Jean Jacques Rousseau
Genevan philosopher and writer Jean Jacques Rousseau held that society usually corrupts the essentially good individual; his works include
The Social Contract
and
Émile
(both 1762).
This important figure in the history contributed to political and moral psychology and influenced later thinkers. Own firmly negative view saw the post-hoc rationalizers of self-interest, apologists for various forms of tyranny, as playing a role in the modern alienation from natural impulse of humanity to compassion. The concern to find a way of preserving human freedom in a world of increasingly dependence for the satisfaction of their needs dominates work. This concerns a material dimension and a more important psychological dimensions. Rousseau a fact that in the modern world, humans come to derive their very sense of self from the opinions as corrosive of freedom and destructive of authenticity. In maturity, he principally explores the first political route, aimed at constructing institutions that allow for the co-existence of equal sovereign citizens in a community; the second route to achieving and protecting freedom, a project for child development and education, fosters autonomy and avoids the development of the most destructive forms of self-interest. Rousseau thinks or the possible co-existence of humans in relations of equality and freedom despite his consistent and overwhelming pessimism that humanity will escape from a dystopia of alienation, oppression, and unfreedom. In addition to contributions, Rousseau acted as a composer, a music theorist, the pioneer of modern autobiography, a novelist, and a botanist. Appreciation of the wonders of nature and his stress on the importance of emotion made Rousseau an influence on and anticipator of the romantic movement. To a very large extent, the interests and concerns that mark his work also inform these other activities, and contributions of Rousseau in ostensibly other fields often serve to illuminate his commitments and arguments.
“I prefer liberty with danger than peace with slavery.”
“People who know little are usually great talkers, while men who know much say little.”
“Every man having been born free and master of himself, no one else may under any pretext whatever subject him without his consent. To assert that the son of a slave is born a slave is to assert that he is not born a man.”
“What, then, is the government? An intermediary body established between the subjects and the sovereign for their mutual communication, a body charged with the execution of the laws and the maintenance of freedom, both civil and political.”
“To discover the rules of society that are best suited to nations, there would need to exist a superior intelligence, who could understand the passions of men without feeling any of them, who had no affinity with our nature but knew it to the full, whose happiness was independent of ours, but who would nevertheless make our happiness his concern, who would be content to wait in the fullness of time for a distant glory, and to labour in one age to enjoy the fruits in another. Gods would be needed to give men laws.”
“In truth, laws are always useful to those with possessions and harmful to those who have nothing; from which it follows that the social state is advantageous to men only when all possess something and none has too much.”
“The social pact, far from destroying natural equality, substitutes, on the contrary, a moral and lawful equality for whatever physical inequality that nature may have imposed on mankind; so that however unequal in strength and intelligence, men become equal by covenant and by right.”
“The word ‘slavery’ and ‘right’ are contradictory, they cancel each other out. Whether as between one man and another, or between one man and a whole people, it would always be absurd to say: "I hereby make a covenant with you which is wholly at your expense and wholly to my advantage; I will respect it so long as I please and you shall respect it as long as I wish.”
“If force compels obedience, there is no need to invoke a duty to obey, and if force ceases to compel obedience, there is no longer any obligation.”
“Man’s first law is to watch over his own preservation; his first care he owes to himself; and as soon as he reaches the age of reason, he becomes the only judge of the best means to preserve himself; he becomes his own master.”
“Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.”
“A born king is a very rare being.”
“It is easier to conquer than to administer. With enough leverage, a finger could overturn the world; but to support the world, one must have the shoulders of Hercules.”
“Every person has a right to risk their own life for the preservation of it.”
“It is too difficult to think nobly when one thinks only of earning a living.”
“Love, known to the person by whom it is inspired, becomes more bearable.”
“I would rather be a man of paradoxes than a man of prejudices.”
“The truth brings no man a fortune.”
“What wisdom can you find greater than kindness.”