Essay on Rousseau's View of Humanity

Jean-Jacques Rousseau Wrote ‘Émile’, A a poem about the nature of education and on the nature of man. It became know as a half treatise that depicts the story of a man named Émile and traces the development and the education and was made to be in the genre as a “natural man” who is not corrupted by society. The book also contains a specific step for each stage of life in education which would coincide with human development. During the French Revolution ‘Émile’ served as the inspiration of what became a new national system of education. In the poem ‘Émile’, it is stated “Hold childhood in reverence, and do not be in any hurry to judge it for good or ill”.

Jean Jacques Rousseau was a French philosopher in 1712-1778. He believed that all humans are born innocent and what corrupt them and makes evil is society. He believes that if there was no society it would not make human beings feel so judged, shy or depended on others. Without society people would feel more equal they would not want to compare themselves Humans would feel freer. Rousseau thought that society weakens humans that if someone were to grow up in a natural place and place far from society they would be stronger. Compared o the people that grow up in a society they weaken.

Rousseau sees the first step of exiting the state of nature and getting closer to origin of tyranny is when man decides to leave the lifestyle of being alone and always wandering to settling down and making a house and trying to provide for his basic needs and the ones that are not as necessary as: nourishment, rest, shelter and self-preservation. This is the stage where you see the element playing a part in man’s life and in the way civil society came to be. Man is no longer just worried about himself he has to provide not only for himself but for his entire family which he is searching for. Natural man or savage man lives within himself whereas Rousseau argues that civil man lives in the judgement of others. This is one of the big reasons has to how inequality fomed. All the inequalities Rousseau does take about or basically economic things that happen in nature. This type of economic ineuality is among the many other inequalities but is one of many that inequality originated from. If man had stayed restricted to working by themselves they would have remained free, healthy, good and happy as

In this essay, I will compare the contrasting views between Thomas Hobbes and Jean Jacques Rousseau based on the state of nature and civilization. Rousseau was seen as an optimist who viewed human nature as good (“Noble Savage”) and believed that civilization corrupted us; While, Hobbes thought the complete opposite believing that humans in their natural state were selfish creatures purely interested in themselves and that government is imperative in keeping us in check. Throughout this essay, I will further explain their differing ideas and I will show how I view and interpret them as well.

Rousseau, in his Discourse on the Origin of Inequality of Men, discusses the beginning and development of inequality of individuals. Rousseau seeks to discern whether the unequal treatment of men is dictated by natural laws or if it is a man made creation. When Rousseau analyzes humans in the state of nature, he claims we are all animalistic by nature. Humans in the state of nature are motivated by self-preservation much like animals and also pity. The difference between man and animals according to Rousseau is man’s perfectibility. Because man has very minimal needs in the state of nature, no concept of morality and limited interaction with other individuals, he is generally happy. Because in the state of nature man embodies the quality of perfectibility, he is able to adapt with his environment. As nature drives men to leave certain areas it forces them to learn new skills as they come in to contact with one another more often. As man connects with more and more individuals around him he becomes aware that he has more needs. As men begin to live in societies with more people they start comparing themselves to those around them and self-preservation and pity are no longer their main goals. Now, they have to do more work in order to be happy such as raise to greater heights then their fellow humans. Moral inequality is created as division of labor and property rights are invented. Owning property allows the rich to take advantage of the poor, leading to unstable relations

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (born 1712) was a philosopher whose beliefs were that humans, in a natural, primitive state without the influence of any societies, are good beings. People’s “uncorrupted morals” are not washed away when they are without societies. Rousseau also believed that a society is what corrupts a human. He believed “ownership” of land or property is a lie, because the products of Earth are for all humans to share, saying:

This is demonstrated by when Rousseau writes, "…the life of an animal limited at first to mere sensations…” (Rousseau 84). This is when inequality began to become a pervasive force in society. This so-called “state of nature” that supposedly existed, according to Rousseau, was devoid of any economic or social inequality. However, eventually perfectibility came about, which encouraged people to excel and further themselves. Rousseau goes on to talk about how “It now became the interest of men to appear what they really were not” (Rousseau 95) This led to members of societies beginning to compete with one another to be better than their peers, leading to inequality of all sorts – including the economic and social varieties. Rousseau goes on to argue that with time, society has progressed such that modernity has made inequality worse and more corrupted. He describes how he believes that hierarchy in society and governmental

He was the product of a single-parent household, which allowed him to gain experience all over the career spectrum- teaching, engraving, secretary work- before truly beginning his role as a revolutionary. During the beginning of his legacy-building era, he worked for many magazines and for the French Embassy. To the dismay of inspirational-film producers all over the globe, Rousseau had instant success with his first major philosophical work, winning a prize from the Academy of Dijon for his essay detailing the importance of rational knowledge. His next work, Discours sur l'Origine et les Fondements de l'Inégalité parmi les Hommes (Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among Men) contradicted his first work. This dissertation details the implications of civilization on primitive human beings. Rousseau claims that humans are not social beings by nature, so there must be extra care when pooling them together into countries under governments. The ideas of this dissertation are later continued in Rousseau’s most famous work, the Social

Rousseau accounts for the development of civil society by depicting the development of the savage man into a civil and enlightened man. This development was gradual as “

Jean-Jacques Rousseau is known as one of the most influential Enlightenment and French Revolution philosophers of the eighteenth century. In 1749, Rousseau read a copy of a newspaper, The Mercure de France that contained an advert for an essay contest asking readers if recent advances in the arts and sciences were making the world a better place. Rousseau’s published response, A Discourse on the Sciences and Arts, argued that civilization and progress had not improved people, but instead, corrupted their virtue and morality. It was this discourse that brought Rousseau fame and the foundation to write a second discourse, The Discourse on the Origin of Inequality. In his second dissertation, Rousseau argued that humans are naturally good,

Rousseau clearly promotes totalitarianism in The Social Contract, and hints at it in a few passages from his Second Discourse. He desperately attempts to lay down a form of government that eliminates any chance for the people to be victims. Rousseau specifically shows us the faults in the other types of government and tries to prevent them in his ideas. He wants to create a political situation where people have as much sovereignty as possible.

By setting aside all the facts, Rousseau creates a state of nature that proves man to be naturally free and good. Once Rousseau sets aside the facts he creates a story that shows man should be “discontented with your present state, for reasons that herald even greater discontent for your unhappy Posterity, you might perhaps wish to be able to go backwards” (133). This is true because man is free. Rousseau starts by “stripping this being, so constituted, of all the supernatural gifts he may have received, and of all the artificial faculties he could only have acquired by prolonged progress” (134). Man in his beginning is unsophisticated and irrational nothing more than “an animal “(134). But, in nature man has no authorities. In nature “men, dispersed among them [other animals], observe, imitate their industry, and so raise themselves to the level of the Beasts’ instinct, with this advantage that each species has but its own instinct, while man perhaps having none that belong to him, appropriates them all, feeds indifferently on most of the various foods” (134-135). Men learn from other animals and imitate their moves but are forced to

In light of this change in man’s nature, several of Rousseau’s more shocking claims can be reconciled. The most striking—that man must be “forced to be free” by compelling him to obey if he does not wish to abide by the decision of the general will voluntarily—appears much less paradoxical when viewed in the context of society’s shaping effect on the individual. Rousseau sees human nature as a constantly changing set of predispositions, and law is one of the forces shaping these dispositions. This is most clearly seen in his justification of censorship, in which he contends that “not nature but opinion determines the choice of [people’s] pleasures” and that “when legislation weakens, morals degenerate,” establishing a causative relationship between good laws and good natures (IV.vii.3-4). Thus, for a man to be forced to be free is merely for his nature to be fully

This then lead to some jobs being looked at as more honorable or important than others. From this people began to develop social classes and that eventually leads to oppression and inequality.

On the other hand, Rousseau is of the idea that human beings are good in nature but they are latter to be vitiated by the political societies which are not part of the man’s natural state. Men need to live in collaboration and help each other to face life challenges. However, with the establishment of political and social institutions, men begin to experience inequalities as a result of greed. Rousseau claims that, in man’s natural state, they only strive for the basic needs and once those needs are satisfied they are contented in that state (Hobbes & Malcolm, 2012). Additionally, Rousseau points out that after the inception of social and political institutions, humans began to be self-centered