Jean Jacques Rousseau

Life Sketch
• Born in 1712 in Geneva and died in 1778. Lived during period of French Enlightenment and also time of great political upheaval i.e.
impending French Revolution.
• Came from low middle class.
• Philosophical father of French Revolution.
• Favored positive liberty, direct democracy, self-government, unalienable popular sovereignty, ‘negative’ education.
• Against representative democracy.
• Critical views about science, philosophy.
• Critical against reason (Revolt against Reason because Thinking Animal as a depraved Animal); Equal importance to feeling, emotion,
moral norms.
• Romanticism and utopic ideas – like Plato. Influenced by Plato. Revived the classical tradition in political philosophy (Ethics & People).
• Many critics consider his thoughts supporting of totalitarianism.
• Books: Julie, or the New Heloise(1761), Social Contract (1762), Emile, or On Education (1762), A lasting Peace through the Federation of
Europe (1774) The Confessions (1782).
• Essays:
1. Whether restoration of science and arts contributed to the purification of morals? (Discourse on science and arts). For this was awarded
1st prize by the Academy of Dijon in 1750. Progress did not elevate the moral standards of Human beings.
2. What is the origin of inequality and is it authenticated by nature? (Discourse on origin of inequality)
• Article: Discourse on political economy (1755)
• Opera: The Village Soothsayer (1753).
Origin of Inequality
• Natural vs Conventional inequality.
• Natural inequality – Morally neutral, roughly equalizing, non-hierarchical.
• Conventional inequality – Unequal distribution of wealth, power, status, and privileges.
• Private property is the root cause of conventional inequality.
• Advocate of approximate social equality but not total equality. He was willing to permit two sorts of inequality:-
1. Natural inequality between the young and old, the weak and strong, the wise and stupid.
2. Inequality that resulted from rewarding those who rendered special service to the community.

Nature of Man
• Innate good nature but corrupted by the modern civilization.
• Human nature is morally neutral and peaceful condition in solitary context.
• Two natural feeling - Self love and Pity (compassion) for others.
• Perfectibility – Human capacity for self-improvement and change.
• People in their natural state were motivated by what he called amour de soi – “love of self”.
• Natural Man - Noble Savage.
• Socialization and civilization are responsible for humans’ fall from their natural state. He believed that the path forward was to reform
society in light of the dangers of amour propre, or vanity.
State of nature
• Isolated living of human without speech, language, civil society, and private property.
• Asocial, amoral, isolated living.
• Man living in himself (Amour De Soi).
• Equality and Freedom: no property, no social hierarchies.
• Life was frugal, lazy, contended, peaceful.
• Natural man lost his ferocity once he started living in society. Became weak.
Social contract
• People as equal enter into contract with others and with all to form political ‘Community’ – Republic or Body Politic.
• Objective of social contract is to reconcile liberty with authority.
• Rejected the idea that the social contract involved the surrender of freedom to a third person.
• They gain common force for protection, equal citizenship, sovereignty, civil liberty, moral freedom, identity, forum for just & moral act.
• The community and each of its members are directed by ‘General Will’ (sum of real wills) serve common interest - common Good.
• Not a one-time event but a continuous process.
• Popular Sovereignty: cannot be delegated to Government or representatives.
• As citizen of the community, one gets back both Political and Personal Liberty. Individuals subsume their power, rights, possessions,
identity to the community, become its indivisible part.
• It was through society that individuals realized their full potential, it could be reorganized to ensure the freedom that individuals enjoyed
when they were in a state of nature. This was possible once the right society was created, for that would maximize individual liberty.
General Will
• It is ‘Real Will’ of the community. Represent group mind, common Good.
• Real will- guided by the higher self. Actual will- guided by lower self.
• It is Sovereign – Popular sovereignty resides in the General Will.
• Laws flowing from general will – just, morally good, liberating.
• By obeying laws emanating from General Will, one gain moral freedom.
• Paradox of Freedom – ‘One can be forced to obey general will.
• Freedom attained through promoting certain common ends and not through maximization of self-interest. General Will since consist of all
real wills held the key to the moral transformation of the individual.
• Many of Rousseau’s critics saw Rousseau’s “General Will” inspiring twentieth-century totalitarian leaders like Hitler and Stalin.
Federations of Nation for World Peace
• Federation established lasting peace.
• While private wars have been prevented with the institution of governments, larger wars could be prevented with the formation of a
federation that would unite nations just as nations, unite individuals under the authority of law.
• For the success of the federation, Rousseau stipulated four necessary conditions:
(1) Every important power must be a member;
(2) The laws they legislate must be binding;
(3) A coercive force must be capable of compelling every state to obey the common resolves; and
(4) No member may be allowed to withdraw.
Views on Women and Family
• He regarded women as a permanently subversive force within the political system.
• Failed to articulate an equal status for women in the family.
• Men and women differed in virtues. While a man’s virtue was his rational capacity, a woman’s virtue was her sexuality, which meant
chastity, gentleness and obedience. Since the functions of men and women differed, their education would also have to be different.
• Defended patriarchal family. Family as natural and oldest institution. Preferred patriarchal families, partly because they needed a single
authority (which could not be exerted by the wife because she periodically got confined by reproductive activities).

Critique of Representative Government

Quotes
“Man was born free, but he is everywhere in chains.”
“The first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying This is mine, and found people simple enough to
believe him, was the real founder of civil society.”