Perhaps Rousseau's most important work is ‘The Social Contract’ that describes the relationship of man with society. Rousseau claimed that the state of nature is brutish condition without law or morality, and that there are good men only a result of society’s presence. He believes that man should join together with his fellow men to form the collective human presence known as ‘society’. In the social contract, Rousseau mentions that ‘man was born free, and he is everywhere in chains’. By this he means that once a man is born, he is free. There is nothing stopping him from doing what he wants to do, but once he enters into civilisation and society, he realises that there are rules, regulations and connections to other sources of society, which are literally chained to him.
In the social pact, which is part of the social contract, Rousseau says ‘man obeys no one but himself, and remains as free as before’. Here he means that man is born free, therefore he does not need to obey or follow rules, but only follows the rules that he creates. ‘The social pact establishes equality among the citizens in that the all pledge themselves under the same conditions and must all enjoy the same rights’. Rousseau wants a new social contract because he believes the ideas put forward by Hobbes in the social contract did not benefit every man, therefore there was inequality. The social contract had somewhat developed society, but in an unequal and miserable way.
Rousseau showed an acute awareness of the contradictions between the enlightenment, between the poverty and the granted. He believed society had inequality, and he wanted a new social contract that would overcome this inequality in human society. Rousseau said that ‘the first sense of evil is inequality and wherever men are equal, there are neither rich nor poor’. Equality meant that there was no evil and everyone had the same rules to obey and had the same rights. Rousseau wanted to extend the human reason and humanity to overcome the society and bring it back to its natural state.
Rousseau wants a ‘state of nature’ where human beings can live in a way which they did before they entered society. He believed that to live in a state of nature is to live a happy but undeveloped life. He wants people to live a simple and happy life. In order for this to happen, Rousseau believed that ‘the people as a whole should make rules for the people as a whole, it is dealing only with itself’. Rousseau questioned the assumption that the will of the majority is always correct. He argued that the goal of government should be to secure freedom, equality, and justice for all within the state, regardless of the will of the majority.
Rousseau’s idea of any kind of authority is that ‘if we agree to an authority placed over us, it is because we ourselves are that authority’. Man should create rules that are equal for every other man. Rousseau condemns Hobbes’ idea that we are subjects to the sovereign, rather than citizens. Rousseau urges the need for a sovereign power which; provides mutual protection, but involves no loss of self-government. ‘The authority placed over us needs to be legitimate and it must be one we ourselves control. We are ourselves the sovereign, freely creating the laws we obey’ (Rousseau).
Thomas Hobbes had the idea that there should be a sovereign, leviathan or an assembly of men who create rules for every man in the state and society. In the leviathan (1651), Hobbes mentions that ‘nature hath made men so equal, in the faculties of the body, and mind; as that though there be found one man sometimes manifestly stronger in body, or of quicker mind than another’. He said that without a society, people would live in ‘continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short’. Hobbes is arguing that if every man is completely free, than it could be a danger to every other man. He believes there should be a leviathan, where the ‘power and strength upon one man, or upon one assembly of men’.
Hobbes wants to overcome the ‘state of nature’. To live in a state of nature is to live in fear. Rousseau does not deny this, but believes that this is the way to get equality and freedom. Only an authority set over the individual ensures security. In a ‘state of nature’, appetite gives us ‘a right to everything, even to one another’s body’. Fear of loss (including loss of life) compels us to seek mutual agreement with our fellow human beings. The mutual agreement that is enforced by he sovereign, allows the state to have security. The sovereignty placed over the state has to be powerful enough so that it cannot be challenged.
Hobbes and Rousseau’s ideas have had an influence on political traditions in modern democracies. Almost in every society and state there is someone or a group of people who create rule for the whole of society to obey. These rules also allow people to have freedom. Rousseau's ideas about education have profoundly influenced modern educational theory. He minimizes the importance of book learning, and recommends that a child’s emotions should be educated before his reason. He placed a special emphasis on learning by experience.
Bibliography:
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Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, 1651
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Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract, 1762
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Maurice Cranston, Philosophers and pamphleteers
