Rousseau was a contemporary of Hume; he was part of the circle of French intellectuals who created the encyclopaedia. He was born in a period of change and died a year before the French revolution. He lived between the static ‘Divine right of kings’ and the dramatic upheaval where the people took control. The Encyclopaedia was a high point in the enlightenment, almost a testament to Francis Bacon. It was important to people in the Enlightenment that people had a baseline of our knowledge from which we can build.
Rousseau was originally part of the group of intellectuals but there came a dramatic break. There was an essay writing competition where the question was “Had the progress of the arts and sciences had a beneficial effect on morality?” Rousseau said no whereas all other philosophers said yes. This set him apart from everyone else. He is often seen as a founder of the Romantic Movement, certainly his late books are very important to the movement. They view the individual as essentially creative, believing that the individual can create his own destiny. The figurehead of the Romantic Movement is Prometheus, he was seen as a rebel but also fairly creative, which are their two guiding stars. Rousseau believed that humanity was naturally good but had been corrupted by society. He detested the high society of the 18th century, “Society does not make us more moral, it is eroding our morality”. He compares the effects of history on us to the effects of the elements on a statue left out in the rain. In the end it would be barely recognisable as a person at all. Rousseau believed that the only person who was not affected by this would be the ‘Noble Savage’. This was at a time when exploration of the world was picking up and this fascinated Rousseau. He believed that the primitive, hunter-gatherer societies were the peak of humanity. The individual had been uncorrupted by society and therefore didn’t need society. Rousseau’s book was a clear attack on the Enlightenment; Voltaire called the discourse “a Book against the Human Race”.
The Social Contract was his most important book. “Man is born free, and is everywhere in chains”. Hobbes and Locke came to the social contract with a different view. Hobbes believed that we needed an all-powerful being (the Leviathan) to protect us from the dangers of society. Locke was more sympathetic but believed in a monarch. Rousseau eventually had to flee because of the reaction to his book. He attacked Hobbes’ “War against all” state of nature; he said that war and such violence were very much a recent part of our society and that Hobbes hadn’t gone far back enough. If he’d gone further he would’ve found a calmer, peaceful state of nature. His attack on Locke was based on property “the first person who having enclosed a piece 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 civilisation”. All of the violence could’ve been avoided if someone could’ve said they don’t need ownership of property.
Rousseau believed that natural man (the Noble Savage) was virtuous. He loathed the fancy way in which people upheld themselves, such as in the Draughtsman’s Contract. He argued that we were more like animals. We are more guided by our feelings, the fact that we can cry and show compassion to someone we don’t know proves that we are happy. This was before society imposed set values, as in how we are viewed, whether or not we should own property and so forth. We become trapped in a system of self-esteem. He was, however, pragmatic enough to realise that once society had been established there was no way to take it back to the Noble Savage. This did not mean he didn’t want to change society. He wanted to find a form of association which will defend our rights while the person obeys himself/herself and remains free as all. With Hobbes and Locke it was all about where to draw the line between the public and the private divide. Rousseau wanted all of the protection of Hobbes’ system and more freedom than Locke’s. What he decided on was the general will. He believed that the people would come together and discuss what they think should be acceptable and the outcome, all opinions put together, would become law. Thereby by following the law, you’d be following your opinion. He thought that in order for this to work you would need direct democracy. No representatives or anything, just you having your say. This was in contrast with the liberal views of Hobbes and Locke. Locke wanted a very small state. With Rousseau, since the laws had been decided upon by us all, the laws would make us freer, since we would by following our own ideas. The danger of the majority rule is apparent though. What happens if you don’t agree with the general will, you would be ‘forced to be free’, each person obeys himself and then he remains as free as he wants to be. He believed that, since you couldn’t go backwards in society, you must go forwards and the way forwards was the general will.
The French Revolution was a big moment for the Romantic Movement because they thought it’d be the start of a new age, where people would go back to being how they were, happy with an attentive state. The Declaration of the Right of man mirrored Rousseau’s social contract with “Men are born and remain free and equal in rights”. A law is the expression of the general will and each can take part personally. What started out as the Romantics dream revolution soon dissolved into mindless, psychopathic violence by the Parisian mob. Robespierre believed that there was a virtue in terror, the idea is that the word of a virtuous person should be enough proof to convict someone. The legacy of the terror is to create the association between political upheavals and appalling violence.
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