Jean jacques rousseau biography eveneces

As a professional lay proselytizer, she was paid by the King of Piedmont to help bring Protestants to Catholicism. They sent the boy to Turinthe capital of Savoy which included Piedmont, in what is now Italyto complete his conversion. This resulted in his having to give up his Genevan citizenship, although he would later revert to Calvinism to regain it.

In converting to Catholicism, both de Warens and Rousseau were likely reacting to Calvinism's insistence on the total depravity of man. Leo Damrosch writes: "An eighteenth-century Genevan liturgy still required believers to declare 'that we are miserable sinners, born in corruption, inclined to evil, incapable by ourselves of doing good ' ".

Finding himself on his own, since his father and uncle had more or less disowned him, the teenage Rousseau supported himself for a time as a servant, secretary, and tutor, wandering in Italy Piedmont and Savoy and France. Maurice Cranston notes, "Madame de Warens [ At one point, he briefly attended a seminary with the idea of becoming a priest.

When Rousseau reached 20, de Warens took him as her lover, while intimate also with the steward of her house. A rather profligate spender, she had a large library and loved to entertain and listen to music. She and her circle, comprising educated members of the Catholic clergy, introduced Rousseau to the world of letters and ideas. Rousseau had been an indifferent student, but during his 20s, which were marked by long bouts of hypochondriahe applied himself in earnest to the study of philosophy, mathematics, and music.

At 25, he came into a small inheritance from his mother and used a portion of it to repay de Warens for her financial support of him. At 27, he took a job as a tutor in Lyon. His system, intended to be compatible with typographyis based on a single line, displaying numbers representing intervals between notes and dots and commas indicating rhythmic values.

Believing the system was impractical, the Academy rejected it, though they praised his mastery of the subject, and urged him to try again. He befriended Denis Diderot that year, connecting over the discussion of literary endeavors. From toRousseau had an honorable but ill-paying post as a secretary to the Comte de Montaigue, the French ambassador to Venice.

This awoke in him a lifelong love for Italian music, particularly opera:. I had brought with me from Paris the prejudice of that city against Italian music; but I had also received from nature a sensibility and niceness of distinction which prejudice cannot withstand. I soon contracted that passion for Italian music with which it inspires all those who are capable of feeling its excellence.

In listening to barcarolesI found I had not yet known what singing was Rousseau's employer routinely received his stipend as much as a year late and paid his staff irregularly. In his letter to Madame de Francueil inhe first pretended that he was not rich enough to raise his children, but in Book IX of the Confessions he gave the true reasons of his choice: "I trembled at the thought of intrusting them to a family ill brought up, to be still worse educated.

The risk of the education of the foundling hospital was much less". Ten years later, Rousseau made inquiries about the fate of his son, but unfortunately no record could be found. When Rousseau subsequently became celebrated as a theorist of education and child-rearing, his abandonment of his children was used by his critics, including Voltaire and Edmund Burkeas the basis for arguments ad hominem.

Rousseau's ideas were the result of an almost obsessive dialogue with writers of the past, filtered in many cases through conversations with Diderot. InRousseau was paying daily visits to Diderot, who had been thrown into the fortress of Vincennes under a lettre de cachet for opinions in his " Lettre sur les aveugles ", that hinted at materialisma belief in atomsand natural selection.

According to science historian Conway ZirkleRousseau saw the concept of natural selection "as an agent for improving the human species. He wrote that while walking to Vincennes about three miles from Parishe had a revelation that the arts and sciences were responsible for the moral degeneration of mankind, who were basically good by nature.

Rousseau's Discourse on the Arts and Sciences was awarded the first prize and gained him significant fame. Rousseau continued his interest in music. The king was so pleased by the work that he offered Rousseau a lifelong pension. To the exasperation of his friends, Rousseau turned down the great honor, bringing him notoriety as "the man who had refused a king's pension".

He also turned down several other advantageous offers, sometimes with a brusqueness bordering on truculence that gave offense and caused him problems. The same year, the visit of a troupe of Italian musicians to Paris, and their performance of Giovanni Battista Pergolesi 's La serva padronaprompted the Querelle des Bouffonswhich pitted protagonists of French music against supporters of the Italian style.

Rousseau, as noted above, was an enthusiastic supporter of the Italians against Jean-Philippe Rameau and others, making an important contribution with his Letter on French Music. On returning to Geneva inRousseau reconverted to Calvinism and regained his official Genevan citizenship. InRousseau completed his second major work, the Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among Men the Discourse on Inequalitywhich elaborated on the arguments of the Discourse on the Arts and Sciences.

He resented being at Mme. Diderot later described Rousseau as being "false, vain as Satan, ungrateful, cruel, hypocritical, and wicked He sucked ideas from me, used them himself, and then affected to despise me". These men truly liked Rousseau and enjoyed his ability to converse on any subject, but they also used him as a way of getting back at Louis XV and the political faction surrounding his mistress, Madame de Pompadour.

Even with them, however, Rousseau went too far, courting rejection when he criticized the practice of tax farmingin which some of them engaged. The book's rhapsodic descriptions of the natural beauty of the Swiss countryside struck a chord in the public and may have helped spark the subsequent nineteenth-century craze for Alpine scenery.

Even his friend Antoine-Jacques Roustan felt impelled to write a polite rebuttal of the chapter on Civil Religion in the Social Contractwhich implied that the concept of a Christian republic was paradoxical since Christianity taught submission rather than participation in public affairs. Rousseau helped Roustan find a publisher for the rebuttal.

Rousseau published Emile, or On Education in May. A famous section of Emile"The Profession of Faith of a Savoyard Vicar", was intended to be a defense of religious belief. Rousseau's choice of a Catholic vicar of humble peasant background plausibly based on a kindly prelate he had met as a teenager as a spokesman for the defense of religion was in itself a daring innovation for the time.

The vicar's creed was that of Socinianism or Unitarianism as it is called today. Because it rejected original sin and divine revelationboth Protestant and Catholic authorities took offense. Moreover, Rousseau advocated the opinion that, insofar as they lead people to virtue, all religions are equally jean jacques rousseau biography eveneces, and that people should therefore conform to the religion in which they have been brought up.

This religious indifferentism caused Rousseau and his books to be banned from France and Geneva. He was condemned from the pulpit by the Archbishop of Paris, his books were burned and warrants were issued for his arrest. A sympathetic observer, David Hume "professed no surprise when he learned that Rousseau's books were banned in Geneva and elsewhere".

Rousseau, he wrote, "has not had the precaution to throw any veil over his sentiments; and, as he scorns to dissemble his contempt for established opinions, he could not wonder that all the zealots were in arms against him. The liberty of the press is not so secured in any country After Rousseau's Emile had outraged the French parliament, an arrest order was issued by parliament against him, causing him to flee to Switzerland.

Subsequently, when the Swiss authorities also proved unsympathetic to him—condemning both Emileand also The Social Contract —Voltaire issued an invitation to Rousseau to come and reside with him, commenting that: "I shall always love the author of the 'Vicaire savoyard' whatever he has done, and whatever he may do Let him come here [to Ferney]! He must come!

I shall receive him with open arms. He shall be master here more than I. I shall treat him like my own son. Rousseau later expressed regret that he had not replied to Voltaire's invitation. On 11 JulyRousseau wrote to Frederick, describing how he had been driven from France, from Geneva, and from Bern; and seeking Frederick's protection.

He also mentioned that he had criticized Frederick in the past and would continue to be critical of Frederick in the future, stating however: "Your Majesty may dispose of me as you like. We must succor this poor unfortunate. His only offense is to have strange opinions which he thinks are good ones. I will send a hundred crowns, from which you will be kind enough to jean jacques rousseau biography eveneces him as much as he needs.

I think he will accept them in kind more readily than in cash. If we were not at war, if we were not ruined, I would build him a hermitage with a garden, where he could live as I believe our first fathers did I think poor Rousseau has missed his vocation; he was obviously born to be a famous anchorite, a desert father, celebrated for his austerities and flagellations I conclude that the morals of your savage are as pure as his mind is illogical.

Rousseau, touched by the help he received from Frederick, stated that from then onwards he took a keen interest in Frederick's activities. As the Seven Years' War was about to end, Rousseau wrote to Frederick again, thanking him for the help received and urging him to put an end to military activities and to endeavor to keep his subjects happy instead.

Frederick made no known reply but commented to Keith that Rousseau had given him a "scolding". Boswell recorded his private discussions with Rousseau, in both direct quotation and dramatic dialog, over several pages of his journal. He wrote back asking to be excused due to his inability to sit for a long time due to his ailment.

Around midnight of 6—7 Septemberstones were thrown at the house Rousseau was staying in, and some glass windows were shattered. When a local official, Martinet, arrived at Rousseau's residence he saw so many stones on the balcony that he exclaimed "My God, it's a quarry! Although it was within the Canton of Bernfrom where he had been expelled two years previously, he was informally assured that he could move into this island house without fear of arrest, and he did so 10 September Here, despite the remoteness of his retreat, visitors sought him out as a celebrity.

He replied, requesting permission to extend his stay, and offered to be incarcerated in any place within their jurisdiction with only a few books in his possession and permission to walk occasionally in a garden while living at his own expense. The Senate's response was to direct Rousseau to leave the island, and all Bernese territory, within twenty-four hours.

At this point he received invitations from several parties in Europe, and soon decided to accept Hume 's invitation to go to England. On 9 Decemberhaving secured a passport from the French government, Rousseau left Strasbourg for Paris where he arrived a week later and lodged in a palace of his friend, the Prince of Conti. Here he met Hume, and also numerous friends and well-wishers, and became a conspicuous figure in the city.

No person ever so much enjoyed their attention Voltaire and everybody else are quite eclipsed. Although Diderot at this time desired a reconciliation with Rousseau, both of them expected an initiative by the other, and the two did not meet. It had actually been composed by Horace Walpole as a playful hoax. The letter soon found wide publicity; [ 47 ] Hume is believed to have been present, and to have participated in its creation.

After a four-day journey to Calaiswhere they stayed for two nights, the travelers embarked on a ship to Dover. On 13 January they arrived in London. Garrick was himself performing in a comedy by himself, and also in a tragedy by Voltaire. At this time, Hume had a favorable opinion of Rousseau; in a letter to Madame de Brabantane, Hume wrote that after observing Rousseau carefully he had concluded that he had never met a more affable and virtuous person.

According to Hume, Rousseau was "gentle, modest, affectionate, disinterested, of extreme sensitivity". Initially, Hume lodged Rousseau in the house of Madam Adams in London, but Rousseau began receiving so many visitors that he soon wanted to move to a quieter location. An offer came to lodge him in a Welsh monastery, and he was inclined to accept it, but Hume persuaded him to move to Chiswick.

Hume foresaw what was going to happen: "I dread some event fatal to our friend's honor. Hume and Rousseau would never meet again. Initially Rousseau liked his new accommodation at Wootton Hall and wrote favorably about the natural beauty of the place, and how he was feeling reborn, forgetting past sorrows. On 3 April a daily newspaper published the letter constituting Horace Walpole's hoax on Rousseau—without mentioning Walpole as the actual author; that the editor of the publication was Hume's personal friend compounded Rousseau's grief.

Gradually articles critical of Rousseau started appearing in the British press; Rousseau felt that Hume, as his host, ought to have defended him. Moreover, in Rousseau's estimate, some of the public criticism contained details to which only Hume was privy. About this time, Voltaire anonymously as always published his Letter to Dr. Pansophe in which he gave extracts from many of Rousseau's prior statements which were critical of life in England; the most damaging portions of Voltaire's writeup were reprinted in a London periodical.

Rousseau now decided that there was a conspiracy afoot to defame him. However, there is some evidence of Hume intercepting even Rousseau's outgoing mail. After some correspondence with Rousseau, which included an eighteen-page letter from Rousseau describing the reasons for his resentment, Hume concluded that Rousseau was losing his mental balance.

On learning that Rousseau had denounced him to his Parisian friends, Hume sent a copy of Rousseau's long letter to Madame de Boufflers. She replied stating that, in her estimate, Hume's alleged participation in the composition of Horace Walpole's faux letter was the reason for Rousseau's anger. When Hume learnt that Rousseau was writing the Confessionshe assumed that the present dispute would feature in the book.

Adam Smith, Turgot, Marischal Keith, Horace Walpole, and Mme de Boufflers advised Hume not to make his quarrel with Rousseau public; however, many members of Holbach's coterie —particularly D'Alembert —urged him to reveal his version of the events. In October Hume's version of the quarrel was translated into French and published in France; in November it was published in England.

A dozen pamphlets redoubled the bruit. Walpole printed his version of the dispute; Boswell attacked Walpole; Mme. Rousseau called Hume a traitor; Voltaire sent him additional material on Rousseau's faults and crimes, on his frequentation of "places of ill fame", and on his seditious activities in Switzerland. George III "followed the battle with intense curiosity".

After the dispute became public, due in part to comments from notable publishers like Andrew Millar[ 64 ] Walpole told Hume that quarrels such as this only end up becoming a source of amusement for Europe. Diderot took a charitable view of the mess: "I knew these two philosophers well. I could write a play about them that would make you weep, and it would excuse them both.

On 22 MayRousseau reentered France even though an arrest warrant against him was still in place. He had taken an assumed name, but was recognized, and a banquet in his honor was held by the city of Amiens. French nobles offered him a residence at this time. Initially, Rousseau decided to stay in an estate near Paris belonging to Mirabeau.

Subsequently, on 21 Junehe moved to a chateau of the Prince of Conti in Trie. Around this time, Rousseau started developing feelings of paranoia, anxiety, and of a conspiracy against him. Most of this was just his imagination at work, but on 29 Januarythe theatre at Geneva was destroyed through burning, and Voltaire mendaciously accused Rousseau of being the culprit.

Here he practiced botany and completed the Confessions. At this time he expressed regret for placing his children in an orphanage. At Rousseau's suggestion, Coignet composed musical interludes for Rousseau's prose poem Pygmalion ; this was performed in Lyon together with Rousseau's romance The Village Soothsayer to public acclaim. He now supported himself financially by copying music, and continued his study of botany.

These consisted of a series of letters Rousseau wrote to Mme Delessert in Lyon to help her daughters learn the subject. These letters received widespread acclaim when they were eventually published posthumously. In order to defend his reputation against hostile gossip, Rousseau had begun writing the Confessions in In Novemberthese were completed, and although he did not wish to publish them at this time, he began to offer group readings of certain portions of the book.

Between Decemberand MayRousseau made at least four group readings of his book with the final reading lasting seventeen hours. I expected a jean jacques rousseau biography eveneces of seven or eight hours; it lasted fourteen or fifteen. The writing is truly a phenomenon of genius, of simplicity, candor, and courage. How many giants reduced to dwarves!

How many obscure but virtuous men restored to their rights and avenged against the wicked by the sole testimony of an honest man! The police called on Rousseau, who agreed to stop the readings. His Confessions were finally published posthumously in InRousseau was invited to present recommendations for a new constitution for the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealthresulting in the Considerations on the Government of Polandwhich was to be his last major political work.

Also inRousseau began writing Rousseau, Judge of Jean-Jacqueswhich was another attempt to reply to his critics. He completed writing it in The book is in the form of three dialogues between two characters; a "Frenchman" and "Rousseau", who argue about the merits and demerits of a third character—an author called Jean-Jacques. It has been described as his most unreadable work; in the foreword to the book, Rousseau admits that it may be repetitious and disorderly, but he begs the reader's indulgence on the grounds that he needs to defend his reputation from slander before he dies.

InRousseau had impressed Hume with his physical prowess by spending ten hours at night on the deck in severe weather during the journey by ship from Calais to Dover while Hume was confined to his bunk. He is one of the most robust men I have ever known," Hume noted. His general health had also improved. Rousseau was unable to dodge both the carriage and the dog and was knocked down by the Great Dane.

He seems to have suffered a concussion and neurological damage. His health began to decline; Rousseau's friend Corancez described the appearance of certain symptoms which indicate that Rousseau started suffering from epileptic seizures after the accident. His free entry to the Opera had been renewed by this time and he would go there occasionally.

All those who met him in his last days agree that he was in a serene frame of mind at this time. Rousseau later noted, that when he read the question for the essay competition of the Academy of Dijon, which he would go on to win: "Has the rebirth of the arts and sciences contributed to the purification of the morals? Rousseau based his political philosophy on contract theory and his reading of Thomas Hobbes.

On the contrary, Rousseau holds that "uncorrupted morals" prevail in the "state of nature". From how many crimes, wars, and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows: Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody.

In common with other philosophers of the day, Rousseau looked to a hypothetical " state of nature " as a normative guide. In the original condition, humans would have had "no moral relations with or determinate obligations to one another". Another aspect separating humans from other animals is the ability of perfectabilitywhich allows humans to choose in a way that improves their condition.

Jean jacques rousseau biography eveneces: Rêve and Reverie. Perhaps

Rousseau asserted that the stage of human development associated with what he called "savages" was the best or optimal in human development, between the less-than-optimal extreme of brute animals on the one hand and the extreme of decadent civilization on the other. This has led some critics to attribute to Rousseau the invention of the idea of the noble savage[ note 10 ] [ note 11 ] which Arthur Lovejoy claimed misrepresents Rousseau's thought.

According to Rousseau, as savages had grown less dependent on nature, they had instead become dependent on each other, with society leading to the loss of freedom through the misapplication of perfectibility. When living together, humans would have gone from a nomadic lifestyle to a settled one, leading to the invention of private property.

However, the resulting inequality was not a natural outcome, but rather the product of human choice. Rousseau's ideas of human development were highly interconnected with forms of mediation or the processes that individual humans use to interact with themselves and others while using an alternate perspective or thought process. According to Rousseau, these were developed through the innate perfectibility of humanity.

These include a sense of self, morality, pity, and imagination. Rousseau's writings are purposely ambiguous concerning the formation of these processes to the point that mediation is always intrinsically part of humanity's development. An example of this is the notion that an individual needs an alternative perspective to realize that he or she is a 'self'.

As long as differences in wealth and status among families were minimal, the first coming together in groups was accompanied by a fleeting golden age of human flourishing. The development of agriculture, metallurgyprivate property, and the division of labour and resulting dependency on one another, however, led to economic inequality and conflict.

As population pressures forced them to associate more and more closely, they underwent a psychological transformation: they began to see themselves through the eyes of others and came to value the good opinions of others as essential to their self-esteem. As humans started to compare themselves with each other, they began to notice that some had qualities differentiating them from others.

However, only when moral significance was attached to these qualities did they start to create esteem and envy, and thereby, social hierarchies. Rousseau noted that whereas "the savage lives within himself, sociable man, always outside himself, can only live in the opinion of others". This then resulted in the corruption of humankind, "producing combinations fatal to innocence and happiness".

Following the attachment of importance to human difference, they would have started forming social institutions, according to Rousseau. Metallurgy and agriculture would have subsequently increased the inequalities between those with and without property. After all land had been converted into private properties, a zero-sum game would have resulted in competition for it, leading to conflict.

This would have led to the creation and perpetuation of the 'hoax' of the political system by the rich, which perpetuated their power. According to Rousseau, the original forms of government to emerge: monarchy, aristocracy, democracy, were all products of the differing levels of inequality in their societies. Those who think themselves the masters of others are indeed greater slaves than they.

Rousseau proposed a more egalitarian social contract which saw all the population as free and equal members. Rousseau also suggested that, in the ideal social contract, individuals would give up their natural rights in return for civil rights decided for the best interest of the community. To Rousseau, liberty involved obedience to self-imposed laws for the best jeans jacques rousseau biography eveneces of society.

Emile is a treatise on the ideal education of young children and how to maintain the purity and divinity of man from the corrupting influences of society. He also stated all religions are equally worthy, in that they can promote virtue if practised properly. This was highly controversial, in the religious climate of the time, and the book was banned in Paris and Geneva.

Warrants were issued for his arrest. As a result, Rousseau fled to Switzerland, but the Swiss authorities stated he was unwelcome too. Voltaire offered an invitation to Rousseau — despite many differences — Voltaire admired the courage of Rousseau in writing the anti-clerical passages of Emile. Rousseau was pelted with stones by locals, and he was forced to move back to Switzerland on a tiny island the Ile de St Pierre, but again after a short time, he was ordered to leave by the authorities.

Unwelcome in Europe, he accepted the invitation of philosopher David Hume to move to England. Facing a barrage of criticism from various sources, Rousseau became more paranoid and often feared he was subject to conspiracy theories. Inhe returned to France with an assumed name, despite a warrant for his arrest being in place. Despite his false name, Rousseau was recognised and was welcomed by many in French society.

He was offered support by many nobles. He moved from Lyon to Bourgeon and a farmyard near Grenoble — before moving back to Paris. He also began writing Confessions — his autobiographical notes which were a rebuttal of the many criticisms circulating in the press.

Jean jacques rousseau biography eveneces: “Of all the men

These were finished in and contain much of our biographical information about Rousseau. InRousseau was knocked down by a great Dane dog while walking in a Paris street. He was concussed and, after this, his health deteriorated. Two years later he passed away after an apoplectic stroke; he was buried on the Ile des Peoplers. His mother died when he was young, and Rousseau was initially brought up by his father, a watchmaker.

He left Geneva aged 16 and travelled around France, where he met his benefactress, the Baronnesse de Warens, who gave him the education that turned him into a philosopher. Rousseau reached Paris in and soon met Denis Diderot, another provincial man seeking literary fame. They formed the core of the intellectual group, the 'Philosophes'. Eschewing an easy life as a popular composer, in he published his first important work 'A Discourse on the Sciences and the Arts' Its central theme was that man had become corrupted by society and civilisation.

Inhe published 'Discourse on the Origin of Inequality'.

Jean jacques rousseau biography eveneces: When Rousseau dwells on 'insignificant'

In a state where citizens enjoy a wide diversity of lifestyles and occupations, or where there is a great deal of cultural diversity, or where there is a high degree of economic inequality, it will not generally be the case that the impact of the laws will be the same for everyone. In such cases it will often not be true that a citizen can occupy the standpoint of the general will merely by imagining the impact of general and universal laws on his or her own case.

In The Social Contract Rousseau envisages three different types or levels of will as being in play. First, individuals all have private wills corresponding to their own selfish interests as natural individuals; second, each individual, insofar as he identifies with the collective as a whole and assumes the identity of citizen, wills the general will of that collective as his or her own, setting aside selfish interest in favor of a set of laws that allow all to coexist under conditions of equal freedom; third, and very problematically, a person can identify with the corporate will of a subset of the populace as a whole.

The general will is therefore both a property of the collective and a result of its deliberations, and a property of the individual insofar as the individual identifies as a member of the collective. In a well-ordered society, there is no tension between private and general will, as individuals accept that both justice and their individual self-interest require their submission to a law which safeguards their freedom by protecting them from the private violence and personal domination that would otherwise hold sway.

In practice, however, Rousseau believes that many societies will fail to have this well-ordered character. One way in which they can fail is if private individuals are insufficiently enlightened or virtuous and therefore refuse to accept the restrictions on their own conduct which the collective interest requires. Another mode of political failure arises where the political community is differentiated into factions perhaps based on a class division between rich and poor and where one faction can impose its collective will on the state as a whole.

The Social Contract harbors a further jean jacques rousseau biography eveneces between two accounts of how the general will emerges and its relation to the private wills of citizens. Sometimes Rousseau favors a procedural story according to which the individual contemplation of self interest subject to the constraints of generality and universality and under propitious sociological background conditions such as rough equality and cultural similarity will result in the emergence of the general will from the assembly of citizens see Sreenivasan In this account of the emergence of the general will, there seems to be no special need for citizens to have any specifically moral qualities: the constraints on their choice should be enough.

However, Rousseau also clearly believes that the mere contemplation of self interest would be inadequate to generate a general will. This may partly concern issues of compliance, since selfish citizens who can will the general will might still not be moved to obey it. But Rousseau also seems to believe that citizen virtue is a necessary condition for the emergence of the general will in the first place.

This presents him with a problem for which his figure of the legislator is one supposed solution. As a believer in the plasticity of human nature, Rousseau holds that good laws make for good citizens. However, he also believes both that good laws can only be willed by good citizens and that, in order to be legitimate, they must be agreed upon by the assembly.

This puts him in some difficulty, as it is unlikely that the citizens who come together to form a new state will have the moral qualities required to will good laws, as those citizens will have been psychologically shaped by unjust institutions. The legislator therefore has the function of inspiring a sense of collective identity in the new citizens that allows them to identify with the whole and be moved to support legislation that will eventually transform them and their children into good citizens.

In this story, however, the new citizens at first lack the capacity to discern the good reasons that support the new laws and the lawgiver has to persuade them by non-rational means to legislate in their own best interests. The figure of the legislator is a puzzle. Like the tutor in Emilethe legislator has the role of manipulating the desires of his charges, giving them the illusion of free choice without its substance.

Little wonder then that many critics have seen these characters in a somewhat sinister light. In both cases there is a mystery concerning where the educator figure comes from and how he could have acquired the knowledge and virtue necessary to perform his role. This, in turn, raises a problem of regress. At least in the case of the legislator, Rousseau might point to some actual historical examples such as the Spartan, Lycurgus, to argue that the idea is not entirely divorced from jean jacques rousseau biography eveneces, but this seems a weak straw to clutch at.

He regards the capacity for choice, and therefore the ability to act against instinct and inclination, as one of the features that distinguishes humans from animals species and makes truly moral action possible. In the Discourse on Inequalityfor example, he characterizes animals in essentially Cartesian terms, as mechanisms programmed to a fixed pattern of behavior, in contrast to humans, who are not tied to any particular mode of life and can reject the promptings of instinct.

Rousseau also takes this freedom to choose to act as the basis of all distinctively moral action. In Book I chapter 8 of The Social ContractRousseau tries to illuminate his claim that the formation of the legitimate state involves no net loss of freedom, but in fact, he makes a slightly different claim. The new claim involves the idea of an exchange of one type of freedom natural freedom for another type civil freedom.

Since all human beings enjoy this liberty right to all things, it is clear that in a world occupied by many interdependent humans, the practical value of that liberty may be almost nonexistent. Further, inevitable conflict over scarce resources will pit individuals against each other, so that unhindered exercise of natural freedom will result in violence and uncertainty.

The formation of the state, and the promulgation of laws willed by the general will, transforms this condition. With sovereign power in place, individuals are guaranteed a sphere of equal freedom under the law, with protection for their own persons and security for their property. Provided that the law bearing equally on everyone is not meddlesome or intrusive and Rousseau believes it will not be, since no individual has a motive to legislate burdensome laws there will be a net increase in freedom compared to the pre-political state.

On the face of it, this claim looks difficult to reconcile with the fact of majorities and minorities within a democratic state, since those citizens who find themselves outvoted would seem to be constrained by a decision with which they disagree. Many commentators have found this argument unconvincing. The picture is further complicated by the fact that he also relies on a fourth conception of freedom, related to civil freedom but distinct from it, which he nowhere names explicitly.

This hostility to the representation of sovereignty also extends to the election of representatives to sovereign assemblies, even where those representatives are subject to periodic re-election. Even in that case, the assembly would be legislating on a range of topics on which citizens have not deliberated. Laws passed by such assemblies would therefore bind citizens in terms that they have not themselves agreed upon.

Jean jacques rousseau biography eveneces: Bibliographic information ; Author,

Not only does the representation of sovereignty constitute, for Rousseau, a surrender of moral agency, the widespread desire to be represented in the business of self-rule is a symptom of moral decline and the loss of virtue. The practical difficulties of direct self-rule by the entire citizen body are obvious. Such arrangements are potentially onerous and must severely limit the size of legitimate states.

It is noteworthy that Rousseau takes a different view in a text aimed at practical politics: Considerations on the Government of Poland. Nevertheless, it is not entirely clear that the widespread interpretation of Rousseau as rejecting all forms of representative government is correct. One of the key distinctions in The Social Contract is between sovereign and government.

The sovereign, composed of the people as a whole, promulgates laws as an expression of its general will. The government is a more limited body that administers the state within the bounds set by those laws, and which issues decrees applying them in particular cases. In effect, while the sovereignty of the people may be inconsistent with a representative model, the executive power of the government can be understood as requiring it.

Although a variety of forms of government turn out to be theoretically compatible with popular sovereignty, Rousseau is sceptical about the prospects for both democracy where the people conduct the day to day running of the state and the application of the laws and monarchy. Instead, he favors some form of elective aristocracy: in other words, he supports the idea that the day-to-day administration should be in the hands of a subset of the population, elected by them according to merit.

The first of these concerns his political pessimism, even in the case of the best-designed and most perfect republic. Just as any group has a collective will as opposed to the individual private will of its members, so does the government. As the state becomes larger and more diffuse, and as citizens become more distant from one another both spatially and emotionally, so the government of the republic will need a proportionally smaller and more cohesive group of magistrates if its rule is to be effective.

The second issue concerns how democratic Rousseau envisaged his republic to be. He sometimes suggests a picture in which the people would be subject to elite domination by the government, since the magistrates would reserve the business of agenda-setting for the assembly to themselves. In other cases, he endorses a conception of a more fully democratic republic.

For competing views of this question see Fralin and Cohen He rejects the idea that individuals associated together in a political community retain some natural rights over themselves and their property. Rather, such rights as individuals have over themselves, land, and external objects, are a matter of sovereign competence and decision.

Contemporary readers were scandalized by it, and particularly by its claim that true original or early Christianity is useless in fostering the spirit of patriotism and social solidarity necessary for a flourishing state.