Image by Ernest Le Deley, via Wikimedia Commons.
by Celica Crain
Though Jean-Jacques Rousseau was present for the Enlightenment, his status as a contrarian led him to disagree with many of its ideals. The philosophers of the Enlightenment believed that they could meaningfully improve humanity and society, and that institutions like the Church had been holding it back – a far cry from the Renaissance philosophy that preceded it, which valued the church above all else and operated under the idea of ad fontes, where truth and goodness existed in the past and declined over time. Unlike Enlightenment philosophers, however, Rousseau embraced the idea that humanity was in decline. In the first part of his Discourse on Inequality, he imagines uncivilized humans to be strong, healthy, and independent, compared to the myriad downfalls of civilized man. Still, Rousseau’s objective is not to lead us into despair for our fallen state, but to make us aware of how society produces harmful moral systems that limit our ability to improve ourselves, similar to how Enlightenment philosophers questioned the present state of society. His methodology is also distinctly influenced by his contemporaries, as the thought experiment model of the Discourse is common throughout Enlightenment-era literature. Whether Rousseau agrees or disagrees with the philosophers of the Enlightenment, he is always in dialogue with them, influenced by their ideas and methods. Though A Discourse on Inequality views human history as a narrative of decline like many pre-Enlightenment philosophers did, its argument is based on Enlightenment-era principles of reason and evidence, and, like Enlightenment philosophy, is directed towards the goal of rethinking and improving European society.
The Discourse follows a narrative of decline, but it is very different from the pre-Enlightenment arguments that preceded it. Whereas pre-Enlightenment philosophers would have cited biblical reasons for the fall of humanity, Rousseau chooses to pursue reason over faith. As Rousseau writes in Part Two of the Discourse, “From another point of view, behold man who was formerly free and independent, diminished as a consequence of a multitude of new wants into subjection, one might say, to the whole of nature and especially to his fellow men….”[1] Here, Rousseau cites the wants of humans as driving them into decline, whereas medieval philosophers would have cited the theological concept of the Fall. Mark S. Cladis expands on this idea: “The Fall, in Rousseau’s view, was not from paradise but from simple innocence; and the ousted condition is not the human inability to throw off the yoke of original sin, but the inevitable risk—risk of pain and corruption—that accompanies the human pursuit of happiness and virtue.”[2] Rousseau, according to Cladis, sees the decline of humanity as the inevitable result of the yearning for society, humanity’s tragic flaw: God did not cast us out of Eden, instead we demolished it ourselves. Men were once free and now are not, Rousseau argues, and the factors behind it are natural and discernible through reason rather than being miraculous and only discernible through theology. His argument is also not in line with the Renaissance concept of ad fontes, the idea that the only way to find truth and goodness is to look to the sources of the past, as he believes not that all knowledge came from the past but that the past was better because humanity did not have the knowledge that civilization has caused it to accrue now. As he says at the beginning of the Discourse’s second part, “It was necessary for men to make much progress, to acquire much industry and knowledge, to transmit and increase it from age to age, before arriving at this final state of nature.”[3] This shows that Rousseau’s argument is not one he has taken from his predecessors and reused, but an entirely new creation. Narratives of decline had long existed before A Discourse on Inequality, but this one is an outlier, coming about not because of religion or an idolization of classical society, but due to the fatal flaws of humanity which, according to Rousseau, flourish in European society.
One of the defining features of Enlightenment philosophy was its criticism of Christianity, and Rousseau’s interactions with the religion reveal the influences of his time. The Discourse is largely uninterested in the Christian account of creation, only briefly mentioning at the start that “religion commands us to believe that since God himself withdrew men from the state of nature they are unequal because he willed that they be; but it does not forbid us to make conjectures, based solely on the nature of man and the beings that surround him, as to what the human race might have become if it had been abandoned to itself.”[4] This single sentence serves to acknowledge the matter, only to dismiss it and get to the actual argument, which does not mention theological matters at all. This point of view is in line with Deism, a version of Christianity practiced by Enlightenment philosophers that imagines God creating the universe but having no other influence upon it. It is only because of this belief system that Rousseau is able to make his argument, which religion would lead him to merely label a “conjecture.” Rousseau’s argument is also subtly a critique of the institutions of Christianity, even if he does not mention them by name. Political philosopher Arthur M. Melzer goes so far as to state that, “in Rousseau’s view, Christianity has ruined the politics of the West.”[5] Melzer’s argument centers around Rousseau’s concept of uncivilized humans as fundamentally independent, whereas everyone in the European society of his time depends on the church for salvation, creating a weakness that ultimately leads to the loss of the self. As Melzer writes,
The clerical hierarchy, controlling the keys to salvation and damnation, holds all other men in a condition of utter dependence. It destroys the possibility of the individual self-reliance or freedom that, on Rousseau’s principles, is essential for psychological health and wholeness, for the maintenance of our natural goodness. Thus, Rousseau’s fierce opposition to the temporal power of priests and clerics stems directly from the deepest level of his thought. The philosopher of freedom hates not merely their abuse of authority but their authority as such.[6]
Melzer’s interpretation sees Rousseau as an ardent critic of Christianity because of his distaste for authority and subjugation, marking him as different in intention but identical in effect to the other philosophers of his time. However, this recalcitrant streak extends beyond Christianity to create a distrust for the philosophes of the Enlightenment as well, with Melzer writing that Rousseau believes they seek to establish a similar authority over the masses: “Rousseau saw that the Enlightenment philosophers, in their battle with the Church, had studied its power and systematically copied its ‘political masterpiece.’”[7] Melzer paints Rousseau as waging war on two fronts, defending his idea of natural man from both the philosopher and the clergyman. However, the fact that Rousseau is even able to critique the Christian institution in the first place shows the influence of those very same philosophers: regardless of his disagreements with them, they have created the climate in which his ideas are able to exist. This shows the influence the Enlightenment has on Rousseau’s critique, giving him the very means to oppose it. His interactions with Christianity, whether they consist of disinterest or opposition, are the result of his values but also the indirect result of the Enlightenment.
In the same way, Rousseau’s methodology is his own, bearing far more similarity to that of Enlightenment philosophers than any of his predecessors. Readers will see Enlightenment influences in Rousseau’s use of thought experiments. Rather than deferring to other sources, as pre-Enlightenment philosophers would have done, Rousseau synthesizes what he knows about the world to conduct a thought experiment, theorizing what humans in the state of nature were like and how they fell from grace. This concept can best be seen in this paragraph from Part Two:
Metallurgy and agriculture were the two arts whose invention produced this great revolution. For the poet it is gold and silver, but for the philosopher it is iron and wheat which first civilized men and ruined the human race. Both metallurgy and agriculture were unknown to the savages of America, who have always therefore remained savages; other peoples seem to have remained barbarians, practising one of these arts and not the other; and one of the best reasons why Europe […] has been at least the more continuously and better civilized than other parts of the world, is perhaps that it is at once the richest in iron and the most fertile in wheat.[8]
Here, Rousseau takes what he knows and uses it in his thought experiment, reaching a conclusion he wouldn’t have been able to support with evidence alone. This also means that he does not have to rely on outside sources, which he regards as untrustworthy. As he writes in the introduction, “Here is your history as I believe I have read it, not in the books of your fellow men who are liars but in nature which never lies.”[9] On the surface, this may seem like a defense of ignorance, predicated on the belief that all scholarship is inherently untrustworthy and the only true answers can be found in nature, the ultimate primary source: a veiled encomium on the very same ad fontes argument so prevalent in the Renaissance. However, Rousseau does not advocate for ignorance, but for another viewpoint for the educated. Political philosopher Terence E. Marshall dismantles the idea of a pro-ignorance Rousseau:
Rousseau’s defense of ignorance against Enlightenment would be based on the common opinion that the natural or naive view of the world […] is sufficient for sound practical judgement. But this inference is contradicted by the fact that the moral, religious, and political principles that he promotes do not correspond to the common understanding on such matters either of his time or of any other time. At most one might infer that his defense of ignorance defends what the common or natural understanding would be if its judgements were freed from the distorting shadows cast by scientific or metaphysical theories. But this inference, too, is contradicted by the remark […] that he ‘always’ developed his ideas ‘for few readers,’ and not for the common man, but for ‘those who know how to understand,’ and that he ‘never wanted to speak for others.’[10]
According to Marshall, Rousseau is intentionally in dialogue with the philosophers of his time, writing specifically for them instead of catering to the ignorant. Rather than being stuck in the past, he interacts with the ideas surrounding him, even if his own ideas oppose them. They do not correspond to the “common understanding” of these principles because they are anything but common: the thought experiment creates a credible self-reliant form of developing his ideas so that his refusal to rely on outside sources does not detract from the erudition of his argument. In this way, Rousseau uses a methodology similar to those of Enlightenment philosophers to create an argument which can credibly oppose them, arguing against them without relying on them for information.
Rousseau’s exigency is also somewhat in dialogue with others but unique to him, as his lens reveals a unique set of problems in European society and unique ways to improve them. To him, both the society the Enlightenment hopes to establish and the society of his time produce moral failings that lead to the decline of humanity, and his goal is to understand where those moral failings come from. Marshall points this out in describing where Rousseau’s counter-Enlightenment position comes from:
Rousseau’s paradoxical attack on the Enlightenment—what Voltaire called his spirited effort to render us stupid—is based on thinking over the problem for moral stability posed by the fleeting currents of Enlightenment opinions. While the spirit of eternal doubt may give bent to a flourishing experimental science, for that very reason it is doubtful that in morals it can inspire principles more stable than that same experimentalism.[11]
In Rousseau’s view, the swiftly changing landscape of ideas essential to the Enlightenment results in unstable morals. Despite the groundbreaking sociocultural and scientific changes the Enlightenment seeks to usher in, Rousseau views it as morally no better than the church, which, according to Melzer “turns [man] against others as well as himself, making him at once evil and unhappy.”[12] Rousseau stands against the values of the Enlightenment and its philosophers because they have a chance to improve the morals of European society, but do nothing with it. He also attacks the source of the moral failings he finds that the church and the Enlightenment have in common: inequality, the very topic of the Discourse. Rousseau finds no shortage of inequality in 18th century French society, which is heavily stratified in multiple ways. In Part Two’s concluding paragraph, Rousseau mentions that “it is manifestly contrary to the law of nature, however defined, that a child should govern an old man, that an imbecile should lead a wise man, and that a handful of people should gorge themselves with superfluities while the hungry multitude goes in want of necessities.”[13] When Rousseau was writing this in 1754, he was likely thinking about French society, which had seen Louis XV assume the throne as a mere child, imbecilic nobles lead the army because of inherited ranks, and the gap between the estates grow ever larger. Philosophers from previous time periods accepted the stratification of society and the estates system as they were, but Rousseau rejects them as “contrary to natural right.”[14] In this way, he is most like an Enlightenment philosopher because he sees the problems in society and seeks to change them. Rousseau cannot give a clear, immediate solution to the inequalities of society and the sorrows of civilized man, something which Cladis cites as the result of the simultaneous influences of optimism and pessimism: “Rousseau can often be found at the crossroads between Enlightenment optimism and Augustinian pessimism. From that juncture, he sought to remind us of both our responsibility for ourselves and our powerlessness to radically transform ourselves.”[15] Rousseau views decline as a chain reaction that is the result of ever-present human desires: dependence creates the desire for sociability, which creates society, which creates inequality, which creates bad or failing morals, which creates the downfall of humanity. Human nature makes this decline inevitable, dooming us to subject ourselves to pain and injustice, upon which Cladis elaborates: “To escape the Fall into sociability is to dodge our humanity; yet to yield to the Fall is to court public injustice and personal pain.”[16] To be sociable is to be hurt, but also to be human, and our humanity is something we fundamentally cannot change. Despite this seemingly pessimistic worldview, Rousseau avoids taking the plunge into hopelessness. We cannot abruptly and totally change ourselves and everyone else, but the individual can at least do something to ameliorate the original sin that is dependence. He praises uncivilized humanity for their independence, stating that “savage man […] was equally without any need of his fellow men and without any desire to hurt them, perhaps not even recognizing any one of them individually.”[17] In the same way, he condemns modern man: “as a result of always asking others what we are and never daring to put the question to ourselves […] we have only facades, deceptive and frivolous, honour without virtue, reason without wisdom, and pleasure without happiness.”[18] Rousseau silently asks the individual to be more independent, though not to the same extent as uncivilized man: just as nascent civilization is the “golden mean”[19] between civilization and savagery, we must learn to look into ourselves while not cutting ourselves off from humanity entirely. In acknowledging the downfalls of society and proposing a way to improve the self, Rousseau directs his argument towards the same overarching purpose that informed many other Enlightenment philosophers’ arguments.
A Discourse on Inequality is an Enlightenment-era text that goes against the Enlightenment. It uses many of the same methods as Enlightenment works do, but it uses them to further a contrary thesis, one that treats human history as a narrative of decline which the Enlightenment is not able to ameliorate. It does not oppose the Enlightenment because it threatens to change the status quo, but because it does not change enough, improving society on the surface without improving the broken moral system that has caused it to decline in the first place. Although narratives of decline are common in the philosophies of the past, Rousseau’s argument is anything but old-fashioned: it is written for its time period and dedicated to the most educated philosophers of its time. Whereas Renaissance philosophers bowed to the church as the supreme authority, Rousseau either ignores it or criticizes it outright, something he is only able to do because the Enlightenment has created a climate in which such criticism is acceptable. His argument, like those of his time, involves a deconstruction of the ills plaguing European society and identifies a way to change things, but its approach is unique because it focuses on the flaws in human nature that inevitably produce moral failings and asks individuals to improve themselves as much as they are able. Though his refusal to listen to outside sources may seem ignorant on the surface, it is actually his way of ensuring his ideas are objective and uncorrupted: men are liars, and nature never lies. A Discourse on Inequality could not exist without the Enlightenment, as its influences in some places and absence in others places it squarely in its own era. Thus, Rousseau’s work uses Enlightenment principles to question Enlightenment ideals, focused on improving society and the self, never complacent but instead always seeking to learn more.
Endnotes
[1] Jean-Jacques Rousseau, A Discourse on Inequality, trans. Maurice Cranston (London: Penguin Books, 1984), 119.
[2] Mark S. Cladis, “Tragedy and Theodicy: A Meditation on Rousseau and Moral Evil,” The Journal of Religion 75, no. 2 (1995): 181.
[3] Rousseau, Discourse on Inequality, 109.
[4] Rousseau, Discourse on Inequality, 78.
[5] Arthur M. Melzer, “The Origin of the Counter-Enlightenment: Rousseau and the New Religion of Sincerity,” The American Political Science Review 90, no. 2 (1996): 345.
[6] Melzer, “Origin of the Counter-Enlightenment,” 349.
[7] Melzer, “Origin of the Counter-Enlightenment,” 349.
[8] Rousseau, Discourse on Inequality, 116.
[9] Rousseau, Discourse on Inequality, 79.
[10] Terrence E. Marshall, “Rousseau and Enlightenment,” Political Theory 6, no. 4 (1978): 423.
[11] Marshall, “Rousseau and Enlightenment,” 425.
[12] Melzer, “Origin of the Counter-Enlightenment,” 349.
[13] Rousseau, Discourse on Inequality, 137.
[14] Rousseau, Discourse on Inequality, 137.
[15] Cladis, “Tragedy,” 182–83.
[16] Cladis, “Tragedy,” 181.
[17] Rousseau, Discourse on Inequality, 104.
[18] Rousseau, Discourse on Inequality, 136.
[19] Rousseau, Discourse on Inequality, 115.
Works Cited
Cladis, Mark S. “Tragedy and Theodicy: A Meditation on Rousseau and Moral Evil.” The Journal of Religion 75, no. 2 (1995): 181–99.
Marshall, Terrence E. “Rousseau and Enlightenment.” Political Theory 6, no. 4 (1978): 421–55.
Melzer, Arthur M. “The Origin of the Counter-Enlightenment: Rousseau and the New Religion of Sincerity.” The American Political Science Review 90, no. 2 (1996): 344–60.
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. A Discourse on Inequality. Translated by Maurice Cranston. London: Penguin Books, 1984.