Rousseau The First Discourse

[Nguyet Edmondson]

ForRousseau, equality is premised on shared conditions. In the state of nature we all suffer the same ills and enjoy the same fruits so to speak. By suffering under the same environmental and other natural conditions of the state of nature, man is equal. We must all labor, we must all fear, we must all persevere.

Thus, the first major shift in modern political thought offered by Rousseau in comparison to those who came before him was separating political life from nature. Whatever physical and natural differences that exist in the state of nature does not mean that political life will be marred by these differences and inequalities. Whereas Aristotle sees an unequal and hierarchal nature leading to an unequal and hierarchal polis, Rousseau is arguing that the unequal and differential state of nature is not really what to focus on, we should focus on the shared conditions of life in the state of nature where we are all free and equal in condition and how this ought to translate into political life. So Rousseau does agree that nature and the political is the same or does he?

At the same time, however, Rousseau acknowledges that man is motivated by self-preservation. He eats and consumes, he sleeps and labors, he moves and forages, in order to survive. But so do all others. When humans encounter one another there is no violent confrontation as in Hobbes, but a mutual recognition of the moi commun, the common self. In the shared condition we all labor under I see myself in you. Thus I am moved to pity and compassion and do not assail you or anyone else I meet. Man is not necessarily social, as Rousseau makes clear at the end of the first discourse, but man is amiable with others. He does not necessarily seek out bonds and dependence with others because this is the process of wicked transformation into servitude, but man is kind to others when he encounters other men in the state of nature.

In the Social Contract Rousseau simply stated something occurred in the state of nature which forced men to leave it and embrace a social contract. He does not go into detail in that text as to what it was that forced men out of the state of nature and into a social compact society. In the Discourses he does tell us what forced men out of the state of nature: over population. As the population of men grew, and as man, being endowed with a rational soul, exerted his faculty of self-improvement, some men decided to take advantage of what they witnessed. Motivated by self-preservation, and seeing advances in human population and technology, these men come together in conspiracy to make others serve them for their self-preservation. Thus begins the establishment of norms, customs, and structures that enforce unequal conditions.

Furthermore, Rousseau praises weakness as a virtue. He excoriates strength or prowess as a vice. A society that is twisted to reward power rather than moved to compassionate in seeing the suffering of the meek is a twisted society to be sure. The celebration of the law of strength is at the root of all the social and political inequalities that man suffers from at present.

To this end Rousseau concludes his first discourse by stating why man, in the state of nature, free and equal, is found in society, in chains and suffering the suffocating pains of inequality. Society is to blame. Civilization is to blame.

Man learns from society that he must cheat, steal, and use physical violence to get what he wants. The result is a society of selfish individuals who wield law and structure to benefit them at the exclusion and exploitation of others:

Without expanding uselessly on these details, anyone must see that since the bonds of servitude are formed only through the mutual dependence of men and the reciprocal needs that unite them, it is impossible to enslave a man without first putting him in a situation where he cannot do without another man, and since such a situation does not exist in the state of nature, each man therefore is free of the yoke, and the law of the strongest is rendered in vain.

Here lies the establishment of the conventions and structures of unfreedom and inequality (servitude and dependence on others). The problem is not nature, the problem is society. Nature is compassionate and nurturing. Society is competitive and ruled by forced. The problem is not the individual, it is the societal structures and institutions that corrupt individuals from their natural independence from each other, goodness, and pity.

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Professor Steven Smith: Good morning. My name is Borat.Anyone see the movie yet? Yeah, I saw it over the weekend. Had to cheermyself up a little bit after Saturday afternoon but there's stillanother week to go. Still time.

Good morning. I want to talk today about my favorite part of theSecond Discourse, a book that never grows old, that never failsto produce. Last time, in talking about Rousseau's account of theorigins of inequality, I focused on a famous passage in which Rousseauclaims it was the establishment of private property that was the trueformation of civil society and the beginnings of inequality and all ofthe subsequent miseries of the human race that he wants to describe.But in fact, that's not really true. Rousseau himself knows it's notquite true. If Rousseau were only interested in issues of class andeconomic inequality, there would be very little difference between himand materialist theorists of society like Karl Marx although Marx wasin fact a very appreciative reader of Rousseau and got most of his bestlines against capitalist society from him. Nevertheless, Rousseauunderstands that even for institutions like property and civil societyto be possible there must be huge and important developments that go onor take place even prior to this, moral and psychologicaltransformations of human beings. And it is for Rousseau far more whatwe might call "the moral and psychological injuries of inequality" thanthe material aspects of the phenomenon that is of concern to him.Rousseau very much takes the side of the poor and the dispossessed butit isn't property, or it isn't poverty rather, that really rousesRousseau's anger as it is the attitudes and beliefs shaped byinequalities and of wealth and power. It is Rousseau the moralpsychologist where his voice truly comes out. In many ways, Rousseaulike Plato finds his voice when discussing the various complexities ofthe human soul.

So what is the chief villain in Rousseau's Second Discourseand his account of the beginnings in development of inequality? Realinequality begins in a faculty or a disposition that is in fact in mosteditions of the book rendered simply by the French term because it isreally untranslatable into English. It is amour-propre, thefirst term I put on the board, which is the first and most durablecause of inequality for Rousseau. Amour-propre, again, is anuntranslatable word but in many ways is related to a range ofpsychological characteristics such as pride, vanity, conceit. In thetranslation that you have, I believe, the translator refers to it asegocentrism, a kind of ugly modern psychologistic term I think butbetter and more accurately, evocatively translated by terms like vanityand conceit or pride. Amour-propre for Rousseau only arises insociety and is the true cause, he believes, for our discontents. And ina lengthy footnote that I hope you checked--in a lengthy footnote, hedistinguishes amour-propre from another disposition that hecalls amour de soi-meme, a sort of self-love. How are thesedistinguished? He says in that note: "We must not confuseamour-propre with love of oneself. These are two passions verydifferent by virtue of their nature and their effects." Love ofoneself, amour de soi-meme, "Love of oneself is a naturalsentiment," he writes, "which moves every animal to be vigilant in itsown preservation and which directed in many by reason and modified bypity produces humanity and virtue." So there is a kind of self-love, hesays, that is at the root of our desire to preserve ourself, to bestrong in our self-preservation, and to resist the invasion orencroachment by others.

But then, he goes on to say amour-propre is an entirelydifferent kind of passion or sentiment. "Amour-propre is merelya sentiment that is relative," he says, "artificial and born in societywhich moves each individual to value himself more than anyone else,which inspired in men all the evils they cause one another and which isthe true source of honor." Listen to that last expression."Amour-propre," he says, "is what moves every individual tovalue" him--or herself--"more than any other, which inspires all of theevils in society and," he says, "is the true source of honor, both eviland honor, the desire to be recognized and esteemed by others." How canthis passion of amour-propre be responsible for these two verydifferent sort of competing effects? How did this sentiment arise firstof all? How did it come about and I suppose fundamentally and moreimportantly, what can or should be done about it?

For Hobbes, recall, and this idea of pride, vanity, what Hobbescalled vainglory, you remember, a very important part of Hobbes'political and moral psychology in Leviathan, pride is seen assomething natural to us, Hobbes writes, you remember, it is part of ournatural--pride is part of our natural desire to dominate over others,but for Rousseau by contrast amour-propre is something thatcould only come about after the state of nature, a state that Hobbes,you remember, had called solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short,after the state of nature had already begun to give way to society.Hobbes' account for Rousseau is incoherent. If the natural state istruly solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short, what would it mean insuch a state to feel pride or vanity that requires human sociabilityand requires the esteem of others and somehow the gaze or the look ofothers? How could pride have arisen in a state of nature which onHobbes' own account is solitary? Rousseau uses Hobbes in a way to provehis own point, that amour-propre, vanity, is not a naturalsentiment but, as he says in that passage I just read, a sentiment thatis relative and artificial, could only have come into being once weenter society in some ways.

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