedrock of the state
Accumulation and enclosures of commons are good—they increase the overall wealth of society.
Rousseau believes that the first person who enclosed land and said ‘this is mine’ was an ‘imposter’:
‘You are lost if you forget that the fruits are everyone’s and the Earth no one’s’ (II.1).

12. “Once Peoples are accustomed to Masters,
they can no longer do without them” (CUP ed. 1997, 115, [6]).

13. “To be and to appear became two entirely different things,
and from this distinction arose ostentatious display, deceitful cunning, and all the vices that follow in their wake” (DOI, pt. II, par. 27).

14. Savage vs social man
“…the Savage lives within himself; social man, always outside himself, is capable of living only in the opinion of others and… derives the sentiment of his own existence solely from their judgment…” (DOI, II.57).

15. Living in the opinion of others
Status items;
Watches
Bags
Phones
Spend money we don’t have;
Run to our chains (jobs? bank loans?) so we can have enough money for status items!
Prada bags

16. Do we really need these bags?
“…man, who had been free and independent, is now…subjugated by a multitude of new needs”;
“rich, he needs [others’] services; poor, he needs their help”;
“Laws…gave the weak new fetters and the rich new forces…[they] transformed a skillful usurpation into an irrevocable right” (II.33).

17. Big Hair, 18th century-style

18. What’s left? Empty appearances!
“…everything being reduced to appearances, everything becomes factitious and play–acting…
…we have nothing more than a deceiving and frivolous exterior, honor without virtue, reason without wisdom, and pleasure without happiness…” (DOI, II.57).

19. We enable our own oppression:
“Citizens let themselves be oppressed only so far as they are swept up by blind ambition and…come to hold Domination dearer than independence, and consent to bear chains so that they might impose chains in turn” [II.51].

20. Civilized misery
“…the Citizen, forever active, sweats, scurries, constantly agonizes…he works to the death, even rushes toward it in order to be in a position to live…He courts the great whom he hates, and the rich whom he despises; he spares nothing to attain the honor of serving them…” (II.57).

21. Formalization of Rousseau’s political thought
On the Social Contract
Formalization of
Rousseau’s political thought

22. Two kinds of social contracts:
1. Unjust (the norm): exploitation wears cloak of legitimacy (DOI);
2. Just ones: the “Social Contract”; each freely obeys himself.

23. Unjust ‘contract’ (DOI)
“…man, who had been free and independent, is now…subjugated by a multitude of new needs”;
“rich, he needs [others’] services; poor, he needs their help”;
“Laws…gave the weak new fetters and the rich new forces…[they] transformed a skillful usurpation into an irrevocable right” (II.33).

24. “Once Peoples are accustomed to Masters,
they can no longer do without them” (CUP ed. 1997, 115, [6]).

25. The final word on inequality
Prelude to Marx:
“…it is manifestly against the Law of Nature, however defined, that...a handful of people abound in superfluities while the starving multitude lacks necessities” (II.58).

26. Locke on slavery
It’s one’s own fault!

27. S of N/S of W It’s all right to kill a thief (18)
even though s/he is only stealing, not trying to kill you!
His/her action puts him/her into a state of war with you;
You are the judge, jury and executioner in S of N
“Force without right, upon a man’s person, makes a state of war…” (19).

28. How one becomes a slave Liberty is natural to man (22)
therefore cannot consent enslave yourself (23)
“he that cannot take away his own life, cannot give another power over it” (23)
= age-old prohibition on suicide
So how can you become a slave?!
By entering into S of W w/ someone else
If you’re a slave, it’s b/c you did sth wrong!

29. Justification for slavery
“…having by his fault forfeited his own life, by some act that deserves death; he, to whom he has forfeited it, may (when he has him in his power) delay to take it, and make use of him to his own service, and he does him no injury by it:
“for, whenever [the slave] finds the hardship of his slavery outweigh the value of his life, it is in his power, by resisting the will of his master, to draw upon himself the death he desires“ (23).

30. It’s absurd; against everything human
Rousseau on slavery
It’s absurd; against everything human

31. Rousseau’s condemnation
The use of force produces no right (pars. 1, 11)
Cf. Thrasymachus (Plato): might = right
To consent to be enslaved is to cease to be human (6);
Locke agrees;
So how do they differ?

32. Property is core issue Locke’s conditions do not hold: Why?
No S of W in S of N;
Why?
B/c no property!
Property causes disputes;
S of W only after establishment of society/ civil govts; war occurs b/w states (7).

33. Conventional slavery
“…a slave made in war or a conquered people is not bound to anything at all toward their master, except to obey him as long as they are forced to do so.”
“In taking an equivalent of his life, the victor did not spare it: instead of killing him unprofitably, he killed him usefully” (12).

34. Rousseau’s summation
“Thus, from whatever angle one looks at things, the right to slavery is null, not only because it is illegitimate, but because it is absurd and meaningless. These words slavery and rights are contradictory; they are mutually exclusive” (13).

35. Aristotle, Locke & Rousseau on slavery
S of N No
Yes: war &
peace
Yes:
peaceful
S of W
Yes: but ag. Law of nature
No: only b/w states; no states in SoN
Slavery
Yes
No: ag. Man’s nat.

36. Concerning contemporary slavery, see this website: