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Summary Rousseau Political Theory Complete Notes
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Complete notes used for top marks in Cambridge politics second year exams.
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Voorbeeld van de inhoud
Themes:•Legitimacy & Convention v. Subjection & Force
•Right/Justice v. Interest/Utility
•Freedom & Morality v. Instinct & Necessity
•Social Contract: Multitude v. People
•Sovereignty, Representation, Government
•General Will v. Will of All
•Democracy, Aristocracy, Monarchy
Key topics
● Problem of inequality
● Social Contract & how it rectifies inequality; how it is formed & what role it provides
● Amour propre
● Conditions of humanity: Perfectibility
○ Why and with what consequences for his theories did Rousseau argue that
man in a state of nature cannot perfect himself?
● Role of religion
Key focus questions
● Did Rousseau suppose that amour propre could be turned to man’s moral and
political advantage?
● What is the source of inequality? Is it sanctioned by natural law?
● What is inequality in this sense?
○ Two kinds: natural and otherwise (to the ‘prejudice of others’ e.g. being more
rich, powerful)
○ Fundamental from god, but conjectural understanding of what could have
been if not for how humans become
● What is the ‘moral’, and what is the ‘political’
● What is the ideal form of government?
● Why is democracy not ideal? Why aristocracy, when Rousseau rejects representative
government?
Primary Texts
Discourse on Inequality
Rousseau, J., & Gourevitch, V. (2019). The Discourses and other early
political writings (Second ed., Cambridge texts in the history of political
thought). Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY, USA: Cambridge
University Press.
Discourse on the Origin and the Foundations of Inequality Among Men (+ SparkNotes)
,Part I
● Two types of inequality: natural/physical, political/moral
● SoN not a historical truth but “hypothetical and conditional reasoning; better suited to
elucidate the Nature of things than to show their genuine origin” (135)
● Diff b/w savage man [sleeps much, thinks little, concerned with survival] and man is
same as animal in wild vs domesticated: “As he becomes sociable and a Slave, he
becomes weak, timorous, groveling, and his soft and effeminate way of life
completes the enervation of both his strength and his courage” (142)
○ “the Mind depraves the senses; and the will continues to speak when Nature
is silent” - when reason comes in we go beyond that which our senses
dictate, whereas a “Pigeon would starve to death next to a Bowl filled with the
choicest meats” but don’t try food it disdains, but “dissolute men abandon
themselves to excesses which cause them fever and death” (143) - animals
choose by instinct, man by freedom - more adaptable, contributes to
own operation
○ “it is mainly in the consciousness of this freedom that the spirituality of
his soul exhibits itself” (144)
● Perfectibility: adaptable to change and “liable to become an imbecile” vs animals
have nothing to gain and nothing to lose” (144)
○ Reason develops from passion; we seek to know bc we desire or fear
something; passions result from needs. “To will and not to will, to desire and
to fear, will be the first and almost the only operations of his soul until new
circumstances cause new developments in it” (145)
○ Gulf b/w sensations and knowledge - took language to bridge. How did this
develop? - first a “cry of nature”, stemming from instinct but ideas increased
and language expanded (150)
● Nature has done little to bring men together; no reason why man in SoN need each
other but also no reason why violence in SoN
○ We shouldn’t concur with Hobbes that just bc man does not have vice of
virtue that man is wicked in SoN - should have said in SoN self-preservation
doesn’t nec. conflict. man why man can’t use reason means man also can’t
abuse faculties
○ Hobbes didn’t account for pity: softens the desire for self-preservation
“tempers his ardor for well-being by an innate repugnance to see his
kind suffer” (155), R agrees with Mandeville that nature gives pity in support
of reason
● Thus inequality is “scarcely perceptible in the SoN” (163) and remains to show
its origins and progress in successive developments, n.b. Deductive - the system
postulated after this isn’t conjectural but deduced from these principles established
Part II
● Condition of nascent man: first care was self-preservation not exploitation, but
difficulties compounded as man spread - had to overcome obstacles of nature.
○ Beginning of pride as an individual: began to hunt, see self as pre-eminent
among species
, ○ Savage man solitary but began to see similarities with one another.
Judge whether cooperate in a “kind of free association that
obligated no one” (167) → crude language
● Discovered tools: first revolution - establishment of families and a kind of property
○ Rise of common dwellings led to the “first developments of the heart” (168),
women more sedentary - simple and solitary life of families, become more
settled -
● “permanent proximity” b/w settled families (170), contacts expand and vanity
therefore does also
○ Thus “the ferment caused by these new leavens eventually produced
compounds fatal to happiness and innocence” (170)
● Metallurgy and agriculture brought a second revolution: exchange food for iron
○ One man tasks = free and health, but when one needs another’s
help or when man wanted what was enough for two → inequality
and labour
○ Early property conceived in terms of man’s labour
○ “From the cultivation of land, its division necessarily followed” --- property and
first rules of justice (174)
○ “This is how natural inequality imperceptibly unfolds together with unequal
associations, and the differences between men, developed by their different
circumstances, become more perceptible, more permanent in their effects,
and begin to exercise a corresponding influence on the fate of individuals”
(174)
● Thus human faculties now fully developed: amour propre and reason active.
○ From this arose vice, man subjugated by a multitude of new needs
and the need for other men → domination → domination becomes
only pleasure of the rich
○ This was the origin of society, irreversibly destroying natural freedom
(178)
● Political state - paternal authority derived from civil society, ppl forget what freedom is
like (182); tyranny not freely chosen
○ Political distinctions bring about civil distinctions and psychological changes -
cannot subjugate someone who wants to be free
○ The importance of wealth in a society is a measure of its corruption -
universal desire for wealth and prestige leads to catastrophe. From this
disorder arises despotism, all individuals equal bc they are nothing
Social Contract
Of the Social Contract, with the ‘Geneva Manuscript’, ‘The State of War’,
‘Letter to Mirabeau’, and ‘Discourse of Political Economy’, in The Social
Contract and Other Later Political Writings, ed. V. Gourevitch,
(Cambridge, 1997), pp. 3-176, pp. 268-71
DISCOURSE OF POLITICAL ECONOMY
Distinguishes public and private economy
, ● Compares family and the state - fathers have natural inclination to do certain things,
rules that just naturally obey from ‘natural sentiments’; family aim is to support father
so hopefully will divide, but families destined to die out and split
● Says father and mother ought to be unequal - gov only in one of them and women
get pregnant so can’t … natural ineq is fine
● Chiefs have no comparable rule, none of this natural grouping applies to pol
soc...public interests and laws have no natural force, always under attack of
people’s own interests
● Can’t be disillusioned by the fact that there is no natural force for the common good,
and magistrates can be a ‘false guide’
● Distinguishes government (public economy) from supreme authority
(sovereignty)
○ FORMER executive function can obligate individuals only
○ LATTER as legislative right that can sometimes obligate body of nation
● Body politic as like man’s body
● The body politic then is also a moral being with a general will that always tends
to the preservation of the whole and of each part, which is source of all laws,
source of justice
○ Justice is dependable to all citizens but not to strangers, justice/GW becomes
a particular/individual will when applied to those who are not citizens
essentially, one can understand the general will in terms of an analogy. A political society is
like a human body. A body is a unified entity though it has various parts that have particular
functions. And just as the body has a will that looks after the well-being of the whole, a
political state also has a will which looks to its general well-being. The major conflict in
political philosophy occurs when the general will is at odds with one or more of the individual
wills of its citizens.
With the conflict between the general and individual wills in mind, Rousseau articulates
three maxims which supply the basis for a politically virtuous state: (1) Follow the general will
in every action; (2) Ensure that every particular will is in accordance with the general will;
and (3) Public needs must be satisfied. Citizens follow these maxims when there is a sense
of equality among them, and when they develop a genuine respect for law.
This again is in contrast to Hobbes, who says that laws are only followed when people fear
punishment. That is, the state must make the penalty for breaking the law so severe that
people do not see breaking the law to be of any advantage to them. Rousseau claims,
instead, that when laws are in accordance with the general will, good citizens will respect
and love both the state and their fellow citizens. Therefore, citizens will see the intrinsic
value in the law, even in cases in which it may conflict with their individual wills.
Distinction b/w forms of government
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