For episode 25, see here
The Theory of the Nation State: The Moderns
XXVI. Jean Jacques Rousseau and Rediscovery of Community
A. Great gap between Rousseau and his contemporaries.
B. Was a deeply divided personality, noble vs base, ideal vs real.
"More than most men, Rousseau projected the contradictions and maladjustments of his own nature upon the society about him and sought an anodyne for his own painful sensitivity. (Sabine, 577)"
C. Used contrast between the natural and the actual not as appeal to reason
but to attack reason.
D. Against intelligence, growth of knowledge and Enlightenment progress,
he set amiable and benevolent sentiments, good will and reverence.
"What gives value to life is the common emotions, perhaps one may say instincts, in respect to which men differ hardly at all and which he imagined to exist in a purer and less perverted form in the simple uneducated man than in the enlightened and sophisticated."
E. Based his values on "realities" of everyday life.
F. Intelligence and science are dangerous because they undermine
reverence and faith.
G. Pulled philosophy away from union with science and implanted
distrust of intelligence.
H. Rejected systematic individualism and self-interest as virtue.
I. Took from Plato a general outlook.
1. Political subjection is essentially ethical and only secondarily a
matter of law and power.
2. Community itself is chief moralizing agent and represents the
highest moral value.
3. Therefore fundamental moral category is citizen not man.
J. Saw rights not as against community but within it.
1. Natural egoist is fiction, some kind of community is inevitable,
society is purely instinctive.
2. Community has corporate personality, a general will.
3. Government is agent for this will (could be radical or conservative).
4. General will is the source of law and morals.
K. The General Will
1. Saw city-state as the best example of venue for the general will.
2. Contract useful device even though government has no
independent power; citizens exist as members of society,
individuals have no rights except as members of the community.
3. General will is the collective good of the community which is not
the same as the private interest of its members.
4. Men become equal within a society not because (per Hobbes)
their physical power is substantially equal.
5. Absolute authority of general will vis-a-vis indefeasible individual
rights.
6. When one is forced to obey general will, one is being forced to
be free because one doesn't know his own good.
L. Rousseau originated romantic cult of the group contrary to rationalist's
cult of the individual.
M. In adapting the model of citizenship within the city-state to modern
modern nation-state, Rousseau helped to recast it in such a form
that national sentiment could appropriate it.
N. Rousseau's impact
1. Idealizing moral feeling of the common man led to Kant
2. Full significance of idealizing collective will and participation in the
common led to the idealism of Hegel.
3. Descartes split reason from custom, Rousseau tacitly set it aside,
Hegel tried to reunite them.
4. Burke supplied missing content to "general will" by giving
corporate life of England (custom and tradition) a conscious reality.
Next week: Convention and Tradition -- Hume and Burke
The Theory of the Nation State: The Moderns
XXVI. Jean Jacques Rousseau and Rediscovery of Community
A. Great gap between Rousseau and his contemporaries.
B. Was a deeply divided personality, noble vs base, ideal vs real.
"More than most men, Rousseau projected the contradictions and maladjustments of his own nature upon the society about him and sought an anodyne for his own painful sensitivity. (Sabine, 577)"
C. Used contrast between the natural and the actual not as appeal to reason
but to attack reason.
D. Against intelligence, growth of knowledge and Enlightenment progress,
he set amiable and benevolent sentiments, good will and reverence.
"What gives value to life is the common emotions, perhaps one may say instincts, in respect to which men differ hardly at all and which he imagined to exist in a purer and less perverted form in the simple uneducated man than in the enlightened and sophisticated."
E. Based his values on "realities" of everyday life.
F. Intelligence and science are dangerous because they undermine
reverence and faith.
G. Pulled philosophy away from union with science and implanted
distrust of intelligence.
H. Rejected systematic individualism and self-interest as virtue.
I. Took from Plato a general outlook.
1. Political subjection is essentially ethical and only secondarily a
matter of law and power.
2. Community itself is chief moralizing agent and represents the
highest moral value.
3. Therefore fundamental moral category is citizen not man.
J. Saw rights not as against community but within it.
1. Natural egoist is fiction, some kind of community is inevitable,
society is purely instinctive.
2. Community has corporate personality, a general will.
3. Government is agent for this will (could be radical or conservative).
4. General will is the source of law and morals.
K. The General Will
1. Saw city-state as the best example of venue for the general will.
2. Contract useful device even though government has no
independent power; citizens exist as members of society,
individuals have no rights except as members of the community.
3. General will is the collective good of the community which is not
the same as the private interest of its members.
4. Men become equal within a society not because (per Hobbes)
their physical power is substantially equal.
5. Absolute authority of general will vis-a-vis indefeasible individual
rights.
6. When one is forced to obey general will, one is being forced to
be free because one doesn't know his own good.
L. Rousseau originated romantic cult of the group contrary to rationalist's
cult of the individual.
M. In adapting the model of citizenship within the city-state to modern
modern nation-state, Rousseau helped to recast it in such a form
that national sentiment could appropriate it.
N. Rousseau's impact
1. Idealizing moral feeling of the common man led to Kant
2. Full significance of idealizing collective will and participation in the
common led to the idealism of Hegel.
3. Descartes split reason from custom, Rousseau tacitly set it aside,
Hegel tried to reunite them.
4. Burke supplied missing content to "general will" by giving
corporate life of England (custom and tradition) a conscious reality.
Next week: Convention and Tradition -- Hume and Burke
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