Theory of Man’s Inequality: Cause and Effect Report (Assessment)

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Introduction

Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote a wide basis for debates with his theory of natural man regarding inequality that encompass political, natural, and economic debates.

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This paper will examine Rousseau’s notion of man’s inequality using the critical exegesis approach.

The 1754 discourse on inequality proposed that to know about the failures of man, one needs to know more about the nature of man. Rousseau asked,

“how shall we know the source of inequality between men, if we do not begin by knowing mankind? And how shall man hope to see himself as nature made him, across all the changes which the succession of place and time must have produced in his original constitution? How can he distinguish what is fundamental in his nature from the changes and additions which his circumstances and the advances he has made have introduced to modify his primitive condition?”1

For Rousseau, the two kinds of men’s inequality are the natural or physical characterized by age, health, body strength, and mind or soul quality, and moral or political inequality relying on convention and will of men such as privileges and prejudices on riches, honor, power or position.2

Rousseau placed high regard on “reasonable and free men in search of the truth” who disregard power, inequality, strength, and wealth. He observed men want, oppress, desire, and be proud of as influenced by society and that in men’s pursue of convenience, the man instead received more harm and “additional causes of their deeper degeneracy.”3

Men also willed to excesses and resisted nature in spirit although he has the power to self-improve, as compared to other animals. However, he proposed that man is the only animal to return to a state of primitiveness or senility of which he acts lower than the beast.

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Rousseau compared men as,

“The savage […] breathes only peace and liberty; he desires only to live and be free from labor […] Civilised man, on the other hand, is always moving, sweating, toiling and racking his brains to find still more laborious occupations: he goes on in drudgery to his last moment, and even seeks death to put himself in a position to live, or renounces life to acquire immortality […] always asking others what we are, […] we have nothing to show for ourselves but a frivolous and deceitful appearance, honor without virtue, reason without wisdom, and pleasure without happiness.”4

Rousseau proposed that this human development and the gaining of culture-led men away from the “sensible voice within our nature.”5 Man has burdened himself with the imperfection of the intellect and freedom. Along the way to convenience, he has developed ways and means, right and wrong processes evolving through time and practice. Thus, Rousseau wrote:

Theory of Natural Man

“The first man who, having fenced in a piece of land, said “This is mine,” and found people naive enough to believe him, that man was the true founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars, and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not anyone have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows: Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody.6Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on Inequality, 1754

Discussion

It is a big challenge to capture Rousseau’s line of thought as there are variations and clashes to the interpretation of his treatise. Boyd in his bid to link democracy and compassion quoted Nancy Hirschmann who noted that “the concept of sympathy is not a major player in the world of political theory, which is generally more concerned with justice, freedom or rights.”7 Compassion is an accomplishment of modern democracy leading to charitable institutions acted upon by the wealthy, enlightened, and humane society. Rousseau’s defense on pity on the state of nature opposes that which is vain, cruel, and unequal.8 Boyd challenges that “pity is a pleasurable sentiment” that has come from the understanding of human nature as opposed to suffering that has led to “reluctant spectators.”9

Rousseau is also said to have provided an understanding of the status of nature in modern political philosophy influencing the works of Bacon, Hobbes, and Locke. All considered nature as “atomic, inert, and reducible to its constituent parts,” physically possible for manipulation for the human benefit.10 It is argued that Rousseau provided a basis to reconsider the fundamental characteristics of men, the causes of historical changes in human behavior, and an “account of the processes by which changes the altered human relationship to the natural world.”11

Smith noted that Rousseau’s aversion to commercial society is corrupted through the vanity of its participants. Further, Smith shared Rousseau’s understanding for the desire for praise and for praiseworthiness, the love of glory and virtue as “an elevation of self-love capable of liberating individuals from dependence on the opinions of others for a consciousness of their self-worth.”12

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Rousseau’s politics on inequality extols virtue requiring a need to recover a natural disposition already corrupted by modern society. Rousseau is seen as a critique of commercial society, of the bourgeois of which men desire for esteem and consideration, thus, dependent on the perception and opinion of others. They need to be recognized by others and no longer distinguish the goodness of natural and simple, uncorrupted and self-sufficient.13

Hanley wrote that man, in “coming to love the easy and moderate pleasures of commercial society, […] is rendered incapable of achieving or conceiving genuine excellence,”14 sharing Rousseau’s proposition. As Rousseau observed, man will pursue and will not stop until he perceives to be at level with his fellow, no matter how he or this fellow may be seen as evil.

Lane and Clark noted the ambiguity of Rousseau’s philosophy with his own life arguing that “Rousseau’s philosophy of nature in the Second Discourse and the apparent contradictions between it and his political recommendations in other works do not translate easily into practical politics.”15

Boyd observed that Rousseau’s democratic principle is after the restoration of the natural wholeness of the state of nature for individuals to aim for independence. Human equality is a convenient fiction blinding man to the understanding that dependency and inequality exist.

On Hanley concluded that Adam Smith is dedicated to recovering virtue within liberalism to serve the greater good. Human beings can only recover their prelapsarian unity by constructing a solution that concedes a certain intractable separation from nature.16

Conclusion

There is general ambivalence as to what Rousseau could exactly mean with regard to inequality. Rousseau points out the ”state of nature” where there is the absence of greed, thus, less inequality. We must however consider his view that humanity exists in continuity with his natural environment. Rousseau ignored the “social” nature of man and centered on what he fancied quite convincingly so that until today, scholars are still amazed while others remain baffled on what he could have exactly meant.

He noted, however, the influence of “others”, of man as a social being. As a social being, there is a need to compare and evaluate himself against another, thus, the importance of leveling, power, strength, wealth, and everything else that comes with acceptance to civil society.

He assailed inequality to even argue that greed is the father of civilization. He also pointed out that man departs from his state of nature upon the understanding of his fear of death but it is this fear f death that primitively caused man to seek better health, safety, and accumulation of “worldly” possessions leading to his greed, and therefore inequality amongst men. The question remains whether a man has the natural instinct to know which enough is and which is excessive.

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Rousseau insisted that man wants, but cannot distinguish a wanting man in his state of nature and a wanting man in separation with his nature to distinguish which causes inequality and if this is justified. He noted that “established greed” is the start of a civil man yet only a civil man could evaluate himself and improve his society.

Reference

Boyd, Richard (2004). “Pity’s Pathologies Portrayed: Rousseau and the Limits of Democratic Compassion.” Political Theory, 32 (4) August, pp 519-546

Constitution Society (2009). “WHAT IS THE ORIGIN OF INEQUALITY AMONG MEN, AND IS IT AUTHORISED BY NATURAL LAW?” A Discourse by Jean Jacques Rousseau, Web.

Hanley, Ryan Patrick (2008). “Commerce and Corruption: Rousseau’s Diagnosis and Adam Smith’s Cure.” European Journal of Political Theory, 7 (2), pp 137-158.

Lane, Joseph and Rebecca Clark (2006). “The Solitary Walker in the Political World: the paradoxes of Rousseau and Deep Ecology.” Political Theory 34 (1), February, pp 62-94.

Footnotes

  1. Constitution Society, 2009.
  2. Ibid.
  3. Ibid.
  4. Constitution Society, 2009.
  5. Boyd, 2004, p 522.
  6. Constitution Society, 2009.
  7. qtd., Boyd, 2004, p 520.
  8. Boyd, 2004.
  9. Boyd, 2004, p 520.
  10. Lane and Clark.
  11. Lane and Clark, p 63.
  12. Hanley, 2008, p 138.
  13. Hanley, 2008.
  14. Hanley, 2008, p 139.
  15. Lane and Clark, 2006, p 64.
  16. Lane and Clark, 2006, p 84.
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