Rousseau's analysis of natural inequality and human corruption in society

Human Behavior and Society According to Rousseau

As an Enlightenment Figure

Rousseau\'s major works were published between the middle of the eighteenth century up to the 1790s. Based on this time-period, it would be appropriate to categorize him as an Enlightenment thinker. However, things are not as simple as they seem. This is because there is a dispute as to whether Rousseau is best described as an enlightenment or counter-enlightenment figure. The main achievement of Enlightenment thinkers is that they gave a new foundation of philosophy that was not based on any religion, culture, or tradition -- a foundation that any logical/ rational thinker would accept. One of Rousseau\'s most influential works was The Discourse on the Origin of Inequality. The work is made up of four parts. The first being a dedication to the Republic of Geneva, then a short preface followed by the two main parts that make the book proper. The work is a discussion of the origin of inequality and whether it is based on natural law. From the discussion, it is easy to conclude that Rousseau was an Enlightenment thinker. This is because of the fact that in his discussions, Rousseau argues against the classical idea that humans are naturally social (Delaney, 2015).

In a bid to justify the prescriptive viewpoints of his social theory, Rousseau uses a philosophical anthropology made up of a narrative from the pre-social times to civilization. The narrative attempts to explain the changes in human psychology and human nature and the related social arrangements and rearrangements. In his discourse, Rousseau highlights some of the things he thinks have led to a failed society and gives several recommendations to neutralize the negative effects of egocentrism which he thinks is responsible for most of the ills in what he thought was a failed society (Hubbard, 2014).

Rousseau\'s Analysis of Human Behavior

When Rousseau investigates, and discusses what is natural to man, he writes that the qualities that the majority would think are necessary for human existence such as language or reason are not natural to man. He continues that even things structured such as morality, law and property are not natural to man. He, instead, argues that investigating the natural can only be done by imagination. He, however, acknowledges that it isn\'t possible for man to return to the state of nature and that his investigations are only speculations. However, in spite of the immense power of investigating the nature of man, the investigations cannot be done in practice (Discourse on inequality, 2016).

To find the true nature of man, Rousseau argues that he or she must strip away corruption or the ills of man. To explain this, Rousseau states that as one\'s reason grows and he becomes enlightened, he will be corrupted and will deviate from his natural or original state. Rousseau clarifies that this corruption is not only mental but also political. The mental corruption, he argues, happens when an individual becomes subject to another system of needs and that this corruption will be seen since the individual would then be generally dissatisfied with life, lack pity for other creatures and will be influenced by the opinion of others. As the philosopher puts it in Part Two of the book, the modern man has a deceptive exterior, has reason without wisdom, pleasure without happiness, and honor without virtue. The system of needs has enslaved the contemporary man and made him inauthentic to others and to his natural self (Discourse on inequality, 2016).

The main drive of modern society is need. Needs make men desire certain activities or objects. In the natural state, the needs were pretty simple and were basically restricted to those that were essential for survival. However, as societies develop and life conditions become better men get more free time to fill their needs. This is what has brought about more needs, which have slowly become essential. In the end, the needs have enslaved men and made them slaves to others. This led to Rousseau concluding that unnecessary needs are the foundation of modern inequality and corruption of the human nature (Discourse on inequality, 2016).

Departure of His Ideas from Emphasis on Human Reason as Central to Human Identity

Like Locke in Second Treatise on Government and Hobbes in Leviathan, Rousseau is of the school of thought that society is an invention and tries to explain human nature by stripping away all the qualities they have acquired by socialization. This is in direct contrast to the classical view, especially that postulated by Aristotle who claimed that the societies are the natural human state (Delaney, 2015).

In the first part, Rousseau provides a description of man in nature\'s pure state, untainted by civilization and the process of socialization. And though this manner of analyzing human nature is in line with other contemporary thinkers, the image that Rousseau has of \"man in his natural state,\" is totally different (2000). According to Hobbes, every human in the state of nature is in an endless state of war against all others, thus life in nature\'s state is poor, solitary, short, brutish, and nasty. Rousseau, however, argues that past accounts like Hobbes\' have all failed in actually depicting man\'s true state of nature. They have instead taken civilized beings and simply eliminated technology, government, and laws. For man to be in an endless state of war with each other, they ought to have complex thought processes that involve calculations of the future, notions of property, immediate acknowledgment of other human beings as potential threats, and minimal language skills. According to Rousseau, these facilities are not natural, but instead, they grow historically. Contrary to Hobbes, Rousseau describes humans as timid, isolated, mute, peaceful, and without the forethought to worry about what is held by the future (Delaney, 2015).

Additionally, purely natural beings basically differ from the egoistic Hobbesian belief in another sense too. Rousseau admits and accepts that self-preservation is one motivation principle for the action of human beings, but different from Hobbes, this is not the only principle. Rousseau claims that if it were the only principle, human beings would be nothing more than monsters. Thus, Rousseau comes to the conclusion that self-preservation, or more commonly self-interest, is simply one among the two principles of the human soul. The other principle is pity; it is the \"natural repugnance to see his fellow suffer\" (Rousseau, 2000). It might appear as if Rousseau\'s portrayal of natural human beings is one which makes them no different from other animals. Rousseau, however, says that different from other creatures, humans are free agents; they have reason, though in the state of nature, it is not yet developed. It is this faculty, however, that makes the long change from the state of nature to the state of a civilized society actually possible. He states that if one studies any other species over a period of 1,000 years, they will not have significantly advanced. Man, can develop when situations that prompt the use of reason arise (Delaney, 2015).

Rousseau\'s acclamation of humans in the state of nature is possibly one of the most misconstrued ideas in his philosophy. Though man is naturally good and the \'noble savage\' is completely free from the vices which plague human beings in civil society, Rousseau is not just saying that human beings in nature are good and those in civil society are evil (2000). Moreover, he is not supporting a return to the state of nature, although some critics, even his contemporaries like Voltaire, have ascribed such a notion to him. Humans in the state of nature are unethical creatures, neither vicious nor virtuous. After human beings exit the state of nature, they can then enjoy a greater kind of goodness, ethical goodness, which Rousseau expresses most clearly in the Social Contract (Delaney, 2015).