ON THE PROBLEM OF NATURE IN ROUSSEAU’S THOUGHT by … · Rousseau’s critique of Hobbes and...

ON THE PROBLEM OF NATURE

IN ROUSSEAU’S THOUGHT

by

Leslie Lee Heng Wee

A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements

for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Graduate Department of Political Science

University of Toronto

© Copyright by Leslie Lee Heng Wee (2015)

ii

On the Problem of Nature in Rousseau’s Thought

Leslie Lee Heng Wee

Doctor of Philosophy

Graduate Department of Political Science

University of Toronto

2015

Abstract

The problem of nature is arguably the central problem in

Rousseau’s thought. It may be posed in the form of the question,

“Whether and how nature remains a standard for human social li fe?”. Two

influential, and opposing, schools of thought have emerged in response to

this question. These are the naturalist and the historicist interpretations,

which answer the question in the affirmative and in the negative

respectively. Each school proceeds on i ts own terms, laying stress on

different parts of Rousseau’s corpus to advance its view. As a result ,

scholars across the interpretive divide talk past one another, leaving the

nature-history debate in Rousseau’s thought mired in an impasse.

This dissertation injects a new impetus into the debate by putting

forward a naturalist interpretation based entirely on historicist premises.

It therefore offers a considered response to, and a sympathetic refutation

of the historicist interpretat ion, while revising at the same time the

contours of existing naturalist interpretations in fundamental ways. With

a focus on the Discourse on Inequality and Emile , the dissertation treats

in succession the themes or problems of history, nature, and society in

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Rousseau’s thought. It also calls upon the natural man living in the state

of nature and the natural man living in the state of society from the

Rousseauian cast of characters to illustrate how nature continues to serve

as a standard for human social li fe.

iv

Table of Contents

Abstract i i

Note on Citations v

Chapter One Introduction: The Nature-History Debate

in Rousseau’s Thought 1

Chapter Two The Problem of History: On the Historici ty

of the Pure State of Nature in Rousseau’s Thought 36

Chapter Three The Problem of Nature: On the Standard

of Naturalness in Rousseau’s Thought 64

Chapter Four The Problem of Society: Reconstituting the Man of

Nature in Society (I) 93

Chapter Five The Problem of Society: Reconstituting the Man of

Nature in Society (II) 120

Chapter Six Conclusion 141

Bibliography 147

v

Note on Citations

In this dissertation, ancient texts are cited according to scholarly

conventions. In the case of Aristotle, therefore, Bekker numbers will be

used.

Texts from the modern period – with the exception of Rousseau’s –

are also cited with these conventions in mind. Taking Hobbes’s Leviathan

for example, the ci tation will appear as follows: Hobbes, Leviathan ,

Chapter XIII.3 – 4.

Finally, because Rousseau’s corpus will be cited frequently, the

following abbreviations will be employed in parentheses with the relevant

page number(s) included, for in-text citation purposes:

C The Confessions

D Rousseau, Judge of Jean-Jacques: Dialogues

E Emile, or On Education (or Emile)

EOL Essay on the Origin of Languages

FD Discourse on the Sciences and Arts (or First

Discourse)

LA Letter to d’Alembert on the Theatre

PN Preface to Narcissus

SC On the Social Contract (or Social Contract)

SD Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of

Inequality (or Second Discourse).

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All of the editions or translations of the primary texts consulted are

listed in the bibliography.

1

1. Introduction: The Nature-History Debate in Rousseau’s Thought

“Ici repose l’homme de la nature et de la vérité .” So reads the

inscription that adorns Rousseau’s tomb, epithets culled from his oeuvre ,

a pithy description of the man whose legacy is not so amenable to such

easy characterisation. Consider, for instance, the voluminous secondary

literature that Rousseau leaves in his wake. There is a Rousseau for

everyone: a social Rousseau, a political Rousseau; Rousseau Platonised,

Rousseau Kantianised; Rousseau Romanticised, Rousseau

psychoanalysed. 1 Each persuasion seizes upon a particular aspect of the

1 For an in terpre ta t ion o f Rousseau tha t highlights the soc ial d imension o f h is

thought , see Judi th N. Shklar , Men and Ci t i zens: A Study of Rousseau’s Social

Theory , (London: Cambr idge Univers i ty Press, 1985) and John Charve t , The Social

Prob lem in the Ph ilosophy of Rousseau , (Cambr idge : Cambr idge Univers i ty Press,

1974) . The for tunes o f the poli t ica l Rousseau have been subjec t to much controversy.

For an unfavourab le assessment, see Jacob L. Talmon, The Orig ins of Total i tarian

Democracy , (New York: Praeger , 1960) ; a more balanced t rea tment may be found in

James Mil ler , Rousseau: Dreamer of Democracy , (New Haven: Yale Univers i ty Press,

1984) .

Char les W. Hendel , Rousseau: Moral is t , 2 vo ls. , (London: Oxford Universi ty

Press, 1934) , r emains the class ic sta tement o f Rousseau’s P latonism. See David L.

Will iams, Rousseau’s Platonic Enl ightenment , (Univers i ty Park, Pennsylvania:

Pennsylvania Sta te Univers i ty Press, 2007) , which fol lows in th is t r adi t ion. For

l i tera ture tha t t r eats the Rousseauian corpus as a prolegomenon to Kantian e thics, see

Erns t Cassire r , The Quest ion of Jean-Jacques Rousseau , t ranslated by Peter Gay,

(New York: Columbia Universi ty Press , 1954) , and Erns t Cassirer , Rousseau, Kant ,

2

human that Rousseau either embodied or gave life to. But regardless of

the intellectual garbs in which we prefer to dress our Rousseaus, they are

all cut from the same cloth. For however we choose to deck our

Rousseaus, we invariably do so after coming to some conclusion on the

role and place of nature in his thought. This is true even if the problem of

nature is not at the heart of our specific enquiries. Nature is the

underlying thread which binds the patchwork that is Rousseau scholarship.

Every attempt will be made to put the problem of nature at the front

and centre in these pages, and given that in Rousseau’s thought the

and Goethe , t ranslated by James Gutmann, Paul Oskar Kr iste l ler , and John Herman

Randal l , J r . , (New York: Harper & Ro w, Publ i shers, 1965) . For a d i f ferent account o f

Rousseau’s influence on Kant , see Richard L. Velkley, Freedom and the End of

Reason: On the Moral Foundation o f Kant’ s Cri t ical Phi losophy , (Chicago:

Univers i ty o f Chicago P ress, 1989) . For a broader s tudy o f Rousseau’s inf luence on

German Idea l i sm, see Richard L. Velkley, Being af ter Rousseau: Phi losophy and

Cul ture in Quest ion , (Chicago : Universi ty o f Chicago Press, 2002) .

An assessment o f Rousseau’s inf luence on Romant ic ism may be found in

I rving Babb it t , Rousseau and Romantic ism , (New York: Houghton Miff l in , 1947) . For

a t reatment o f Rousseau that puts the man before the thinker , see Ronald Grimsley,

Jean-Jacques Rousseau: A Study in Sel f-Awareness , (Cardi ff : Univers i ty of Wales

Press, 1961) , and Jean Starobinski , Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Transparency and

Obstruct ion , t ranslated by Arthur Goldhammer, (Chicago : Universi ty o f Chicago

Press, 1988) .

Las t ly, these and o ther s trands o f Rousseau’s thought are discussed in Cl i f ford

Orwin and Nathan Tarcov (eds .) , The Legacy of Rousseau , (Chicago: Universi ty o f

Chicago Press, 1997) .

3

problem of nature is inseparable from the question of human origins, this

dissertation is therefore situated within the nature-history debate in

Rousseau scholarship. The debate draws its force from Rousseau’s state

of nature teachings in his Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of

Inequality among Men (hereafter the Second Discourse , abbreviated as

SD). Fundamental disagreements persist over the ramifications of these

teachings, between naturalist interpreters on the one hand and historicist

interpreters on the other, between those who insist that nature remains a

standard for human social li fe, and those who argue otherwise. 2 Such is

the contentiousness of the debate that even scholars who find themselves

on the same side of the interpretive divide quibble over the manner in

which the proverbial colours are nailed to the mast. All agree, however,

that in his state of nature teachings Rousseau engineered a profound

encounter between political theory and the historical sense.

For Hobbes and Locke, the significance of the state of nature is

juridical rather than historical in character. It is above al l a heuristic

device by which to demarcate the boundaries of civil society and establish

the respective rights and obligations between man and society. The

emancipation from our prepolitical condit ion was undertaken to protect by

positive law the natural right of self-preservation which though

2 To be sure, there are scholars who find the debate meaningless. One example

is Jonathan Marks, who in his Perfect ion and Disharmony in the Thought of Jean-

Jacques Rousseau , argues tha t the dist inc t ion between na ture and his tory in

Rousseau’s thought i s base less. We wi l l review his work in de ta i l shor t ly.

4

inalienable was not unassailable in the state of nature. Man’s ultimate

deliverance lay in the construction of a political order which would

rel ieve him of the inconveniences and dangers he faced there. On these

grounds the state of nature amounted to nothing more than a negative

standard in the estimation of Hobbes and Locke. Rousseau’s restoration of

the state of nature as a positive standard is made possible by bringing into

view the historical question which his predecessors failed to grasp in its

entirety:

The philosophers who have examined the foundations

of society have all felt the necessity of going back to

the state of nature, but none of them has reached it .

Some have not hesitated to attribute to man in that

state the notion of the just and unjust, without

troubling themselves to show that he had to have that

notion or even that i t was useful to him. Others have

spoken of the natural right that everyone has to

preserve what belongs to him, without explaining

what they meant by belong . Still others, giving the

stronger authori ty over the weaker from the first ,

have forthwith made government arise, without

thinking of the t ime that must have elapsed before the

meaning of the words “authority” and “government”

could exist among men. All of them, finally, speaking

continually of need, avarice, oppression, desires, and

5

pride, have carried over to the state of nature ideas

they had acquired in society: they spoke about savage

man and they described civil man. (SD , 102)

Rousseau’s critique of Hobbes and Locke is notable because it is upon the

very terms of their argument that their assessments of the state of nature

stand in need of correction. No departure from our original condition is

necessary favourable as it is to the natural right of self-preservation (SD ,

128 – 130). It only appears otherwise to Hobbes and Locke because their

portrait of the natural man l iving in the state of nature is befuddled with

anachronisms: the latter is of society even though he is not in society

given the manifold passions which they foist on him. By contrast,

Rousseau’s natural man is pained neither by need nor oppression, and is

insensible to the stings of pride and avarice (SD , 133 – 134). This is the

Rousseauian incantation of the natural goodness of man. Nature made man

happy and good, and it is society that makes him bad.3

But Rousseau’s praise of nature goes yet further, at least according

to some. It is one thing to rate the way of life of primitive man as happier

than ours but quite another thing altogether to employ i t as the touchstone

by which to judge our unhappiness (SD , 192 – 193, 104). It is in this

double sense that Rousseau rehabil itates the state of nature teachings:

3 This i s not to say tha t Rousseau d isavo wed po l i t ics or the necessi ty o f c ivi l

soc iety. But the Rousseauian ci ty is necessary only as a correct ive to the mal formed

civi l socie t ies of h is t ime , no t as a correct ive to the s ta te o f nature tou t court a s i t is

in the case for Hobbes and Locke.

6

firstly, by standing Hobbes and Locke’s estimation of the state of nature

on its head, and secondly, by offering it as a standard for how men ought

to l ive. Whether and how this last is possible or impossible is the subject

of the nature-history debate. For Rousseau’s cri tique of society is based

upon a conception of nature so rudimentary it beggars belief that it can

also function as a healing to men already so far removed from their

original condit ion. Reason was rendered in Hobbes and Locke to be

nothing more than a handmaiden of the passions to which it was formerly

mistress. Despite this reversal, reason was still regarded as a natural,

human faculty.4 Reason’s fall from grace was deepened further as a result

of Rousseau’s radical historicisation of the human condition in which

only the passions – and minimal ones at that – are natural , and whose

development is necessary for the first flowering of reason (SD , 115 – 117).

When Hobbes averred that “the thoughts are to the desires as scouts and

spies” 5 he unwitt ingly described how complex and perplexing human

passions came to be, the development of which Rousseau recounts in his

own state of nature teachings. So basic are the needs of life in the

Rousseauian state of nature, and thus, so easily are the natural passions

sated that the development of reason appears fortuitous (SD , 105 – 106,

126 – 128). In a word, natural man is pre-rational and therefore pre-moral.

4 Thomas Hobbes , Leviathan , Chapter I I , V; John Locke, Second Trea ti se , §6 .

5 Hobbes, Leviathan , VII I .16.

7

How then can nature, revealed to be sub-rational and sub-moral, ever be a

standard for human social l ife?

The problem may be posed more starkly. Though a simple and

limited brute, the first man was nevertheless a history-making animal,

capable of changing himself and the world around him. Rousseau

describes this potential in terms of the faculty of self-perfection, a

species characteristic that sets man apart from other animals in the

decisive sense:

In every animal I see only an ingenious machine to

which nature has given senses in order to revitalise

itself and guarantee itself, to a certain point, from all

that tends to destroy or upset it . I perceive precisely

the same things in the human machine, with the

difference that nature alone does everything in the

operations of a beast , whereas man contributes to his

operations by being a free agent … But if the

difficulties surrounding all these questions should

leave some room for dispute on this difference

between man and animal, there is another very

specific quality that distinguishes them and about

which there can be no dispute: the faculty of self-

perfection, a faculty which, with the aid of

circumstances, successively develops al l the others,

and resides among us as much in the species as in the

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individual. By contrast an animal is at the end of a

few months what i t will be all its life; and its species

is at the end of a thousand years what it was the first

year of that thousand. (SD , 113 – 115).

It is to the development of this faculty that man owes his humanity. All

that we are today is due to perfectibility, the effects of which are

irreversible (SD , 114 – 115). Man must therefore move onwards and

upwards once perfectibility is set in motion. “[H]uman nature does not go

backward, and it is never possible to return to the times of innocence and

equality once they have been left behind” (D , 213): there can be no return

to nature in the strict sense of the word (SD , 201 – 203).6 Having left the

state of nature, man must somehow find his own way in this world. True,

the departure from the state of nature may have been accidental (SD , 140

– 141, 150 – 151). But this is not to say that man is simply a creature of

his environment. With the development of reason, man is capable of

shaping i t in turn. For better or for worse, he becomes the arbiter of his

own fate. Ultimately Rousseau’s state of nature teachings are

emancipatory. In this respect (the idea of) nature is just one of the many

casualties in man’s eternal quest for self-realisation.

6 This is a l so to say that Rousseau i s no pr imi t ivist , a l though he i s o f ten

regarded as such. In th is connec tion, see Arthur L. Lovejoy, “The Supposed

Pr imit ivism of Rousseau’s Discourse on Inequali ty,” Modern Phi lology , vo l .21 no.2 ,

November 1923, pp.165 – 186.

9

These are the problems that any naturalist interpretation of

Rousseau’s thought, of which this dissertation is one, must surmount.

Admittedly the task ahead is daunting, but it is not without

encouragement. For the epithet ‘natural man’ is not conferred exclusively

on the original man of nature; it is also an epithet that Rousseau claims

both for himself and the eponymous hero of Emile (C , 3 – 4; E , 205).

Thus the view that natural man is condemned to live only within the

confines of the state of nature, or what is the same, that nature is

irrelevant as a standard for human social life, is not as straightforward as

it seems. Be that as it may, the objective here is to supply a definite

rather than a definitive account of the problem at hand since for a variety

of reasons the nature-history debate is and will continue to be a l ive issue

in Rousseau scholarship. Given the ambiguity of nature in Rousseau’s

thought there are as many views as there are commentators willing to

stake their claims. These are questions of interpretat ion pure and

disinterested, if this last is possible at all . Moving beyond these

considerations, there is also the matter of intellectual tastes and

predilection. True perhaps of Rousseau more than any other thinker we

engage his thought with our hearts as much as with our heads for more

than any other thinker Rousseau elicits the response of both our intel lect

and our sentiments. The territories that we traverse – Nature on the one

side and History on the other – are foundational and fundamental ideas,

cornerstones in our intel lectual and cultural furniture. Rousseau remains

so captivating a figure in the history of Western thought in part because

10

of his influence in breathing new life into the very ideas by and over

which part isans of the present debate fight. That these opposing

worldviews have come to bear the stamp of Rousseau’s thought may be

put down to the complexity and the complications of his twin goals of

achieving some practical good while staying true to his theoretical

convictions, the attempt on his part to concoct an appeal of the worthiness

of the good life that is consistent with a non-teleological conception of

nature. In view of these reasons the problem of nature in Rousseau’s

thought has all the makings of an inconclusive debate. Notwithstanding

this i t is hoped that this dissertation will help break the impasse that

currently grips the nature-history debate in Rousseau scholarship. The

question whether and how nature remains a standard for human social li fe

will guide this inquiry throughout. We will survey the literature next, so

as to provide a context for the present interpretation which will answer

the question at hand in the affirmative.

*****

Thus far I have spoken of the nature-history debate in Rousseau

scholarship indulgently by ignoring its critics. Hence it is fit ting that we

begin a review of the literature by discussing the detractors from without

before proceeding to examine the disputants from within. In his

Perfection and Disharmony in the Thought of Jean-Jacques Rousseau ,

Jonathan Marks argues that the distinction between nature and history,

11

however forcefully stated in the Second Discourse , is dubious. According

to Marks, natural man is without question a figure of history, whether as a

consequence of shaping the world around him or being in turn shaped by

it . Rousseau’s “description of natural man in the Second Discourse is shot

through, in ways he could not have fai led to notice, with historically

acquired trai ts.” 7 In short, nature in the Second Discourse is already

historicised.

For this reason Rousseau could not have meant for his readers to

take the nature-history dichotomy seriously. It is nothing more than a

rhetorical device that Rousseau exploited to good effect , too well in

Marks’s view, considering the blind al leys into which generations of

Rousseau scholars have been led, thus missing altogether Rousseau’s true

practical intention. The more extreme among these accounts typically

corrupt Rousseau’s understanding of politics with the propensity to

defang or envenom the political either by taking him to preach the

romantic withdrawal from polit ics or to justify the evils of the totalitarian

impulse respectively. To Marks’s mind Rousseau is al together more

moderate. By way of uncovering the principle behind Rousseau’s

constructive projects, Marks at tempts to dispel what he considers to be

the “excesses of Rousseauism.”8

7 Jona than Marks, Perfec t ion and Disharmony in the Thought o f Jean-Jacques

Rousseau , (New York: Cambridge Universi ty Press, 2005) , p .28 .

8 Marks, Perfect ion and Disharmony , p.16.

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It is convenient at this point to introduce into our discussion

another longstanding problem in Rousseau’s thought. This is the

opposition between the individualist and the collectivist Rousseau, or

between the social and polit ical Rousseau from which we obtain the

distinction between man and citizen. 9 These two dichotomies, nature-

history on the one hand and man-citizen on the other, are inextricably

linked in Marks’s interpretation of Rousseau. This is also true of my own

reading of Rousseau or of the nature-history debate in Rousseau

scholarship in particular, although with differing conclusions.10 With this

in mind I wil l focus on Marks’s treatment of the relationship between

these two dichotomies in my attempt to (re)establish the meaningfulness

of the nature-history dichotomy in Rousseau’s thought.

To come back to Marks, his call ing into question the nature-history

dichotomy leads him at the same t ime to doubt the efficacy of the man-

9 Shklar ’s Men and Cit izens remains the class ic work to consul t . See also

Arthur M. Melzer , The Natura l Goodness o f Man: On the Sys tem of Rousseau’s

Thought , (Chicago: Univers i ty o f Chicago Press , 1990) , and Tzve tan Todorov, Frail

Happiness: An Essay on Rousseau , t r ans la ted by John T . Scot t and Robert D.

Zaretsky, (Universi ty Park, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania Sta te Univers i ty Press, 2001) ,

where the d ist inct ion be tween the pol i t ica l and non-po li t ical ways o f l i fe i s

maintained.

10 Suff ice i t to say fo r the moment tha t in my view, the correspondence

between these two d icho tomies hinges on Rousseau’s reject ion o f c lassical pol i t ical

na tura l i sm. I wi l l t ake this mat ter up in the next two chapters.

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citizen dichotomy as a means by which to arrive at the heart of

Rousseau’s constructive project. 11 This is where the novelty of Marks’s

approach comes into effect. For even as he rejects the stark al ternative

between individualism on the one hand and collectivism on the other,

Marks ingeniously fuses the respective ways of l ife of man and ci tizen in

his, so to speak, middle-of-the-road thesis. The latter he calls the ‘savage

pattern’, the source of which is found in Rousseau’s praise of the Golden

Age in the Second Discourse (SD , 146 – 152). “This praise implies not

only that collective existence is compatible with a high degree of

independence of individuals but also that this compatibility makes

possible the best state for man.”12 Marks makes the further claim that the

‘savage pattern’ is replicated throughout Rousseau’s constructive projects,

even in those exclusive domains hitherto associated with the radical

11 Obviously the man-ci t izen dichotomy is not universal ly accep ted by every

Rousseau scho lar . Tracy Strong precedes Marks in th is respec t , and the fol lo wing

quo te captures his opposi t ion to the d icho tomy well : “T he passage in which

[Rousseau] asser t s that humans are composi te comes in a dra f t o f Emile ( ‘we are no t

precise ly double but composi te ’) …The a im, fo r Rousseau, i s c lear ly to be human and

c i t izen, the fi r s t o f which comes from a na tura l educat ion and the second fro m a

soc ial educat ion.” See Tracy B. Strong, Jean-Jacques Rousseau: The Po li t ics o f the

Ord inary , (T housand Oaks, Ca li fo rnia : Sage Pub licat ions , Inc. , 1994) , p .15.

12 Marks, Perfect ion and Disharmony , p .60.

14

separation between man and citizen. 13 In short, Marks’s Rousseau is

immersed in “the attempt to describe and perpetuate ways of l ife in which

elements of both alternatives are present,” 14 as opposed to the

pathological attachment to extreme individuality or extreme sociability

espoused by the man-citizen dichotomy.15

Now, it is not possible to refute Marks comprehensively at this

point , for to engage him in the minutiae of his arguments would be a

13 Marks, Perfect ion and Disharmony , pp .65 – 82.

14 Marks, Perfect ion and Disharmony , p .11.

15 Another scholar who emphasises the admixture or fus ion o f the pr iva te and

the publ ic in Rousseau’s construc t ive thought , ra ther than i t s c lear separat ion, i s

Mark Cladis. T he spir i t of h is approach i s obvious from these l ines: “T his quest ion,

the ques t ion o f restorat ion or redemption, dominated much o f Rousseau’s thought . He

posed two d i ffe rent , even contrary, remedies : a pub lic path and a p r iva te path …

Ult imate ly, he recognised the necessi ty o f bo th the public and p r iva te l i fe even as he

deta i led the inevitable confl ic t be tween them … This th ird pa th – the middle way o f

mixed loves – we f ind in Rousseau’s most famous works, The Soc ial Contract and

Emile . To unlock these pivota l works , the midd le way provides a nove l and useful

in terpret ive key … Jud ith Shklar , perhaps our f ines t s tudent o f Rousseau, concluded

that Rousseau ca l led on his readers to make a choice between being ‘men’

( independent moral beings) or ‘c i t izens’ (dependent soc ial beings) . My conc lusion i s

that Rousseau ul t imately cal led us to become both …” See Mark S. Cladis, Publ ic

Vis ion, Pr iva te Lives: Rousseau, Rel ig ion, and 21 s t-Cen tury Democracy , (Oxford:

Oxford Univers i ty Press , 2003) , pp.6 – 8 .

15

diversion from putting on paper my own thesis, and it is only by doing the

latter that I hope to demonstrate why the nature-history debate remains

relevant to Rousseau scholarship. Neither is it plausible to reinstate the

nature-history debate in Rousseau scholarship based on a refutation of

Marks’s thesis alone. However that may be, I have highlighted Marks’s

work because it is a thoughtful and provocative contribution to the debate

(despite his view that the lat ter lacks substance). By raising some

considerations against the ‘savage pattern’ I hope to convince my readers,

at least provisionally, that the nature-history distinction in Rousseau’s

thought is more than the rhetorical flourish which Marks takes it to be.

We are already familiar with Marks’s position that Rousseau

himself did not take seriously the strict bifurcation between the

individualist and the collectivist ways of life that he is so famous for

promoting. But the very considerations that Marks raises in praise of the

‘savage pattern’ – and in condemnation of the man-citizen dichotomy in

Rousseau’s thought – only has the effect of highlighting how, rather, it is

the former that appears problematic. At best , the easy compatibility

between the ways of life of man and citizen that Marks’s pattern

purportedly stands for trivial ises Rousseau’s disagreement with

Enlightenment politics and its attendant morality. At worst, the pattern

mirrors the very problem that Rousseau sets out to resolve through the

dichotomy, by valorising an existence which flits from one world to

another at will and with ease. In other words, there are good reasons why

the categories of ‘man’ and ‘citizen’ are meaningful in Rousseau’s

16

thought. While there is no intent here to privilege Rousseau’s political

writ ings over his non-political ones, I will rely on the former to illustrate

the point at hand.

In spite of his critique of classical political naturalism Rousseau’s

standards of citizenship are exceedingly high. This is one of the

paradoxes of his thought. True, Rousseau seeks to bring about a

symbiosis between the private and the public in his political teachings.

But while Marks thinks it possible to preserve the integri ty of the private

even within the public sphere,16 I understand the nature of this symbiosis

differently. In Rousseauian poli tics there is no distinction between the

private and the public. (This, in a nutshell, is Rousseau’s crit ique of

Enlightenment polit ics). The private good is the common good; the

common good is the private good. Only on this basis is Pedaretus able to

accept with cheer that there sits on the council for which he ran

unsuccessfully Spartans more capable than he; indeed, only with the

displacement or the destruction of the private realm so understood can a

mother celebrate the city’s victory in war without flinching at the news of

her sons dying in battle (E , 40). For Marks to conflate the political with

the non-poli tical way of life in the guise of the ‘savage pattern’ is to ride

roughshod over Rousseau’s peculiar understanding of politics.

Two examples, the first taken from the Letter to d’Alembert and the

second from the Second Discourse and the Essay on the Origin of

16 See Marks, Perfec t ion and Disharmony , pp .74 – 82, in par t icular .

17

Languages , will serve to clarify the point . They are alike in that both may

be described as communal dances but their palpable differences outweigh

this superficial similarity. In the former, individuals lose themselves in

the collective, the many melt into One. With no regard for distinction or

rank officers and soldiers of the Saint-Gervais regiment break into dance.

The absolute spontaneity of the affair is matched by the perfect

choreography of five or six hundred of men moving in rhythm. Dancers

and spectators alike are swept up by this public spectacle. Women and

children soon join in despite the time of the night. For the young Jean-

Jacques who watches from his window, mesmerised, it issues in the

injunction ‘aime ton pays’ (LA , 135 – 136). Although no less passionate

the tenor of the second example is altogether different. Rather than an

outpouring of patriotic sentiment, the second dance is but a cry of the

heart that whispers, ‘aimez moi’ (EOL , 274). 17 Individuals part icipate in

the communal dance only to better show forth themselves as individuals.

Each desires to be distinguished from the many. “Each one began to look

at the others and to want to be looked at himself …” (SD , 149).

Rousseau certainly speaks of polit ics as a realm unto itself . As I

have tried to show with reference to the temper of the citizen in the

examples above, man and citizen are not cognate entities. This may be

17 See Joel Schwar tz , The Sexual Pol i t ics o f Jean-Jacques Rousseau , (Chicago:

Univers i ty o f Chicago P ress, 1984) , for a detai led examinat ion o f the relat ion

between po li t ics and sexua li ty in Rousseau’s thought .

18

corroborated by a cursory examination of the task which Rousseau

ascribes to the Legislator:

One who dares to undertake the founding of a people

should feel that he is capable of changing human

nature, so to speak; of transforming each individual ,

who by himself is a perfect and soli tary whole, into a

part of a larger whole from which this individual

receives, in a sense, his li fe and his being; of altering

man’s constitution in order to strengthen i t; of

substi tuting a part ial and moral existence for the

physical and independent existence we have al l

received from nature. He must, in short, take away

man’s own forces in order to give him forces that are

foreign to him and that he cannot make use of without

the help of others. (SC , 68)

It should be emphasised that the act of transforming men into citizens is

not limited to the moment of founding and that its effects should, ideally,

be permanent. For as Rousseau continues:

The more these natural forces are dead and destroyed,

and the acquired ones great and lasting, the more the

institution as well is solid and perfect. So that if each

citizen is nothing, and can do nothing, except with all

the others, and if the force acquired by the whole is

equal or superior to the sum of the natural forces of

19

all the individuals, i t may be said that legislation has

reached its highest possible point of perfection. (SC ,

68)

This is the upshot of Rousseau’s disagreement with classical

political naturalism, or to put it differently, his agreement with Hobbes’s

conception that man is by nature the apolitical animal. Nevertheless the

means by which Hobbes and Rousseau coaxes the individual to care for

the political community is instructive. Hobbes’s man is enticed to concern

himself with the common good through a system of rewards and

punishments (and so, the good of a part icular individual is in constant

tension with the good of the political community). Rousseau’s man on the

other hand becomes a political animal only as a result of a great

transformation which goes beyond carrot-and-stick inducements.

According to Rousseau, the making of the citizen requires the unmaking

of human nature, of man as he is.

If on these grounds we are compelled to restore the distinction

between the ways of life of man and cit izen in Rousseau’s thought, then

there is sufficient cause to reconsider the soundness of Marks’s ‘savage

pattern’, since they are mutually exclusive. 18 In turn, because the

18 For an al ternate cr i t ique o f Marks’s ‘savage pat tern’, one that focuses

str ic t ly on the exege tica l mer i t s o f such a reading, see Heinr ich Meier , “The

Discourse on the Or igin and the Foundations o f Inequal i ty among Men: On the

Intent ion o f Rousseau’s Most Phi losophica l Work,” Interpre tat ion , vo l .16 no.2 ,

20

theoretical foundations of the pattern require the evisceration of nature-

history distinction in Rousseau’s thought, Marks’s assessment of the

validity of the nature-history debate is open to question. To restate the

matter, the continued relevance of the man-citizen dichotomy in

Rousseau’s thought lends support to my view, contra Marks, that the

nature-history debate in Rousseau scholarship is meaningful. With this in

mind, we shall turn our attention next to the dispute between the two

camps of scholars that make up this debate.

*****

Although compelling avenues of research have been uncovered by

scholars on both sides of the interpretive divide, there is litt le by way of

meaningful dialogue between them since neither engages the other on its

own terms. Thus the two communities of scholars talk past one another,

their positions hardening over time, making i t more difficult to initiate a

dialogue. This state of affairs can be explained more concretely with an

examination of established and representative works drawn from the

literature. For the present purpose two will suffice, one from each

interpretive camp. The works in question provide a useful frame of

reference since, in my opinion, they are located at the extreme ends of the

Winter 1988 – 89, pp.214 – 216. See Marks, Perfec t ion and Disharmony , pp .64 – 65,

for a response to Meier ’s reading.

21

nature-history debate. In other words, they define the utmost limits of the

debate, staking out positions that are directly antithetical to each other.

Consequently they are particularly instructive, so far as meaningful

generalisations al low, to grasp how naturalist and historicist interpreters

contrive to set the terms of the debate. The parallel treatment that both

works give to Emile – the putative ‘natural man l iving in the state of

society’ – will provide an entrée into this very dynamic, the recognition

of which is essential to any endeavour to reinvigorate the debate.

We shall begin with Laurence D. Cooper’s Rousseau, Nature, and

the Problem of the Good Life , which may be taken as the high-water mark

of the naturalist interpretation. For while others have maintained that

nature remains a formal standard for human social life – the psychic

harmony or wholeness of the original man of nature is the inspiration here

– Cooper argues that the standard is also substantive in character. 19 To

live life in accordance with nature, then, goes beyond living in a manner

that is simply analogous with the original human condition. More

crucially the key ingredient of such a life, and what makes it worthy of its

name, is a specific element that is present in every iteration, across space

and time. That element is amour de soi , which is preponderant in every

man of nature. (According to Cooper, the naturalness of both the original

man of nature and the Rousseau of the autobiographical writings is wholly

19 Laurence D. Cooper , Rousseau, Nature, and the Problem o f the Good Life ,

(Univers i ty Park, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State Universi ty Press, 1999) , pp.10 –

11.

22

constituted by amour de soi . Only in Emile is an admixture of amour de

soi and amour-propre present . The action of the natural education, then,

consists in harnessing the energies of amour-propre in service of amour

de soi). He in whose soul amour de soi prevails is natural; he in whose

soul amour-propre prevails is not natural. Thus the continued relevance

of the life in accordance with nature turns on the preservation and the

promotion of amour de soi in the face of the corrupting influence of

society.20

It is precisely in satisfying this condition that the substantive

similarity between the men of nature becomes the fount of substantive

differences between them. For the preservation and the promotion of

amour de soi in the context of society requires the guidance of conscience,

a principle of soul that is latent in the original man of nature, and which

is roused into life only with the development of reason. Conscience is key

to this enterprise because it marshals our acquired faculties and

dispositions in support of the l ife in accordance with nature. Indeed,

Cooper considers conscience as the wellspring of morality and much else

besides, the comprehensive education that Emile receives being evidence

of its power and fecundity. On this basis Cooper establishes the true

expansiveness of Rousseau’s conception of nature, from which the

20 Cooper , Rousseau, Nature, and the Problem o f the Good Li fe , pp .54 – 59.

For a more recent in terp reta t ion o f Rousseau tha t i s a l so centred around se l f -love, see

Freder ick Neuhouser , Rousseau’s Theodicy o f Sel f-Love: Evi l , Ra tiona li ty , and the

Drive for Recogni t ion , (New York: Oxford Univers i ty Press, 2008) .

23

substance of human flourishing is derived.21 Two categories of naturalness

thus emerge: savage naturalness on the one hand, and civil ised

naturalness on the other. To be sure, Cooper stresses the primacy of

savage naturalness, without which civilised naturalness is impossible. 22

But the possibili ty of such a thing as civilised naturalness demonstrates

that man’s stature as the history-making animal does not render nature

impotent or irrelevant as a standard for human social li fe.

Historicist interpreters dispute this conclusion in a number of ways,

sometimes at variance with each other. Thus differences and

disagreements proliferate in this camp as much as the other. They are

united only by the view that the role of history is of singular importance

to Rousseau’s thought. A brief word is necessary here to outline, in the

main, the two ways by which history displaces nature. The role of history

in Rousseau’s thought may be understood either through the prism of

historicism, that which denotes the temporali ty and mutability of all

things human, or its opposite in the fashion of a philosophy of history,

where over time the meaning and ends of human concerns become

intel ligible. Ernst Cassirer’s The Question of Jean-Jacques Rousseau ,

which is the classic formulation of the neo-Kantian interpretation of

Rousseau’s thought, may be taken as an example of the latter strain. For

21 Cooper , Rousseau, Nature, and the Problem o f the Good Li fe , pp .80 – 105.

22 Cooper , Rousseau, Nature, and the Problem o f the Good Li fe , pp .61 – 64,

183 – 185.

24

in his understanding of Rousseau it is possible, in the end, to derive

meaning and standards from history, which may be reduced to the

following maxim: true freedom can only be found in morality, and the

highest expression of morality can only be found in the good society

under the rule of law. 23 Despite appearances to the contrary, therefore,

historicist interpreters of this i lk share a crucial attribute with their

naturalist cousins in that they reject anti-foundationalist readings of

Rousseau. Objective standards can be discovered, whether in the past or

in the future, whether in nature or through History. 24 For this reason we

would be better served to examine other historicist interpretations of

Rousseau’s thought that depart from their naturalist counterparts in a

more fundamental way so as to obtain a panoramic view of the debate

before us.

Based on the parameters established above, Asher Horowitz’s

Rousseau, Nature, and History may be regarded as the rightful flag-bearer

of the historicist interpretat ion. For Horowitz’s Rousseau offers no

assurance that man will in t ime receive the guidance necessary to

23 See Cass irer , The Quest ion of Jean-Jacques Rousseau , pp .55 – 59, 62 – 65.

24 However this may be, see Melzer , The Natural Goodness of Man , p .91, n .3 ,

and p .169, n . 29 , for some considerat ions against the Kantian read ing o f Rousseau.

25

extricate him from his desperate situation.25 In this connection Horowitz

credits Rousseau for laying bare the twin evils of alienation and

repression that have plagued mankind. 26 This revelation would have

remained hidden from view had Rousseau adopted the prevail ing

conceptions of nature during his time according to which it is either

wholly fixed and static or wholly open-ended and indeterminate. His keen

appreciat ion of the interplay between biology and culture led him instead

to the conclusion that on their own each of these conceptions only capture

a partial t ruth. For though permanent the expression and satisfaction of

man’s bodily needs and desires are contingent upon the social realities of

a given time and place. In other words, Rousseau holds that nature and

history are bound together in a mutually constitut ive relationship. Labour

or work, the supreme art of man, functions as the intermediary and the

locomotive of this relationship. Through this social process, man

transforms himself and his world. 27 However man’s productive powers,

taken in the broadest sense, have only resulted in a vale of tears. This is

established by Rousseau’s historical anthropology, which is in essence a

25 Asher Horowi tz , Rousseau, Nature, and His tory , (Toronto: Univers i ty of

Toronto Press, 1987) , pp.248 – 249.

26 Horowi tz , Rousseau, Nature, and History , p .128.

27 Horowi tz , Rousseau, Nature, and History , pp .80 – 85.

26

study of the different social-economic orders that man has devised

throughout history for his relief, but to no avail.28

Unfortunately man cannot undo all the violence that he has wrought

on himself. For according to Horowitz, the praxis of personhood and

community is predicated upon some form of denaturation. In other words,

the very definition of our humanity necessitates an estrangement from

nature that is in every respect, final and irrevocable. From this point of

view the appeal to nature as a standard for human social li fe is

unintelligible. Indeed, one cannot embark on a return to nature without

renouncing his humanity.29 (The original man of nature is natural, but not

fully human). 30 The most that man can hope for in his present

circumstance is to reduce the chasm between nature and history, that is to

say, to negotiate as best he can the disjuncture between biology and

culture. Where Horowitz is concerned, Emile is natural insofar as he

embodies the Rousseauian principle of the natural goodness of man, the

teaching that man is not by nature evil . Nature is thus absolved of al l

responsibility for the ills of civilisation. But this is extent of nature’s role

in the human drama: it has no part to play in the remedy that must now be

sought. With this last in mind Horowitz distinguishes between necessary




27

and excess denaturation, or between benign and malignant forms of

denaturation. 31 In his judgement only Emile – one among the three of

Rousseau’s literary creations he discusses – is free of excess denaturation.

(Horowitz considers Julie and the Rousseauian citizen as fai led attempts

since the overwhelming demands of virtue, whether private or civic,

inevitably lead to self-repression. In contrast , Emile does not deny

himself in the articulation of his desires, nor is he compelled to dominate

others in pursuit of these desires). 32 To restate the matter, the necessary

denaturation of which Horowitz speaks requires a truce to be struck

between the individual and society – as an individual Emile takes his

place in society without being reduced to it . Whether his education

contains the seeds of a new social-economic order (the society in which

Emile lives remains corrupt) Horowitz thinks Rousseau leaves as an open

question, the answers to which are up to us, not nature or History, to

determine.33

*****


32 Horowi tz , Rousseau, Nature, and History , pp .164 – 165, 204 – 206, 225 –

240.


28

Quite clearly Cooper and Horowitz hold incompatible views on the

import of Rousseau’s state of nature teachings, the most fundamental of

which concerns the relevance of nature as a standard for human social l ife.

It is worth examining in greater detail how these views are formulated,

that is to say, to make explicit the methodological approaches, to use this

term loosely, that inform or justify the respective interpretations outlined

above. Now both Cooper and Horowitz accept the centrality of the state of

nature teachings in Rousseau’s thought. In other words, both forge a

connection between these teachings (what are often referred to as

Rousseau’s critical or diagnostic thought) and his constructive or

prescriptive thought (the example in this case being the parallel treatment

of Emile). It is the manner in which this connection is made that proves to

be contentious. For our purpose we will concentrate on Cooper’s

formulation of this connection, which is characterist ic of existing

naturalist interpretat ions, whether formal or substantive. In time it will be

argued that this formulation is philosophically or theoretically

questionable. At present the goal is to pave the way for a restatement of

the naturalist interpretation of Rousseau’s thought, one that is perhaps

more faithful to the revolutionary character of his state of nature

teachings, and which may on this basis result in a more considered, and

thus, a more forceful objection to the historicist interpretation.

Earlier it was noted that Rousseau’s state of nature teachings, the

object of which is the discovery or recovery of the original human

condition, entailed a hollowing out of the human person as we know him.

29

Man is thus revealed in his pristine, denuded form, more animal than

human in his deportment. Just how relentless this purge is thought to be

varies from one interpretive cause to the next. For in this matter the

bounds of nature and history are coextensive: one advances to the extent

that the other recedes. As we have seen, Horowitz holds that nothing from

the pure state of nature that could function as a standard for human social

life survives this purge. Rousseau’s discovery of the original human

condition highlights not the immutabil ity of nature as such but the

enduring permanence of history or artifice. On the other hand, Cooper

manages to salvage something from Rousseau’s purge of all that is

art ificial or conventional in man. Indeed, it may be said that as a result of

this purge nature comes into view amidst the detritus of history. Nature is

invincible, and the accretions of time are powerless to efface i t . So

whereas in the former nature withers in the shadow of history, in the

latter nature endures in spite of i t .

Be that as it may, in Cooper’s hands the state of nature teachings

fal l short of providing an adequate theoretical justification of nature as a

standard for human social life. Important as the teachings are to him, they

ultimately point beyond themselves to a supplementary account for the

continued relevance of the life in accordance with nature in the state of

society. As the putative man of nature in society Emile is enlisted to

serve this end in Cooper’s interpretat ion of the nature-history debate.

This is the crux of the distinction that Cooper draws between savage

naturalness on the one hand, and civilised naturalness on the other. In

30

other words, Cooper adheres to a biparti te conception of nature according

to which there is a nature ‘high’ and ‘low’. However much civilised

naturalness draws upon savage naturalness, the point remains that the

naturalness of the man of nature in society is differentiated from the

naturalness of the original man of nature. Emilean naturalness, as it were,

is conceptually distinct in i ts own right . Thus in Cooper’s interpretation a

separate and additional account of this standard of naturalness is required.

This dissertation provides an alternate (naturalist) interpretation

that eschews the need for such an account. Instead it makes the argument

for the continued relevance of nature as a standard for human social life

on the basis of Rousseau’s state of nature teachings alone. No distinction

is made here between the naturalness of the man of nature in society and

the naturalness of the original man of nature. In other words, the

distinction between these two types of naturalness is superfluous. One is

either natural or not natural – the standard of naturalness in Rousseau’s

thought does not admit differences of type or gradation. The (single)

standard of naturalness in question is derived from the man-citizen

dichotomy in Rousseau’s thought, the theoretical foundations of which

are, in turn, established by Rousseau’s study of the original human

condition. In a word, the natural man l iving in the state of nature and the

natural man living in the state of society are natural simply because they

are man and not ci tizens. (To be sure, Rousseau provides a different

art iculation or formulation of what it means to be man and not citizen –

or bourgeois for that matter – in Emile , and the education outlined there

31

is necessary so that this standard, extracted wholly from the state of

nature, can be observed scrupulously even in the state of society).

But this critique is not aimed solely at Cooper since other major

naturalist interpreters share the same shortcoming. For in their own way

interpreters who hold that nature remains a formal standard for human

social li fe also abide by the view that the difference between the man of

nature in society and the original man of nature is philosophically

decisive. (This is usually expressed in terms of some conception of human

flourishing, where the harmonious development of Emile’s faculties

corresponds with or supersedes the psychic harmony or wholeness of the

original man of nature).34 Thus like Cooper these naturalist interpreters do

not recognise the state of nature teachings as an exhaustive theoretical

account of the man of nature in society. The originality of this

dissertation, then, lies in the reformulation of the naturalist interpretat ion

on entirely new grounds.

In my view, this (re)interpretation also has the merit of engaging

historicist interpreters on their own terms by accepting the (implici t)

premise that the state of nature teachings are the sole and exclusive centre

34 See, for ins tance, Melzer , The Natura l Goodness of Man , pp .92 – 93, and

Cl i f ford Orwin, “Rousseau on the Sources o f Ethics,” in Norma Tho mpson (ed.) ,

Inst i l l ing Eth ics , (Lanham, Maryland : Rowman & Li t t le fie ld Pub li shers, Inc. , 2000) ,

pp.72 – 74. In this regard, both Melzer and Or win fo l lo w Strauss’s interpreta t ion o f

Rousseau. See Leo Strauss, Natura l Righ t and History , (Chicago: Univers i ty o f

Chicago Press, 1971) , pp.252 – 293.

32

of Rousseau’s reflections on whether nature is capable of furnishing a

standard for human social li fe. By extracting the standard of naturalness

from nowhere else but the thickets of the state of nature, this dissertation

wrestles more deeply with the acute historical sense that Rousseau

injected into his thought than existing naturalist interpretations. As such,

it is less likely to be dismissed out of hand by historicist interpreters, and

this might go some way in moving the nature-history debate in

Rousseau’s thought past the present stalemate.

*****

We will conclude this chapter with an overview of the dissertation.

Taken together, the chapters that follow will put forward the thesis that in

spite of the “great difference” (E , 205) between Emile and his primitive

predecessor, they are equally natural according to the standard of

naturalness established exclusively in Rousseau’s state of nature

teachings. Each chapter contributes to this effort cumulatively by

addressing in turn the discrete but related themes or problems of history,

nature, and society respectively. (Two chapters are dedicated to the lat ter).

Thus the problem of nature in Rousseau’s thought – whether and how

nature remains a standard for human social li fe – must be considered in

tandem with the problems of history and society.

Chapter Two examines the problem of history, that is , whether and

how knowledge of the original human condition may be obtained. For the

33

standard of naturalness to be established with any credibility, proof that

the state of nature in Rousseau’s thought is real rather than hypothetical

must be provided. This is available in the shape of Rousseau’s doctrine of

perfectibility, an exercise in philosophical anthropology that deduces

what man in his original condition must have been from what he is today.

Thus the solution to the problem at hand is theoretical rather than

empirical in character. All the same, the standard of naturalness in

Rousseau’s thought is derived from this insight into the way of life of the

original man of nature.

Chapter Three takes up the problem of nature by elaborating upon

this standard, which is contained in the man-citizen dichotomy in

Rousseau’s thought, the most developed expression of modern poli tical

conventionalism and consequently, the most thoroughgoing critique of

classical political naturalism. Whether one is or is not natural may be

determined by this dichotomy. By the same measure, the longstanding

question whether Emile is a citizen in the making may also be resolved.

In short , the life in accordance with nature is inherently anti-political –

he who is natural is man, not ci tizen. Understood in these terms, the

citizen is denatured , and the bourgeois, the denizen of society who is a

mish-mash of man and citizen, is unnatural .

Chapters Four and Five deal with the complications that the

problem of society – how men become bad for themselves and bad for

others – poses to the life in accordance with nature so understood, all

with a view to account for the “great difference” (E , 205) between Emile

34

and his primitive predecessor. It is worth rei terating that whereas existing

naturalist interpretations regard this difference as the fount of a

secondary or supplementary standard of naturalness that is unique to

Emile, I take it instead to be a necessary condit ion for the satisfaction of

the (single) standard of naturalness in Rousseau’s thought. In other words,

these chapters clarify what it is that makes the man of nature in society

who he is , by drawing out the crucial distinction between him and the

original man of nature that is not readily apparent from the man-citizen

dichotomy. In this connection the bourgeois, the very personification of

society, will play a significant role in our analysis. For ultimately the

decisive difference between the man of nature in society and the original

man of nature can only be grasped in light of the fundamental difference

between the man of nature in society and the man of society. Suffice it to

say for the moment that this difference revolves around the inner

workings of Emile’s soul, which the tutor must modify if the

reconstitution of the man of nature in society is to come to pass. This is

the theoretical contribution of Emile to the problem of nature, which

contribution makes the good life possible amidst men who are good

neither for themselves nor for others.

Finally, the conclusion will take stock of these findings. While the

present interpretation is decidedly naturalist in character, there I wil l

offer a brief reflection on the ecumenical approach that I have adopted in

this dissertation, and its larger significance for Rousseau’s thought

generally.

35

*****

36

2. The Problem of History: On the Historicity of the Pure State of

Nature in Rousseau’s Thought

The purpose of this chapter is to establish the historici ty of the

pure state of nature in Rousseau’s thought. Without this account in place

what is most serious and arresting about Rousseau’s thought loses i ts

lustre. 35 For one thing the credibility of nature as a standard for human

social li fe rests upon an accurate conception of the original human

condition. In the absence of such an account the appeal to nature as a

standard of any sort is rendered meaningless. Thus the problem of history

in Rousseau’s thought – whether and how Rousseau obtains knowledge of

the original human condition – is especial ly significant for naturalist

interpreters. In other words, the investigation of the problem of nature in

Rousseau’s thought must begin with a treatment of the problem of history

so defined. Understood in these terms the present approach departs from

the not uncommon view that Rousseau’s account of the state of nature in

the Second Discourse is entirely conjectural . While there is textual

evidence to support this view (SD , 92 – 93), here it must be considered

that Rousseau was compelled to pass his effort off as such in order to

35 See Strauss, Natura l R ight and History , p .267, n .32 , for a more incis ive

sta tement . There, Strauss argues tha t “[ i] f Rousseau’s account o f the s ta te o f na ture

were hypo the t ical , hi s whole pol i t ical teaching would be hypothet ica l ; the prac t ical

consequence would be p rayer and pat ience and not d issat i s fac t ion and, wherever

possib le , r e form.”

37

navigate his way back to our beginnings without tripping over the

theological dogmas that overlay i t . Suffice it to say that this concession

to the reigning orthodoxies of the day, designed to avoid arousing the

rancour of the authori ties, is the source of much of the confusion

surrounding the status of the pure state of nature in Rousseau’s thought.36

And yet to hear Rousseau speak of it the problem of history, while

so crucial to resolve in order to know (the nature of) man, presents an

insuperable obstacle:

The most useful and least advanced of all human

knowledge seems to me to be that of man; and I dare

say that the inscription of the temple of Delphi alone

contained a precept more important and more difficult

than all the thick volumes of the moralists. Thus I

consider the subject of this Discourse one of the most

interesting questions that philosophy might propose,

and unhappily for us, one of the thorniest that

philosophers might resolve: for how can the source of

36 For a br ie f but useful b ibl iographic survey o f the var ious interpre t ive

posi t ions on the histor ic i ty o f Rousseau’s account o f the sta te o f na ture , see Marc F.

P lat tner , Rousseau’s S ta te of Nature: An Interpretat ion of the Discourse on

Inequali ty , (DeKalb: Northern I l l inois Univers i ty Press, 1979) , pp.17 – 22. See a lso

Chr is topher Kelly, “Rousseau’s ‘Peut-Etre ’ : Ref lec t ions on the Status o f the State o f

Nature,” Modern Inte l lectual His tory , vo l .3 no.1 , Apri l 2006, pp .75 – 83 , fo r a more

recent t reatment o f th is problem.

38

inequality among men be known unless one begins by

knowing men themselves? And how will man manage

to see himself as nature formed him, through all the

changes that the sequence of time and things must

have produced in his original constitut ion, and to

separate what he gets from his own stock from what

circumstances and his progress have added to or

changed in his primitive state? (SD , 91)

The gravity of the task before Rousseau may be described as follows:

every snapshot of history emerges from a history of its own. How is it

possible for anyone, then, to pick his way through the innumerable

revolutions of time and circumstance that have changed man irrevocably

from what he must have been in his original condition? For that matter,

how can the original human condition be demarcated with any certainty

when, in this sea of changes, one period of human history blends

imperceptibly into another? Above and beyond the question of Rousseau’s

intention to try his hand at the problem of history – the magnitude of

which, according to Rousseau, philosophers before him have failed to

grasp (SD , 102) – there is also the question of his ability to succeed at it .

Despite the enormity of the task at hand, the thesis of this chapter is that

Rousseau’s conception of the pure state of nature is philosophically

robust. More to the point , it will be argued that the resolution of the

problem of history is fundamentally theoretical in character. Nor can it be

otherwise, for the nature of this problem is such that it does not lend

39

itself to an empirical solution, as we shall soon see. In this connection,

perhaps the more intriguing aspect of the problem of history is not that

Rousseau managed to solve it , which he must if the ostensible purpose of

the Second Discourse is to be fulfilled, but how.

Among scholars who maintain that Rousseau’s account of the pure

state of nature is historical in character, one group stands out for the

distinctiveness if not for the peculiarity of their claims. According to

these scholars, the notes which Rousseau appended to the text of the

Second Discourse are especially important if we are to apprehend his true

thoughts on the problem of history. Such is the significance accorded to

these notes that the references there to what we might recognise today as

precursors of cultural and physical anthropology are taken by these

scholars as a mark of their importance to the discovery of the original

human condition.37 These claims will be examined in greater detail in the

next section, where I will argue that the contributions of cultural and

37 The scholars in quest ion a re Roger D. Masters and Marc F. P la t tner .

Bibl iographic re ferences to the par t icular s o f the ir argument as they relate to the

contr ibution o f the incip ient forms o f cul tural and physica l anthropology towards the

reso lut ion o f the prob lem of history in Rousseau’s thought wi l l be provided as and

when these a re discussed in the fol lowing sec t ion. See Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The

Firs t and Second Discourses , t ransla ted by Roger D. Maste rs and Judi th R. Masters ,

p .245, n .85 , for a shor t t r ibute to Rousseau’s inf luence upon contemporary

anthropological s tud ies. See also Claude Lévi -Strauss , Struc tural Anthropology ,

vol .2 , t ransla ted by Monique Layton, (London: Penguin Books Ltd . , 1997) , pp.33 –

43.

40

physical anthropology to the problem at hand are overstated. Following

that , I will show how Rousseau’s doctrine of perfectibility is the

Archimedean point that makes possible the discovery of the pure state of

nature. In other words, i t is philosophical anthropology, not cultural or

physical anthropology, that provides the decisive breakthrough in the

resolution of the problem of history.

*****

In Note J of the Second Discourse Rousseau poses the problem of

human history with daring and audacity:

Among the men we know, whether by ourselves, from

historians, or from travellers, some are black, others

white, others red; some wear their hair long, others

have only curly wool; some are almost entirely hairy,

others do not even have a beard. There have been, and

there perhaps still are, nations of men of gigantic size;

and apart from the fable of the Pygmies, which may

well be only an exaggeration, it is known that the

Laplanders, and above all the Greenlanders, are well

below the average size of man … All these facts, for

which it is easy to furnish incontestable proofs, can

surprise only those who are accustomed to look solely

at the objects surrounding them, and who are ignorant

41

of the powerful effects of the diversity of cl imates,

air , foods, way of life, habits in general , and above

all the astonishing force of the same causes when

they act continually upon long sequences of

generations … All these observations upon the

varieties that a thousand causes can produce and have

in fact produced in the human species make me

wonder whether various animals similar to men, taken

by travellers for beasts without much examination,

either because of a few differences they noted in

exterior conformation or solely because these animals

did not speak, would not in fact be true savage men

whose race, dispersed in the woods in ancient times,

had not had an opportunity to develop any of its

potential faculties, had not acquired any degree of

perfection, and was still found in the primitive state

of nature. (SD , 203 – 204)

Capitalising on the travel literature of his time, Rousseau liberates

himself from the authori ty of the ancients and the strictures of orthodoxy

in one fell swoop, free at last to probe squarely into the distant human

past . The source in question is Antoine François Prévost’s Histoire

Générale des Voyages , an anthology of European travel writings to which

Rousseau refers at length. For Masters and Plattner, Note J is definitive

proof of Rousseau’s intention to provide a historical account of the pure

42

state of nature. 38 It is also held that there Rousseau indicates how this

insight may be ascertained. This is the purported recourse to what may be

considered as embryonic forms of cultural and physical anthropology. For

the veracity of these claims appeal is made to the very function of the

notes, which they regard in not so many words as a crucial exposition of

what Rousseau intended to convey to his select audience. Masters and

Plattner further claim that this feature of the notes is characterist ic of

Rousseau’s presentation of his thought where he distinguishes between

two types of readers – one philosophic and the other non-philosophic –

conveying a different teaching to each.39

On Rousseau’s part, he does advertise the importance of the notes

to a particular kind of reader with whom he wishes to communicate.

Indeed, he goes so far as to say that the notes are not for the consumption

of every reader (SD , 98). Thus there is no dispute that the notes do add a

layer of meaning to the Second Discourse . The real question, however, is

how are the notes to be interpreted in line with the function that Rousseau

ascribes to them. It is submitted that it makes lit tle sense for Rousseau,

38 P lat tner sta tes th is po int more emphatical ly than Masters . See Plat tner ,

Rousseau’s S tate of Na ture , p .23. Cf. Roger D. Masters, The Pol i t ica l Philosophy o f

Rousseau , (Pr ince ton, New Jersey: Pr inceton Universi ty Press , 1968) , pp .115 – 117.

39 See Masters, The Pol i t ical Ph ilosophy o f Rousseau , pp .106 – 111, and

Plat tner , Rousseau’s S ta te of Nature , pp .23 – 25. See also Leo Strauss, “On the

Intent ion o f Rousseau,” Social Research , vol .14 no.4 , December 1947, pp.455 – 487.

43

who years earlier preached against the unbridled dissemination of science

or knowledge in his First Discourse , to reveal his considered thought in

the notes simply, that it be literally read off the page. Surely this would

be a facile way either to conceal his true teachings from his vulgar

readers or to convey his true teachings to his philosophic ones. In the

‘Notice on the Notes’ Rousseau uses the hunting term “battre les

buissons” to describe what lies in store for the intrepid among his readers.

It is left for them to ferret out the meaning of the notes, taking care to

negotiate between the body of the text where Rousseau “tried [his] best to

follow the straightest path” (SD , 98) and the notes which meanders from

it. There is no doubt that Masters and Plattner are well acquainted with

this feature of the notes. Be that as it may, it does not follow that their

assessments of the value of cultural and physical anthropology towards

the resolution of the problem of history are above question. In other

words, there are good reasons to suggest that Note J could be read with

more care than what Masters and Plattner gave it .

We overestimate the value of cultural anthropology if we think that

it is indispensable for unlocking the problem of history for, at best , it can

only take us so far back in time.40 This impediment is not readily apparent

40 To be sure, P la t tner i s himsel f aware o f the l imita t ions o f cul tura l

anthropology in this regard. This i s why he goes on to say tha t Rousseau’s study o f

beas ts i s crucial to h is s tud y o f the or igina l human condi t ion. See Plat tner ,

Rousseau’s S tate of Na ture , p .73. I d isagree wi th Plat tner on the last po int . Unl ike

the per manence o f the ir cond it ion in to which beas ts are consigned , man on the o ther

44

since in Note J Rousseau was more candid about the limitations of its

extant practitioners than about those rooted in the practice of cultural

anthropology itself . Nevertheless this should not distract us from the

fundamental issue at stake. True, in i ts current state cultural anthropology

is unable to give a good account of itself . Thus Rousseau recommends its

cultivation in the hands of (modern) philosophers whose judgement we

have no reason to doubt when they declare that an anthropomorphic

animal is actually human (SD , 211 – 213). But however sure the verdict of

these philosophers, it is altogether a different matter from Rousseau’s

original speculation that pongos are not only human but may be “true

savage men … still found in the primitive state of nature” (SD , 204).

Precisely because, as Rousseau contends, the effects of the environment

are unrelenting (SD , 203), chances that there may still be found primitive

man in the purest sense of the word, that is to say, man issued from the

hands of nature untouched by perfectibili ty, are next to nothing. Whether

men and societies are more al ike today than in times past as Rousseau

thinks they are (SD , 203 – 204), cultural anthropology simply bears

witness to the long march of time which have carried them far away from

their original condit ion. Cultural anthropology cannot tell us what the

first humans were like, or how they lived.

hand i s per fec t ib le (SD , 114 – 115) . In o ther words, any s imi lar i ty in the behaviour

between man and beast i s incidenta l , and the condit ion o f beas ts canno t p rovide a

rel iable insight into the or igina l human cond it ion.

45

The same impediment undermines the appeal to physical

anthropology which Masters and Plattner take Rousseau to lodge

surreptitiously in Note J. It is in essence a mating experiment between

what ordinari ly passes for a human and a non-human primate, the point of

which is to prove that some primates such as those mentioned in the

Histoire might actually be human.41 That here in Note J Rousseau appears

in good faith to offer a solution to the question of his own devising in the

Preface concerning the necessary experiments one must undertake to

“achieve knowledge of natural man” (SD , 93) confers an air of scientific

respectability to the proposal at hand. Indeed, what appears at first blush

to be a most radical idea conceived in the name of science adds to the

mystique of the proposal if not to Note J in its entirety. Yet a moment’s

consideration puts paid to this idea. For even if successful, the mating

experiment only confirms that the anthropomorphic animal in question

was misidentified as such. It cannot tell us how old or ancient this newly

discovered human specimen might be. In other words, physical

anthropology lacks the wherewithal to provide a definitive account of

how men were like in the original human condition. Finally, we must also

take into consideration the context of this salacious proposal , which was

impishly concocted to mock the contributors of the Histoire and others

41 See Masters, The Pol i t ical Ph ilosophy o f Rousseau , pp .115 – 116 ; Rousseau,

The Firs t and Second Discourses , p .245, n .82; and Plat tner , Rousseau’s S tate o f

Nature , pp .24 – 25 .

46

like them who are ridiculed by Rousseau for being the “crudest observers”

(SD , 208).

To go beyond the parameters of Note J there is a compell ing reason

why the significance of cultural and physical anthropology is overstated.

Consider the conditions which Rousseau attaches to their eventual

realisat ion. (This is also to say that their use for Rousseau would be

limited). 42 Whatever guise they assume in the Second Discourse , each

requires as a precondition for its success the active participation of the

philosopher, whether to oversee an experiment the likes of which has

never been at tempted before, or to undertake a voyage into the known but

badly-studied regions of the world. But philosophers in turn require the

goodwill of the powerful in the former, and the generosity of the rich in

the latter (SD , 93, 208 – 209, 211 – 213). Both, however, cannot be

counted upon to support a philosophic endeavour whose essential aim is

to uncover the injustice of human social inequality the primary

beneficiaries of which are the rich and the powerful (SD , 174 – 175). In

any case, it was alone in the forests of Saint Germain where Rousseau

unveiled the secrets of time, without the assistance of the rich or the

powerful:

In order to meditate on this great subject at my ease I

made a trip of seven or eight days to St. Germain with

Therese, our landlady, who was a good woman, and

42 This i s a l so indicated in Strauss, Natural Righ t and His tory , pp .268 – 269.

47

one of her friends. I count this excursion as one of

the most pleasant ones of my life. The weather was

very fine; these good women took over the efforts and

the expense; Therese amused herself with them, and I,

without a care in the world, came in at meal times to

be cheerful without restraint. All the rest of the day,

deep in the forest , I sought, I found the image of the

first times whose history I proudly traced; I made a

clean sweep of the petty falsehoods of men, I dared to

strip naked their nature, to follow the progress of

time and things that have disfigured it , and comparing

the man of man with the natural man, to show them

the genuine source of his miseries in his pretended

perfection. (C , 326)

All things considered Note J cannot be taken as Rousseau’s (unqualified)

endorsement of cultural or physical anthropology. Neither can serve his

authorial purpose to provide a historical account of the pure state of

nature nor assist ours as his readers to ascertain the fruits of his

discovery. Indeed, their limitations indicate just how intractable the

recovery of the original human condition is. To cut the Gordian knot

Rousseau must elsewhere turn, to what exactly we shall see next.

*****

48

Despite its shortcomings the Histoire does at least lend credence to

Rousseau’s tantalising suggestion that the march of t ime is not

synchronous. Men are not everywhere the same (SD , 211). But striking as

the latitudinal differences between societies may be, what is of greater

philosophical import are the longitudinal changes that take place within

particular societ ies. As Rousseau notes the Frenchmen of his time no

longer resemble their forebears in physical appearance (SD , 203 – 204).

By the same measure, however exotic the newly discovered peoples of

Africa, the Americas, and Asia must have appeared to European eyes, i t is

not inconceivable that they too must have differed greatly from their

forebears. Of the differences between an indigene and a European cultural

anthropology has much to teach us. To learn rather of the changes that the

human species is capable of undergoing (or has undergone) we must turn

instead to philosophical anthropology. For Rousseau it is this universal

susceptibil ity to change and development that is decisive. Beneath the

superficial heterogeneity of men and societies there runs a single thread

from which the rich tapestry of life is spun. This is the species

characteristic of perfectibility (SD , 114 – 115), on which basis Rousseau

is able to provide a philosophically robust conception of the original

human condition.43

43 I owe this insight to Prof. Cli f ford Or win, who provides a very br ie f outl ine

of the argument that fo l lows in the Canadian Journal o f Po li t ical Science , vol .13

no.2 , June 1980, pp.412 – 413. See a lso Velkley, Freedom and the End o f Reason ,

pp .54 – 58.

49

In the previous chapter I alluded to Rousseau’s radical

historicisation of the human condition as the foundation of his state of

nature teachings. There the issue was framed in the context of Rousseau’s

quarrel with Hobbes and Locke. To restore the matter to its true

dimensions, a more comprehensive view is required. For here we come

face-to-face with one of those signal moments in the history of ideas the

result of which carved out a new intellectual terrain for subsequent

thinkers to negotiate. At the heart of this theoretical revolution lies the

Rousseauian doctrine of perfectibility, which altered the way we

understand ourselves by reconceptualising human nature. Our immediate

interest is to see how, with perfectibility as his sole guide, Rousseau is

able to chart his way back to the pure state of nature. To do justice to the

magnitude of this endeavour it will be helpful to reconstruct a slice of

intel lectual history and consider Rousseau’s part in it the character of

which betrays his tortured relationship with ancient and modern thought.

Nothing better illustrates the ambiguity of Rousseau’s intellectual

complexion than the implications arising out of the doctrine of

perfectibility.

The Rousseauian doctrine of perfectibility is quite simply the

culmination of the early modern assault on reason traditionally conceived.

Consequently it also presided over the complete rehabilitation of the

passions which in their natural state are innocuous if not wholesome. That

perfectibility had a hand in both developments is not incidental. After all ,

50

the doctrine is governed by a dialectical relationship between reason and

passion:

Whatever the moralists may say about it , human

understanding owes much to the passions, which by

common agreement also owe much to it . It is by their

activity that our reason is perfected; we seek to know

only because we desire to have pleasure; and it is

impossible to conceive why one who had neither

desires nor fears would go to the trouble of reasoning.

(SD , 115 – 116)

It is the reciprocal influence which each has on the other that drives the

motor of history. Thus by virtue of unfurling the accretions of time

Rousseau is indubitably led to his prize, the pure state of nature. In sum,

the Rousseauian doctrine of perfectibility is a novel (de)construction of

the human person, discrediting prior accounts which presupposed human

nature to be static. When pressed into service perfectibility is capable

alike of demonstrat ing how man has become what he is today, and

disclosing what he must have been like in time immemorial. According to

this new understanding of man, the human person is much more malleable

a creature than previously thought, and when divested of all his acquired

characteristics, much less endowed in his original constitution as we shall

see.

If Rousseau succeeded where others have failed, it was due in part

to Hobbes, who himself fell at the last hurdle. For the insights into the

51

pure state of nature which the doctrine of perfectibility afforded Rousseau

follow from the correction of Hobbes’s inconsistent study of the workings

of the human soul. For his part Hobbes was moved to inquire into the

latter in order to establish the political art on unassailable grounds. In

what manner Hobbes fulfils this ambition remains a matter of dispute. We

shall not be detained by the question whether or not Hobbes’s political

teachings are derived from his broader philosophical commitments.44 The

point is that Hobbes made imperative the consideration of the claims

which human passions make on politics. For Hobbes the problem of

politics is revealed in full by the chief and universal human aversion, the

fear of violent death, whose primeval energies must be harnessed for the

success of his political project. 45 Implicit in this procedure is the view

that the individual is prior to the political community. Hobbes therefore

rejected the claims of classical (and medieval) political naturalism which

crystallised around the thought of Aristotle, or the view that the political

community is prior to the individual . 46 Thus in Hobbes we witness the

coming of age of modern polit ical conventionalism, its cradle, the state of

44 For a general t reatment of the interpre t ive di f fe rences in Hobbes

scho larship , see D. D. Raphael , Hobbes: Mora ls and Poli t ics , (London: George Al len

& Unwin Ltd. , 1977) , pp .73 – 87.

45 Hobbes, Leviathan , XI .4 , XIII .14.

46 Aris to t le , Poli t ics , 1253a19-29 .

52

nature, a prepolit ical condit ion that challenges the classical tenet that

man is by nature a social and political animal.

To justify his view that man is not naturally sociable and thus

advance the cause of modern political conventionalism, Hobbes had to

dislodge reason from the pride of place which classical thought granted it .

For according to Aristotle, man is the social and political animal without

equal because he alone among gregarious animals possesses speech. This

is fundamental equipment for political li fe since it al lows men, in concert

with their fellows, to distinguish good from evil and justice from

injustice, reason being coeval with speech. 47 Hobbes is altogether less

sanguine about the contribution of reason to political li fe. Because most

men regard themselves as wiser than their fellows, and this includes their

political masters, the deliberation of public affairs only tends to the

dissolution of the political community. Rather than bind men together,

reason pits them against each other. Thus against the machinations of

reason the Hobbesian sovereign must arm himself.48 At any rate, not man

47 Aris to t le , Poli t ics , 1253a8-19 . Here, i t would a lso be useful to quo te

Hobbes. “T he Greeks,” he wr i tes, “have but one word, logos , for bo th speech and

reason ; not that they thought there was no speech wi thout reason, but no reasoning

wi thout speech …” See Hobbes, Leviathan , IV.14.

48 I t i s t rue tha t reason plays a fundamenta l ro le in Hobbes’s pol i t ica l thought

by putt ing in to e ffec t the t rans i t ion from the s ta te o f nature to civi l soc iety. However ,

the minds o f men must be shackled in civi l socie ty proper . Pub lic reason is

53

but irrational creatures are the political animals par excellence . Since

they lack reason, Hobbes contends that they are by nature best suited for

political life, having little or no occasion for quarrel. In effect Hobbes’s

disenthronement of reason stands the intellectual ramparts of classical

political naturalism on their head. The standard of modern polit ical

conventionalism is raised on the debris of reason.

And yet in Rousseau’s estimation, Hobbes did not go far enough.

For all the force of Hobbes’s critique of Aristotle there remains a limited

but significant point of agreement between them. The link between reason

and sociability Hobbes unreservedly severs. 49 But Hobbes at bottom

accepts the Aristotelian premise that reason sets man apart from the

animals. Therefore i t is left to Hobbes to redefine the ambit of reason,

having stripped it of its former powers. On the basis of his psychological

hedonism Hobbes assigns reason a relatively modest function: man

reasons only at the behest of the passions. 50 Thus, however i ll-directed

synonymous wi th the reasoning o f the sovereign, whose author i ty in mat ter s o f

doctr ine or r ight thinking is absolute . See Hobbes, Leviathan , XII I .2 , XII I .14,

XVIII .9 .

49 Hobbes i s unique among po li t ical ant ina tural i st s in th is regard . See A. John

Simmons, “Theories o f the State ,” in Donald Ruther ford (ed.) , The Cambridge

Companion to Early Modern Philosophy , (Cambridge: Cambr idge Universi ty Press,

2006) , pp.250 – 273.

50 Hobbes, Leviathan , VII I .16.

54

Aristotle may find its use in Hobbes’s thought, man remains a creature of

reason. Taken together, Hobbes’s critique of Aristotle is actually founded

upon a concession to Aristotle. In Rousseau’s determination the

possibility exists that these two elements are at odds with each other,

with drastic consequences for Hobbes’s state of nature teachings. The

crux of Rousseau’s objection may be stated as follows: Hobbes did not

meditate sufficiently on the question of the origin and development of the

passions and reason. By failing to pry into the genealogy of the human or

social passions, Hobbes did not go far enough in his purge of reason. If

Rousseau is able to prove his conjecture, then the glory of being the first

to discover the (pure) state of nature belongs not to Hobbes but to him.

Rousseau begins by acknowledging his debt to Hobbes: Rousseau’s

improvement over Hobbes is founded upon a concession to Hobbes.

Rousseau defers to Hobbes’s formulation concerning the relationship

between reason and passion by holding that the former goes wherever the

latter leads (SD , 116). Rousseau only adds that the very interplay between

reason and passion points to the ineluctable conclusion that the first

human passions must by definition be prerational:

The passions in turn derive their origin from our

needs, and their progress from our knowledge. For

one can desire or fear things only through the ideas

one can have of them or by the simple impulsion of

nature; and savage man, deprived of every kind of

55

enlightenment, feels only the passions of this last

kind. (SD , 116)

Reason being the child of desire, any passion with the tincture of reason

cannot be natural. Hobbes was therefore wrong to include in man’s

original constitution appetites and aversions which require the tutelage of

reason such as vainglory on the one hand and the fear of violent death on

the other (SD , 129). So long as self-preservation is the first care of

primitive man (SD , 142), his concerns are no different from animal

concerns. While Rousseau concedes that the passions owe their

development to reason, he argues that their origin stems from a different

source altogether. This he locates in our physical needs which in the pure

state of nature must have ranged no further than food, repose, and sex (SD ,

116).

Having established this much Rousseau proceeds to draw out the

implications for the status of reason in human life. At any point in history

the human endowment of reason cannot have been more than what is

necessary for the conception and the gratification of the passions, whether

natural or acquired. And since our natural or original needs in no way

depend on reason for their conception on the one hand and are so easily

satisfied on the other, Rousseau postulates in Note K that the cognitive

capacity of primitive man must be limited indeed:

With the sole exception of the physically necessary,

which nature itself demands, al l our other needs are

such only by habit, having previously not been needs,

56

or by our desires; and one does not desire that which

he is not capable of knowing. From which i t follows

that savage man, desiring only the things he knows

and knowing only those things the possession of

which is in his power or easily acquired, nothing

should be so tranquil as his soul and nothing so

limited as his mind. (SD , 213)

In short, the mind of primitive man is as simple as his original needs.

Thus primitive man had no natural reason, at least not of the quality

which Aristotle and Hobbes thought characteristic of man. True, very

quickly man had to rely on his wits in order to survive, whether to acquire

the necessities of li fe or to defend himself against his natural predators

(SD , 142 – 143). However unnatural reason is to man, however

unsophist icated his mind, there was no lack of stimulus for i t to develop.

But this does not gainsay Rousseau’s contention that insofar as the

original desires and fears of man are animal-like, so are his powers of

reasoning. It would be superfluous, not to say incongruous, for the first

men to have had the capacity to reason like philosophers while existing

on the plane of animals:

Should we want to suppose a savage man as skilful in

the art of thinking as our philosophers make him;

should we, following their example, make him a

philosopher himself, discovering alone the most

sublime truths and making for himself, by chains of

57

very abstract reasoning, maxims of justice and reason

drawn from love of order in general or from the

known will of his creator; in a word, should we

suppose his mind to have as much intelligence and

enlightenment as he must and is in fact found to have

dullness and stupidity, what utili ty would the species

draw from all this metaphysics, which could not be

communicated and which would perish with the

individual who would have invented it? What

progress could the human race make, scattered in the

woods among the animals? (SD , 119)

Thus in the pure state of nature there is no meaningful distinction

to make between man and animal in essentials of mind and body.

Although man is set apart from beasts by virtue of the faculty of self-

perfection, it is this very human trait which leads Rousseau to assert that

the first men lived no differently from animals. Primitive man dwells at

the level of necessity which guarantees at minimum the preservation of

the individual and the propagation of the species. On the basis of the

doctrine of perfectibility, therefore, Rousseau maintains that men in the

original human condition could not have been embroiled in the bit ter and

interminable disputes that are so central to and characteristic of Hobbes’s

state of nature teachings.51 What Hobbes gave an account of rather, from

51 Hobbes, Leviathan , XII I .3 – 13.

58

Rousseau’s point of view, is the advanced as opposed to the pure state of

nature, the essence of which he agrees with. For only at this point in the

state of nature does it degenerate into a state of war, to which civil

society is a necessary corrective (SD , 157 – 161). In his own state of

nature teachings Rousseau supplies the link between these two periods of

the prepolitical condition by arguing that men were led out of the pure

state of nature by a series of chance accidents. ( It is this portion of

Rousseau’s account of the state of nature that is conjectural in

character). 52 But in his original condition man is much further removed

from the need for civil society than Hobbes posits. Not even force or the

law of the strongest – that crudest form of rule between one man and

another – has a hold in the pure state of nature (SD , 138 – 140). Indeed,

in his original condit ion man has no need for or thought of his fel low men.

Limited to their original needs, men have no reason to consort with each

other. As Rousseau elsewhere notes, our needs separate us. It is our

passions that bring us together, the development of which time and

circumstances conspire against (EOL , 245 – 246). Adopting Hobbesian

premises, but pursuing them to their logical conclusion, Rousseau arrives

at a portrait of the pure state of nature that departs significantly from

52 Therefore commentators who hold tha t Rousseau’s account o f the sta te of

na ture i s conjec tura l are par t ia l ly cor rec t . On this point , see Strauss, Natural Righ t

and History , p .267, n .32 . Rousseau asser t s , ho wever , that the hypothe t ical account o f

the advanced s ta te o f na ture does no t de tract from the fundamenta l teachings o f the

Second Discourse (SD , 140 – 141) .

59

Hobbes’s (SD , 128 – 130). The (pure) state of nature is far from being a

state of war or enmity. More than Hobbes – and other modern social

contract theorists for that matter – Rousseau demonstrates just how

unnecessary and artificial the need for civil society is from the standpoint

of the original human condition.53

Consequently, i t is Rousseau’s articulat ion of the claims of modern

political conventionalism that serves as the most searing critique of

classical political naturalism. According to Aristotle, the attainment of

full self-sufficiency is the end or purpose of the city or poli tical

community. By this measure other smaller human communities such as

households and villages remain deficient and are therefore inferior to the

political community. This is also to say that outside of the political

community men are unable to lead fully self-sufficient lives. 54 Rousseau

inverts this classical teaching by arguing how in the original human

53 At this po int o f the discussion, i t i s appropr ia te to mention a unique

trea tment o f the issue at hand, which treatment revo lves around the claim tha t

Rousseau’s approach to the study o f human history i s ac tua l ly quite ec lect ic in

charac ter . In other words, i t has been argued tha t a l l o f the three methods enumera ted

above, namely, the doct r ine o f per fec t ib i l i ty, cul tural anthropo logy, and physical

anthropology, have been summari ly incorpora ted by Rousseau in his por t rai t o f the

sta te o f na ture . See Robert Wokler , “Per fec t ib le Apes in Decadent Cultures :

Rousseau’s Anthropo logy Revisi ted ,” Daedalus , vol .107 no.3 , Summer 1978, pp.107 –

134.

54 Aris to t le , Poli t ics , 1252b27-1253a1 .

60

condition, that is to say, in the condition furthest removed from civil

society, man is sufficient unto himself. He even claims that so self-

sufficient is primitive man that it would be more of an unequal contest for

civil ised man to fight him unarmed than armed:

The savage man’s body being the only implement he

knows, he employs it for various uses of which,

through lack of training, our bodies are incapable; our

industry deprives us of the strength and agil ity that

necessity obliges him to acquire. If he had an axe,

would his wrist break such strong branches? If he had

a sling, would he throw a stone so hard? If he had a

ladder, would he climb a tree so nimbly? If he had a

horse, would he run so fast? Give civilised man time

to assemble al l his machines around him and there

can be no doubt that he wil l easily overcome savage

man. But if you want to see an even more unequal

fight, put them, naked and disarmed, face to face, and

you will soon recognise the advantage of constantly

having all of one’s strength at one’s disposal , of

always being ready for any event, and of always

carrying oneself, so to speak, entirely with one. (SD ,

106 – 107)

Indeed, in no other time in history is one man so entirely without need for

another (SD , 126 – 127). Thus in Rousseau’s view man has no need for

61

the political community precisely for the same reason that Aristotle

asserts that the polit ical community is necessary – the attainment or the

enjoyment of full self-sufficiency. Now it is true that what Aristotle and

Rousseau mean by the concept of self-sufficiency differs greatly. For

Aristotle, the political community is fully self-sufficient because it is

capable of supplying the condit ions necessary for the good life. As

Aristotle understands it , the components of the good life go beyond the

necessities of l ife, and include opportunities for the exercise of virtue

which other human aggregations, such as the household and the village,

cannot provide.55 For Rousseau on the other hand, primitive man is fully

self-sufficient because he has in his physical being alone all that he needs

to preserve himself. In the pure state of nature which is prerational and

therefore premoral, Rousseau speaks of the virtue of primitive man in

terms of his ability to contribute towards the satisfaction of the bare

necessities of li fe:

It seems at first that men in that state, not having

among themselves any kind of moral relationship or

known duties, could be neither good nor evil , and had

neither vices nor virtue: unless, taking these words in

a physical sense, one calls vices in the individual the

qualities that can harm his own preservation, and

virtues those that can contribute to it; in which case,


62

it would be necessary to call the most virtuous the

one who least resists the simple impulses of nature.

(SD , 128)

It should also be noted that in each of these cases where self-sufficiency

obtains, Aristotle and Rousseau would describe the situation as natural.

Once again there are manifest differences between the Aristotel ian and

the Rousseauian conception of nature. But that ‘nature’ is understood

differently here only serves to underl ine the point that in Rousseau’s view,

primitive man is happy, free, and whole despite being “without clan,

without law, [and] without hearth.”56 For Rousseau, he who is no part of a

city is neither a beast nor a god, but man simply as he was found in the

pure state of nature.

*****

Our primary concern in this chapter was to establish the historicity

of the pure state of nature in Rousseau’s thought. In particular we

examined the philosophical defensibility of Rousseau’s conception of the

original human condition. This is the problem of history, the contours of

which to Rousseau’s mind were misrepresented by generations of

philosophers. It was therefore left to him to pose the problem of history

anew with unparalleled incisiveness, and having done so, he believed


63

himself to have pursued it relentlessly to the end. As was suggested,

Rousseau’s success in unveiling the original human condition is a

theoretical feat of the first order, given the not inconsiderable

philosophical obstacles which he had to surmount. And yet the successful

resolution of the problem of history presents a complication for the

establishment of nature as a standard for human social li fe. Following in

the footsteps of his early modern predecessors in their rejection of the

traditional view that nature is teleological, Rousseau equates the natural

with the original rather than with its end or perfection (SD , 91 – 93). This

approach to the study of nature is of course intimately connected with the

historical sense which Rousseau brings to bear on his state of nature

teachings. But it is not entirely clear how the way of life of primitive man,

more animal than human in every respect, is capable of furnishing a

standard that remains relevant to us today. In other words, the foregoing

analysis seems to support the contention of historicist interpreters that

marooned from the state of nature, man must find his own way in this

world. It is with this in mind that we turn our attention to the next chapter,

where we will see how a standard of naturalness may be extracted from

Rousseau’s state of nature teachings despite the difficulty at hand.

*****

64

3. The Problem of Nature: On the Standard of Naturalness in

Rousseau’s Thought

Rousseau’s thought is perhaps the last great philosophical at tempt

to ground the conception of the good l ife in the appeal to nature. To this

end Rousseau effected the return to nature, facilitated by his successful

negotiation of the problem of history in the Second Discourse . But the

historical inquiry initiated there cannot be taken as an unequivocal

endorsement of the broader philosophical concern that sanctioned i t . In

other words, whether and how nature remains a standard for human social

life becomes not less but more contentious an issue despite or precisely

because of the resolution of the problem of history. Far from settl ing the

problem of nature, the resolution of the problem of history deepens it .

The difficulty may be stated as follows. The Rousseauian return to nature

implies a prior abandonment of nature on the part of the tradition. The

repudiation of nature as a standard for human social li fe, led by a raft of

early modern thinkers, is therefore pre-Rousseauian. 57 Yet it is not the

pre-Rousseauian abandonment of nature but the Rousseauian return to

nature that bears the hallmarks of the philosophical movement we call

57 See Pierre Manent , An Intel lec tual His tory o f L ibera li sm , t r ans la ted by

Rebecca Bal inski , (Pr inceton, New Jersey: Pr inceton Universi ty Press, 1994) , in

par t icular his d iscuss ion of Machiavel l i , Hobbes , Locke, and Montesquieu.

65

‘historicism’.58 For according to Rousseau’s state of nature teachings man

is an accidental being shaped on the anvil of circumstance. Indeed, in the

original human condition man was revealed to have no nature to call his

own except the wherewithal to appropriate one. Even then there was no

natural inevitabili ty for him to have done so. Thus the return to nature

which Rousseau initiates in the Second Discourse threatens any

meaningful appeal to nature as a standard for human social li fe.

This is the context in which Rousseau’s attempt to reconstitute the

man of nature in society must be understood. Consequently this is the

paradox, and the difficulty, that every naturalist interpretation of Emile

must confront. For in the face of the radical historicisation of the human

condition, Emile’s t itle as the man of nature is fraught with ambiguity.

Certainly Rousseau could not have been blind to the seeming

contradiction before him, having set in train the very forces that now

threaten to undermine the incarnation of the man of nature in society. The

purpose of this chapter, therefore, is to extricate Emile from this apparent

entanglement with history. Towards this end, we shall examine the claims

of two leading naturalist interpretations in the next section. 59 The

58 See Strauss, Natura l R ight and History , pp .252 – 294, on th is d imension of

Rousseau’s thought , and the chal lenge tha t i t poses to modern natural r ight teachings .

59 The in terpretat ions in ques t ion d i f fer over the manner in which nature

remains a standard for human social l i fe . The fir st ho lds that the s tandard of

na tura lness in Rousseau’s thought is merely formal, whi le the second maintains that i t

66

rat ionale for considering these interpretat ions first is to pave the way for

my own which I will offer as an alternative in their place. Given that the

interpretations in question are so influential in Rousseau scholarship, it is

necessary to subject them to closer scrutiny in order to demonstrate the

reasonableness of the need for an alternate naturalist account. Perhaps in

response to the historical sense which permeates Rousseau’s state of

nature teachings, these interpretations go beyond these teachings and

anchor Emile’s naturalness in association with some conception of human

flourishing. Notwithstanding the differences in the manner which they

achieve this, they abide by the more fundamental view that Rousseau’s

state of nature teachings are an insufficient theoretical justification for

Emile’s naturalness. (According to these interpretations, Rousseau

provides the necessary justification in Emile i tself). The upshot is that

these interpretations make a dist inction between the naturalness of the

original man of nature and the naturalness of the man of nature in society,

or between primitive naturalness on the one hand, and civilised

is a l so substant ive in charac ter . (T he substant ive account is propounded by Laurence

Cooper , which was discussed extensively in the in troduc tory chapter) . See Cooper ,

Rousseau, Nature, and the Problem o f the Good Li fe , pp .4 – 11, for his rend it ion o f

ho w his inte rpretat ion depar ts from the other na tural i st a l terna t ive. Deta i l s o f the

formal account wi l l be p rovided in due course.

67

naturalness on the other. 60 I will show why these interpretations are

problematic even on the terms of their arguments, although I will

ultimately argue that the distinction between the two kinds of naturalness

is superfluous.

This leads us to the following section, where I will contend that the

standard of naturalness in Rousseau’s thought is lodged exclusively and

exhaustively in his state of nature teachings. We have already seen how

these teachings are so crucial in unveiling the original human condition as

Rousseau understands it , which establishes in turn the true foundations of

modern poli tical conventionalism. It is from this articulation of the very

unnaturalness of political li fe that the standard of naturalness in

Rousseau’s thought is derived. For Rousseau, nature remains a standard

for human social l ife in the form of the man-citizen dichotomy. Thus the

life in accordance with nature is radically anti-political – he who is man

is natural; he who is citizen is denatured. This dichotomy alone amounts

to a philosophical justification of the naturalness of the original man of

nature and the man of nature in society despite the immense gulf that

separates them. On the basis of the dichotomy both Emile and his

primitive predecessor are equally natural . Neither is more or less natural

than the other. In other words, this approach eschews attempts which

60 I borrow the term ‘civi l ised na turalness’ from Laurence Cooper , which I wi l l

use interchangeably wi th the term ‘Emilean natura lness’. See Cooper , Rousseau,

Nature, and the Prob lem of the Good Life , pp .67 – 114, for a t reatment o f the concep t

as he understands i t .

68

emphasise instead Emile’s uniqueness or distinctiveness as a theoretical

justification of his title as the man of nature. But this departure from

standard naturalist interpretat ions is significant in that it also takes into

account the historicist contention that Rousseau’s state of nature

teachings are decisive in determining whether and how nature remains a

standard for human social li fe. It is my hope that this reinterpretation of

the grounds of Emile’s naturalness on the sole basis of the state of nature

teachings will furnish a more considered reply to the historicist

interpretation of Rousseau’s thought, thereby moving the nature-history

debate past the current stalemate.

*****

Interpreters who abide by the concept of civilised or Emilean

naturalness typically define it in terms of formal or substantive

considerations, with these formulations taking primitive naturalness as

their point of departure. Thus to the question how nature remains a

standard for human social life, two competing answers may be offered.

According to these interpreters, the proposit ion that the difference

between the original man of nature and the man of nature in society is

philosophically decisive is supported by Rousseau’s bipartite conception

of nature. The first is articulated in the Second Discourse , and the second

in Emile , these being the philosophical underpinnings of the two men of

nature personified in the respective texts. To restate the matter,

69

Rousseau’s conception of nature may be rendered sequentially in the

following terms: nature primary and secondary; nature original and

civil ised; and nature in the strict and in the loose sense. But regardless of

the semantics, nature in the primary, original, or in the strict sense is

reduced, finally, to nature in the ‘low’ sense; and nature in the secondary,

civil ised, or in the loose sense is embellished as nature in the ‘high’

sense. 61 More to the point , nature in the ‘low’ sense, articulated in the

Second Discourse and embodied in the natural man living in the state of

nature, is presumably inadequate as a theoretical expression of the natural

man living in the state of society. Since the original man of nature is by

definit ion he whose human faculties are least developed, the

commensurability between Emile and his primitive predecessor is called

into question. If the forest is the enduring emblem of the natural man

living in the state of nature – he is the man of nature because

undomesticated or wild – then the corresponding emblem of the natural

man living in the state of society is the garden – he is the man of nature

because cult ivated or refined. 62 A conception of nature more expansive

61 See, for ins tance, Cooper , Rousseau, Nature, and the Prob lem of the Good

Li fe , p .74 (na ture “pr imary” and “secondary”) ; p .11 (“or igina l” and “c ivi l i sed”

na tura lness) ; p .58, 81 (nature in the “s tr ic t” and in the “loose” sense) ; p .69 (nature

“high” and “low”) .

62 See T imothy O’Hagan, “Introduc tion,” in T imothy O’Hagan (ed.) , Jean-

Jacques Rousseau , (Aldersho t: Ashgate Publ ishing Limi ted , 2007) , p .xi i i .

70

than the one expounded in the Second Discourse is therefore required to

accommodate the goals of the comprehensive education of which Emile is

the recipient . This is not to say that the elements of Rousseau’s bipartite

conception of nature are incongruous. The opposite rather is true, for they

complement one another. Indeed, both are indispensable in making sense

of Emilean naturalness. Although the ‘high’ is set apart from the ‘low’,

the lat ter is nevertheless the foundation of the former. But to ask what

makes the original man of nature natural is to ask, only in part, what

makes the man of nature in society natural. Important as the first question

may be, it is in the end a preliminary to the second. These are the

signature traits of naturalist interpretations that venture beyond

Rousseau’s state of nature teachings in search of a theoretical

justification for the man of nature in society. The essential point is that

Emilean naturalness is distinctive, and this distinctiveness gives rise to

the need for an independent account of it . With this in mind, we shall

begin our examination of the formal account of Emilean naturalness.

What is natural in the civil state is natural so long as it does not

contradict what is natural in the savage state. What is not to be

contradicted in this instance is the wholeness that is coeval with the

original human condition. This is how nature remains a standard for

human social l ife, i f only formally. Emile is the embodiment of what is

natural in the civil state because he is whole despite being in society.

This is almost a contradiction in terms since according to Rousseau the

denizens of society are to a man divided within themselves (E , 40 – 41).

71

The meaning of Emilean naturalness may be extracted from this

juxtaposition of fortunes between social man and the man of nature in

society, which is that “a harmonious or noncontradictory development of

the faculties is possible, and that this outcome is ‘natural’ precisely in its

noncontradictoriness (for to be noncontradictory, it must not contradict

nature).” 63 Thus the l ife in accordance with nature is not incompatible

with the perfection of our humanity. In other words, the goodness or

innocence of nature does not nullify the signal attributes that make up the

crown of our humanity, such as our capacity to reason, our moral impulse,

or our ability to be moved by beauty, characteristics which are not natural

to man, and which are developed only in society. This is also to say that

beyond its quiescence in this matter, nature has no decisive part to play in

the equipment of the man of nature in society. The goodness or innocence

63 Cli f ford Or win, “Rousseau on the Sources o f Ethics,” p .73 . Or win’s

in terpretat ion i s indeb ted to that o f Leo St rauss . Once aga in, see Strauss , Natural

Right and His tory , pp .252 – 294. S trauss’s view on the cont inued relevance o f the l i fe

in accordance wi th nature may be reduced to th is very l ine on p .282: “Hence

Rousseau’s answer to the quest ion o f the good l i fe takes on th is form: the good l i fe

consis t s in the closes t approximation to the sta te o f na ture which i s possib le on the

leve l o f humani ty.” Other scholars who fo l lo w sui t include Allan Bloo m,

“Introduc tion,” in Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile, or on Educa tion , t r anslated by

Allan Bloo m, (New York: Basic Books , 1979) , pp.3 – 28, and Melzer , The Natural

Goodness of Man , par t icular ly pp.89 – 91. I have turned to Orwin’s in te rpreta t ion

ins tead because i t addresses the theoret ical foundations o f Emilean na turalness most

exp lici t ly.

72

of nature amounts to the impotence of nature in the realm of human social

life. 64 Even the stress on ethical naturalism as a component of Emile’s

moral education – which together with the other elements of ethical non-

naturalism are so crucial to ensure his integration into society – is best

understood as an artefact of Rousseau’s rhetorical sleight of hand.65 In the

final analysis the life in accordance with nature is “a free rat ional project

for which nature provides lit tle direct guidance.”66

No one who leads a dissipated life, whose faculties and desires are

at odds with one another, can be called natural. This much is certain.

Such is social man who as a result of this division of soul is good neither

for himself nor for others (E , 40). But this is not enough to support the

contention that the natural is reducible to the noncontradictory, or that

the noncontradictory is synonymous with the natural. For the harmonious

development of the faculties is not the sole preserve of the natural man

living in the state of society. The denatured citizen, like Emile, is well-

ordered in this regard (E , 39 – 41). In other words, there are

noncontradictory ways of life the outcome of which are not natural.

Noncontradictoriness, while a necessary component of the good life, is in

the end not a reliable conceptual indicator of naturalness, Emilean or

64 Orwin, “Rousseau on the Sources o f E thics ,” pp .73 – 74.

65 Orwin, “Rousseau on the Sources o f E thics ,” pp .66 – 72.

66 Orwin, “Rousseau on the Sources o f E thics ,” p .73.

73

otherwise. Without further amplification the formal account of Emilean

naturalness is therefore too imprecise to be useful. In its present

formulation the concept of Emilean naturalness is thereby under-

determined. Interpreters of this persuasion may respond by distinguishing

between different specimens of noncontradictoriness – those that are

natural on the one hand, and those that are not natural on the other. But

this is to beg the question as to what is nature or that which is natural that

must not be contradicted in the case of Emile, and conversely, that must

be contradicted in the case of the citizen. Neither can the argument be

sustained by restating the matter posit ively in terms of wholeness, a

cognate of noncontradictoriness. For to maintain that Emile and the

citizen are whole in their own ways – one is wholly himself while the

other is wholly a part of the city as Rousseau himself indicates (E , 39 –

40) – is to concede the point that in the decisive respect the man of nature

in society is natural for the same reason that the original man of nature is

natural since the latter, too, is wholly himself.

Like its formal counterpart the substantive account of Emilean

naturalness accepts that in fundamental respects what is natural in the

civil state takes after what is natural in the savage state. All men of

nature in society (including the Rousseau of the autobiographical writings)

74

are natural to the extent that they abide by this formal similari ty. 67 And

yet what is natural in the civil state is not merely a formal replication of

what is natural in the savage state. For when satisfied in the state of

society the formal criterion of naturalness entails “enormous substantive

implications”: where Emile is concerned the “formal criterion

determines … what should and should not be natural in the civil state.”68

Thus nature remains a standard for human social li fe in a tangible way,

whose guidance is available to those who would seek i t . In other words,

the substantive account goes beyond the formal account by holding that

the harmonious development of Emile’s faculties is not simply

noncontradictory in character, but is in and by i tself natural. In this

regard Emile is set apart by the possession of attributes and dispositions

which, though natural, are foreclosed to his primitive predecessor. This is

accounted for by conscience, the generative principle of Emilean

naturalness that develops only with reason. Conscience is capable of

stimulating the growth of natural attributes and dispositions which were

67 The formal simi lar i ty in this ins tance i s the pre -eminence o f amour de soi in

the men o f na ture . See Cooper , Rousseau, Nature, and the Problem o f the Good Li fe ,

pp .54 – 59.

68 Cooper , Rousseau, Nature, and the Problem o f the Good Li fe , p .185.

75

hitherto latent (such as compassion), and making others which are

acquired only in society natural (such as the love of virtue).69

Morality is a necessary component of the good life in the state of

society. This is true for Emile as well as the citizen. That a moral

education is essential to both the domestic and the public education is

more revealing of Rousseau’s view of social life than of the content of

Emile’s naturalness. Morality makes living with one’s fellows, whether

these last are themselves whole or divided, possible. In the absence of

political virtues on the one hand and social virtues on the other, it would

be impossible for the citizen and Emile to flourish in their specific

ways.70 But to invest any further theoretical significance in morality, that

is to say, to st ipulate that Emilean morality is constitutive of Emilean

69 See Cooper , Rousseau , Nature, and the Prob lem of the Good Life , pp .80 –

114.

70 For an account o f Rousseauian moral i ty or vir tue tha t deemphasises the

dis t inct ion be tween pol i t ical and social v ir tue, see Joseph R. Reiser t , Jean-Jacques

Rousseau: A Friend of V ir tue , ( I thaca, New York: Cornel l Univers i ty Press, 2003) .

On p .10, Re iser t s ta tes tha t “[ t]hroughout his oeuvre , Rousseau advances one

consis tent , cr i t ical theme: he complains tha t his contemporar ies lack vir tue … Vir tue

is a l so the central lesson o f Rousseau’s construct ive works ; i t i s the l ink that

connects the ‘ individua l is t ic ’ teachings o f Emile and Jul ie wi th the ‘col lect ivist ic ’

doctr ines o f On the Social Contrac t and the Discourse on Po li t ical Economy .” See

also James Delaney, Rousseau and the E thics of Virtue , (New York: Continuum

Interna t ional Publ i shing Group, 2006) .

76

naturalness, is to inevitably state the claim, however unintentional, that

nature is purposive. While the substantive account concedes that there

may be some variation from one man of nature in society to the next, in

the end “there are certain basic characteristics common to every civilised

natural man. There is a certain substance that defines civilised

naturalness.” 71 Thus Emilean naturalness by the lights of the substantive

account is crypto-teleological. For to hold that nature as a substantive

standard can only be realised (or more fully realised) outside of the state

of nature is to run the risk of importing a teleological conception of

nature into Rousseau’s thought. This is at odds with the staunch anti-

teleological conception of nature that Rousseau adheres to in his thought,

which the account itself recognises. 72 For this reason the substantive

account of Emilean naturalness is untenable on its own terms.

In sum, if it is characteristic of the formal account to under-

determine the essence of Emilean naturalness, then correspondingly it is

characteristic of the substantive account to over-determine i t . These are

the theoretical pitfal ls inherent in any endeavour to define the standard of

naturalness in Rousseau’s thought in terms of degree or type, or what is

the same, to make a distinction between the naturalness of the man of

nature in society and the naturalness of the original man of nature. On

this note, it is perhaps fitting to consider what is i t about Rousseau’s


72 Cooper , Rousseau, Nature, and the Problem o f the Good Li fe , pp . ix – xi i .

77

thought that makes the concept of civil ised or Emilean naturalness so

compell ing. In my view, the plausibility of the formal and substantive

accounts is due to the doctrine of perfectibility, which gives its

proponents license to emphasise the ‘high’ element of what they

understand as Rousseau’s bipartite conception of nature at the expense of

the ‘low’. But given the undetermined potentialit ies of the human person,

the very indeterminacy of which is the essence of the faculty of self-

perfection (E , 62), any sett led upon notion of the substance of Emilean

naturalness may well be arbitrary. Thus we may say that the concept of

Emilean naturalness is quasi-philosophical: at most, the concession can be

made that what is natural in the civil state as outlined in the two accounts

above remains within the realm of philosophical possibility. Now the

doctrine of perfectibility is certainly crucial in determining the standard

of naturalness in Rousseau’s thought. But whereas perfectibil ity compels

these interpreters to ultimately abandon the original human condition in

their analysis of the grounds of Emile’s naturalness, I am instead driven

towards it . Shorn of recognisable human qualities, it may be tempting to

conclude that the natural man living in the state of nature is incapable of

supplying a standard for human social l ife that is exhaustive in character.

I will attempt to show that this view is mistaken by highlighting a

theoretical affinity that yokes Emile to his primitive predecessor. In a

word, Emile’s naturalness can be established without reference to the

concept of Emilean naturalness. As we shall see next, Emile’s naturalness

is not sui generis .

78

*****

It is the man-citizen dichotomy in Rousseau’s thought that

determines whether a way of life in the state of society is natural. This is

how nature remains a standard for human social li fe, and the sole and

incontrovertible reason why Emile is the man of nature. In a word, Emile

is natural because he is man. The determination of Emile’s naturalness on

these terms also settles the longstanding debate concerning his credentials

as a citizen in the making. 73 Thus by way of the man-citizen dichotomy

two perennial problems in Rousseau scholarship may be resolved clearly

and unambiguously: firstly, that nature remains an indubitable standard

for human social life, and secondly, that as the natural man l iving in the

state of society, Emile is not a potential citizen. These issues are

fundamentally intertwined. Indeed, they are different articulations of the

problem of nature whose origins may be traced back to a peculiar

connection between what is often referred to as Rousseau’s critical and

constructive writings. It is submitted here that the nature of this

connection – the pith and substance of which is the man-citizen

dichotomy – has not received the attention it deserves in Rousseau

scholarship. This may have something to do with the artificial

demarcation of Rousseau’s thought along the tropes of ‘critical’ and

73 This i s the crux o f the neo-Kantian in terpreta t ion o f Emile . See Cass ire r ,

The Quest ion of Jean-Jacques Rousseau , pp .121 – 127.

79

‘constructive’ writings that I have purposely utilised above, the effect of

which is to obscure the revolutionary implications of his state of nature

teachings, what presumptively are critical rather than constructive in

character. But in this instance, the crit ical is the constructive, as it were.

By making this connection explicit, I hope to offer an al ternative to

existing naturalist interpretations, thereby reinvigorating the nature-

history debate in Rousseau scholarship.

Rousseau’s pitiless characterisation of the bourgeois is a useful

heuristic device to grasp the incompatibility between the ways of life of

man and citizen. The bourgeois is a mishmash of man and cit izen because

he is the quintessential role-player. “Always in contradiction with himself,

always floating between his inclinations and his duties, he will never be

either man or ci tizen” (E , 40). However that may be, the bourgeois is not

the fount of the man-citizen dichotomy. This is a burden that he is unable

to bear. After al l, the bourgeois is merely flotsam among the tides of

history. In other words, the man-citizen dichotomy is not an insight which

Rousseau scraped together at the behest or benevolence of History. Had

that been the case, Rousseau’s self-estimation of his contribution to the

history of ideas would have been misplaced. In itself the concept of the

man-citizen dichotomy in Rousseau scholarship is not new.74 But scholars

have always derived the dichotomy with the bourgeois in mind, whether

implicitly or explici tly. In so doing they tear it apart from its native

74 See footno te 9 .

80

moorings, and as a result, misconstrue the provenance of the standard of

naturalness in Rousseau’s thought. An example will be useful to establish

the point in question.

In his interpretation of Rousseau, Arthur Melzer is guided by the

view that the “theory of the contradiction of society … is the true

centrepiece of his thought.” 75 Accordingly this theory provides the

backdrop against which the nature and character of Rousseau’s

constructive projects must be understood: the way of l ife of man on the

one hand, and the ci tizen on the other, are explicable only in the context

of their being solutions to the problem of personal dependence. The

following passage is instructive to grasp the thrust of my criticism

concerning the tendency to derive the man-citizen dichotomy (or the

“individualistic” and the “political” solutions in Melzer’s terms) from the

bourgeois condition:

But if man’s natural life and constitution no longer

serve as a standard, what is to guide this human

engineering? If human beings are such malleable

creatures who can be brought to desire almost

anything, on what basis would one choose one way of

life as preferable to another? … If the contradiction

of society, selfish selflessness, is what divides man

75 Melzer , The Natural Goodness o f Man , p .57. Indeed, the or igina l i ty o f

Melzer ’s reading o f Rousseau revolves around his e labora t ion o f th is theory, which he

says has never been accorded the recognit ion or t rea tment i t deserves.

81

against himself and others, then he can be restored to

unity and justice by inducing him to embrace totally

either side of the contradiction: complete selfishness

or complete sociability. To eliminate divisive

personal dependence men must be ei ther wholly

separated or wholly united … Thus, having reduced

the human problem to the contradiction of personal

dependence, Rousseau’s constructive thought

necessari ly bifurcates into two conflicting ideals:

extreme individualism and extreme collectivism – the

only two paths, though opposite ones, to the single

goal of unity.76

This is not to say that I disagree with the argument that the ways of life

of man and citizen are correctives to the bourgeois condition. Whatever

else that they might stand for, there is no doubt that man and cit izen are

at least whole or psychically one, in contrast to the internal li fe of the

bourgeois which is rent by the contradictions of society. But however

desirable or preferable these distinct and mutually incompatible ways of

life are compared to the bourgeois condition, it does not follow that the

man-citizen dichotomy in Rousseau’s thought originates from his theory

of society. In short , the provenance of the dichotomy is altogether a

76 Melzer , The Naturalness Goodness of Man , p .90 . For a more detai led

trea tment , see pp.89 – 113.

82

separate question, and is independent from the conflagrations of society

that it purports to resolve.

In my view the foundations of the man-citizen dichotomy are much

more ancient and worthy of veneration: the state of nature is the

antechamber where the mutually exclusive ways of the good l ife possible

in the state of society are forged, of which only one is natural . For all

intents and purposes, Rousseau’s state of nature teachings are his first

and final words on this matter. No other consideration beyond these

teachings is therefore necessary to secure Emile’s title as the natural man

living in the state of society. More precisely, the very naturalness of the

way of life of man – and conversely, the very artificiali ty of the way of

life of the citizen – is established by Rousseau’s study of the original

human condition. (This is the capital importance of corroborating the

historicity of the pure state of nature in Rousseau’s thought). In other

words, that which makes the original man of nature natural is that which

makes the man of nature in society natural. The man-citizen dichotomy is

the source of the philosophical kinship between the natural man living in

the state of nature and the natural man l iving in the state of society. By

this measure Emile and his primitive predecessor are equally natural

despite the “great difference” (E , 205) between them, which difference is

incidental to the standard at hand. Naturalness is not a question of degree

or kind: one is either natural or not.

For the sake of analytical convenience we may call this the

‘similarity’ thesis, as opposed to the ‘difference’ thesis the variants of

83

which attempt to define Emile’s naturalness in contradistinction with the

naturalness of the original man of nature as described above. My

departure from standard naturalist interpretations is therefore rooted in

the justification of Emile’s naturalness on the sole basis of Rousseau’s

state of nature teachings. To state my interpretation in terms of the

existing interpretations, the alternative I offer here is substantive rather

than formal in character. The dichotomy outlines two mutually exclusive

ways of life the contents of which are concrete and definitive. But as I

understand it , the substantive criterion of naturalness as determined by

the man-citizen dichotomy is resilient enough to admit enormous formal

differences among the men of nature under consideration here, given the

indeterminacy of the faculty of self-perfection. (For that matter, this also

applies to the citizen: a citizen of Rome would be formally different from

a citizen of Sparta, each bearing the stamp of a particular ci ty). Thus the

attributes and dispositions that Emile happens to possess, which are

absent in his primitive predecessor, are merely an expression of this

formal difference. But great as this difference is , it does not constitute a

new or separate class of naturalness. Consequently, this is why I maintain

that the concept of civilised or Emilean naturalness is superfluous.

Questions may be asked, too, of historicist interpreters on the

grounds of my departure from the leading naturalist interpreters. For

while I share the methodological premise of historicist interpreters that

Rousseau’s state of nature teachings are authoritative with respect to

whether and how nature remains a standard for human social life, I reach

84

a diametrically opposed conclusion. In my view the man-citizen

dichotomy proves categorically that Rousseau’s turn to history is not

simply inimical to the continued relevance of the life in accordance with

nature. Indeed, the historical insight which Rousseau brings to bear on his

study of the original human condition has the effect of clarifying just how

nature remains a standard for human social life. It is worth emphasising

that this standard of naturalness is not purposive in character. Indeed, that

the standard is trans-historical rather than anti-foundational in character

despite Rousseau’s rejection of a teleological conception of nature speaks

to the intellectual daring and audaciousness of the position which he

staked out at the crossroads of the history of ideas.

All of this is to say that the true import of the man-citizen

dichotomy goes beyond the strict confines of an interpretive quarrel

within Rousseau scholarship. For the issues at stake here strike at the

very heart of the modern poli tical project . At the same time that Rousseau

ral lied against the cause of classical poli tical naturalism with an

unrivalled lucidity, he also exposed the limits of modern political

conventionalism. To put the matter differently, we understate the

radicalness of Rousseau’s historical endeavour by overlooking how it

makes provisions for the realisat ion of the good life as he understands it ,

both within and without the city. Thus the significance of Rousseau’s turn

to history in the Second Discourse is not limited to the ostensible purpose

of uncovering the foundations of human social inequality: it is also

necessary for providing the theoretical justification required by the

85

alternate ways of life inherent in the man-citizen dichotomy. True, only in

response to the bourgeois does the man-citizen dichotomy emerge as a

practical alternative. But it is by way of Rousseau’s emphasis on the

historical dimension of the state of nature, his departure from the overly

juridical treatment to which the state of nature is subjected in Hobbes and

Locke’s thought that makes possible the conceptual alternatives for which

man and citizen stand. For if the state of nature is understood simply as

the effective absence of civil society, men must either embrace their lot

as political subjects or suffer the consequences of the impotence of

political authority. To restate the matter, there is no distinction between

the political and non-political way of life in the thought of Hobbes and

Locke. There we witness the strange fulfilment of the classical

understanding of man as the political animal on non-classical terms. Man

was born free, but must thereafter live in chains, whether forged by means

legit imate or illegitimate. All the same the point remains that the destiny

of men is limited to the horizon of the political. It was therefore left to

Rousseau to take the injunctions of modern political conventionalism to

their logical conclusion. This is revealed in full in the man-citizen

dichotomy, which captures the eternal tension between man and the ci ty.

In this light Rousseau’s correction of Hobbes and Locke is more than the

simple rejection of Enlightenment politics. The full extent of Rousseau’s

cri tique of Hobbes and Locke must also take into account how the social

contract theorists before him foreclosed the non-polit ical alternatives of

the good life which he made available in his thought. This is the l ife in

86

accordance with nature, or the way of life of man, the philosophical

justification of which is found in the original man of nature, and from

whom the man of nature in society takes his bearings.77

There is, finally, a question that suggests i tself given the

prominence of the man-citizen dichotomy in the foregoing analysis, and

this pertains to which among the two ways of life outlined in the

dichotomy is more desirable or praiseworthy. Since it is beyond the scope

of the present study to treat this problem in any substantial fashion, a

preliminary response must suffice. Now, the question of the desirability

of the way of l ife of man over the way of life of the citizen may be posed

77 Rousseau’s qual i fied s tance towards modern po li t ical convent iona l i sm

paral le ls Ar is to t le ’s qua l i f ied defense o f c lassical pol i t ical natura l i sm. For however

staunch a proponent o f the view that men a re by na ture po li t ical animals, Aris to t le

was keenly aware that the highes t human good lay beyond the c i ty. Much l ike the

man-ci t izen d ichotomy in Rousseau’s thought , Aris tot le d ist inguishes be tween the

contempla t ive l i fe and the ac t ive l i fe ( these are the equiva lents o f the non-po li t ical

and the po li t ica l way o f l i fe respec t ively) , wi th the former being super io r in charac ter

to the la t ter . See Ar isto t le , Nicomachean Ethics , 1177a11 – 1179a33. Despi te the

paral le l , one cruc ial d i f ference i s that for Rousseau, the way o f l i fe o f man or the

non-po li t ical way o f l i fe is a l so open to the non-phi losopher . After a l l , Emi le i s o f a

common mind (E , 52) . This i s a fea ture o f Rousseau’s ega l i tar ianism, which i s a l so an

impulse o f modern thought more genera l ly, in cont rast to the dis t inct ion o f rank or

human types character i s t ical ly maintained by c lassical thought . All in a l l , the man-

ci t izen dicho tomy may be taken as a re f lec t ion o f Rousseau’s tor tured in tel lec tua l

complexion – Rousseau was cer ta inly a man o f h is t ime, but he also drank deep a t the

wel l o f the ancients.

87

at two levels. At one level we may pit the original man of nature against

the citizen, as Rousseau does on separate occasions in the Second

Discourse and the Social Contract . Here the crux of the matter revolves

around Rousseau’s conception of freedom, or the relative merits of

natural freedom on the one hand and civil freedom on the other, the latter

of which by definit ion encompasses moral freedom.78 Taken together and

at face value the opposing verdicts appear to cancel each other out . This

is not surprising considering that the praise accorded to each of the two

alternatives is lodged in those writings of which man and ci tizen are the

leitmotifs. There is some reason to think, therefore, that these

comparisons between man and citizen are saddled with rhetorical

elements.

This is nicely illustrated by the incongruous if not potentially

contradictory descriptions of the citizen in the two accounts. In the first

instance the characterisation of the citizen militates against everything

that we might expect of Rousseauian citizenship given Rousseau’s fierce

admiration for Rome and Sparta, and his use of their greatness as a

yardstick to measure the spirit and temper of the model citizen. There it is

said of the cit izen that he “pays court to the great whom he hates, and to

the rich whom he scorns. He spares nothing in order to obtain the honour

of serving them; he proudly boasts of his baseness and their protection;

78 See Danie l E. Cullen, Freedom in Rousseau’s Poli t ica l Ph ilosophy , (DeKalb :

Northern I l l ino is Universi ty Press, 1993) , for an extens ive trea tment o f the concep t o f

freedom in Rousseau’s thought .

88

and proud of his slavery, he speaks with disdain of those who do not have

the honour of sharing it” (SD , 179). This unflattering portrait of the

citizen, consumed by his servility, follows immediately after the homage

that Rousseau pays to the original man of nature, who “breathes only

repose and freedom” (SD , 179). One suspects that the stark contrast was

engineered to achieve a rhetorical effect entirely in the latter’s favour.79

(For that matter, it is hard to imagine that this is Rousseau’s true

estimation of the citizen considering that elsewhere in the Second

Discourse he speaks so highly of him). At any rate this portrayal of the

(ideal) citizen is certainly at odds with the second instance where he is

described in very different and rather effusive terms:

This passage from the state of nature to the civil state

produces a remarkable change in man, by substituting

justice for instinct in his behaviour and giving his

actions the morali ty they previously lacked …

Although in this state he deprives himself of several

advantages given him by nature, he gains such great

ones, his faculties are exercised and developed, his

79 See Pla t tner , Rousseau’s S ta te o f Nature , pp .11 – 12, who does no t regard

th is as a d iscrepancy, and takes i t instead as a descr ip t ion o f the “genuine ci t izen.”

Whi le there i s no argument that the Rousseauian ci t izen remains in bondage, as the

f i rs t chapter o f Book I in the Social Contrac t so clear ly indicates – Rousseau’s

poli t ical teachings mere ly make the cha ins o f c i t izenship legi t imate – th is i s not to

say tha t the c i t izen i s a slave.

89

ideas broadened, his feelings ennobled, and his whole

soul elevated to such a point that if the abuses of this

new condition did not often degrade him beneath the

condition he left, he ought ceaselessly to bless the

happy moment that tore him away from it forever, and

that changed him from a stupid, limited animal into

an intelligent being and a man. (SC , 55 – 56)

As was the case before, the praise of one accompanies the denigration of

the other, only that here the roles are reversed with the citizen coming off

better in comparison with the original man of nature.

Perhaps the best way to grasp the problem at hand is to pose i t in

light of the extraordinary man of nature, that is to say, the Rousseau of

the autobiographical writ ings. 80 In other words, at another level the

question of the desirabili ty of the way of life of man over the way of life

of the ci tizen may be restated in terms of the tension between philosophy

and polit ics in Rousseau’s thought. Once again, here I can only provide

some tentative reflections, for nowhere in Rousseau’s oeuvre does he

offer a formal defence of reason. Indeed, to take Rousseau’s

understanding of the original human condition seriously is to accept the

80 For a t reatment o f the Rousseau o f the autob iographical wri t ings, see

Chr is topher Kelly, Rousseau’s Exemplary Li fe: The Confess ions as Po li t ica l

Philosophy , ( I thaca, New York: Corne l l Univers i ty Press, 1987) , and Ann Har t le , The

Modern Se l f in Rousseau’s Confess ions: A Reply to S t . August ine , (Notre Dame:

Univers i ty o f Notre Dame Press, 1983) .

90

teaching that reason or philosophy as such is not natural or autonomous.81

However, so far as Rousseau was concerned the trustworthiness of reason

or philosophy lies in its ability to determine the original human condit ion.

This is crucial to the happiness of mankind, the claims of which Rousseau

outlines in his maiden philosophical foray, and which he revisits in others.

The authoritativeness of reason or philosophy l ies, then, in the abili ty of

the philosopher “to study man and know his nature, his duties, and his

end” (FD , 35), the concerns of which are integral to the nature-history

debate. Now if Rousseau’s claim is true, then philosophy is the most

comprehensive science, and being the most comprehensive science,

philosophy is thereby more comprehensive than politics or political

science. On these grounds one is led to conclude, with the caveats in mind,

that the way of life of man (as represented by the philosopher) is more

desirable or praiseworthy than the way of life of the citizen. 82 That the

Legislator, the supremely wise and god-like creature who is so central to

the founding of the Rousseauian city, is more than a political figure – he

81 See Velkley, Freedom and the End of Reason , pp .52 – 60, who discusses th is

problem in the context o f Rousseau’s influence on Kantian philosophy.

82 In this connec tion I agree wi th Melzer tha t among the men o f na ture the

Rousseau o f the autob iographical wri t ings represents the peak. See Melzer , The

Natura l Goodness o f Man , pp .91 – 94. For an opposing po int o f view, see Todorov,

Frail Happiness , pp .31 – 66, where he argues that the way o f l i fe o f Emi le i s most

des irable .

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is rather philosophic in nature – tilts the balance further in favour of man

(SC , 67 – 70).

*****

Our purpose in this chapter was to derive a standard of naturalness

exclusively from Rousseau’s state of nature teachings. This is expressed

in terms of the man-citizen dichotomy in Rousseau’s thought, a radical

restatement of modern political conventionalism that outlines two

incompatible ways of l ife, only one of which is natural . My complete

rel iance on these teachings to justify Emile’s t itle as the man of nature in

society marks a significant departure from existing naturalist

interpretations. Unlike these interpretat ions which make a distinction

between the naturalness of the original man of nature and the naturalness

of the man of nature in society as a result of which Emilean or civilised

naturalness is differentiated from primitive or savage naturalness, the

dichotomy allows me to apply a uniform standard of naturalness to these

two men of nature despite the gulf between them. Because the present

interpretation also abides by the historicist contention that Rousseau’s

state of nature teachings are fundamental and even exhaustive in

determining whether and how nature remains a standard for human social

life, a more forceful objection to the historicist interpretation is thereby

offered here. With the above in mind, we are now ready to explore the

basis of the “great difference” (E , 205) between the original man of

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nature and the man of nature in society. This will require us to turn our

attention to Emile , a text which Rousseau wholly dedicated to affirm the

continued relevance of the life in accordance with nature. In the next

chapter, I will argue that the difference between Emile and his primitive

predecessor is crucial to the satisfaction of the standard of naturalness in

the context of the state of society, an environment that is hostile to the

life in accordance with nature. In other words, it is this difference that

allows Emile to cleave to the standard of naturalness already established

in the Second Discourse , rather than to depart from it as existing

naturalist interpretat ions maintain.

*****

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4. The Problem of Society: Reconstituting the Man of Nature in

Society (I)

The reconstitution of the man of nature in society makes the good

life possible amidst men who are good neither for themselves nor for

others. Indeed, the reconstitution of the man of nature can only take place

within society in the meaning that Rousseau gives it . This is not to say

that nature and society are thus reconciled; it is rather nature and

civil isation that are reconciled in Emile. Society remains the locus of evil

with enough lures to cause man to fall out of step with the life in

accordance with nature (E , 41). Hence the admission of the man of nature

into the ranks of society does not dilute the repugnance that only it is

capable of eliciting from Rousseau. The abiding tension between nature

and society in evidence here discloses a point of significant import: it is

not the problem of history but the problem of society – how men become

bad for themselves and bad for others – that finally stands in the way of

the realisat ion of the life in accordance with nature. Earl ier it was argued

that nature is robust enough to yield a standard for human social life

despite Rousseau’s radical historicisat ion of the human condit ion. But the

context of that discovery was the (pure) state of nature, a historical

condition forever lost to us, no return or imitation of which is possible.

Thus it remains an open question how the standard is applied in the state

of society, or rather, what the satisfaction of the standard demands of the

person to whom it is applied. Surely the man of nature in society

94

“requires a way of l ife [that is] special to him” (E , 51) given the milieu

which he inhabits.

The purpose of this chapter and the next is to account for the “great

difference” (E , 205) between Emile and his primitive predecessor with

this proviso in mind. The present chapter establishes the parameters of

this discussion by first reviewing what standard naturalist interpretations

make of the problem of society, highlighting in particular the implications

they draw out for the life in accordance with nature. This will provide the

point of departure for my own analysis. In my view these interpretations

understate the problem that society poses to the life in accordance with

nature. Consequently they overlook a crucial component of the natural

education, which is the necessity for the tutor to reorder Emile’s

conception of self-love understood as the pursuit of well-being. How this

is achieved will be considered in the next chapter; our task in this chapter

is to determine why such an undertaking is necessary if Emile is to abide

by the life in accordance with nature, and subsequently, how it sets him

apart from his primitive predecessor even as the two men of nature in

question here are natural according to the single standard of naturalness

already derived from Rousseau’s state of nature teachings. To this end we

will also turn our attention to the bourgeois, whose grounds of being

holds the key to unravelling the paradox at hand. Lastly, to set the stage

for the next chapter where we will look more closely into the way of life

of the man of nature in society, we will conclude this chapter by outlining

95

the way of life of the original man of nature to provide a basis of

comparison.

*****

Following the formal and substantive accounts of Emilean

naturalness, the problem of society in Rousseau’s thought may be

formulated in one of two ways. The formal account highlights Rousseau’s

dissection of the cruel imperative that society imposes on men. This is the

contradiction of society, a social arrangement designed to extract from

men’s undiluted self-interest some common advantage by obliging each to

serve the rest with a view to being served in turn. What transpires instead

is that everyone soon learns to scheme and plot against his fellows the

better to have his way. Emile is spared these intrigues because the tutor

prevents him from being inducted into the relations of dependence that

gives rise to them. 83 The substantive account emphasises instead

Rousseau’s crit ique of the currency by which men measure themselves

against others to determine their value in and to society. This is the

problem of amour-propre , a peculiar manifestation of self-love that

83 See Melzer , The Natura l Goodness o f Man , pp .69 – 85. Ear l ier , I r e l ied on

Cl i f ford Orwin’s exposi t ion o f Emilean naturalness to i l lustrate how nature remains a

formal s tandard for human socia l l i fe . Here I turn to Melzer ins tead s ince he, among

interpreters who belong to th is school o f thought , provides the ful les t account o f the

problem of socie ty in Rousseau’s thought .

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quickens under the glare of opinion. Thus amour-propre is capable of

turning the simple act of feeding oneself into a spectacle that has more to

do with sating the mind than the body (E , 190). With the capacity to

conflate the superfluous with the necessary, amour-propre has the

distinctive power to flatter men even as it fetters them. Emile is spared

living under its illusions because the tutor prevents his needs from

becoming inflamed by subjecting them to the dictates of necessity and

utility; to entrench this regime further Emile is also taught to pity his

social betters rather than to envy them.84

Although each is offered as an al ternative to the other, there is no

intention here to assess the comparative merits of the two formulations of

the problem of society in Rousseau’s thought as outl ined above.85 Rather,

the purpose of this brief presentation is to draw attention to a

fundamental agreement between them. For however the problem of society

is conceptualised from one account to the next, the principle underlying

the remedy that each takes Rousseau to propose in the form of the natural

education remains the same, which may be summed up as follows: since

man is naturally good and society is irremediably bad, it is not man but

society that has to be thwarted. In other words, Emile’s native

84 See Cooper , Rousseau , Nature, and the Prob lem of the Good Life , pp .115 –

181.

85 Compare Melzer , The Natura l Goodness o f Man , p .70, n .2 wi th Cooper ,

Rousseau, Nature, and the Problem o f the Good Li fe , p .136, n .35 , and p .180, n .97 .

97

inclinations pose no problems to the tutor so long as they are unspoilt by

society. The corollary of this principle is that no harm can possibly ensue

when these inclinations are left alone to flourish, such as they are. It will

be helpful to examine the remedies in turn to establish the point in

question.

According to the formal account, “the idea of indirect rule” 86 is

crucial to the success of the natural education, since the latter must

proceed without any orders given or taken. For although Emile is

sheltered from society at large, the contest of wills implicit in any

exercise of authority is just as capable of poisoning the relationship

between tutor and tutee in the same way that relat ions of dependence

enslave both master and servant (E , 89). Men have the power to acquiesce

in or refuse Emile’s bidding, and to expose him to their wills is to tempt

him to bend them to his. Inanimate things on the other hand, can neither

commend nor withhold themselves from Emile. This is the distinction

between the dependence on men and the dependence on things, on which

the opposition between nature and society turns (E , 85). The tutor’s

imposit ion of indirect rule mimics the dependence on things, keeps Emile

free from the dependence on men and consequently, prevents him from

86 Melzer , The Natural Goodness o f Man , p .245. See a lso Or win, “Rousseau on

the Sources o f Ethics,” pp.72 – 73 on the impor tance o f ‘ind irect ru le ’ to the na tura l

educat ion, in par t icula r , ho w i t contr ibutes towards the real isat ion o f nature as a

( formal) s tandard for human social l i fe as understood by these in terpre ters.

98

understanding human relations through the prism of power and

dependence, which is what society inst ils in men.

Where the substantive account is concerned, the antidote to the

problem of society l ies in “the good governance of amour-propre .”87 Here

the tutor’s intervention is vital since the development of amour-propre is

inevitable. This is also to say that amour-propre can be a force for good

when properly nurtured. Indeed, the life in accordance with nature would

be less rich, if not altogether impossible, in its absence. Without the

prompting of amour-propre , Emile would lack the capacity for

compassion and romantic love, the twin pillars of his moral education. In

other words, we owe the development of our humanity to amour-propre .

For better or for worse, men are creatures of esteem. The prevailing

question for the tutor is to determine the arena in which Emile develops

and wins his esteem. This is to ensure that his amour-propre is benign

rather than malignant (E , 235). To this end, the premature birth of amour-

propre must never be incited, and once born, it is up to the tutor to train

its sights on what is praiseworthy.88

The spirit , i f not the letter, of these stratagems is that it is

sufficient for the tutor to “form an enclosure around [Emile’s] soul” (E ,


88 Since Cooper understands na tura lness to be “de termined fir st and foremost

by the qua li ty o f one’s sel f -love” (p .14) , he pays par t icular a t tent ion to how amour-

propre can e i ther suppor t or frustrate the l i fe in accordance wi th na ture .

99

38) in order to stave off the corruption of society. To restate the matter,

nothing in Emile’s soul requires alteration. But this view of things is only

half-correct . While it is vitally important to keep society at bay in the

manner so described – a tall order in itself – to limit the scope of the

tutor’s undertaking in these terms radically understates the problem that

society poses to the l ife in accordance with nature. Necessary as they may

be, these stratagems are insufficient to ensure the success of the

education of nature. What they overlook altogether is a second component

of the natural education, equally necessary as the first , without which

everything falls apart. True, society must be worked on. But what is also

true is that Emile himself must be worked on if the man of nature is to be

reconstituted in society. Only when these two components of the natural

education are suitably in place will the tutor successfully deflect the

advances of society. It wil l be sufficient for our purpose to limit our

attention to the second component of the natural education. This will

allow us to focus on the basis of the “great difference” (E , 205) between

Emile and his primitive predecessor. In short , Emile’s conception of self-

love understood as the pursuit of well-being must be altered if he is to

abide by the life in accordance with nature.89

89 This injunc tion i s s tr iking given the central pr inciple o f Rousseau’s thought

– the na tura l goodness o f man – a pr inc iple that he never wavered fro m desp ite the

evi l which soc ial man is capab le o f wreaking. “Men are wicked; sad and continual

exper ience spares the need for proof. However , man i s na tura l ly good ; I bel ieve I

have demonstrated i t” (SD , 193) . Despi te the goodness o f nature , and therewi th the

100

The clue lies in Rousseau’s intriguing characterisation of the

bourgeois:

He who in the civil order wants to preserve the

primacy of the sentiments of nature does not know

what he wants. Always in contradiction with himself,

always floating between his inclinations and his

duties, he will never be either man or ci t izen. He will

be good neither for himself nor for others. He will be

one of these men of our days: a Frenchman, an

Englishman, a bourgeois. He will be nothing. (E , 40)

This is a rare and extraordinary insight into the psychology of a character

frequently vilified by Rousseau. There is no lack of accounts in

Rousseau’s corpus trumpeting the contemptibili ty of the bourgeois – his

cupidity, his pusillanimity, his utter lack of dependability (FD , 51, SD ,

194 – 195; E , 54 – 55, 335; E , 40, 41). But there is nothing quite like this,

a formal statement which discloses the grounds of his being. Ordinarily

the bourgeois is deployed as the motif of unnaturalness or art ificiality.

However the indication here is that it is precisely the preservation of the

primacy of the sentiments of nature, while in the civil order, that makes

the bourgeois who he is. This is a rather counterintuitive proposition with

abso lut ion o f na ture fo r the i l l s o f society, Emile’s natural const i tut ion must be

al tered i f the man o f na ture i s to be reconst i tu ted wi thin soc ie ty. We may thus say

that nature i s the inspira t ion behind, as well as the object o f the educat ion to which i t

gives i ts name.

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considerable implications for the man of nature in society. For if the

bourgeois is the antithesis of the man of nature in society, then preserving

the primacy of the sentiments of nature does not comport with the life in

accordance with nature. We shall see why this is so in what remains of

this section.

Nature remains a standard for human social l ife to the extent that it

is possible to raise a man “uniquely for himself” (E , 41) in the civil order,

the genus to which society and the Rousseauian city belong. Following

the determinations of the man-citizen dichotomy, such an education has

no place in the Rousseauian city. In other words, society is the only

alternative left to the man of nature in which to flourish despite

Rousseau’s denunciation of it . Society as Rousseau understood the term is

nothing more than a clearinghouse of individual self-interest. The

problem arises when society cannot be acknowledged such as it is. With

individual self-interest Rousseau had no quarrel . “The love of oneself is

always good and always in conformity with order. Since each man is

specially entrusted with his own preservation, the first and most

important of his cares is and ought to be to watch over it constantly” (E ,

213). It is the contortions which self-interest assumes in society that is

the problem:

Henceforth we must beware of letting ourselves be

seen as we are: for two men whose interests agree, a

hundred thousand can be opposed to them, and there

is in this case no other means to succeed than to

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deceive or ruin all these people. This is the deadly

source of violence, treachery, perfidy, and all the

horrors necessarily demanded by a state of things in

which each – pretending to work for the fortune and

reputation of the others – seeks only to raise his own

above them and at their expense. (PN , 26 – 27)

This is how the moral currency of society leads to the psychic doubling of

social man, “always appearing to relate everything to others and never

relating anything except to themselves alone” (E , 41), as a result of which

he will become bad for himself and bad for others. More pertinently,

under these circumstances where men are compelled to use their fellows

in the pursuit of their well-being, it is impossible for them to abide by the

life in accordance with nature.

“Natural man is entirely for himself. He is numerical unity, the

absolute whole which is relative only to itself and its kind” (E , 39). It is

crucial to note that no distinction is made here between the original man

of nature and the man of nature in society. Whether in the state of nature

or in the state of society, the man of nature remains “entirely for

himself.” To clarify what this entai ls, i t will be useful to consult the

accompanying description of the citizen which Rousseau provides as a

point of comparison:

Civil man is only a fractional unity dependent on the

denominator; his value is determined by his relat ion

to the whole, which is the social body. Good social

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institutions are those that best know how to denature

man, to take his absolute existence from him in order

to give him a relative one and transport the I into the

common unity, with the result that each individual

believes himself no longer one but a part of the unity

and no longer feels except within the whole. (E , 39 –

40)

Whereas natural man enjoys an absolute existence, civil man embraces a

relative one. In other words, the well-being of the ci tizen is constructed

in relation to those around him, whether these others happen to be his

fel low citizens or otherwise. With his fellow citizens, this relationship is

complementary – the citizen qua cit izen “no longer feels except within

the whole” (E , 40). With others who are not his fellow citizens, the

relationship is antagonistic:

Every particular society, when it is narrow and

unified, is estranged from the all-encompassing

society. Every patriot is harsh to foreigners. They are

only men. They are nothing in his eyes. This is a

drawback, inevitable but not compelling. The

essential thing is to be good to the people with whom

one lives. Abroad, the Spartan was ambitious,

avaricious, iniquitous. But disinterestedness, equity,

and concord reigned within his walls. (E , 39)

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Taken together, the well-being of the ci tizen is dependent upon others,

both within and without the ci ty.

Natural man, on the other hand, enjoys an absolute existence in that

his well-being is construed independently of his fellows. There are, so to

speak, no ties of friendship or enmity between him and his fellows at

large to which his well-being is subject: he does not need or expect them

to contribute towards it , nor is it defined in opposition to theirs. It is in

this sense that natural man is ‘entirely for himself’. Wholes unto

themselves, they remain entirely for themselves.90 With this description of

the life in accordance with nature in place, we can now appreciate why

Emile’s conception of self-love understood as the pursuit of well-being

must be altered if he is to become the man of nature in society. The

bourgeois is proof that the untrammelled pursuit of well-being in the

context of society is at odds with the life in accordance with nature. His

is a cautionary tale of the pathology of untutored self-love, pulled hither

90 To remain ent i rely for onese l f does no t preclude one from forming deep

at tachments wi th others, such as Emile ’s case wi th the tu tor fi rs t , and then wi th

Sophie. (The bourgeo is himsel f i s not incapab le of love for one’s own, and Rousseau

does no t cr i t ic ise him fo r i t . Indeed, bourgeo is domestic i ty provided Rousseau wi th

the plat for m for the moral projec t that Emile rep resents. See Or win, “Rousseau on the

Sources o f Ethics,” p .66) . The po int , ra ther , is tha t Emile must eschew the use o f h is

fe l lo ws in the pursui t o f h is well -being, which the bourgeois fa i l s to do . But as we

sha l l see in the next chapter , in their o wn ways Emile ’s a t tachment to the tuto r on the

one hand, and to Sophie on the o ther , i s in tens ion wi th the demand that he remain

ent irely fo r himse l f.

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and thither by the trappings of society. Such a man cannot remain entirely

for himself because he is never uninterested in his fel lows, and no man

who uses his fellows to further his own well-being can remain entirely for

himself because in order to secure others for himself, he must also live

for them.91 Thus the st ipulation that Emile cannot preserve the primacy of

the sentiments of nature is necessary to facilitate the reconsti tution of the

man of nature in society, or what is the same, to prevent him from going

the way of the bourgeois. In and of itself this is a useful tool to tell the

man of nature in society apart from the bourgeois, both of whom call

society home and are therefore non- or anti-citizens by definition.92 More

91 Neither i s the bourgeo is a Rousseauian ci t izen because he does no t l ive

ent irely fo r o thers , as i t were. Rather the bourgeois i s a mish-mash o f man and

ci t izen, ne i ther ent ire ly for h imse l f nor ent irely for o thers. T his is why Rousseau

maintains tha t the bourgeois i s in contrad ict ion wi th himse l f. T he educa tion o f

soc iety, from which the bourgeo is i s hewn, “ i s f i t only fo r making double men” (E ,

41) .

92 On the terms o f the man-c i t izen dichotomy the l i fe in accordance wi th

na ture i s s tr ic t ly ant i - o r non-po li t ical in charac ter . This has been de termined by

Rousseau’s study o f the or igina l human cond it ion, where men were shown to be as far

removed as possib le f rom having the need or the capaci ty to form po li t ical

communi t ies. And ye t by Rousseau’s reckoning membership in a pol i t ical communi ty

– which Emile and the bourgeo is can equa lly cla im – does no t make one a c i t izen in

the sense tha t he gives the ter m. Indeed, Rousseau i s o f the op inion tha t c i t izenship

belongs to a bygone age . “Pub lic ins truct ion no longer exist s and can no longer exist ,

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crucially for our purpose, i t is this very stipulation that sets Emile apart

from his primitive predecessor in the decisive sense. This is also to say

that how the man of nature in society differs from the original man of

nature is, fundamentally, one and the same thing as how the man of nature

in society differs from the man of society.

The nature of this connection is outlined in the following quotation:

There is a great difference between the natural man

living in the state of nature and the natural man living

in the state of society. Emile is not a savage to be

relegated to the desert. He is a savage made to inhabit

cities. He has to know how to find his necessities in

them, to take advantage of their inhabitants, and to

live, i f not like them, at least with them. (E , 205)

Clearly the ‘great difference’ between Emile and his primitive

predecessor must be understood against the backdrop of society. In other

words, the decisive difference between the man of nature in society and

the original man of nature cannot be determined simply by juxtaposing

one man of nature to the next, stripped of all context. Rather, it only

emerges by way of the bourgeois, who supplies the vital link to help us

make sense of the difference between the man of nature in society and the

original man of nature especially in terms of Rousseau’s re-articulation or

because where there is no longer father land , there can no longer be c i t izens. These

two words, fa therland and ci t i zen , should be e ffaced from modern languages” (E , 40) .

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elaboration of the l ife in accordance with nature as being entirely for

oneself. This point deserves emphasis, i f only to underline my thesis that

the great difference between Emile and his primitive predecessor is

actually the upshot of Emile having to satisfy the (single) standard of

naturalness in an environment that is in every way unlike the one from

which it is derived. We are already acquainted with how the way of life of

the bourgeois is incompatible with the l ife in accordance with nature. As

the putative natural man living in the state of society, Emile must

therefore make a virtue of necessity by living with his fellows. To remain

entirely for himself in spite of his fellows, he must not live like them.

Thus the stipulation that Emile cannot preserve the primacy of the

sentiments of nature – that which makes the life in accordance with nature

possible in the state of society – is the crux of the great difference

between him and his primitive predecessor. For just as the essential

difference between Emile and the bourgeois is , in the final analysis, due

to the demands of the life in accordance with nature in the context of

society, so it is with respect to the essential difference between Emile and

his primitive predecessor. To restate the matter, whereas the

untrammelled pursuit of well-being is at odds with the requirement to

remain entirely for oneself in the state of society and must therefore be

reined in, the integri ty of the life in accordance with nature so understood

is unaffected by i t in the state of nature. To press home the argument, we

will examine next the ways of life of the original man of nature and the

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man of nature in society respectively to highlight the decisive difference

between them.

*****

To be sure, it is not immediately obvious that men in the original

human condition pursue their well-being as vigorously as implied above.

Indeed, Rousseau leaves us with the opposite impression in his discussion

of the two principles of soul that shape the way of life of the original man

of nature. These are the interest in his well-being and his self-

preservation, and natural pi ty, which moves him to be repulsed at the

sight of suffering or death of any sensitive being, especially his kind. In

the event of a conflict between self-preservation and natural pity, the

former trumps the latter. No quarter will be given if his li fe is at stake

(SD , 95 – 96). Stil l , Rousseau makes the claim that natural pi ty, by

“moderating in each individual the activity of love of oneself, contributes

to the mutual preservation of the entire species” (SD , 133). Natural pity,

so it seems, has the effect of blunting any excessiveness that may arise

from the instinct to preserve oneself where this exuberance does nothing

to insure one’s survival but threatens instead the survival of others. Thus

natural pity “will dissuade every robust savage from robbing a weak child

or an infirm old man of his hard-won subsistence if he himself hopes to

be able to find his own elsewhere” (SD , 133). This leads Rousseau to

speak of natural pity in the most effusive of manners: “in the state of

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nature, it takes the place of laws, morals, and virtue with the advantage

that no one is tempted to disobey its gentle voice” (SD , 133). In short,

natural pity puts into question the view that in the state of nature men are

given over to the untrammelled pursuit of their well-being.

Yet there are good reasons to be sceptical of this ode to natural pity.

Hope, that which inspires violence in the Hobbesian state of nature, 93 is

reformed into an agent of peace in the Rousseauian state of nature. It is

hope that inspires the robust savage to find his subsistence elsewhere,

leaving his pitiful fellows to enjoy theirs. But this anti-Hobbesian portrait

of the original human condition is still too Hobbesian by half. If on the

terms of his argument Hobbes is guilty of overstating the

rambunctiousness of man in the (pure) state of nature as Rousseau claims

(SD , 128 – 130), then similarly on the terms of his own argument

Rousseau is guilty of understating it . As we shall see, Rousseau’s man

does not require the passions of Hobbes’s man to behave likewise, in deed

if not in intent . Hope has no place in the economy of soul of the original

man of nature. Nothing is as limited as the mind of primitive man, who

has not the slightest premonit ion of time. Primitive man is someone for

whom the past and the future are wholly ensconced in the present:

His imagination suggests nothing to him; his heart

asks nothing of him. His modest needs are so easily

found at hand, and he is so far from the degree of

93 See Hobbes, Levia than , Chap ter XIII .3 – 4 .

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knowledge necessary for desiring to acquire greater

knowledge, that he can have neither foresight nor

curiosity … His soul, agitated by nothing, is given

over to the sole sentiment of its present existence

without any idea of the future, however near it may

be, and his projects, as limited as his views, barely

extend to the end of the day. (SD , 117)

There can be no hope without foresight. Because the original man of

nature lacks foresight, he would not have been able to make the mental

calculations implicit in the narrative – that to act against the promptings

of natural pi ty would have needlessly condemned the weak child or the

infirm old man to their deaths. In other words, he could not have foreseen

the effects of his li fe-preserving or death-preventing act, the recognition

of which is critical to this purported display of natural pity.

None of this is to say that pity is absent in the (pure) state of

nature. 94 Rather, what is in question here is the ambit of natural pity.

According to Rousseau, pity in its natural or simplest form can be called

upon without the ramparts of reason or sociability (SD , 95 – 96). Neither

94 But th is i s exac t ly the thes is o f Masters and Pla t tner . Both argue, in the ir

own ways, tha t the operat ion o f na tural p i ty i s cont ingent upon man’s sociab i l i ty. And

since pr imi t ive man i s asoc ial , they contend that na tura l p i ty is absent in the

pr imi t ive s ta te o f nature . See Masters, The Pol i t ical Phi losophy of Rousseau , pp .136

– 146, and Plat tner , Rousseau’s S ta te o f Nature , pp .82 – 87.

111

of these last is necessary for primitive man to respond to the “cry of

nature,” pity’s clarion call in the pure state of nature:

Man’s first language, the most universal , most

energetic, and only language he needed before it was

necessary to persuade assembled men, is the cry of

nature. As this cry was elicited only by a kind of

instinct in pressing emergencies, to beg for help in

great dangers, or for relief in violent ills, it was not

of much use in the ordinary course of life, where

more moderate sentiments prevail. (SD , 122)

This exposit ion of the ambit of natural pity in the pure state of nature is

also in keeping with Rousseau’s insistence that death is beyond the

comprehension of the original man of nature (SD , 110 – 111, 116). The

cry of nature can be heeded or understood in the absence of the

knowledge of death. It only requires primitive man to recognise situations

of extreme pain and danger on the basis of inst inct alone, much like

animals themselves are capable of doing. So understood, natural pity is

simply a sensitivity to suffering in others, or as Rousseau puts it , “the

innate repugnance to see his fellow-man suffer” (SD , 130).

To return to the matter at hand, there is enough evidence to suggest

that pi ty could not have acted as a restraint on men as described above:

the example of natural pity that highlighted so touchingly the benevolence

of primitive man may be taken as an embellishment on Rousseau’s part.

Indeed, men in the original human condition pursue their well-being

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rather unreservedly, even at the expense of their fellows, as a closer

scrutiny of the single note which accompanies Rousseau’s treatment of

natural pity wil l reveal. The ostensible purpose of Note O is to

distinguish the two manifestations of self-love rendered by the terms

‘love of oneself’ and ‘vanity’ or amour de soi and amour-propre

respectively. The point which Rousseau wishes to make is that vanity

must be absent in the pure state of nature since primitive man is incapable

of comparing himself with his fellows in a manner which the sentiment of

vanity necessitates. 95 What is also relevant to the matter at hand are the

implications that Rousseau derives from primitive man’s immunity to

vanity:

This being well understood, I say that in our

primitive state, in the true state of nature, vanity does

not exist; for each particular man regarding himself

as the sole spectator to observe him, as the sole being

in the universe to take an interest in him, and as the

sole judge of his merit, i t is not possible that a

sentiment having its source in comparisons he is not

capable of making could spring up in his soul. For the

same reason this man could have neither hate nor

95 Hobbes himsel f supp lies Rousseau wi th the argument. Hobbes observes in

Chap ter XVII .7 o f h is Levia than that animals are incapable o f vani ty. But as we have

seen above, pr imi t ive man, in Rousseau’s conception, i s an animal in a l l respects bar

one .

113

desire for revenge, passions that can arise only from

the opinion that some offense has been received; and

as i t is scorn or intention to hurt and not the harm

that constitutes the offense, men who know neither

how to evaluate themselves nor compare themselves

can do each other a great deal of mutual violence

when they derive some advantage from it, without

ever offending one another. In a word, every man,

seeing his fellow-men hardly otherwise than he would

see animals of another species, can carry off the prey

of the weaker or rel inquish his own to the stronger,

without considering these plunderings as anything but

natural events, without the slightest emotion of

insolence or spite, and with no other passion than the

sadness or joy of a good or bad outcome. (SD , 222)

There is no suggestion in Note O that this competition over food arises

out of a condition of scarcity. In other words, it is not out of the ordinary

that one man should rob another of his food. Thus we are led to conclude

that plunder is a usual occurrence in the pure state of nature, even in the

absence of an imperative to preserve oneself. Whether primitive man is by

nature a carnivore or a frugivore – Rousseau comes down on the side of

the latter to bolster the rhetorical presentation of the ease of life in pure

state of nature and thus of the gentleness of its inhabitants (Notes E, H, L)

– he is first and foremost a plunderer.

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Such are the comings and goings in the pure state of nature. And

yet , in spite of these skirmishes, men in the original human condition

remain entirely for themselves. In other words, the untrammelled pursuit

of well-being in the state of nature is not incompatible with the life in

accordance with nature so understood. “Savage man, when he has eaten, is

at peace with all nature, and the friend of all his fellow-men” (SD , 195).

His hunger sated, primitive man has no cause to prevail upon his fellows,

just as they have none to prevail upon him, there being no bounty to

plunder. Even on those occasions when he did prevail upon others, and

they upon him, these were but chance encounters, with no further

ramifications on how men pursue their well-being. For in the same way

that his dullness of mind prevented him from coming to the aid of his

fel lows as the initial example of natural pity above warrants, so by the

same measure primitive man could not have, as a result of these

encounters, come to take an interest in his fellows or form an attachment

with them that would be prejudicial to remaining entirely for himself.

Rousseau puts the matter thus:

A man might well seize the fruits another has

gathered, the game he has killed, the cave that served

as his shelter; but how will he ever succeed in making

himself obeyed? And what can be the chains of

dependence among men who possess nothing? If

someone chases me from one tree, I am at liberty to

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go to another; i f someone torments me in one place,

who will prevent me from going elsewhere? (SD , 139)

In principle if not always in practice, primitive man is self-sufficient ,

there being little by way of material obstacles for him not to be

considering his rudimentary needs. Carrying within himself all that was

required for his self-preservation, he was, in a manner of speaking, not

beholden to his fellows nor a burden upon them. This is how the original

man of nature remained entirely for himself, having neither the incentive

nor the cause to deviate from this way of life (SD , 138 – 140).

In this connection, there is one aspect of Rousseau’s (ambiguous)

presentation of the way of life in the original human condition that might

on the surface, challenge the preceding analysis. This revolves around the

possibility, which Rousseau himself raises, that men in the original

human condition are gregarious. If so, how could primitive men (and

women) remain entirely for themselves had they lived in herds? It is

therefore necessary to address this concern before we proceed onwards.

Earlier I noted Rousseau’s dismissive att itude towards the travel

literature of his time. Actually, he makes one exception in favour of the

testimonies of the European travellers, since “eyes alone are needed to

observe these things” (SD , 189). Seizing upon reports that pongos l ive in

herds Rousseau puts out the suggestion that they just might be “true

savage men … still found in the primitive state of nature” (SD , 204). In

so doing Rousseau tempers the view pursued in the body of text

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concerning the radical self-sufficiency of men in the original human

condition which we have discussed above.

To speak more accurately, it is not primitive men but primitive

women who define the full range of human self-sufficiency, since it falls

upon them to carry, bear, and care for their offspring.96 So long as enough

primitive women and their children survive without assistance the trying

periods during maternity and infancy, the family unit is superfluous to

ensure the continued perpetuation of the species. On this issue hinges the

naturalness of the human family in the pure state of nature the importance

of which is attested by the numerous notes we find on this and other

related subjects. They include Rousseau’s thoughts on human bipedalism

(Note C), the natural fertility of the earth (Note D), the dietary habits of

carnivores and frugivores (Notes E and H), and matters relating to the

sexual conduct between primitive men and women (Note L). Thus in Note

J Rousseau uses the Histoire to serve as a counterpoint to his presentation

of the soli tary way of life of primitive man outlined in the body of the

text.

But even if primitive men and women did live in herds, it does not

necessari ly follow that they could not have remained entirely for

themselves in the manner so described. For whether primitive woman

continues to be radically self-sufficient despite the burdens of

childbearing, and is therefore capable of leading an independent and

96 See Schwartz , The Sexual Pol i t ics o f Jean-Jacques Rousseau , pp .16 – 24.

117

solitary existence as the body of the text suggests, or instead requires a

gregarious mode of l ife which possibility Rousseau’s manipulation of the

Histoire allows so that these burdens do not lead to the extinction of the

species, the point remains that reason is unnatural to man, the

development of which Rousseau maintains time and circumstances

conspire against. 97 And in the absence of reason, the dynamics of the

relationship between primitive men and women would remain the same as

described above. In other words, the conditions of life that result in a

kind of dependence between one man and another that would put the

strictures of remaining entirely for oneself in jeopardy are absent in the

pure state of nature, regardless of whether men lived in herds or not.

Indeed, only in the advanced state of nature, as i t were, are the conditions

of life altered to such an extent that it is no longer possible for men to

remain entirely for themselves (SD , 150 – 152). Be that as i t may, it is

easy to see why Rousseau is quite happy to trumpet the view that in the

original human condition men live their l ives out isolated from each other.

Certainly this presentation appears less at odds with the strictures of

remaining entirely for oneself than the other.

*****

97 Here , I fo l lo w the ana lysis in Masters, The Pol i t ical Phi losophy of

Rousseau , pp .132 – 136.

118

The purpose of this chapter is to account for the “great difference”

(E , 205) between Emile and his primitive predecessor. In my view the

decisive difference between one man of nature and the next is propelled

by a fundamental similarity, which is the single standard of naturalness in

Rousseau’s thought. In other words, the decisive difference between

Emile and his primitive predecessor can be put down to his having to

satisfy the standard of naturalness in an environment that is in every way

different from the one which it is derived. This is the problem that society

poses to the life in accordance with nature. Consequently, the remedy is

far more radical , and far more intrusive in character than what existing

naturalist interpretations intimate. If Emile is to remain entirely for

himself in spite of his fellows, he cannot preserve the primacy of the

sentiments of nature. The bourgeois plays a crit ical role in bringing this

to light, the grounds of his being giving us an indication of the lengths to

which Emile must go to abide by the life in accordance with nature in the

context of society. Thus while the man of society is not the fount of the

standard of naturalness in Rousseau’s thought, he nevertheless has a hand

in shaping who the man of nature in society is. As it turns out , this is

crucial in helping us dist inguish between the man of nature in society and

the original man of nature: how Emile differs from his primitive

predecessor is inseparable from how he differs from the bourgeois. With

this in mind, we shall turn our attention to the next chapter where we will

see how the tutor alters Emile’s conception of self-love understood as the

119

pursuit of well-being to prevent society from derailing the l ife in

accordance with nature.

*****

120

5. The Problem of Society: Reconstituting the Man of Nature in

Society (II)

This chapter examines further the problem that society poses to the

life in accordance with nature. More specifically, it complements the

previous chapter by showing how the tutor contrives to reorder Emile’s

conception of self-love understood as the pursuit of well-being. Earlier it

was established that this soul-doctoring, so to speak, is the source of the

“great difference” (E , 205) between Emile and his primitive predecessor.

What is equally significant is that this undertaking makes the life in

accordance with nature possible in the context of society: as the putative

natural man living in the state of society, Emile cannot preserve the

primacy of the sentiments of nature. In other words, Emile’s natural

constitut ion must be altered if he is to remain entirely for himself in the

face of the enticements before him. For one thing, at every turn society

presents Emile with the opportunity to avail himself of the use of his

fel lows. For another, unlike the original man of nature who had the good

fortune to live among others like himself – one was therefore as

uninterested in others as others in him – Emile’s fellows will not leave

him be, and have the capacity to induce him to take an unhealthy interest

in them. Two episodes drawn from the natural education will be examined

to illustrate these considerations in turn. There, we are also given an

insight into the deliberations and the calculated response of the tutor.

Passions and dispositions which, although natural or good in and by

121

themselves, must be curtailed on the one hand and manipulated on the

other in order to keep Emile from using his fellows. In the main, the first

episode takes place during Emile’s early childhood, and the second, at the

threshold of his introduction into society. From a dramatic point of view

they mark the beginning and the end of the action of the natural education.

Taken together they highlight the urgency and the constancy with which

the tutor attends to the matter at hand, all with a view to ensure that

Emile remains entirely for himself.

*****

The first consideration for the disciplining of self-love is lodged

within Rousseau’s disquisi tion on tears (E , 64 – 69). More specifically, i t

comes to light by way of his treatment of the abuse of tears. Bereft of

speech, tears are the only means by which an infant communicates his

needs to his caregivers (E , 65). Until the child has a surfeit of strength

over needs, he is largely dependent on those around him from whom he

expects help and relief. One should render assistance to the child and

satisfy those needs for which he lacks strength, leaving him to meet

others which he can satisfy on his own so that his strength may develop

(E , 68). Thus the goal during childhood is one of gradual emancipation

characterised by the movement from the need for physical relief to the

rel ief from physical need (E , 78). But the parenting sins of omission and

commission ensure that the first of these goes unmet while the second is

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postponed indefinitely. It is always to the detriment of children when they

are thwarted by deficient care on the one hand and sated by excessive

attention on the other (E , 44 – 48). Children who are otherwise guileless

learn to abuse their tears as a result of the second of these transgressions.

“The first tears of children are prayers. If one is not careful , they

soon become orders. Children begin by getting themselves assisted; they

end by getting themselves served” (E , 66). The over-eager response to

appease a crying infant fosters in him the idea of domination. The

intention of the caregiver backfires and the infant learns to indulge in the

chicanery of tears. Having understood that help is always at hand, the

infant , through the deception of tears, schemes instead to be feared and

obeyed. It dawns upon the infant that his energies are better spent

manipulating those around him who are strong enough to move mountains

on his behalf. The easy supply of tears serves to increase his demands

which quickly assume unreasonable proportions (E , 69, 87 – 88). This is

how children, who know no better, learn to abuse their tears after

receiving encouragement from their unwitting caregivers. That caregivers

are unaware of their complicity in this matter – they attribute the cause of

their troubles to nature or the child’s temperament – at tests to the

swiftness and subtleness by which society operates (E , 69). In some sense

they are correct , since infants are constitutionally prone to cry even in the

absence of want or provocation, as we shall soon see. Hence the margins

that separate a child who is eventually, though inadvertently, corrupted

by his caregiver from another who is not are very fine indeed. Emile

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himself would be irretrievably lost to society but for the discriminating

aural perceptions of the tutor.

This is illustrated in the anecdote where Rousseau advises

caregivers to carry a child towards an object which the child desires

rather than to bring it to him (E , 66). But should the child be audacious

enough to cry either as a command for the object to approach him or as an

order for the caregiver to bring the object to him, Rousseau counsels the

caregiver to ignore the child’s screams. The aim of these calibrated

responses is to have the child draw “a conclusion appropriate to his age”

(E , 66), that he is neither the master of men nor things. To accede to the

child’s demands in this instance is to teach him to abuse his tears. While

there is no indication whether the child in the passage in question is

Emile, neither is there any evidence that the child is already corrupt.

Indeed, the preventive measures discussed there leave us to conclude that

it outlines the proper handling of a child and so would not by definition

preclude the tutor’s relationship with Emile. Hence it appears that the

advice which Rousseau dispenses – that “it is important from the earliest

age to disentangle the secret intention which dictates the gesture or the

scream” (E , 66) – is for the consumption of the tutor no less than for

more ordinary caregivers. The difference between them is that the tutor

responds accordingly, thereby saving Emile from ruin.

This is also to say that a dist inction should be made between the

crying bouts to which Emile is predisposed, and the abuse of tears from

which he is diverted. What is crucial to emphasise in this connection is

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the superabundance of life, a disposition natural to man, the force of

which waxes and wanes over time. Rousseau’s description of this

phenomenon at its peak, which follows his observations on the abuse of

tears, is worth quoting at length:

A child wants to upset everything he sees; he smashes,

breaks everything he can reach. He grabs a bird as he

would grab a stone, and he strangles it without

knowing what he does .. . [H]e senses within himself,

so to speak, enough life to animate everything

surrounding him. That he do or undo is a matter of no

importance; it suffices that he change the condition of

things, and every change is an action. If he seems to

have more of an inclination to destroy, it is not from

wickedness but because the action which gives shape

is always slow and the action which destroys, being

more rapid, fits his vivacity better. (E , 67)

Seen in this light, it is clear that the crying bouts mentioned in the

anecdote above are impelled by the superabundance of l ife, audible tokens

of the child’s desire to “change the condition of things” (E , 67) which

Rousseau deems necessary to counteract and ultimately silence.98

98 See Laurence D. Cooper , Eros in P lato , Rousseau, and Nie tzsche: The

Poli t ics o f In f in i ty , (Univers i ty Park, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State Univers i ty

Press, 2008) , pp .131 – 149, fo r an account o f the rela t ionship be tween the

superabundance o f l i fe and one’s being.

125

Why this should be so is due to the dynamics that surround the

superabundance of l ife in society. The physical exertions that children

make on account of the superabundance of life are, in and by themselves,

harmless. Indeed, they are signs of health and vitality, the first fruits of

the human pursuit of well-being. It is instructive to note that in

Rousseau’s philosophical account of the workings of the superabundance

of l ife quoted in the previous paragraph, no reference to any kind of

human interaction is made. In other words, in its unadulterated form the

superabundance of l ife is shorn of social significance. Consequently the

pursuit of well-being that it fosters in these circumstances does not

detract from the life in accordance with nature, since it is in keeping with

the strictures of remaining entirely for oneself. Complications arise,

however, when the pursuit is waylaid by society. There, the engagement

with human wills gives the pursuit a moral impetus it hitherto lacked, and

it no longer remains exclusively physical in character. This admixture is

injurious to the life in accordance with nature because it modifies the

child’s conception of his well-being, which is now inseparable from

availing himself of the use of his fel lows. He is no longer entirely for

himself from this point on.99 This is why Rousseau insists upon the strict

99 Consider ano ther example o f this dynamic : “Nature has, for strengthening

the body and making i t gro w, means that ought never be opposed. A chi ld must no t be

constrained to s tay when he wants to go nor to go when he wants to s tay. When

children’s wi l ls are not spoi led by our faul t , chi ldren want nothing uselessly. T hey

have to j ump, run, and shout when they wish. Al l the ir movements are needs o f their

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separation between what is moral and what is physical during this stage of

the natural education on the basis of which the crying bouts of a child

should be ignored rather than tended to (E , 89, 187, 214). Of course, the

infant Emile is in no position to appreciate this distinction, much less its

broader implications for the way of l ife prescribed for him. But the point

remains that the untrammelled pursuit of well-being is inimical to the life

in accordance with nature, which pursuit the tutor must deflect on behalf

of his charge.

Because the same dynamics described above apply to other

exertions that Emile may undertake when older, vigilance is required

beyond the age of infancy. During childhood proper, curiosity replaces

the superabundance of l ife as the motor of well-being:

To the activity of the body which seeks development

succeeds the activity of the mind which seeks

instruction. At first children are only restless; then

they are curious; and that curiosity, well directed, is

the motive of the age we have now reached. Let us

always distinguish between the inclinations which

come from nature and those which come from opinion.

const i tut ion seeking to s trengthen i t sel f . But one should distrus t what they des ire but

are unab le to do for themselves and others have to do for them. Then true need,

na tura l need, must be careful ly dist inguished from the need which s tems from nascent

whim or from the need which comes only from the superabundance o f l i fe o f which I

have spoken” (E , 86) .

127

There is an ardour to know which is founded only on

the desire to be esteemed as learned; there is another

ardour which is born of a curiosity natural to man

concerning all that might have a connection, close or

distant, with his interests. The innate desire for well-

being and the impossibility of fully satisfying this

desire make him constantly seek for new means of

contributing to it . This is the first principle of

curiosity, a principle natural to the human heart , but

one which develops only in proportion to our passions

and our enlightenment. (E , 167)

Now, the distinction that Rousseau makes between the inclinations

which come from nature – of which curiosity is a part – and the

inclinations that come from opinion should not blind us to the caveat that

curiosity must be well directed to be useful. This qualification is crucial

to note for elsewhere we learn of the potential machinations of an

unrestrained curiosity:

If he questions you himself, answer enough to feed

his curiosity, but not so much as to sate i t . Above all ,

when you see that instead of questioning for the sake

of instruction he is beating around the bush and

overwhelming you with silly questions, stop

immediately, with the certainty that now he cares no

longer about the thing but about subjecting you to his

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interrogation. You must pay less attention to the

words he pronounces than to the motive which causes

him to speak. This warning, less necessary before

now, becomes of the greatest importance when the

child begins to reason. (E , 172)

Once again, the inclinations of nature do not provide unqualified support

to the life in accordance with nature. Indeed, when mediated by human

contact i ts contribution is ambiguous to say the least . In this case,

curiosity has the potential to morph into the desire to dominate, as a

result of which the child no longer remains entirely for himself.

Whereas earlier the harsh law of necessity provided the remedy,

now the notion of uti lity or present interest is called upon:

“What is that good for?” This is now the sacred word,

the decisive word between him and me in all the

actions of our l ife. This is the question of mine which

infallibly follows al l his questions and which serves

as a brake to those multitudes of stupid and tedious

interrogations with which children ceaselessly and

fruitlessly fatigue all those around them, more to

exercise some kind of dominion over them than to get

some profit . He who is taught as his most important

lesson to want to know nothing but what is useful

interrogates like Socrates. He does not put a question

without giving himself the reason for i t , which he

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knows will be demanded of him before he is answered.

(E , 179)

As with the previous example, there is nothing in the references to

suggest that the child in question has already been corrupted by society.

In other words, it is not implausible that this narrative faithfully

transcribes the travails of the education of nature. Unti l Emile becomes

Socratic-like in his interrogation, there is every danger that his curiosity

will run amok in society. In the meantime, therefore, the interrogator

must in turn be interrogated to counter the excesses of curiosi ty whenever

it arises.

*****

Emile’s ‘second birth’ – Rousseau’s turn of phrase to denote the

awakening of sexual desire (E , 211) – provides the setting for the second

consideration for the disciplining of self-love. Whereas the previous

consideration highlighted the dangers of the untrammelled pursuit of

well-being for the life in accordance with nature, the present

consideration illustrates how even the legit imate pursuit of well-being

might imperil i t . This comes to light by way of Emile’s reaction to the

fabricated news of Sophie’s death, thus precipitating the principal crisis

of the natural education. All men are born twice, “once to exist and once

to live; once for our species and once for our sex” (E , 211). Emile’s

‘second birth’ is especial ly momentous because it also begets the prospect

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of him dying twice. How this transpires will be elaborated upon in due

course – in particular, how it bears upon the strictures of remaining

entirely for oneself – but some preliminary comments are in order.100

As Rousseau understands it , the ‘second’ death is a psychological

phenomenon, an expiration of the soul that precedes the expiration of the

body. Men who are consumed by the things that they hold dear condemn

themselves to die twice. In their desperation to make the ephemeral

permanent, they lose the pleasure of enjoying what is already in their

possession. In other words, to be afflicted by the ‘second’ death is to die

to life (E , 444). Because the terrors of the ‘second’ death are an artefact

of the imagination, it is not given to al l men to die twice. Indeed, the

‘second’ death cannot ensnare the original man of nature who is bereft of

imagination (SD , 135). For the same reason it is also impossible for the

original man of nature to develop any fear of his physical death, since he

has no conception of his mortality (SD , 110 – 111). Emile wil l accept his

physical death with equanimity, doing nothing to defer or delay the

inevitable (E , 443). How he staves off the ‘second’ death – with no small

amount of coaxing on the tutor’s part – is the subject of the present

enquiry.

Up until now Emile has remained entirely for himself, capable of

maintaining a general indifference towards his fellows insofar as his well-

100 For a more comprehensive t rea tment o f love or the prob lem of eros in Emile

or in Rousseau’s thought general ly, see Allan Bloom, Love and Friendsh ip , (New

York: Simon & Schuster , 1993) , pp.39 – 156.

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being is concerned (E , 219). According to Rousseau, such is Emile’s

indifference towards them that he is able to suffer their invasion without

being moved to anger, let alone retaliate. “He would pity even the enemy

who would do him harm, for he would see his misery in his wickedness.

He would say to himself, ‘ In giving himself the need to hurt me, this man

has made his fate dependent on mine’” (E , 244). At this point in time

Emile is so entirely for himself that he lives beyond the reach of his

fel lows. His well-being is construed independently of them: he does not

need them to contribute towards it , nor is it defined in opposition to

theirs. Even in the circumstances described above the pursuit of his well-

being does not require him to strike back at those who assault him. To

cultivate this kind of indifference towards others is impressive. However

that may be, there remain things which have the power to unbalance

Emile, and which may compel him to treat his fellows differently. Emile

may have learnt how to die, but he has yet to learn how to surrender the

things that give his l ife meaning. His passion for Sophie is one such thing,

which leads to his brush with the ‘second’ death.

Emile is beside himself when he receives the false report of

Sophie’s death, which the tutor delivers in the form of a question (E , 442).

The question demands an answer from Emile – he is asked what he will do

upon receiving the news – but in his present state he is incapable of

providing one immediately. The tutor considers this behaviour to be

unbefi tting of the man of nature in society (E , 443 – 444), and he pushes

Emile for an answer. In response Emile intimates that he would go so far

132

as to break off all ties with the tutor, to which the tutor reacts with calm

(E , 442). His demeanour suggests that he had anticipated a response of

this nature, which only confirms his fears: Emile stands at the brink of

the ‘second’ death, ready to cast everything aside for the woman he loves

(E , 444). The tutor proceeds to draw out the implications for the life in

accordance with nature:

You who already wish never again to see the man who

will inform you of your mistress’s death, how would

you see the man who would want to take her from you

while she is still l iving – the one who would dare to

say to you, ‘She is dead to you. Virtue separates you

from her’? If you have to live with her no matter what,

it makes no difference whether Sophie is married or

not, whether you are free or not , whether she loves

you or hates you, whether she is given you or refused

you; you want her, and you have to possess her

whatever the price. Inform me, then, at what crime a

man stops when he has only the wishes of his heart

for laws and knows how to resist nothing that he

desires? (E , 444)

If left unchecked the sheer force of Emile’s passion for Sophie will draw

his fellows into the constellation of his well-being. Then there will

always be someone to please and others to harm at the behest of this

passion. Emile will imbibe the ethos that gives society its power over men:

133

he will labour under the yoke of dependence, and everyone will be

someone’s plaything; at every turn favours wil l be sought, and favours

will have to be dispensed. In a word, Emile wil l no longer remain entirely

for himself.

This is not to say that the cultivation of human passions is

incompatible with the life in accordance with nature:

Our passions are the principal instruments of our

preservation. It is, therefore, an enterprise as vain as

it is ridiculous to want to destroy them – it is to

control nature, it is to reform the work of God. If God

were to tel l men to annihilate the passions which He

gives him, God would will and not will; He would

contradict Himself. Never did He give this senseless

order. Nothing of the kind is written in the human

heart … I would find someone who wanted to prevent

the birth of the passions almost as mad as someone

who wanted to annihilate them; and those who

believed that this was my project up to now would

surely have understood me very badly. (SD , 212)

Thus there is no intention on Rousseau’s part to excise the passions from

men’s hearts . Nor is it the case that Emile’s passion for Sophie, which

according to the tutor “is as pure as the souls which feel it” (E , 445), is

illicit . But “[i]t is an error to distinguish permitted passions from

forbidden ones in order to yield to the former and deny oneself the latter”

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(E , 445). Emile must be disabused of this notion if he is to grasp the

tutor’s intention for subjecting him to this duress:

All passions are good when one remains their master;

all are bad when one lets oneself be subjected to

them … It is not within our control to have or not to

have passions. But it is within our control to reign

over them. All the sentiments we dominate are

legit imate; al l those which dominate us are criminal .

(E , 445)

In other words, Emile’s passion for Sophie can be reconciled with the life

in accordance with nature on the condition that he must rule over it .

Sophie is not immune from the designs that fortune and men may have in

store for her (E , 444 – 445). Thus Emile must learn to rule over his

passion for her come what may. Only in this way will he continue to

eschew the use of his fellows, thereby preserving the integrity of the life

in accordance with nature.

To be sure, the substantive demands of what is required here go

beyond the modus operandi of the tutor. Earlier, the tutor either

suppressed or redirected Emile’s native inclinations as he saw fit in order

to keep the pursuit of his well-being in line with the life in accordance

with nature. But on this occasion the tutor is powerless to act on Emile’s

behalf. For the first time in the course of the natural education, the reins

are handed over to Emile (E , 445), who must make a conscious decision

to stick to the road of nature, or what is the same, to the road of

135

happiness (E , 443). Thus the alteration of the pursuit of his well-being,

necessary here as before, requires in this instance the very

reconceptualisation of what this well-being entails. It is up to Emile,

therefore, to master his passion for Sophie so as to prevent any fal lout for

the life in accordance with nature. This marks the transition from

goodness to virtue, to rely on Rousseau’s lexicon, for Emile:

My child, there is no happiness without courage nor

virtue without struggle. The word virtue comes from

strength . Strength is the foundation of all virtue.

Virtue belongs only to a being that is weak by nature

and strong by will . It is in this that the merit of the

just man consists; and although we call God good, we

do not call Him virtuous, because it requires no effort

for Him to do good … I have made you good rather

than virtuous. But he who is only good remains so

only as long as he takes pleasure in being so.

Goodness is broken and perishes under the impact of

the human passions. The man who is only good is

good only for himself. (E , 444)

Although virtue is but one component of Emile’s moral education,101 i t is

arguably the most significant. Despite the fact that morality has no

foundation in nature and is therefore entirely conventional in character,

101 See Cl i f ford Orwin, “Rousseau on the Sources of Ethics,” pp.63 – 84.

136

virtue may be considered as the capstone of the natural education since in

the final analysis, it is virtue that guarantees Emile’s adherence to the life

in accordance with nature. We shall see how this is so in what remains of

this section.

Much can be said about Rousseau’s conception of virtue, which is

particularly rich, but this is beyond the parameters of the present

discussion. A brief digression will help establish the point in question.

Virtue is central not only to the moral psychology of the man of nature in

society but also of the cit izen. And yet the content and purpose of

Emilean virtue on the one hand and polit ical virtue on the other are very

dissimilar. The portrai ts of the citizen that Rousseau sketches in the

opening pages of Emile give us some indication of the self-forgetting

nature of poli tical virtue (E , 40), a quality that Emilean virtue does not

share. This self-forgetting is necessary to displace the personal or the

private in favour of the city, to which the cit izen owes complete

allegiance. As the anti-citizen, Emile owes no such allegiance to the

political community in which he lives, a conviction reinforced by the

political education he receives during his separation from Sophie (E , 471

– 475). With these broad differences in mind, it thus suffices for us to

focus on the specific function that Rousseau assigns to virtue in the

natural education. In this connection, it is useful to return to the

distinction between goodness and virtue.

137

Goodness is rendered obsolete and virtue becomes necessary “when

the passions are awakened” (E , 443).102 In other words, up to this point in

the natural education Emile has been good rather than virtuous. This

should not be taken as a denunciation of goodness, that is to say, as a

statement on the uselessness of the natural education prior to this time.

Goodness is fitting for one phase of the l ife in accordance with nature as

virtue is for another. Emile is good for himself because his desires do not

exceed his capacity to satisfy them. Consequently he is good for others, if

only incidentally, because he does not use or exploit them.103 Had a moral

diet been forced on Emile then, he would have lost this psychological

independence from his fellows. After all, moral relations imply a bond of

obligation between one man and another. Nor are these t ies always

salutary, especially when they are formed prematurely. It is Rousseau’s

view that to impose rules of right conduct on children only teaches them

to exercise dominion over others (E , 86). Thus goodness serves an

admirable purpose during this phase of the natural education by keeping

Emile entirely for himself.

But the reign of goodness crumbles in the face of the passions (E ,

444), in this case, by the all-consuming nature of Emile’s passion for

Sophie. Goodness is broken because the equilibrium between Emile’s

102 The or igina l man o f na ture i s therefore incapab le o f vice or v ir tue; he i s

s imply good (SD , 128 – 130) .

103 See Melzer , The Natura l Goodness o f Man , pp .15 – 17.

138

desires and facult ies is shattered (E , 80), the restoration of which

goodness cannot oversee. For goodness itself perishes given the change in

Emile’s circumstances: goodness is the disposition of a solitary being, but

Emile’s existence as a solitary being is at an end. His newfound status as

a lover is the gateway to his relationship with society at large. In ways

that were not possible before, Emile’s fel lows are in a position to exert an

influence on him, now as a lover, and later, as a husband and a father (E ,

448). More and more Emile will have to live his li fe under the gaze of

society. We are already acquainted with the potential pitfalls that this

presents to the life in accordance with nature. Obviously Emile is in no

position to control what his fellows might or might not do. What remains

in his control, however, is that which governs his reaction. This is his

passion for Sophie. Thus only virtue – in the sense that Rousseau gives it

here – can restore the equilibrium between desires and faculties. The

virtuous man is described variously as one “who knows how to conquer

his affections” (E , 444), and who knows how “to desire one thing and will

another” (E , 448). It should be emphasised that Emile is not asked to deny

his passion for Sophie. Emilean virtue demands self-mastery from its

bearer, in contrast to the self-forgetting virtue that cit izens must brandish.

But by not allowing his passion for Sophie to run amok, Emile continues

to keep to the strictures of remaining entirely for himself.104

104 See Orwin, “Rousseau on the Sources o f E thics,” pp.73 – 78, for an

al terna te reading o f th is episode in which the tu tor ’s manipula t ion o f Emile ’s amour-

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*****

The purpose of this chapter is to show how the tutor alters Emile’s

conception of self-love understood as the pursuit of well-being. Such are

the tolls of the education of nature, the better to satisfy the standard of

naturalness in the context of society. Two considerations were forwarded

propre i s emphasised. On this read ing, Emile ’s unders tanding o f the s i tua t ion i s

merely one perspec t ive of the episode , and not the co mple te one . But the point

remains that Emile must a l ter his concept ion o f se l f -love understood as the pursui t o f

wel l -be ing, and his understanding o f the s i tua t ion, though inco mple te , addresses more

direc t ly the i ssue a t s take here – ho w he i s to rela te to h is fe l lo ws as he remains

ent irely fo r himse l f.

At any rate , the conclusion o f this episode marks an impor tant mi les tone in the

educat ion o f na ture . For only at this point can the ques t ion which Rousseau posed at

the outse t where he int roduces the natural educat ion, “But what wi l l a man ra ised

uniquely for himse l f become for o thers?” (E , 41) , be answered decisive ly. A quick

comparison wi th the o r igina l man o f nature wil l b r ing the matter in to sharp rel ie f.

The or iginal man o f na ture i s a lways adduced as an example o f what i t means to be

good for himse l f and good for o thers . But i t i s more accurate to say, ra ther , that the

or igina l man o f na ture is good for o thers because good for himse l f. He i s good for

himsel f because he has al l tha t he needs to preserve himse l f. As a resul t , he i s good

for o thers because having no need for his fe l lo ws, he does no harm to them. Emile , on

the other hand, i s good for h imsel f and good for o thers. He i s good for h imse l f in tha t

he does not need his fe l lows to contr ibute towards his well -being; he i s a l so good for

o thers in tha t he i s capable o f restraining himsel f from s tr ik ing back at his fe l lows

even when they are bad for h im.

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in support of this thesis, with reference to episodes drawn from different

periods of the natural education that illustrate how society is capable of

contorting Emile’s pursuit of well-being to the detriment of the life in

accordance with nature. It is worth reiterat ing that to remain entirely for

oneself does not preclude Emile from forming deep attachments with

others. The stipulation to remain entirely for himself simply means that

Emile must refrain from using or exploit ing his fellows for the benefit of

his well-being. At the same time, the very attachments which Emile forms

with the tutor on the one hand, and with Sophie on the other, expose him

to this danger. The intervention of the tutor is therefore required to help

Emile abide by the strictures of the life in accordance with nature. Taken

together, the tutor’s response is an expression of Rousseau’s attempt to

replace the bourgeois morality of enlightened self-interest with the new

morality of enlightened self-love. It is this enlightened self-love that

allows Emile to live with his fellows, if not like them. By remaining

entirely for himself in spite of society, Emile thus preserves a vital link

with his primitive predecessor, evidence of the continued relevance of

nature as a standard for human social li fe.

*****

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6. Conclusion

The principal problem under consideration in this dissertation has

been the problem of nature in Rousseau’s thought, that is, whether and

how nature remains a standard for human social li fe. Indeed, so

understood the problem of nature may be regarded as the principal

problem in Rousseau’s thought, for in craft ing a coherent and considered

response other major or significant problems must necessarily come under

its purview. These are the problems of history – whether and how

Rousseau obtains knowledge of the original human condition – and of

society – how men become bad for themselves and bad for others. Such is

the magnitude and the central ity of the problem of nature in Rousseau’s

thought. It is my hope that this dissertat ion has done enough within the

defined parameters to move the nature-history debate in Rousseau

scholarship past its present impasse. The issue is not so much that

naturalist and historicist interpreters disagree with one another – this is

not to say that the concerns of the debate are trivial – but that this

disagreement is mired in irreconcilable methodological differences.

Existing naturalist interpretat ions, because they subscribe to the concept

of Emilean naturalness, hold that Rousseau’s state of nature teachings in

the Second Discourse are not a comprehensive articulation of the

supposed (bipartite) standard of naturalness in his thought. (The complete

theoretical justification of Emilean or civilised naturalness, as opposed to

primitive or savage naturalness, must await its development in Emile) .

142

From the point of view of historicist interpreters this is a serious

methodological misstep since they contend that Rousseau’s state of nature

teachings are his first and final words on the matter. (To be sure,

historicist interpreters are adamant that the radical historicisation of the

human condition which undergirds these teachings renders any appeal to

nature as a standard for human social li fe futi le, if not meaningless, to

begin with).

This dissertation injects a new impetus into the debate by

proceeding upon the terms set forth by historicist interpreters. By virtue

of this approach I offer a sympathetic refutation of their interpretation.

For all intents and purposes I consider the state of nature teachings to be

exhaustive with respect to the question whether and how nature remains a

standard for human social li fe. But in contrast to historicist interpreters I

maintain that it is still possible to extract a standard of naturalness

exclusively from the state of nature teachings in spite of or precisely

because of the radical historicisation of the human condition. The

standard in question that singularly upholds the life in accordance with

nature both in the state of nature and the state of society, despite the

immense gulf in t ime and circumstance between them, is contained in the

man-citizen dichotomy in Rousseau’s thought, the foundations of which

are established through his study of the original human condition.

According to the determinations of the dichotomy, the way of life of man

is natural, and the way of life of the citizen is denatured. My primary

thesis has been that Emile and his primitive predecessor are equally

143

natural on this account. In short , the l ife in accordance with nature is

resolutely anti-political in character.

By the same measure I offer a significant revision of standard

naturalist interpretat ions. Unlike interpreters of this persuasion, I do not

make a distinction between primitive or savage naturalness on the one

hand, and civilised or Emilean naturalness on the other. (On this note, I

have also argued that these interpretations are problematic even on their

own terms). The natural man living in the state of nature is not more or

less natural than the natural man living in the state of society, or vice

versa. Naturalness does not lend itself to gradations – one is either

natural or not natural . The “great difference” (E , 205) between the

original man of nature and the man of nature in society which standard

naturalist interpretat ions regard as the source or foundation of Emilean

naturalness is in my view nothing more than an expedient that makes the

life in accordance with nature possible outside of the state of nature. Thus

the secondary thesis of this dissertation, contrary to these interpretations,

is that the difference between Emile and his primitive predecessor does

not amount to a different class or category of naturalness. Rather, this

difference simply ensures the realisation of the (single) standard of

naturalness in an environment that is in every way inimical to it , which is

the state of society. This is the theoretical contribution of Emile to the

problem of nature in Rousseau’s thought, which elaborates or

rearticulates the way of life of man (as opposed to the way of life of the

citizen or the bourgeois for that matter) as being entirely for oneself.

144

In sum, my disagreement with prevailing naturalist and historicist

interpretations may be formulated in terms of the man-citizen dichotomy

in Rousseau’s thought. Obviously the concept of the dichotomy is not new

to Rousseau scholarship. What is noteworthy in my interpretation is the

elevated status that I grant it . Ordinarily scholars understand the

dichotomy as a crit ique of the bourgeois, who being neither man nor

citizen, is bad for himself and bad for others. But the import of the man-

citizen dichotomy is far greater than hitherto acknowledged by scholars

on both sides of the interpretive divide. For the dichotomy is not simply a

shorthand for Rousseau’s conception of the good life. Instead it contains

the very standard of naturalness in Rousseau’s thought. If the principal

problem in Rousseau’s thought is the problem of nature, then the man-

citizen dichotomy lies at the very core of its resolution. The substantive

chapters in this dissertation, nominally dedicated to the distinct themes or

problems of history, nature, and society in Rousseau’s thought, may be

understood alternatively as successive treatments of the man-cit izen

dichotomy, describing in turn its location, its derivation, and i ts

application in Rousseau’s thought. In other words, the merit of my

interpretation goes beyond the simple reconciliation of the

methodological differences in the literature as I perceive it . Rather, my

analysis of the li terature through the prism of this methodological

problem allows me to uncover in turn what I take to be the true

provenance of the man-citizen dichotomy, which makes this new

interpretation of the problem of nature in Rousseau’s thought possible.

145

Stated in its broadest terms, Rousseau’s derivation of the dichotomy is

the foremost expression of modern political conventionalism. His

discovery or recovery of the original human condition – made possible by

his acute historical sense – provides incontrovertible proof that man is

not by nature a social or political animal or what is the same, that the l ife

in accordance with nature is thoroughly incompatible with the demands of

citizenship. Only Rousseau among the modern social contract theorists

understood the true worth and dignity of these two ways of l ife precisely

because they are and should be dist inguished one from the other, which

distinction the Enlightenment did not grasp. Rousseau’s cri tique of his

predecessors, notably Hobbes and Locke, is therefore more wide-ranging

than the mere rejection of their political projects. The exact boundaries of

modern social contract theory prior to Rousseau was ill-defined because

its proponents overlooked the fact that politics or the ci ty does not

exhaust the possibili ties of the good life. Thus it was left to Rousseau to

give modern political conventionalism a fair and proper hearing in his

thought. In short, through the dichotomy Rousseau resurrects the

(classical) idea that the good man is not the good citizen.

In the final analysis the question of the human good in Rousseau’s

thought is inseparable from a study of the original human condition.

Everything that is consequential in his thought finds its source there, and

his state of nature teachings are the lodestar of the good life. More to the

point , the argument of this dissertation is that the theoretical foundations

of the l ife in accordance with nature are located exclusively and

146

exhaustively in these teachings. On the basis of this argument the present

interpretation redefines the parameters of the nature-history debate in

Rousseau’s thought, and consequently, challenges the prevail ing

naturalist and historicist interpretations in fundamental ways. To state the

matter differently, the resil ience and immutability of nature as a standard

for human social li fe is intimately connected with Rousseau’s teaching

that man is a historical being – this is one of the more abstruse paradoxes

of his thought. For Rousseau, nature is revealed in our origins, not in

human ends. And while men have changed beyond recognition from what

they were like in the original human condition, the very dialectic between

reason and passion that Rousseau thought must have propelled the

development of the species also provides, in the same instance, a sure

glimpse into our past. This is the twin function of Rousseau’s doctrine of

perfectibility. Nature is not thereby eviscerated by history. On the

contrary, it is revived in and through history. In a word, the

(mis)conception that Rousseau’s thought (to say nothing of the

Rousseauian state of nature) is simply a contested ground between the

forces of nature on the one hand and history on the other must be

dispelled if the contours of the problem of nature are to fully emerge.

*****

147

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