How Is Mary Rousseau's Second Discourse On The Origin Of Inequality

Both Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Mary Wollstonecraft agree that in society women and men are not equals. Rousseau’s idea that socialization brings inequality in his Discourse On the Origin of Inequality is manipulated by Wollstonecraft in her A Vindication of the Rights of Women. She uses his arguments to prove that the inequality between men and women is not natural, but it comes from Rousseau’s idea of socialized inequality. The inequality experienced by women is a product of society, which Wollstonecraft tries to prove by uses Rousseau’s arguments about language and dependency.

When Jean Jacques Rousseau wrote his Social Contract, the idea of liberty and freedom were not new theories. Many political thinkers such as John Locke and Thomas Hobbes had already evolved with their own clarification of liberty and freedom of mankind, and in fact John Locke had already publicized his views and ideas on the social contract as well. In Rousseau’s case, what he did was to transform the ideas incorporated by such substantial words, and present us to another method to the social contract dilemma. What would bring man to leave the state of nature, and enter into a structured civil society? Liberals believes that this was the assurance of protection - liberty to them implied being free from destruction and harm towards one’s property. Rousseau’s concept of freedom was entirely different from that of traditional liberals. According to Rousseau, liberty is meant to voice out your opinion, and participation as human being. “To renounce liberty is to renounce being a man” (Wootton, 454).

Wollstonecraft transcended the notion that she is simply expressing grievances over the unjust treatment of women establishing herself as an articulate, intellectual thinker with innovative ideas and solutions for progressing society. Through voicing her opinions, Wollstonecraft created a small revolution for women’s rights that would encourage others to begin seeking equal treatment from the men of society.

In the philosophical fiction, “A Discourse on Inequality,” John Rousseau, in the state of nature, distinguishes man from animals with the concepts of man possessing freewill and man’s sense of unrealized perfectibility. Furthermore, he emphasizes throughout the first discourse that man, in the state of nature, does not obtain knowledge that surpasses that of animals. Man’s free will is a prerequisite for a further gain in knowledge to be acquired; also, the sense of perfectibility man is naturally derived with allows man to change with time. I argue that free will is a necessary and crucial factor for man to leave the state of nature. Because of free will, man retains the capability to acquire and develop knowledge. Moreover, knowledge

When writing “A Vindication of the Rights of Men”, Wollstonecraft was a woman in a “man’s world”. Her voice was a lone female amongst the opinions and politics of men and she “went up against two of the

99). Rousseau viewed property as a right “which is different from the right deducible from the law of nature” (Rousseau, p. 94). Consequently, “the establishment of one community made that of all the rest necessary…societies soon multiplied and spread over the face of the earth” (Rousseau, p. 99). Many political societies were developed in order for the rich to preserve their property and resources. Rousseau argues that these societies “owe their origin to the differing degrees of inequality which existed between individuals at the time of their institution,” (Rousseau, p. 108). Overall, the progress of inequality could be constructed into three phases. First, “the establishment of laws and of the right of property” (Rousseau, p. 109) developed stratification between the rich and poor. Then, “the institution of magistracy” and subsequently “the conversion of legitimate into arbitrary power” (Rousseau, p. 109) created a dichotomy between the week and powerful, which ultimately begot the power struggle between slave and master. According to Rousseau, “there are two kinds of inequality among the human species…natural or physical, because it is established by nature…and another, which may be called moral or political inequality, because it… is established…by the consent of men,” (Rousseau, p. 49).

“This fame study of original man, of his real wants, and of the fundamental principle of his duties, is likewise the only good method we can take, to surmount an infinite number of difficulties concerning the Origins of Inequality, the true foundations of political bodies, the reciprocal rights of their members, and a thousand other familiar questions that are as important as they are ill understood.” (Rousseau, Preface lviii)

Rousseau’s state of nature differs greatly from Locke’s. The human in Rousseau’s state of nature exists purely as an instinctual and solitary creature, not as a Lockean rational individual. Accordingly, Rousseau’s human has very few needs, and besides sex, is able to satisfy them all independently. This human does not contemplate appropriating property, and certainly does not deliberate rationally as to the best method for securing it. For Rousseau, this simplicity characterizes the human as perfectly free, and because it does not socialize with others, it does not have any notion of inequality; thus, all humans are perfectly equal in the state of nature. Nonetheless, Rousseau accounts for humanity’s contemporary condition in civil society speculating that a series of coincidences and discoveries, such as the development of the family and the advent of agriculture, gradually propelled the human away from a solitary, instinctual life towards a social and rationally contemplative

In such societies men are considered to be more capable than women in important roles, leaving women with household tasks. Sometimes even in parental investment for children are gender biased where parents forces their daughter to drop early from school or not at all enroll into school when they have limited/lower income (Shahidul and Karim, 2015). This inferiority and superiority complex in society trends to stop women from enrolling into school as well as trends to make women victims of domestic violence, human trafficking and gender related issues. Wollstonecraft argued that education in life of women can make her independent as well as make her knowledgeable to trackle their surrounding’s issues and domestic issues. This is not the thinking of the society as they think that education in the life of women can make the raise above their husband and go against their tradition and

The Origin of Inequality is much different from the first discourse for many and particular reasons. What I noticed about this discourse is that Rousseau made it into four different parts, a first part, a second part, a section specifically dedicated to the republic of Geneva, and a prophase. The extent of Rousseau's venture is not essentially unique in relation to that of Hobbes in the Leviathan or Locke in the Second Treatise on Government. Like them, Rousseau comprehends society to be an innovation, and he endeavors to clarify the way of people by stripping them of the greater part of the inadvertent qualities achieved by socialization. In this way, understanding human instinct adds up to understanding what people resemble in an immaculate condition of nature. This unmistakable difference a glaring difference to the established view, most remarkably that of Aristotle, which guarantees that the condition of common society is the regular human state. Like Hobbes and Locke it is dubious that Rousseau implied his pursuers to comprehend the unadulterated condition of nature that he depicts in the Second Discourse as a strict verifiable record. In its opening, he says that it must be denied that men were ever in the immaculate condition of nature, referring to disclosure as a source which reveals to us that God straightforwardly enriched the principal man with comprehension (a limit

Rousseau’s Discourse on Inequality is a work that explains origin of inequality through the concept of property (161), and how it has expanded since that catalyst of disparity. Ergo, when speaking about a measure of virtue during “the spirit of the time” what is really happening is an analysis of how we respond during the times of inequality. Rousseau makes it clear that one can be deemed viritous during the spirt of this particular time, two ways: through pity, or terror. In the work, the virtue of pity is described as a natural sentiment that has led to the sustainment of man unlike any socratic virtue that man has created(154). Nevertheless, pity is attributed to being the catalyst for other virtuous emotions such as generosity and humanity(153) which separates humans from beasts seeing that even they show traces of pity(160). Through pity one is able to help his fellow man which is necessary for the natural goal of preservation of your own species. However,there becomes a “spirit of time” when the unnatural concept of inequality(199) increases to a level where it is unsustainable for the preservation of species, and the need for virtue through terror becomes prevalent. This terror stems from revolution and elites who are stripped of their status. Rousseau states that revolution is necessary “until the government is either entirely dissolved by new revolutions, or brought back again to legitimacy”. In doing so, the end goals for society, liberty and equality, can be obtained, and the ones who worked to achieve it will be deemed

Wollstonecraft is not advocating for physical equality because in terms of nature, men are built in a more superior manner. However, one’s mind was not built to be superior or inferior depending on one’s sex. Wollstonecraft states that men have caused women’s minds to be, “rendered weak and wretched” due to the stereotypes that became embedded in minds and cultures for hundreds of years.

The late 18th century can be known as the historical period of the Enlightenment. During this time, society was undergoing drastic changes that would impact people even today. These changes were known as “reforms,” and played a big role in politics and ruling during this time period. One of the bigger reforms of this time was that which would grant women a higher education and place them in a position closer to their male counterparts. The enlightenment authors, Jean Jacques Rousseau and Mary Wollstonecraft, took part in a debate in which they argued about the purpose and education of women. In an article recently written in The New York Times by Nicholas

While one might not go as far as to see them as diametrically opposite, they are at the very least distinctively different. Rousseau, Mill, and Constant exhibit a very different view of the modernizing society. This paper seeks to flash out the distinct visions of liberty that Rousseau, Mill, and Constant articulated by unpacking and discerning the central premises of each argument, pitting them against each other through comparing and contrasting.

Over the course of history this idea of freedom has been developed and defined by many famous political and philosophical thinkers. Many of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s ideas are acknowledged in the “Discourse on the Origin of Inequality” and more notably the “The Social Contract”. John Stuart Mill’s major points originate from a book called “On Liberty”. All of these works are still read today and taught in schools around the world. In particular, their ideas on freedom and liberty have drawn a considerable amount of attention. For instance, Rousseau is well known for his idea of “forcing citizens to be free”, while Mill claims that freedom can be found in “pursing our own good in our own way”. Therefore, it is evident that fundamental differences occur between Rousseau’s and Mill’s ideas on liberty and freedom. Rousseau’s rejects this classical liberal idea of freedom of the individual, and instead argues that the highest quality of freedom is achieved through a social contract where collective decisions represent the law and people have a duty to the state, while Mill sees freedom as not being constrained by the government (freedom from laws) and pursuing one’s own good as long as it does no harm to others.