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Single Idea 19763

[filed under theme 24. Political Theory / A. Basis of a State / 1. A People / b. The natural life ]

Full Idea

I ask if anyone has ever heard tell of a savage who was living in liberty ever dreaming of complaining about his life and of killing himself.

Gist of Idea

I doubt whether a savage person ever complains of life, or considers suicide

Source

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Discourse on the Origin of Inequality [1754], Part I)

Book Ref

Rousseau,Jean-Jacques: 'The Basic Political Writings', ed/tr. Cress,Donald A. [Hackett 1987], p.52

A Reaction

Rousseau's state of nature is much too remote from any current tribal life for this to be tested. It is a nice speculation. Do apes ever attempt suicide?

The 24 ideas with the same theme [quality of human life in a state of nature]:

19889 People need society because the individual has too many needs [Plato]
5133 Man is by nature a social being [Aristotle]
20842 Rational animals begin uncorrupted, but externals and companions are bad influences [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius]
23346 A person is as naturally a part of a city as a foot is part of the body [Epictetus]
19764 Hobbes attributed to savages the passions which arise in a law-bound society [Hobbes, by Rousseau]
2367 In time of war the life of man is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short [Hobbes]
19882 We are not created for solitude, but are driven into society by our needs [Locke]
19906 All countries are in a mutual state of nature [Locke]
19962 Men do not desire to subjugate one another; domination is a complex and advanced idea [Montesquieu]
19961 Primitive people would be too vulnerable and timid to attack anyone, so peace would reign [Montesquieu]
19755 Most human ills are self-inflicted; the simple, solitary, regular natural life is good [Rousseau]
19762 Is language a pre-requisite for society, or might it emerge afterwards? [Rousseau]
19763 I doubt whether a savage person ever complains of life, or considers suicide [Rousseau]
19765 Savages avoid evil because they are calm, and never think of it (not because they know goodness) [Rousseau]
19771 Savage men quietly pursue desires, without the havoc of modern frenzied imagination [Rousseau]
19778 Leisure led to envy, inequality, vice and revenge, which we now see in savages [Rousseau]
19779 Primitive man was very gentle [Rousseau]
19751 Our two starting principles are concern for self-interest, and compassion for others [Rousseau]
19791 Natural mankind is too fragmented for states of peace, or of war and enmity [Rousseau]
21075 The state of nature always involves the threat of war [Kant]
23275 The state of nature is one of untamed brutality [Hegel]
22673 Wherever there is a small community, the association of the people is natural [Tocqueville]
23844 The most important human need is to have multiple roots [Weil]
20489 Human beings can never really flourish in a long-term state of nature [Wolff,J]