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| 19767 | Reason leads to prudent selfishness, which overrules natural compassion |
| Full Idea: Reason is what engenders egocentrism ...turns man in upon himself ...and separates him from all that troubles him and afflicts him. Philosophy is what ...moves him to say at the sight of a suffering man 'Perish if you will; I am safe and sound'. | |||
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Discourse on the Origin of Inequality [1754], Part I) | |||
| A reaction: He goes on to observe that fights in the marketplace are stopped by women, while the philosophers have all run away! This thinking leads to the sentimental movement, and then to romanticism. |
| 19757 | No one would bother to reason, and try to know things, without a desire for enjoyment |
| Full Idea: We seek to know only because we desire to find enjoyment; and it is impossible to conceive why someon who had neither desires nor fears would go to the bother reasoning. | |||
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Discourse on the Origin of Inequality [1754], Part I) | |||
| A reaction: This appears to be an echo of Hume's pessimism about the autonomy of reason. This downgrading of reason is a striking feature of the Enlightenment, which presumably culminates in the romantic movement. |
| 19760 | General ideas are purely intellectual; imagining them is immediately particular |
| Full Idea: Every general idea is purely intellectual. The least involvement of the imagination thereupon makes the idea particular. | |||
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Discourse on the Origin of Inequality [1754], Part I) | |||
| A reaction: This thought is in Berkeley, who seemed to think that general ideas were impossible, because imagination was always required. Rousseau is certainly an improvement on that. |
| 19759 | Only words can introduce general ideas into the mind |
| Full Idea: General ideas can be introduced into the mind only with the aid of words. | |||
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Discourse on the Origin of Inequality [1754], Part I) | |||
| A reaction: Hm. How did humanity manage to invent general words. Do animals not have general thoughts, e.g. about food, shelter, predators? Roussea goes on to deny that monkeys see nuts as a 'type' of fruit. |
| 19758 | Language may aid thinking, but powerful thought was needed to produce language |
| Full Idea: If men needed speech in order to learn to think, they had a still greater need for knowing how to think in order to discover the art of speaking. | |||
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Discourse on the Origin of Inequality [1754], Part I) | |||
| A reaction: I take language to be a consequence of the emergence of meta-thought in humanity, so I thoroughly endorse Rousseau's view. The idea that rationality, and even consciousness, are mainly facilitated by language strikes me as quite wrong. |
| 19773 | Without love, what use is beauty? |
| Full Idea: Where there is no love, what use is beauty? | |||
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Discourse on the Origin of Inequality [1754], Part I) | |||
| A reaction: Rousseau seems to be thinking of sexual attractiveness, but the aphorism seems to have universal application. |
| 19769 | Rational morality is OK for brainy people, but ordinary life can't rely on that |
| Full Idea: Although it might be appropriate for Socrates and minds of his stature to acquire virtue through reason, the human race would long ago have ceased to exist, if its preservation had depended solely on the reasonings of its members. | |||
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Discourse on the Origin of Inequality [1754], Part I) | |||
| A reaction: He takes our natural compassion to be the basis of morality. Hume combines that with a natural social prudence. Apes live successfully together in groups, without a Socrates. See MacIntyre on the failure of reasoned morality. |
| 19752 | If we should not mistreat humans, it is mainly because of sentience, not rationality |
| Full Idea: If I am obliged not to do any harm to my fellow man, it is less because he is a rational being than because he is a sentient being. | |||
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Discourse on the Origin of Inequality [1754], Pref) | |||
| A reaction: How should sentience and rationality be weighted here? Kant demands instrinsic respect for beings on the grounds of their rationality. What could ever justify doing needless harm to anything? An open goal for virtue theory here. |
| 19768 | The better Golden Rule is 'do good for yourself without harming others' |
| Full Idea: Instead of the sublime maxim of reasoned justice 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you', pity inspires a less perfect but perhaps more useful one: 'Do what is good for you with as little harm as possible to others'. | |||
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Discourse on the Origin of Inequality [1754], Part I) | |||
| A reaction: His revised maxim is like J.S. Mill's formula for liberalism. The first maxim seems more contractarian, the second more utilitarian. |
| 19766 | The fact that we weep (e.g. in theatres) shows that we are naturally compassionate |
| Full Idea: Every day one sees in our theatres someone affected and weeping at the ills of some unfortunate person ...Nature, in giving men tears, bears witness that she gave the human race the softest hearts. | |||
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Discourse on the Origin of Inequality [1754], Part I) | |||
| A reaction: Lovely. Of course, tears in infants are for their own misfortunes, but adults more commonly weep over the sufferings of others. But we somewhat laugh at people who easily cry over dramas about suffering. |
| 19756 | Humans are less distinguished from other animals by understanding, than by being free agents |
| Full Idea: It is not so much understanding which causes the specific distinction of man from all other animals as it is his being a free agent. | |||
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Discourse on the Origin of Inequality [1754], Part I) | |||
| A reaction: I'm not sure how deep Rousseau takes 'free' to go. Having little enthusiasm for free will, I would say that we are distinguished by the complexity of our decision making. But I attribute that to meta-thought, the mark of humanity. |
| 19755 | Most human ills are self-inflicted; the simple, solitary, regular natural life is good |
| Full Idea: Most of our ills are of our own making, and we could have avoided nearly all of them by preserving the simple, regular and solitary lifestyle prescribed to us by nature. | |||
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Discourse on the Origin of Inequality [1754], Part I) | |||
| A reaction: It is important that he is not really disagreeing with Hobbes's pessimistic view of natural life as 'nasty'. Rousseau attributes that to a later stage, when people are ineptly beginning to emerge from the state of nature. I'm an optimist here. |
| 19762 | Is language a pre-requisite for society, or might it emerge afterwards? |
| Full Idea: Which was more necessary: an already formed society for the invention of languages, or an already invented language for the establishment of society? | |||
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Discourse on the Origin of Inequality [1754], Part I) | |||
| A reaction: Rousseau declines to attempt an answer. Ants and bees seem to do well, but have some means of communication. Ape colonies are quite sophisticated. |
| 19763 | I doubt whether a savage person ever complains of life, or considers suicide |
| 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. | |||
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Discourse on the Origin of Inequality [1754], Part I) | |||
| 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? |
| 19765 | Savages avoid evil because they are calm, and never think of it (not because they know goodness) |
| Full Idea: We could say that savages are not evil because they do not know what is good; for it is neither enlightenment nor legal restraint, but the calm of the passions and the ignorance of vice which prevents them from doing evil. | |||
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Discourse on the Origin of Inequality [1754], Part I) | |||
| A reaction: Suggests one of my favourite ideas (Idea 519). While his hopes for savages and the state of nature may be optimistic, the idea that you won't do evil if it never crosses your mind (and it won't if you are a calm person) is very powerful. |
| 19779 | Primitive man was very gentle |
| Full Idea: Nothing is so gentle as man in his primitive state. | |||
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Discourse on the Origin of Inequality [1754], Part II) | |||
| A reaction: This summarises Rousseau's view of the earliest stage of mankind, when there was little rivalry, and little motivation or opportunity for viciousness. |
| 19771 | Savage men quietly pursue desires, without the havoc of modern frenzied imagination |
| Full Idea: Imagination, which wreaks so much havoc among us, does not speak to savage hearts; each man peacefully awaits the impetus of nature, gives himself over to it without choice, and with more pleasure than frenzy; then all desire is snuffed out. | |||
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Discourse on the Origin of Inequality [1754], Part I) | |||
| A reaction: Interesting to identify imagination as a source of trouble. The idea that the savage lacks imagination seems implausible. Better to say that modern imagination has been poisoned by competition. |
| 19778 | Leisure led to envy, inequality, vice and revenge, which we now see in savages |
| Full Idea: People developed leisure pursuits, and wanted esteem, which was the first step towards inequality, and at the same time towards vice. Vanity, contempt, shame and envy were born, and acts of revenge. This is the stage of savage people we know of. | |||
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Discourse on the Origin of Inequality [1754], Part II) | |||
| A reaction: [very compressed] This is important in understanding Rousseau, because his happier 'state of nature' is prior to what is described here, which is the violent warlike state which impressed Hobbes. |
| 19751 | Our two starting principles are concern for self-interest, and compassion for others |
| Full Idea: One principle prior to reason makes us ardently interested in our well-being and self-preservation; the other inspires a natural repugnance to seeing any sentient being, especially our fellow man, perish or suffer. | |||
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Discourse on the Origin of Inequality [1754], Pref) | |||
| A reaction: This is strikingly like Hume's nascent utilitarianism. These two principles are the key to Rousseau's vision of the state of nature, from which the union around a general will leads to the formation of a state. Note that animals get included here. |
| 19774 | A savage can steal fruit or a home, but there is no means of achieving obedience |
| Full Idea: A savage man could well lay hold of the fruit another has gathered, the cave that served as his shelter. But how will he ever succeed in making himself obeyed? What can be the chain of dependence among men who possess nothing? | |||
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Discourse on the Origin of Inequality [1754], Part I) | |||
| A reaction: You'd certainly need language to express an enduring threat, like excluding someone from all of the local caves. You need to be able to say 'I'll be back', which animals can't say. Huge muscular men must have dominated in some way. |
| 19772 | In a state of nature people are much more equal; it is society which increases inequalities |
| Full Idea: There must be much less difference between one man and another in the state of nature than in that of society, and natural inequality must increase in the human species through inequality occasioned by social institutions. | |||
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Discourse on the Origin of Inequality [1754], Part I) | |||
| A reaction: This is the main idea of his essay - the answer to the question set by the essay prize. Slavery is common in fairly basic societies, but that is at a much more advanced stage than Rousseau is thinking of. It's hard to disagree with him. |
| 19789 | It is against nature for children to rule old men, fools to rule the wise, and the rich to hog resources |
| Full Idea: It is obviously contrary to the law of nature, however it is defined, for a child to command an old man, for an imbecile to lead a wise man, and for a handful of people to gorge themselves on superfluities while the starving multitude lack necessities. | |||
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Discourse on the Origin of Inequality [1754], Part II) | |||
| A reaction: I wonder if gregarious animals ever starve to death during a time of plenty, because of social exclusion? I bet this idea was quoted widely in 1780s Paris. The massive inequality is not just nasty, but 'contrary to the law of nature'. |
| 19787 | People accept the right to be commanded, because they themselves wish to command |
| Full Idea: Citizens allow themselves to be oppressed only insofar as they are driven by blind ambition; ...they consent to wear chains in order to be able to give them in turn to others. It is difficult to reduce to obedience someone who does not wish to command. | |||
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Discourse on the Origin of Inequality [1754], Part II) | |||
| A reaction: Beautiful. This produces what I call the 'military model of management', where people love tree diagrams showing chains of command, and their place in the hierarchy. Life becomes 'either give orders, or obey'. I like democratic teams. |
| 19780 | We seem to have made individual progress since savagery, but actually the species has decayed |
| Full Idea: Evidence confirms that the savage state is the youth of the world, and all subsequent progress has been in appearance so many steps toward the perfection of the individual, and in fact toward the decay of the species. | |||
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Discourse on the Origin of Inequality [1754], Part II) | |||
| A reaction: This strikes me as an attack on the new rising philosophy of liberalism, and a plea for communitarianism. We should judge humanity as a whole, and not just look at some individual lives which seem to be going well. |
| 19747 | Revolutionaries usually confuse liberty with total freedom, and end up with heavier chains |
| Full Idea: If people try to shake off a yoke, they put more distance between themselves and liberty, because in mistaking for liberty an unbridled licence which is its opposite, their revolutions usually deliver them over to seducers who make their chains heavier. | |||
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Discourse on the Origin of Inequality [1754], Intro letter) | |||
| A reaction: This 'Animal Farm' thought was presumably ignored in 1789 and 1917. There must be basic rules for revolutionaries, of which priorities they must never drop from sight, and which priorities are dangerous and misleading. |
| 19748 | Plebiscites are bad, because they exclude the leaders from crucial decisions |
| Full Idea: I would not approve of plebiscites like those of the Romans where the state's leaders and those most interested in its preservation were excluded from the deliberations on which its safety often depended. | |||
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Discourse on the Origin of Inequality [1754], Intro letter) | |||
| A reaction: I wish David Cameron had read this before 2016. This is exactly what happened with the Brexit referendum, where the people voted for an action entirely opposed to the preference of the majority of their elected representatives. Chaos ensued. |
| 19749 | In a direct democracy, only the leaders should be able to propose new laws |
| Full Idea: In order to stop ...the dangerous innovations that finally ruined Athens, no one would have the power to propose new laws according to his fancy; this right belongs exclusively to the magistrates. | |||
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Discourse on the Origin of Inequality [1754], Intro letter) | |||
| A reaction: Aristotle says (somewhere!) that control of the agenda for meetings is the key issue in democracies. I assume any citizen can propose a law, but only a magistrate can put it on the agenda. Maybe a separate 'citizen's committee' could filter suggestions. |
| 19775 | People must be made dependent before they can be enslaved |
| Full Idea: It is impossible to enslave a man without having first put him in the position of being incapable of doing without another. | |||
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Discourse on the Origin of Inequality [1754], Part I) | |||
| A reaction: Ah yes. The key to running a slave plantation is not the threat of violence, but control of the shelter and food supply. |
| 19784 | Enslaved peoples often boast of their condition, calling it a state of 'peace' |
| Full Idea: Enslaved peoples do nothing but boast of the peace and tranquillity they enjoy in their chains and they give the name 'peace' to the most miserable slavery. | |||
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Discourse on the Origin of Inequality [1754], Part II) | |||
| A reaction: It seems to be a sad truth that enslaved peoples are less upset about their condition than outside observers are, especially in modern times, where slavery is usually deemed unacceptable. Slavery might be the best you can hope for. |
| 19785 | If the child of a slave woman is born a slave, then a man is not born a man |
| Full Idea: The jurists who have gravely pronounced that the child of a slave woman is born a slave, have decided, in other words, that a man is not born a man. | |||
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Discourse on the Origin of Inequality [1754], Part II) | |||
| A reaction: The hidden premise of this enthymeme is that man is born free. A key issue of liberalism is the status of children. Are the children of religious believers automatically members of that sect? Can I be born a West Ham supporter? |
| 19746 | Like rich food, liberty can ruin people who are too weak to cope with it |
| Full Idea: Liberty is like those solid foods or full-bodied wines appropriate for strengthening robust constitutions that are used to them, but which overpower, ruin and intoxicate the weak and delicate who are not suited to them. | |||
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Discourse on the Origin of Inequality [1754], Intro letter) | |||
| A reaction: Rousseau vision of a successful society involves robustly self-sufficient citizens (as in the American ideal), rather than people who are free, but easily led into dependence (in a 'nanny state'). |
| 19786 | Three stages of the state produce inequalities of wealth, power, and enslavement |
| Full Idea: Stage one gives law and property (producing inequalities of rich and poor), stage two gives a magistracy (producing weak and strong), and stage three is legitimate power becoming arbitrary (producing master and slave). | |||
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Discourse on the Origin of Inequality [1754], Part II) | |||
| A reaction: This is the final answer to the prize essay question (with Idea 19772). What a beautiful analysis - and he didn't even win the prize this time! |
| 19788 | The pleasure of wealth and power is largely seeing others deprived of them |
| Full Idea: If one sees a handful of powerful and rich men at the height of greatness and fortune while the mob grovels in obscurity and misery, it is because the former prize the things they enjoy only to the extent that the others are deprived of them. | |||
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Discourse on the Origin of Inequality [1754], Part II) | |||
| A reaction: This seems to be an accurate picture of ancien régime France, and it still applies to modern plutocrats. The pleasure of a nice house is not that it is very good, but that it is better than other houses. Inequality gives a lot of pleasure! |
| 19777 | Persuading other people that some land was 'owned' was the beginning of society |
| Full Idea: The first person who, having enclosed a plot of land, took it into his head to say 'this is mine' and found people simple enough to believe him, was the true founder of civil society. | |||
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Discourse on the Origin of Inequality [1754], Part II) | |||
| A reaction: A wonderful riposte to Locke, who thought political legitimacy was based on property! Locke is way too simplistic about whether someone has a true right to their property. Highy dubious claims become ossified after a generation or two. |
| 19782 | What else could property arise from, but the labour people add to it? |
| Full Idea: It is impossible to conceive of the idea of property arising from anything but manual labour, for it is not clear what man can add, beyond his own labour, in order to appropriate things he has not made. | |||
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Discourse on the Origin of Inequality [1754], Part II) | |||
| A reaction: A thorough endorsement of Locke's labour theory of value. It is not clear to me why you have to 'add' something in order to achieve ownership. Don't you own firewood just by picking it up? Golfers give ownership of a lost ball to the first one to see it. |
| 19781 | Land cultivation led to a general right of ownership, administered justly |
| Full Idea: From the cultivation of land, there necessarily followed the division of land; and from property once recognised, the first rules of justice. For in order to render everyone what is his, it is necessary that everyone can have something. | |||
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Discourse on the Origin of Inequality [1754], Part II) | |||
| A reaction: This looks rather obviously correct. You don't plant crops if you are not protected in your right to reap what you have sown, and you would expect to re-sow from the proceeds. Other people will want you to do this. |
| 19754 | If we have a natural right to property, what exactly does 'belonging to' mean? |
| Full Idea: Others have spoken of the natural right that everyone has to preserve what belongs to him, without explaining what they mean by 'belonging'. | |||
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Discourse on the Origin of Inequality [1754], Pref) | |||
| A reaction: This is aimed at Locke. What Marxists will challenge is the legitimacy of property ownership, granted by patronage, enclosure, exploitation and conquest. These start as injustices, but that fades after a few generations. Locke has a labour-theory. |
| 19750 | Writers just propose natural law as the likely useful agreements among people |
| Full Idea: Writers begin by seeking the rules on which, for the common utility, it would be appropriate for men to agree among themselves; they then give the name of 'natural law' to these rules, with no other proof than their presumed good results. | |||
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Discourse on the Origin of Inequality [1754], Pref) | |||
| A reaction: The arguments for natural law strike me as quite good, but pinning down its content looks incredibly elusive, and at the mercy of cultural influences. |
| 19770 | Primitive people simply redressed the evil caused by violence, without thought of punishing |
| Full Idea: More primitive men regarded the acts of violence that could befall them as an easily redressed evil and not as an offence that must be punished; they did not even dream of vengeance, except as a knee-jerk response. | |||
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Discourse on the Origin of Inequality [1754], Part I) | |||
| A reaction: This may be Rousseau at his most optimistic, trying to deny a rather more aggressive streak in people, seen in children's playgrounds. |
| 19783 | A state of war remains after a conquest, if the losers don't accept the winners |
| Full Idea: The conqueror and conquered peoples always remain in a state of war with one another, unless the nation, returned to full liberty, were to choose voluntarily its conqueror as leader. | |||
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Discourse on the Origin of Inequality [1754], Part II) | |||
| A reaction: Tricky if part of the conquered nation accepts the conqueror, and the other part doesn't, as in France in 1940. In a permanent conquest the state of war seems to fade away, as in England in 1066. |
| 19753 | Both men and animals are sentient, which should give the latter the right not to be mistreated |
| Full Idea: Since being sentient is common to both animals and men, that should at least give the former the right not to be needlessly mistreated by the latter. | |||
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Discourse on the Origin of Inequality [1754], Pref) | |||
| A reaction: This is why utilitarianism led to the founding of the RSPCA in Britain. There is a disturbing picture of people smashing up animals for fun, if they can only persuade themselves that the animals are not sentient. I've heard fishermen claim that. |
| 19761 | Men started with too few particular names, but later had too few natural kind names |
| Full Idea: Men at first unduly multiplied the names of individual things, owing to their failure to know the genera and species, but later made too few genera and species, owing to their failure to have considered beings in all their differences. | |||
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Discourse on the Origin of Inequality [1754], Part I) | |||
| A reaction: The fact that two leopards differ is not a good enough reason to assign them to two different general terms. Adjectives can do all the necessary modification. The single general term acknowledges something important. |
| 19776 | Small uninterrupted causes can have big effects |
| Full Idea: Negligible causes may have surprising power when they act without interruption. | |||
| From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Discourse on the Origin of Inequality [1754], Part I) | |||
| A reaction: A wonderfully simple observation that is a key idea of the theory of evolution. If life was created 6,000 years ago, evolution is impossible. If it appeared 500,000,000 years ago, how could evolution NOT occur? Little changes must occur. |