Jean-Jacques Rousseau, born on the 28th June 1712, was a major Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer of the 18th-century Romanticism. He had a powerful influence on literature and taste and manners and politics. His political philosophy heavily influenced the French Revolution. His importance came mainly from his appeal to the heart and sensibility. His theory was all about feeling and nature – not reason. He is known as the father of the Romantic Movement, the initiator of systems of thought which infer non-human facts from human emotions, and the inventor of political philosophy. Rousseau was educated as an orthodox Calvinist and at the age of twelve, he left school and was apprenticed to various trades, but hated them all. At the age of sixteen he fled from Geneva to Savoy
Having no means of subsistence, he went to a Catholic priest and represented himself as wishing to be converted. The formal conversion took place at Turin
Ever since his time, those who considered themselves reformers were divided into two groups, those who followed him and those who followed Locke. Sometimes they co-operated and many individuals saw no incompatibility.
Rousseau’s first literary success came late in life (1750). He won a prize for the best essay on the question: ‘Have the arts and sciences conferred benefits on mankind’? According to Rousseau, “Within an instant of reading this, I saw another universe and became another man.” Rousseau found the idea to which he would passionately dedicate the rest of his intellectual life: the destructive influence of civilization on human beings. Rousseau argues that the arts and science have not been beneficial to humankind because they arose not from authentic human needs, but rather as a result of pride and vanity.
In the essay, titled ‘Discourse on the Sciences and Arts’, Rousseau contended that science, letters, and the arts are the worst enemies of morals, and by creating wants, are the sources of slavery. He is for Sparta and against Athens
Having won the prize for his essay, Rousseau adopted the simple life and sold his watch, saying that he no longer needed to know the time.
In 1754, Rousseau wrote his second essay: ‘The Discourse on Inequality’ which elaborates on the ideas in his first essay. He held that ‘man is naturally good, and only by institutions is he made bad.’ Rousseau traces man's social evolution from a primitive state of nature to modern society. Humans differed from animals, however, in their capacity for free will and their potential perfectibility. As they began to live in groups and form clans they also began to experience family love, which Rousseau saw as the source of the greatest happiness known to humanity. The development of agriculture, metallurgy, private property, and the division of labor and resulting dependency on one another, however, led to economic inequality and conflict. As population pressures forced them to associate more and more closely, they underwent a psychological transformation: They began to see themselves through the eyes of others and came to value the good opinion of others as essential to their self esteem. He said:
“The first man who had fenced in a piece of land, said "This is mine," and found people naïve enough to believe him, that man was the true founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars, and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows: Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody.”
Rousseau criticised Hobbes for asserting that since man in the "state of nature . . . has no idea of goodness he must be naturally wicked; that he is vicious because he does not know virtue." On the contrary, Rousseau holds that "uncorrupted morals" prevail in the "state of nature" and he especially praised the admirable moderation of the Caribbean’s in expressing the sexual urge despite the fact that they live in a hot climate, which "always seems to inflame the passions". Rousseau wrote that morality was not a societal construct, but rather "natural" in the sense of "innate", an outgrowth from man's instinctive disinclination to witness suffering, from which arise the emotions of compassion or empathy. These were sentiments shared with animals, and whose existence even Hobbes acknowledged.
Rousseau speaks of a state of nature as a ‘state which exists no longer, perhaps never existed, probably never will exist, and of which none the less it is necessary to have just ideas, in order to judge well our present state.’
Natural law should be deduced from the state of nature, but as long we are ignorant of natural man it is impossible to determine the law originally prescribed or best suited to him. The wills of those subject to it must be conscious of their submission and it must come directly from the voice of nature. He does not object to natural inequality, in respect of age, health, intelligence etc., but only to inequality resulting from privileges authorized by convention.
Rousseau posits that the original, deeply flawed Social Contract (i.e., that of Hobbes), which led to the modern state, was made at the suggestion of the rich and powerful, who tricked the general population into surrendering their liberties to them and instituted inequality as a fundamental feature of human society.
Rousseau sent this essay to Voltaire who replied: “I have received your new book against the human race, and thank you for it. Never was such a cleverness used in the design of making us all stupid. One longs, in reading your book, to walk on all fours.”
In 1754, having become famous, Rousseau was remembered by his native city and invited to visit. He accepted but as only Calvinists could be citizens of Geneva Geneva
“Man was born free, and he is everywhere in chains. One man thinks himself the master of others, but remains more of a slave than they.”
According to Rousseau in the degenerate phase of society, man is prone to be in frequent competition with his fellow men while also becoming increasingly dependent on them and this double pressure threatens both his survival and his freedom.
Rousseau believes that by joining together into civil society through the social contract and abandoning their claims of natural right, individuals can both preserve themselves and remain free. This is because submission to the authority of the general will of the people as a whole guarantees individuals against being subordinated to the wills of others and also ensures that they obey themselves because they are, collectively, the authors of the law. Rousseau’s general will, or rule of law, refers to the interest of people as a whole and believes it exists to protect individuals against the mass. The idea of the general will is to have order in society where all the people are in agreement with each other.
Rousseau’s belief in beauty and innocence of nature was extended to human beings as civilization had corrupted man. He argued that people without civilization were pure, beautiful and free. Rousseau believes the island
More created an island which contrasts the contentious social life of European states with the perfectly orderly, reasonable social arrangements of Utopia. They have communal ownership of land so private property doesn’t exist. Men and women are educated alike and there is almost complete religious toleration.
Mary Wollstonecraft, an eighteenth-century British writer, philosopher and advocate of Women’s Rights, and author of ‘A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.’ In this she responds to those educational and political theorists of the 18th century who did not believe women should have an education. She argues that women ought to have an education to better their position in society. She believes women are essential to the nation because they educate its children and because they could be ‘companions’ to their husbands, rather than mere wives. Instead of viewing women as ornaments to society or property to be traded in marriage, Wollstonecraft maintains that they are human beings deserving of the same fundamental rights as men. She criticized Rousseau for his confinement of women to the domestic sphere – unless women were domesticated and constrained by modesty and shame, he feared "men would be tyrannized by women. For, given the ease with which women arouse men's senses, men would finally be their victims. "
