Philosophy 4
Philosophy 4Jean-Jacques Rousseau had a theory of human nature that differed from
all others. The way we started, grew as a society, and live now, are totally
different than what we have already learned this semester. He thought of what
is called a Social Contract Theory. This theory will be discussed in this paper,
especially in the aspects of personal freedom, the role of the intellect, human
social and/or spiritual relations, and the nature of the self.
How much personal freedom does a person have? Well, Rousseau would
say that humans do have personal freedom, but that freedom is hard to keep. He
would say that, “Humans are born free, and everywhere they are in
chains.”(notes 11/4/99) To some, this would be hard to grasp at first. To put it simply, we, as humans, are not living the ways that we are supposed to.
Somewhere along the line we got off on a tangent with our development that
changed how we are supposed to live. Everything around us is a burden.
Rousseau then discusses what the original way of living is. He would say that there is an inequality in how we live, because we are born free and that is taken away from us. The chains that led from the inequality are subjugation, dominance, and oppression. These chains are artificial, because we are born free. Humans acquired the chains, Rousseau would argue. He will go on to say that because humans began to rationalize these chains were caused. Thinking rationally creates generalities , and along with the generalities comes labeling people. We began to use reason to get things that we would call our own possessions. Having possessions and property are caused by rational thinking, and those generalities create inequalities, because there are the rich, who have all the possessions, and the poor, who have none, but want the rich peoples’ things. If nobody was using reason, there would be no disputes about personal items, because nothing would belong to anyone.
In other words, humans use reason all the time. Today, we think
rationally. Even though Rousseau believes that this is not the way to live, he
admits that it does exist. Our personal freedom is driven on pride now.
However, the way to correct things is not to go back to how things were, but to
instead transform into a new kind of people. We need to make progress, and
choose to make that progress. He feels that we need to stop the impersonalizing.
Rousseau also believes that the role of intellect is played off by the
instincts of a person. In the beginning, humans were not rational. They thought in the particulars of life. They saw a tree and thought of it as a tree. They didn’t see a tree and think, “This is my...
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