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PHIL244-10 -Hicran Erol, 21702583 -Question 3- Rousseau
Word Count: 1374
In this essay, I will compare the two concepts of Rousseau in his Discourse In
Equality as the equality of man in the state of nature and inequality later formed.
Rousseau generally talks about two stages of a state of nature. In the first state of
nature, humans live as “savage man” like in primitive societies, there is no
community, no nation, no family...etc but they have free and self-sufficient lives.
Rousseau believes that people are equal in the first state of nature. Through rapid
transition towards second state nature where feelings such as contempt jealousy,
pride and the notion of property are developed, inequality was also born. Rousseau
claims that violence and inequalities are not derived from the nature of humans in
the first state, but rather because of socialization and the false claim of reason. I
begin to explain separately these two stages of nature and how the transition
happened between them. Then I will continue with an explanation of why Rousseau
sees the civilized human as an entity developed through two opposing stages of
nature. Lastly, I will finalize my paper with an explanation about whether Rousseau
is consistent within its argument or not.
Rousseau started to describe the first state of nature as a way that life in the
state of nature was happy and there was equality among men. According to
Rousseau, the thing separates man from animal is not the reason of human, it is a
free agent of man. Man’s first concerns only his self-preservation and they realize
that by only their instincts. Man has just a few needs as rest, sex and food
(Rousseau 34) and when he compensates them he became satisfied and all
purposes of his life would be realized. Rousseau describes this process as the
"natural liberty " just is pursued only by the instincts of humans. Even two persons
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have quarreled over one meal, in that quarrel feelings like contempt, jealousy,
pride does not interfere in it, at the end the side gains the quarrel just enjoy his
meal. Instinct only provides that our self-preservation does not conflict with the
self-preservation of others. In the second part of the Discourse, Rousseau started
the chapter with that when the first man arises and the moment he says “this is
mine” he is no longer at the first stage of nature (34). This sharp the transition
between these two stages comes exactly from that question; How did people fall
into an unequal situation while living equally?
Nature changes constantly as external factors will not remain the same
forever, and human tries to keep up with these changes throughout their life. This
is exactly what the primitive man also lived. As time passed some external changes
in soil, climate, seasons force people to change their way of living. This new way of
living goes through the thoughts of man before being put into practice naturally.
The new kind of awareness and way of thinking was introduced to the men while
they tried to survive against those changes like “better, worse, smaller, bigger..”.
He tried some new actions with new ideas like he tried to overcome new kinds of
obstacles by hunting fishes or trapping the animals. With these actions, they
started to saw themselves as superior to others. And this point is the beginning of
the “pride” according to Rousseau (35). Initial progress is advanced so rapidly, more
and more new tools are invented by man; this is the first revolution according to
Rousseau. As this process is renewed, the human mind changes and renews, and
finds new ideas and concepts that arise in the light of new thoughts. Instead of
falling a night of sleep under a tree by themselves and alone; they begin to live with
small communities as called families later. Inherently, since the concept of living
with a family means living under a roof inside a house with other members, the
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concept of the “property” is born from here and according to Rousseau will be the
cause of all evil (37). Inside in the family dynamics, “division of labor” started to
introduced for this time. The separation between the two sexes became clear.
Women stayed at home, took care of children and was interested in the house
related affairs- become sedentary- and man was interested in more strength-based
affairs like hunting, trapping.. etc. While changes in the external world are
continued in the second phase of the state of nature, with the occurrence of
earthquakes, great floods the continents where people live began to change as
well. Through time, the continent divided into parts, different landmasses have
happened. This situation forced to people somehow to communicate later. Each
landmass starts to have their habits, character, identity, way of living as a whole
and nations are eventually formed in this way (Rousseau 38). In addition to
changing the physical life of the outside world, the mind also continues to change
and produce new thoughts, especially some new ways of feeling, in other words,
emotions. People are engaged in some kind of competitive activities in their
remaining time of working. They evaluate their leisure time with dancing, singing,
playing for amusement. “Self-esteem” and the role of “contempt” in the second
state of nature arises here. Some people are appreciated for their talents and some
people are not. “Jealousy” developed with people’s comparisons among
themselves (38). Contempt for one another begins to become a serious offense,
the one who is shown contempt started to lose his self-esteem.
It can be summarized as follow that everything Rousseau has mentioned so
far is that the source of inequality is not natural, it is an artificial being that later
emerged through socialization. Rousseau wants to show the difference between
the natural state of man and the present or civilized state of man is not the same.
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Through all explanations, it can be argued that Rousseau's seeing man as a
developing existence is compatible and logical with what he said. While people
were equal and happy in their lives with their instincts, the outside world somehow
forced them to act and think differently. Perhaps this wrong way of thinking
allowed human beings to give birth to concepts such as property, perfection,
jealousy, and contempt. The human mind and way of thinking are constantly
developing, changing and transforming through time. For this reason, Rousseau
wanted to show this change to the reader over a wide period. In the case of
changing conditions, people's adaptation of ideas or concepts that occur in their
minds to these conditions is vital. A small spark arising from these ways of thinking
was enough to put himself superior to other creatures and even to the highest rank,
and it never ended. Maybe if that little starting point ended with a different
thought, it might not be the result of concepts that still exist in the modern world
now. Unfortunately, those who came to the world later were more inclined to have
blind confidence in the concepts and ideas created by the previous ones, and never
considered the idea of radically changing them. At the same time, I also attribute
the social inequality that has not being questioned for a long time to the
psychological structure of the human. As Rousseau puts it at the very beginning of
Chapter 2, someone came out one day and said that this field is mine, and no one
has attempted to explain that the field cannot belong to a person. After this level
of belief, it's time to think about how to practice them and man always wanted
more perfect in the sense of practice. Humanity's obsession with "perfectibility"
that creates the potential for the greater evil. Civilized man’s endeavor for
perfection prevents him from being content. Even today, the idea of perfectibility
which is the cause of the crimes, wars, murders, and poverty of modern society,
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did not come to mind suddenly. In a slow and very long period, it has come down
to a very difficult point to change by penetrating human beings as deep as possible.
Perhaps the belief that the majority approves or that what has been done for a long
time is reasonable has brought mankind into the abyss of social inequality, which it
still draws its consequences today.
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