Rousseau's Discourse

In Rousseau’s book “A Discourse On Inequality”, he looks into the question of where the general inequality amongst men came from. Inequality exists economically, structurally, amongst different generations, genders, races, and in almost all other areas of society. However, Rousseau considers that there are really two categories of inequality. The first is called Natural/Physical, it occurs as an affect of nature. It includes inequalities of age,, health, bodily strength, and the qualities of the mind and soul. The second may be called Moral/Political inequality, this basically occurs through the consent of men. This consists of the privileges one group may have over another, such as the rich over the

Rousseau believed that to uplift ourselves out of the state of nature, man must partake in the course of being the sovereign that provided the protection. The contrast between Rousseau’s concepts and those of the liberals of his time, originated with different understandings and interpretations of the state of nature. Classical liberal thinkers like Thomas Hobbes defined the state of nature as an unsafe place, where the threat of harm to one’s property was always an existent. He

The protesters need to know what they are fighting for first and not blindly go in to support something that could be wrong and could even offend others in the protest group. In the beginning of the film Ramon (Juan Chacon) and the other Hispanic miners were asking to be treated equally with their non-Hispanic counterparts because they thought it was unfair on how it was unsafe to in the mine by themselves instead have an another worker with them and that soon lead to an injury of a fellow miner. All the workers knew what they were getting into when they all decided to go on strike against the mining company they worked for. The miners did not know it was not only them that also wanted something to change in their

Despite harsh working conditions, farmworkers have worked constantly for years due to the need of necessities for their families along with themselves. After thorough investigation, I have come to a conclusion that even after so many years of protesting as well as working diligently, farmworkers still have experienced unacceptable working conditions, however they were not as bad as the past. There was a definite need for a drastic change due to the working conditions of the farmworkers. Conditions may have improved due to the social justices that Cesar Chavez including The 5 Year Strike has gained. As I was comparing both working conditions of today’s farmworkers with farmworkers of other times in history, I have come to find many differences

One of the most important writers of the Enlightenment was the philosopher and novelist Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778). The work of Rousseau has influenced a generation and beyond and it is argued that the main ideals of the French and American revolutions arose from his works, for example The Discourse on Equality. The main concept of Rousseau's thought is that of 'liberty', and his belief that modern society forced humans to give up their independence, making everyday life corrupt and unfree. One of the central problems Rousseau confronted is best summed up in the first line of arguably his most important work, The Social Contract.

In the book The Basic Political Writings written by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Rousseau in the beginning of the book states a very important question that he hopes to answer in parts throughout the book, the question being: What is the origin of inequality among men, and is it authorized by the natural law? Rousseau takes a different approach than all the other philosophers on trying to figure out the origin of man and their so-called inequality. Rousseau’s point of view on the state of nature differs from other philosophers such as Locke and Hobbes. How do you find the origin of man? Where can the origin of civil society be traced back too? How are men perceived in the state of nature? Does inequality exist in the state of nature? In what

Most importantly for Rousseau, however, is not necessarily how history lets him see how men might have been or how history lets him strike a balance between grasping the intricacy of human history and succeeding fluidly from one thought to another; it is how framing his work in such a way lets him give the greatest demonstrative proof of the point he makes. The first part of the work consists in a history of mankind until the institution of the social contract, and it reads easily and freely, just as man in Rousseau’s conception was in those days. The second part of the Second Discourse, which deals with the critique of the social contract itself, however, reads much more heavily, as if Rousseau were attempting to give the reader a taste of the gravity the social contract itself imposes upon man. The opening lines of the second half already launch his scathing attack on civil society by associating this notion with a man who takes advantage of his fellow men:

John Locke and Jean Jacques Rousseau, two philosophers with differing opinions concerning the concept of private property. Rousseau believes that from the state of nature, private property came about, naturally transcending the human situation into a civil society and at the same time acting as the starting point of inequality amongst individuals. Locke on the other hand argues that private property acts as one of the fundamental, inalienable moral rights that all humans are entitled to. Their arguments clearly differ on this basic issue. This essay will discuss how the further differences between Locke and Rousseau lead from this basic fundamental difference focusing on the acquisition of property and human rights.

In May 1755, Jean Jacques Rousseau’s Discourse on the Origin of Inequality was published. The Discourse challenged contemporary philosophers in regards to the nature of man, and the fundamental principles of inequality. He highlighted that the inequality in current society developed due to the increase amour-propre has had on individuals. Examining amour-propre shows that it is fundamentally much more complex than simply being misconstrued as vanity; it could be described as a range of things such as pride, aggrandizement and prestige within society. It has

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).

John Locke and Jean Jacques Rousseau, following their predecessor Thomas Hobbes, both attempt to explain the development and dissolution of society and government. They begin, as Hobbes did, by defining the “state of nature”—a time before man found rational thought. In the Second Treatise[1] and the Discourse on Inequality[2], Locke and Rousseau, respectively, put forward very interesting and different accounts of the state of nature and the evolution of man, but the most astonishing difference between the two is their conceptions of property. Both correctly recognize the origin of property to be grounded in man’s natural desire to improve his life, but they differ

“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

With reference to emerging from the state of nature and entering into society, Rousseau highlights that free-will brings with it reason. As reason develops, man becomes more industrious and begins to adapt to

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.