JEAN JAQUES ROUSSEAU (1712-1778)

Question 1

DISCOURSE ON THE ARTS & SCIENCES (1750)

Answer 1

• Argued that the arts and sciences corrupt human morality.

- Start of his discourse on the destructive effect of civilisation on human beings.

Question 2

STATE OF NATURE

Answer 2

• Idyllic
• S of N may be preferable to a civilised condition for Rousseau
• Central aspect of human motivation = pity and compassion
  (drawn towards essential features of life/ love/ family)
• Civilisation and progress had had a destructive influence on the morality of humans who had once been good

Question 3

Criticisms of Locke and Hobbes?

Answer 3

Rousseau does not doubt that if modern citizens (corrupt by society) were placed in the S of N they would be how he depicted them (competitive, violent)

Yet his issue was that Hobbes and Locke had both depicted socialised traits as if they were ‘natural’.

These traits come through the destructive effects of society (‘amour propre’)

Central aspect of human motivation = pity and compassion

Question 4

Harm in the S of N

Answer 4

Unlike Hobbes and Locke, Rousseau recognises that harm is immoral.
He sees humans in the S of N as savage with few desires and barely distinguishable between other wild animals.

He also sees innovation (eg tool-making to make work easier) as the primary response to the scarcity of resources (as opposed to Hobbesian violence and competition)

Question 5

Can the State of Nature be sustained?

Answer 5

• Private property leads to mutual dependence, jealousy, inequality and the slavery of the poor
• Civil society then emerges to prevent war in the S of N

Question 6

ROUSSEAU’S SOCIAL CONTRACT

Answer 6

‘Man is born free and yet everywhere he is in chains’

Question 7

2 ‘unfreedoms’

Answer 7

Material and psychological dependence on society = unfreedom

Subjection to the modern state = political unfreedom

Question 8

ROUSSEAU’S THEORY OF THE STATE

Answer 8

Rousseau’s theory of the state is intended to solve the problem of dependence and avoid subjecting individuals to an alien authority. (Hobbes’ Leviathan)

Question 9

Formation of a sovereign (social contract)

Answer 9

Rousseau’s social contract creates a sovereign made up of all citizens:
‘since each man gives himself to all, he gives himself to no one’

‘a moral and collective body’

Question 10

GENERAL WILL

Answer 10

• The general will is the will of the sovereign i.e. all of the citizens conceived as a ‘corporate body’.
• The general will is distinct from individuals’ particular wills. It is not the sum of particular wills.

Question 11

‘forced to be free’

Answer 11

Contradictory for a Hobbesian!

‘if anyone refuses to obey the general will, he will be compelled to do so by the whole body’ = ‘forced to be free’

• Obeying a law that is an expression of the general will of the people is obeying ourselves as we are all part of the collective that expresses this will

Question 12

JULIE (1761)

Answer 12

• Love triangle between ‘primitive’ love for tutor over conventional love for husband = tutor love = S of N feelz

Question 13

EMILE (on education) 1762

Answer 13

• All children are naturally born good in S of N, society then corrupts them (invented child-centred education)

Question 14

ROUSSEAU ON PATRIARCHY

Answer 14

‘Women is made to please and be subjected to man’ (Emile, 1762)

• Supports the public/ private split ‘the sex who ought to obey’ confining women solely to ‘the labours of her sex’ (discourse and foundations of inequality, 1755)

Question 15

Contradictory (again) - similar to Locke and Hobbes

Answer 15

• 2 most prevalent values for Rousseau are EQUALITY and FREEDOM (considered essential for men, not women)
• Participatory citizenship was seen as a male’s activity’
  Women were confined to their ‘natural reproductive role’ as Rousseau grounded sexual difference as a base for the patriarchal family.

Question 16

Julie and Emile (Okin, 1992)

Answer 16

Numerous attempts to recreate the patriarchal nuclear family in Emile and Julie (La Nouvelle) = best possible life for man

Both result in tragic conclusions…
- They cannot be allowed to live in a patriarchal world as they cannot fulfil the contradictory stances places on them.

• Rousseau allows men to be ‘either an individual or a citizen’ yet ‘does not allow a woman to be either.’

Question 17

Rawls (1999) - A theory of Justice

Answer 17

• Those in the original position should be assumed to be heads of households and fails to discuss justice within the family.

Question 18

WHY ARE THEY ALL PATRIARCHAL? (HOBBES, LOCKE AND ROUSSEAU)

Answer 18

• Patriarchy was one of the foundations upon which Western political thought was based, and remains embedded in political theory today.
• Male-dominated paradigm, where patriarchy was considered the ‘natural’ way of life.

DIANA COOLE 1998 - Western Political thought = dualistic

Question 19

OKIN (1992)

Answer 19

Justifications for sexual hierarchy derive from

functionalist conceptions of women and the family (described as ‘natural’)

Question 20

Contrast between sex in the S of N and civil society

Answer 20

S of N

• All women and men were free, self sufficient and independent.
• Families sexual inequality and property were nonexistent

‘golden age’ of patriarchy, women are sexual aggressors who suddenly must be controlled

Patriarchal family then becomes the most ‘natural’.

Define women in purely functional terms

Question 21

Rousseau’s contradictory arguments about the nature of the sexes

Answer 21

Environmentalism with respect to men
(“natural” potential as independent, self sufficient individuals)

Reductionist biologism with respect to women
(“natural” role of their sex as mothers, and wifery as mirrors of male opinion)