Transcript Jean-Jacques Rousseau: On the Social Contract

Jean-Jacques Rousseau:
Lecture 1
PHIL 1003
2009-10
Final remarks on slavery
Penal servitude
• Forced labour as
punishment
• Locke & Rousseau (?)
• Based on a finding of guilt
• Rule of law followed?
• Questionable examples:
– gulag (USSR),
– laogai (China),
– concentration camps (Nazi
Germany).
Chattel Slavery
• Domestic servants
• Field hands
• Skilled labour
Helotage
• Communities in bondage
to another group
• E.g. the helots to the
Spartans
• Helots were hunted for
sport once a year.
Who was Jean-Jacques Rousseau?
(1712-1778)
• 1712: born in city of Geneva
• Son of a watchmaker
• Mother dies at his birth; raised
by father
• No formal education
• Apprenticed to an engraver,
but escaped;
• Wandering life until his 30’s
• 1750-62: writes major works
• 1762: goes into exile to escape
prosecution for ideas on
religion and politics
• 1767: returns to France
incognito
• 1778: dies near Paris
Rousseau’s major works
Title
Date
Subject
DSA
1750
Sci/arts correlate
w/ moral decay
Peasant opera;
Italian style
Village
Soothsayer
Disc…Inequality
1752
1755
Origins of inequality in
society
Julie, or the new
Heloise
Emile
1761
Novel extolling
family values
1762
Pedagogicyto produce
best man/citizen
Social Contract
1762
Political reform
Confessions
1782
Autobiography
1750: Landmark Year
• Vision on the road to Vincennes;
– question for prize essay: “whether the
restoration of the Sciences and Arts has
contributed to the purification of morals.”
• Rousseau formulates his vision:
– “I could no longer see any greatness or
beauty except in being free and virtuous,
superior to fortune and men’s opinion, and
independent of all external circumstances”
(Confs., Bk 8).
Discourse on the Origins
Of Inequality among Men
(1754)
Dedication to Geneva
•
•
•
•
“Citizen of Geneva” (DSA and DOI title pages)
Geneva = republic (vs absolutist France)
Virtuous vs Parisian decadence
Advocates elected magistracy of merit (vs
purchased offices in France):
– similarities to Chinese concept;
– uses elections of the best and most virtuous instead
of exams (DOI, Epistle, par. 11);
– Cf. Athenian rotation system.
Paris versus Geneva
Paris (modern Athens)
• Corrupt
• Unnatural
• Weak
• Citizens dominated by
opinions of others
• Complex and large:
officials, taxes, rules
• Concern w/ status
• Lack of genuine relations
among people.
Geneva (modern Sparta)
• Virtuous: time for
unfortunate, Fatherland
and friends (DSA, II.37)
• No theatre
• Defense of homeland
• Simplicity
• Small
• Non-aggressive
• Rousseau’s ideal.
Discourse = thought experiment
• A meditation, not a fact-finding mission;
• Conducted during long, solitary walks in
the woods.
– “…hypothetical and conditional reasonings”;
– “elucidate the Nature of things [rather] than
show their genuine origin” (DOI, p.132, [6]).
– “Let us begin by setting aside all the facts….”
DOI Frontispiece:
what does it mean?
“The Philosophers who have examined the
foundations of society have all felt the necessity
of going back as far as the state of Nature,
But none of them has reached it” (132).
None of them has stripped man naked.
‘All that is challenging in The
Social Contract
had previously appeared in the
Discourse on Inequality…
(Confs., Bk 9).
Hobbes and Locke on S of N
• Hobbes:
– man is by nature fearful, contentious;
– state of nature = war of all against all.
• Locke:
– man is by nature capable of sociability before
he enters into society,
• e.g. contract b/w a Swiss and an Indian in the
woods of America;
– protection of property is reason to form
governments.
Rousseau vs Hobbes and Locke
• Both are wrong:
– Man is naturally peaceable and isolated;
– Man is not naturally sociable;
– he must become so, through a long and
complicated development;
– Inequality, exploitation and arbitrary rule =
outcome.
Where does inequality come
from?
Is it natural?
Unnatural?
What is inequality?
• Physical,
– by nature; very slight.
• Political:
– Very great;
– caused by amour-propre [vanity], human
institutions, e.g. property: “this is mine”;
– social problems resulting from inequality:
• Few rule many; i.e. rich rule poor
• Exploitation of most of humanity by the few.
“Once Peoples are
accustomed to Masters,
they can no longer do without
them” (CUP ed. 1997, 115, [6]).
“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).
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).