ENLIGHTENMENT PHILOSOPHY
On Rousseau’s Discourse on Inequality
Ian Johnston explores Rousseau’s account of human nature and the origins of inequality, examining how civilization, property, social institutions, and amour propre
By Ian Johnston
Abridged for the Richer Resources Classical Reference Library
Editorial note. This abridged edition concentrates on Johnston’s account of Rousseau’s historical method, his contrast between the state of nature and civilized society, the figure of the Noble Savage, amour propre, and the secularization of the Fall. Classroom-specific preliminaries, extended background on the development of critical history, and the digression on progressive history have been substantially reduced. The organization and interpretive emphasis follow Johnston’s original lecture.
Preliminary Remarks
Johnston begins by urging readers to attend not only to Rousseau’s conclusions but to the structure of his argument. The importance of a major thinker, on this account, lies in the way a work changes the vocabulary, assumptions, and methods through which later readers approach a problem. Rousseau may be difficult to agree with, but the questions and methods established in the Second Discourse cannot simply be ignored.
Rousseau’s Historical Metaphor
Johnston identifies the decisive feature of Rousseau’s argument as its historical form. Rousseau tells a story in which human beings begin independent, self-sufficient, equal, and free, then gradually develop technology, families, social institutions, laws, competition, and property. The resulting civilization produces inequality, dependence, envy, and unhappiness.
The revolutionary force of this narrative lies in treating institutions commonly regarded as natural or permanent as historical constructions. If property, political authority, and social hierarchy arose through human actions and accidents, they cannot automatically claim the authority of nature or divine ordinance. They may therefore be criticized and changed. Johnston stresses that this critical use of history is more important than the factual persuasiveness of Rousseau’s speculative reconstruction.
Critical History and the State of Nature
Rousseau presents his account partly as conjecture, but Johnston observes that the argument nevertheless depends heavily on the contrast between primitive and civilized humanity. This distinguishes Rousseau from Hobbes. Hobbes uses the state of nature chiefly as a thought experiment grounded in a relatively constant view of human psychology; Rousseau insists that social history has altered human beings themselves.
For Rousseau, the decisive changes are social rather than biological. Civilization creates dependencies, desires, and forms of inequality that did not characterize natural man. Johnston therefore treats Rousseau’s history as a tool of social criticism: it removes the apparent natural legitimacy of existing arrangements and makes political reform intellectually possible.
Some Reflections on Rousseau’s Vision of History
Rousseau’s narrative is deliberately provocative. Primitive human beings are pictured as peaceful, independent, equal, and largely content because their desires remain within the range of what they can satisfy. Social development changes this condition. Association, technology, property, and competition generate both material domination and psychological dissatisfaction.
Johnston emphasizes the radical optimism underlying this argument. Rousseau makes society, rather than an inherently corrupt human nature, responsible for much human misery. If social arrangements helped create the problem, then human beings can at least imagine altering those arrangements. The historical narrative thus becomes a foundation for later revolutionary and sociological thought.
Rousseau’s Noble Savage
Johnston treats Rousseau’s primitive man less as reliable anthropology than as a critical ideal. Natural man is self-sufficient and psychologically undivided. He does not depend upon the admiration of others, pursue artificial status, or suffer from desires continually enlarged by comparison with his neighbours.
The contrast becomes especially important in Rousseau’s account of amour propre. Once people live together, they begin to compete for recognition and to value fame, beauty, status, luxury, and other socially manufactured goods. These desires create dependence upon the judgment of others and a persistent dissatisfaction with oneself. Civilization may produce extraordinary achievements, but Rousseau asks readers to consider their psychological and moral cost.
This position also separates Rousseau sharply from Hobbes. Where Hobbes values civil order and is prepared to exploit ordinary human vanity in maintaining it, Rousseau places far greater value on independence, equality, and the integrity of the individual personality.
The Disappearance of Original Sin
Johnston finds one of Rousseau’s most far-reaching implications in the claim that freedom, equality, independence, and happiness once belonged naturally to human beings. Their loss is not the consequence of original sin, divine punishment, or an unavoidable defect in human nature. It results from human history.
In this sense Rousseau’s narrative resembles a secularized version of the Fall. Humanity has lost an original condition, but the loss was produced by human decisions, accidents, and institutions. That shift directs dissatisfaction away from fate or sin and toward society, giving new force to projects of political and social reform.
Johnston also draws attention to Rousseau’s implicit treatment of happiness. If natural humanity possessed a form of contentment before civilization generated artificial desires and dependence, happiness begins to look less like the rare reward of virtue and more like something human beings have been deprived of. The tension between these views of happiness would become a lasting feature of modern thought.
Source Note
Based on Ian Johnston, “On Rousseau’s Discourse On Inequality,” a lecture prepared in August 2000 for Liberal Studies at Malaspina University-College (now Vancouver Island University). Johnston states that the original lecture is in the public domain and may be used in whole or in part without cost or permission. References in the original are to Roger D. and Judith R. Masters, The First and Second Discourses (St. Martin’s, 1964).
Editorial note. This abridged edition concentrates on Johnston’s account of Rousseau’s historical method, his contrast between the state of nature and civilized society, the figure of the Noble Savage, amour propre, and the secularization of the Fall. Classroom-specific preliminaries, extended background on the development of critical history, and the digression on progressive history have been substantially reduced. The organization and interpretive emphasis follow Johnston’s original lecture.
Preliminary Remarks
Johnston begins by urging readers to attend not only to Rousseau’s conclusions but to the structure of his argument. The importance of a major thinker, on this account, lies in the way a work changes the vocabulary, assumptions, and methods through which later readers approach a problem. Rousseau may be difficult to agree with, but the questions and methods established in the Second Discourse cannot simply be ignored.
Rousseau’s Historical Metaphor
Johnston identifies the decisive feature of Rousseau’s argument as its historical form. Rousseau tells a story in which human beings begin independent, self-sufficient, equal, and free, then gradually develop technology, families, social institutions, laws, competition, and property. The resulting civilization produces inequality, dependence, envy, and unhappiness.
The revolutionary force of this narrative lies in treating institutions commonly regarded as natural or permanent as historical constructions. If property, political authority, and social hierarchy arose through human actions and accidents, they cannot automatically claim the authority of nature or divine ordinance. They may therefore be criticized and changed. Johnston stresses that this critical use of history is more important than the factual persuasiveness of Rousseau’s speculative reconstruction.
Critical History and the State of Nature
Rousseau presents his account partly as conjecture, but Johnston observes that the argument nevertheless depends heavily on the contrast between primitive and civilized humanity. This distinguishes Rousseau from Hobbes. Hobbes uses the state of nature chiefly as a thought experiment grounded in a relatively constant view of human psychology; Rousseau insists that social history has altered human beings themselves.
For Rousseau, the decisive changes are social rather than biological. Civilization creates dependencies, desires, and forms of inequality that did not characterize natural man. Johnston therefore treats Rousseau’s history as a tool of social criticism: it removes the apparent natural legitimacy of existing arrangements and makes political reform intellectually possible.
Some Reflections on Rousseau’s Vision of History
Rousseau’s narrative is deliberately provocative. Primitive human beings are pictured as peaceful, independent, equal, and largely content because their desires remain within the range of what they can satisfy. Social development changes this condition. Association, technology, property, and competition generate both material domination and psychological dissatisfaction.
Johnston emphasizes the radical optimism underlying this argument. Rousseau makes society, rather than an inherently corrupt human nature, responsible for much human misery. If social arrangements helped create the problem, then human beings can at least imagine altering those arrangements. The historical narrative thus becomes a foundation for later revolutionary and sociological thought.
Rousseau’s Noble Savage
Johnston treats Rousseau’s primitive man less as reliable anthropology than as a critical ideal. Natural man is self-sufficient and psychologically undivided. He does not depend upon the admiration of others, pursue artificial status, or suffer from desires continually enlarged by comparison with his neighbours.
The contrast becomes especially important in Rousseau’s account of amour propre. Once people live together, they begin to compete for recognition and to value fame, beauty, status, luxury, and other socially manufactured goods. These desires create dependence upon the judgment of others and a persistent dissatisfaction with oneself. Civilization may produce extraordinary achievements, but Rousseau asks readers to consider their psychological and moral cost.
This position also separates Rousseau sharply from Hobbes. Where Hobbes values civil order and is prepared to exploit ordinary human vanity in maintaining it, Rousseau places far greater value on independence, equality, and the integrity of the individual personality.
The Disappearance of Original Sin
Johnston finds one of Rousseau’s most far-reaching implications in the claim that freedom, equality, independence, and happiness once belonged naturally to human beings. Their loss is not the consequence of original sin, divine punishment, or an unavoidable defect in human nature. It results from human history.
In this sense Rousseau’s narrative resembles a secularized version of the Fall. Humanity has lost an original condition, but the loss was produced by human decisions, accidents, and institutions. That shift directs dissatisfaction away from fate or sin and toward society, giving new force to projects of political and social reform.
Johnston also draws attention to Rousseau’s implicit treatment of happiness. If natural humanity possessed a form of contentment before civilization generated artificial desires and dependence, happiness begins to look less like the rare reward of virtue and more like something human beings have been deprived of. The tension between these views of happiness would become a lasting feature of modern thought.
Source Note
Based on Ian Johnston, “On Rousseau’s Discourse On Inequality,” a lecture prepared in August 2000 for Liberal Studies at Malaspina University-College (now Vancouver Island University). Johnston states that the original lecture is in the public domain and may be used in whole or in part without cost or permission. References in the original are to Roger D. and Judith R. Masters, The First and Second Discourses (St. Martin’s, 1964).
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