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May 2009

Jean-Jacques Rousseau | Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Author Profile

Rousseau’s philosophical writings and novels, all of them rich in ethical content, inspired

a major shift in Western thought during the eighteenth century and part of the nineteenth

century. They substantially undercut the Age of Reason and inspired a new Age of

Romanticism. In the process, Rousseau’s eighteenth century lifestyle and work

influenced manners and morals, the reevaluation of education, conceptions of the state

and of politics, and the reassertion of religious values. His philosophical genius led the

way to new views of human nature, liberty, free creative expression, violence, the

character of children, and the vital human and cultural importance of women.

Foundations of Rousseau’s Ethics

Rousseau’s ethics were rooted in his moral and religious perceptions about human nature,

human behavior, and human society. In Discourse on the Sciences and the Arts (1750),

Discourse on the Origin of Inequality (1755), and Social Contract (1762), he

systematically traced his thoughts on each of these subjects. Humanity, Rousseau

believed, was fundamentally good. Originally living alone, simply, and in a state of

nature, humanity was free, healthy, and happy. As a result of living in society, however,

humanity acquired property along with the aggressiveness required for securing and

defending that property. Depraved conditions, ignoble passions, and vices soon were

rampant: pride in possessions, false inequalities, affectations, greed, envy, lust, and

jealousy, which were attended by insecurity, personal violence, and war. Thus, although

humanity was by nature good, society itself was innately corrupt. Humanity, Rousseau

concluded, had been corrupted by society. What most educated eighteenth century

observers viewed as the rise of civilization, Rousseau viewed as its decline.

Rousseau’s own experiences were responsible for this assessment of society, even though

the assessment itself was laced with idealism. He had begun life orphaned, poor, and

vagrant. Unhappily struggling through menial posts and an apprenticeship, he

subsequently rose to notoriety, thanks to the help of generous and sensitive patrons, many

of them women. He became familiar with sophisticated intellectuals and with the rich, yet

eventually he abandoned this level of society for a life of simplicity and honest, if

irrational, emotions. His style and philosophy repudiated society’s standards, its

affectations, its belief in the indefinite improvement of humanity, and its philosophical

addiction to stark reason and utilitarianism.

Rousseau’s Social Contract

Rousseau believed that humanity had descended from a natural state of innocence to an

artificial state of corruption—a state made worse by what he regarded as the stupidity and

self-delusion of most of his contemporaries. He fully understood that any hopes of

returning to humanity’s ancient innocence were chimerical. Nevertheless, the values that

he cherished—freedom, simplicity, honestly expressed emotions, and individualism—

were still in some measure attainable as the best of a poor bargain. In his Social Contract, he indicated how the liberty that humanity had lost in the descent to “civilization” could

be recovered in the future.

Recovery could be achieved by means of humanity’s acceptance of a new and genuine

social contract that would replace the false one to which Rousseau believed humanity

was chained. Thus, while humanity was born free and was possessed of individual will,

its freedom and will had become victims of a fraudulent society. People could, however,

surrender their independent wills to a “general will”; that is, to Rousseau’s abstract

conception of society as an artificial person. In doing so, people could exchange their

natural independence for a new form of liberty that would be expressed through liberal,

republican political institutions. The general will, a composite of individual wills,

pledged people to devote themselves to advancing the common good. The integrity of

their new social contract and new society would depend upon their individual self-

discipline, their self-sacrifice, and an obedience imposed on them by fear of the general

will.

Religious and Educational Ethics

The history of republican Geneva, Rousseau’s birthplace, imbued him with a lifelong

admiration of republican virtues, but neither the eighteenth century Calvinism of Geneva

nor Catholicism, Rousseau believed, fostered the kind of character that would be required

for the republican life that he imagined under the “Social Contract.” In his view,

Catholicism, for example, directed people’s attention to otherworldly goals, while

Calvinism had succumbed to a soft and passive Christianity that was devoid of the

puritanical rigor and innocence that had once characterized it and that Rousseau admired.

Rousseau, on the contrary, advocated the cultivation of this-worldly civil values that were

appropriate for a vigorous republican society: self-discipline, simplicity, honesty,

courage, and virility. His proposed civic religion, stripped of much theological content,

was intended to fortify these values as well as to enhance patriotism and a martial spirit.

Rousseau’s educational ideas, like his religious proposals, sought to inculcate republican

civic virtues by directing people toward freedom, nature, and God. Small children were to

be unsaddled and given physical freedom. Children from five to twelve were to be taught

more by direct experience and by exposure to nature than by books. Adolescents should

learn to work and should study morality and religion. Education, Rousseau argued in his

classic Émile, should teach people about the good in themselves and nature, and should

prepare them to live simple, republican lives.

Bibliography

Cranston, Maurice William. The Solitary Self: Jean-Jacques Rousseau in Exile and Adversity.

Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997. Explores Rousseau’s views on individual experience

with special references to solitude, exile, and adversity. For further information on this work see

Magill’s Literary Annual review.

Crocker, Lester G. Jean-Jacques Rousseau: The Quest (1712-1758). New York: Macmillan,

1968. The first volume of a two-part biography. Places heavy emphasis on Rousseau’s eccentric

psychological development.

Cullen, Daniel E. Freedom in Rousseau’s Political Philosophy. Dekalb: Northern Illinois

University Press, 1993. An assessment of Rousseau’s philosophy of freedom and its impact on

his broader moral and political views.

Damrosch, Leo. Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Restless Genius. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005. This

one volume biography is a useful addition to Rousseau scholarship. Illustrated and indexed.

Dent, N. J. H. Rousseau: An Introduction to His Psychological, Social, and Political Theory.

New York: Basil Blackwell, 1988. A helpful analysis of Rousseau’s views about education,

rights, community, and other social and political issues.

Friedlander, Eli. J. J. Rousseau: An Afterlife of Words. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University

Press, 2004. An examination of the forms and focus philosophy itself viewed particularly through

the analysis of Rousseau’s work Reveries of the Solitary Walker. A challenging, but important

reference work.

Grant, Ruth H. Hypocrisy and Integrity: Machiavelli, Rousseau, and the Ethics of Politics.

Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997. An instructive comparative analysis of two

important figures in political philosophy.

Grimsley, Ronald. The Philosophy of Rousseau. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1973.

A reliable survey of Rousseau’s ideas with an emphasis on his social thought.

Havens, George R. Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Boston: Twayne, 1978. A concise introductory

account of Rousseau’s life and career with analyses of his major works.

Hulliung, Mark. The Autocritique of Enlightenment: Rousseau and the Philosophes. Cambridge,

Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1994. Shows how Rousseau both reflected and departed from

main currents in Enlightenment philosophy.

Morgenstern, Mira. Rousseau and the Politics of Ambiguity: Self, Culture, and Society.

University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996. Analyzes Rousseau’s political theory

and its historical context, showing how his thought introduced notes of ambiguity that remain in

contemporary political life.

Wokler, Robert. Rousseau. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. A concise and

lucid introduction to Rousseau’s life and thought.


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