PHIL 2345 Rousseau

1
PHIL 2345Rousseau

• Second Discourse,
• Social Contract, chs. 1 4

2
Inequality up close and personal

• The peasant hid his wine on account of the
  excise and his bread on account of the duty.All
  that he said to me on this subject, which was
  entirely strange to me, made an impression on me
  which shall never grow dim. It was the germ of
  that inextinguishable hatred which afterwards
  grew in my heart against the oppression to which
  the unhappy people are subject, and against their
  oppressors (Confessions, Book IV, pp.159-60).

3
Everything daring in the Social Contract

• was already in the Discourse on Inequality
  (Confs., Bk IX).

4
DOI Frontispiece
5
Inequality and the philosophical tradition

• Plato
• Two cities of rich and poorintolerable
• Aristotle
• role of middle class in political stability.
• Locke
• men have agreed to a disproportionate and
  unequal possession of the earth (par. 50).

6
Critique of Hobbes and Locke

• dared to strip mans nature naked (Confs. 8,
  p. 362)
• Hobbes, Locke have not gone far enough
• imported social characteristics into SoN
• E.g. seeking after power, possessive
  individualism, interest in business.
• Philosophers must direct experiments
• Psychology
• Anthropology.

7
Hobbes and Locke on S of N

• Hobbes
• man is by nature fearful, contentious
• state of nature war of all against all.
• Locke
• man is sociable before he enters political/civil
  society
• e.g. contract b/w a Swiss and an Indian in the
  woods of America
• protection of property is reason to form
  governments.

8
Rousseau vs Hobbes and Locke

• Man is naturally peaceable and isolated, a lonely
  hunter-gatherer, not naturally sociable
• 2 Obstacles to Sociability
• LanguagesSteven Mithen (U. of Reading, UK)
• music precedes language man the musical animal
• Sedentary agriculture
• Look how little care Nature has taken to bring
  Men together through mutual needs and to
  facilitate their use of speech, how little it
  prepared their Sociability (DOI, I.33).

9
Where does inequality come from?

• Is it natural?
• Unnatural?

10
What is inequality?

• Physical,
• Yes, by nature, but very slight, and of no
  importance (agrees w/ Hobbes).
• Political
• Very great
• caused by amour-propre vanity, human
  institutions, e.g. property
• causes social problems
• Few rule and exploit many i.e. rich rule poor.

11
The problem with property

• Aristotle
• Property relations are fundamental egalitarian
  property-holding vs infinite accumulation
• Household should w/n limits, not indefinite.
• For Locke, property provides the bedrock of the
  state
• Accumulation and enclosures of commons are
  goodthey increase the overall wealth of society.
• Rousseau believes that the first person who
  enclosed land and said this is mine was an
  imposter
• You are lost if you forget that the fruits are
  everyones and the Earth no ones (II.1).

12
Once Peoples are accustomed to Masters,

• they can no longer do without them (CUP ed.
  1997, 115, 6).

13
To be and to appear became two entirely
different things,

• and from this distinction arose ostentatious
  display, deceitful cunning, and all the vices
  that follow in their wake (DOI, pt. II, par. 27).

14
Savage vs social man

• the Savage lives within himself social man,
  always outside himself, is capable of living only
  in the opinion of others and derives the
  sentiment of his own existence solely from their
  judgment (DOI, II.57).

15
Living in the opinion of others

• Status items
• Watches
• Bags
• Phones
• Spend money we dont have
• Run to our chains (jobs? bank loans?) so we can
  have enough money for status items!

• Prada bags

16
Do we really need these bags?

• man, who had been free and independent, is
  nowsubjugated by a multitude of new needs
• rich, he needs others services poor, he
  needs their help
• Lawsgave the weak new fetters and the rich new
  forcesthey transformed a skillful usurpation
  into an irrevocable right (II.33).

17
Big Hair, 18th century-style
18
Whats left? Empty appearances!

• everything being reduced to appearances,
  everything becomes factitious and playacting
• we have nothing more than a deceiving and
  frivolous exterior, honor without virtue, reason
  without wisdom, and pleasure without happiness
  (DOI, II.57).

19
We enable our own oppression

• Citizens let themselves be oppressed only so far
  as they are swept up by blind ambition andcome
  to hold Domination dearer than independence, and
  consent to bear chains so that they might impose
  chains in turn II.51.

20
Civilized misery

• the Citizen, forever active, sweats, scurries,
  constantly agonizeshe works to the death, even
  rushes toward it in order to be in a position to
  liveHe courts the great whom he hates, and the
  rich whom he despises he spares nothing to
  attain the honor of serving them (II.57).

21
On the Social Contract

• Formalization of
• Rousseaus political thought

22
Two kinds of social contracts

• 1. Unjust (the norm) exploitation wears cloak of
  legitimacy (DOI)
• 2. Just ones the Social Contract each freely
  obeys himself.

23
Unjust contract (DOI)

• man, who had been free and independent, is
  nowsubjugated by a multitude of new needs
• rich, he needs others services poor, he
  needs their help
• Lawsgave the weak new fetters and the rich new
  forcesthey transformed a skillful usurpation
  into an irrevocable right (II.33).

24
Once Peoples are accustomed to Masters,

• they can no longer do without them (CUP ed.
  1997, 115, 6).

25
The final word on inequality

• Prelude to Marx
• it is manifestly against the Law of Nature,
  however defined, that...a handful of people
  abound in superfluities while the starving
  multitude lacks necessities (II.58).

26
Locke on slavery

• Its ones own fault!

27
S of N/S of W

• Its all right to kill a thief (18)
• even though s/he is only stealing, not trying to
  kill you!
• His/her action puts him/her into a state of war
  with you
• You are the judge, jury and executioner in S of N
• Force without right, upon a mans person, makes
  a state of war (19).

28
How one becomes a slave

• Liberty is natural to man (22)
• therefore cannot consent enslave yourself (23)
• he that cannot take away his own life, cannot
  give another power over it (23)
• age-old prohibition on suicide
• So how can you become a slave?!
• By entering into S of W w/ someone else
• If youre a slave, its b/c you did sth wrong!

29
Justification for slavery

• having by his fault forfeited his own life, by
  some act that deserves death he, to whom he has
  forfeited it, may (when he has him in his power)
  delay to take it, and make use of him to his own
  service, and he does him no injury by it
• for, whenever the slave finds the hardship of
  his slavery outweigh the value of his life, it is
  in his power, by resisting the will of his
  master, to draw upon himself the death he
  desires (23).

30
Rousseau on slavery

• Its absurd against everything human

31
Rousseaus condemnation

• The use of force produces no right (pars. 1, 11)
• Cf. Thrasymachus (Plato) might right
• To consent to be enslaved is to cease to be human
  (6)
• Locke agrees
• So how do they differ?

32
Property is core issue

• Lockes conditions do not hold
• No S of W in S of N
• Why?
• B/c no property!
• Property causes disputes
• S of W only after establishment of society/ civil
  govts war occurs b/w states (7).

33
Conventional slavery

• a slave made in war or a conquered people is
  not bound to anything at all toward their master,
  except to obey him as long as they are forced to
  do so.
• In taking an equivalent of his life, the victor
  did not spare it instead of killing him
  unprofitably, he killed him usefully (12).

34
Rousseaus summation

• Thus, from whatever angle one looks at things,
  the right to slavery is null, not only because it
  is illegitimate, but because it is absurd and
  meaningless. These words slavery and rights are
  contradictory they are mutually exclusive (13).

35
Aristotle, Locke Rousseau on slavery
Aristotle Locke Rousseau
S of N No Yes war peace Yes peaceful
S of W No Yes but ag. Law of nature No only b/w states no states in SoN
Slavery Yes Yes No ag. Mans nat.
36
Concerning contemporary slavery, see this website

• http//news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/world/05/sla
  very/html/5.stm