Perhaps one of the most influential figures during the French Revolution was a man by the name of Maximilien Robespierre. Instrumental especially at the onset of the Revolution, a period referred to as the Reign of Terror, Robespierre drew on the insights of many Enlightenment philosophers and was a strong advocate for the left wing bourgeoisie. However, despite his efficacious leadership and sentiment, much of what he encouraged to the masses is based off the writings and teachings of one Enlightenment thinker in particular: Jean Jacques Rousseau. Rousseau would be the first “modern critic of the bourgeois society.”[1]More specifically, in his text, The Social Contract[2], in which he outlines what he believes to be the necessary …show more content…
However, this is but a small piece to the puzzle in the grand scheme of Roussillon philosophy as well as the works of Robespierre. The overall theme of Rousseau’s work tended circle around the idea of the state of nature and the general will. We see this idea of the state of nature in his other notable works such as Emile and Discourse on Inequality. In broader terms, it is the way in which man behaved before the creation of the State. “The general will is not a natural phenomenon. A morale order of that State is opposed to the natural order of the species of the universe. The civil order, Rousseau tells us at the beginning of Emile, must put an end to the primacy of natural feelings” (Crocker 91)[7]. As Crocker goes on, he states the Rousseau derided the “idealism” of his contemporaries in that, while he did believe that man could and would choose the general good, it is not without coercion. For example, in his Discourse on Inequality, Rousseau praised the lifestyle of the people of the Caribbean. “[T]he Caribbeans, who have as yet least of all deviated from the state of nature, being in the fact the most peaceable of people in their amours, and the least subject to jealousy, though they live in a hot climate which seems to always inflame the passions” (Rousseau Discourse 37)[8]. Thus, Rousseau believed that morality was not merely a “societal construct” but rather a creation of man’s that grew from his disinclination to avoid witnessing suffering, which
The ideas of Enlightenment philosophers rippled throughout the globe, however, they seemed to have the most interesting effect on France. Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a major contributor to Frances political and social structure post-French revolution. These ideas weren’t the only triggers for the French Revolution. A combination of strangling taxes, economic disparity, and an impotent ruler led to the development of an intense need for reform in France. “France spent an enormous amount of money during the American war which put them on the verge of bankruptcy” (McKay et al., pg. 662). To make up for this immense national debt, taxes were raised which put more pressure on the already struggling working class in France. The privileged classes
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
Robespierre was honestly working for the good of the people. He once stopped 75 Girondins from being tried for signing a secret protest against their leaders’ arrests, knowing they would be executed (Hampson 139). Much of the public understood and loved Robespierre. When he was finally arrested, the prison guard refused to hold him (Gaxotte 223). Instead of fleeing, he returned to Paris where a crowd of his followers congregated. He absolutely forbid them to fight for him, as they were planning (Geib). His altruistic efforts suggest some outside force caused the change in his allowing of the more brutal manner of reformation, later, when the many thousands of people were executed. Jean-Jacques Rousseau may have influenced Robespierre with his strong nationalist views, being an important, and influential role-model for Robespierre. It is said that Robespierre slept with a copy of Rousseau’s Social Contract next to him (Halsall). Rousseau thought that it was the greatest of all sins to continue in life when one believes there is a better way (Searle). Robespierre knew there was another way; a republic, free of the uncaring rule of powerful monarchs. This idea may have encouraged Robespierre to press for reformation at all costs.
Born in Geneva in 1712, Rousseau was shaped by the death of his mother and loss of his father at an early age. Sent to live with the Baroness de Warens, he gained a formal education that enabled him to write his later famous works. He loathed the Baroness’ values even when they eventually became lovers, but growing up in her educational environment allowed Rousseau to be exposed to different opinions that would eventually shape his Enlightened ideas, (Historyguide.org, www.historyguide.org/europe/rousseau.html.). This also exposed Rousseau to different religious ideas eventually forming his views that the church was corrupt, (Nardo, Don. “The Onrush of Modern Ideas.” The French Revolution, Cengage Learning, 2008, pp. 21–21.) Then in 1741, Rousseau fled to Paris where he wrote, “Les Muses Galantes.” This work allowed for Rousseau to meet Voltaire and exchange Enlightenment ideas. Being exposed to the “popular crowd” abled Rousseau in 1750 to write, “A Discourse on the Sciences and the Arts” based off of a prison he visited holding Denis Diderot. Diderot was one of the people Rousseau was able to meet due to Les Muses galantes, it was there Rousseau got the inspiration to form an opinion on the following essay question, “Have arts and sciences improved or corrupted the morals of mankind?”( Historyguide.org, www.historyguide.org/europe/rousseau.html.). Rousseau believed the arts and sciences had not corrupted man just simply decreased their freedoms. Being around Diderot in prison abled Rousseau to write, “Discourse on the Origin of Inequality” which stressed his ideals of man’s natural goodness and the corruption of regularized life, which connects back to Rousseau’s visit to Diderot in an institutionalized prison. These events and works all lead up to Rousseau’s most famous and popular work, “The Social Contract.”
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.
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
Rousseau’s assumptions and beliefs of his era are society and the growth of social interdependence. He was from 1700, (1712-78) it was very different compared to our beliefs.
Rousseau thought that man was born weak and ignorant, but virtuous. It is only when man became sociable that they became wicked. (Cress, 80) Since civil society makes men corrupt, Rousseau advocated “general will”, more precisely the combined wills of each person, to decide public affairs. General will would become the sovereign and thus it would be impossible for its interests to conflict with the priorities of the citizens, since this would be doing harm to itself. Virtue came from the freedom of men to make decisions for the good of the
Rousseau is theorizing from the concept of the general will, which promotes individuals to become conscious citizens who actively participate as a community to form policies for a governing structure. The general will advocates for a commitment to generality, a common interest that will unite all citizens for the benefit of all. Rousseau states, “each one of us puts into the community his person and all his powers under the supreme direction of the general will; and as a body, we incorporate every member as an indivisible part of the whole” (Rousseau 61). The general will is an expression of the law that is superior to an individual’s
“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)
The political philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Karl Marx examined the role that the state played and its relationship to its citizen’s participation and access to the political economy during different struggles and tumultuous times. Rousseau was a believer of the concept of social contract with limits established by the good will and community participation of citizens while government receives its powers given to it. Karl Marx believed that power was to be taken by the people through the elimination of the upper class bourgeois’ personal property and capital. While both philosophers created a different approach to establishing the governing principles of their beliefs they do share a similar concept of eliminating ownership of
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
While the writings of Karl Marx and Jean-Jacque Rousseau occasionally seem at odds with one another both philosophers needs to be read as an extension of each other to completely understand what human freedom is. The fundamental difference between the two philosophers lies within the way which they determine why humans are not free creatures in modern society but once were. Rousseau draws on the genealogical as well as the societal aspects of human nature that, in its development, has stripped humankind of its intrinsic freedom. Conversely, Marx posits that humankind is doomed to subjugation in modern society due to economic factors (i.e. capitalism) that, in turn, affect human beings in a multitude of other ways that, ultimately,
In contrast, Rousseau had a generally positive view on human nature though a rather negative view on modern society. He proposed that humans had once been solitary beings and had learned to be political. He believed that human nature was not fixed and was subject to changed. Likewise, he believed that man was good when in a state of nature, but was corrupted by society as shown in his quotation, "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.” Also differentiating himself from other humanists, Rousseau taught that the sciences and the arts were not beneficial to man. Rousseau believed the general will must always be right and to obey the general will is to be free.
Rousseau believes that modern society must be judged by the virtue of its citizens. As he is trying to reverse the progressivism of the Enlightenment, Rousseau suggests that our social frenzy diverts and corrupts us. According to him, modern people cannot be trusted or loved, and are not capable of knowing, as they seek to be virtuous without actually becoming virtuous. On the other hand, Rousseau’s natural man can be defined as the primal identity of subject and object. Natural man is solitary, is distinguished from animals by his free will, has no concepts of morality, and gradually transitions from the state of nature to state of society. In order to emerge from the state of nature, one could benefit from two forms of self-love: amour de soi or amour-propre. Amour de soi is a natural form of self-love in that it does not depend on the love of others. Rousseau claims that by nature, people have a natural feeling of love toward ourselves and one another. We naturally look after our own preservation and interests. By contrast, amour-propre is an unnatural self-love that is essentially relational. Without amour-propre, human beings would not be able to move beyond the pure state of nature