Extract. Whereas previously deemed a moral evil, Rousseau claimed that some self-love is not only innocuous, but also ethically essential and even good.
Rousseau argued that the loss of one's self-love would be equivalent to the loss of all morality and that without self-love we would be incapable of caring for others. He also believed that true humanity required self-love.
According to Rousseau, self-love is an emotional attachment to oneself that prevents us from feeling indifferent toward ourselves. This emotional attachment makes us value ourselves and therefore care for our interests. Without self-love, he said, "man would be no more than a beast."
In addition to being essential for human dignity, self-love is also said to be conducive to moral development. By loving himself, a person can then help love others as well. The more we love others, the less we will be tempted to misuse their trust against them. We will also be less likely to submit to the demands of the moment and act out of passion rather than reason.
Finally, self-love is considered vital to one's own happiness. If we stop loving ourselves, we will have no reason to seek fulfillment elsewhere and will be doomed to feel unhappy forever.
Rousseau felt that feeling, derived from nature and sexual love, was the basis of his existence and creativity. My interests have both given me life and destroyed me. My needs are great, but I can never satisfy them. My imagination has made me a monster. It has made me feel intensely every sensation there is to feel and it has robbed me of my self-control.
His solution was to return to nature and be free from civilization's corruption. He believed that humanity was naturally good but had been corrupted by society. To regain its true human nature, society must be restored to its original state with individuals living in natural groups called "noble savages".
Romanticism is a term used to describe a period in European art and literature in the early 19th century when artists and writers showed strong feelings about nature, mythology, and history. This outlook began with an emotional response to modern civilization and technology and led to ideas about the redemptive power of nature, the horror of war, and the beauty of love.
Rousseau emphasized man's innate goodness and felt that one man is equally good as the other by nature. A man might be just without virtue and good without effort, according to Rousseau. According to Rousseau, man in his natural state was free, smart, and virtuous, and nature's rules were beneficent. In The Social Contract, he says that "man is naturally good," but this doesn't mean that all men are equal. Some people have more influence over others than others because of their position in society so they will always act badly since they can't be expected to change, which is what makes them different from animals who can't think about future consequences.
According to Rousseau, once a group of people forms itself into a community, it loses its freedom but gains new duties. It becomes responsible for the good of everyone within its sphere of action, which for him included both friends and enemies. This obligation comes with some privileges, such as voting on members of the government body called the General Will. Those who accept the contract are called citizens and those who don't can be slaves or even dead.
For Rousseau, the general will is the will of the majority group, which means that it can change whatever laws it wants. This is why he supported democracy over monarchy or aristocracy because the will of the people should determine what laws there are. He also believed that women should have the right to vote because they are humans too.
Rousseau views nature as a morally neutral and tranquil state in which individuals act on their basic impulses, such as hunger, as well as their inherent need for self-preservation. Humans are no different from other animals in their natural form. They only begin different when they start making tools to help them survive. According to Rousseau, humans lose their natural state of purity when they adopt laws and customs that do not naturally arise from man's true nature.
In addition to laws and government, two other factors cause humans to depart from their natural state: religion and education. Religion provides humans with the idea that they were created by a higher power who had a purpose in mind when he created them. It also teaches them to be grateful for what they have instead of always wanting more. Education focuses on teaching humans how to use tools properly and how to conduct themselves in social settings. Without these influences, humans would remain pure and innocent beings who know nothing but nature.
According to Rousseau, the original founders of society took great steps toward corrupting its members when they decided to abandon their own needs in order to take care of those of others. From this originates the concept of social contract theory which states that people give up some of their rights to join together to create society with rules and regulations that protect the weak and provide safety for all involved.
Rousseau argued that the negative consequences of property may be mitigated in some contexts when property could serve as a critical support for human virtue and autonomy. He also believed that there is no intrinsic good or evil in itself, but only relative to its uses; thus, he concluded that freedom must be valued even if it means suffering at times.
In addition to these arguments, he also believed that property is necessary for social cooperation because without it, one would be forced to give up essential needs like food and shelter which are shared by all members of a society. Thus, Rousseau argued that freedom might be sacrificed for utility's sake, but that freedom should not be used as a justification for continuing this behavior. He concluded that the legitimate rights of property must be protected even if this leads to opposition from others who may suffer as a result.
Furthermore, he believed that political power must be separated from economic power because they are not the same thing and they cannot be used interchangeably. Economic power can be used to influence people through bribery and other forms of coercion while political power can only be obtained through an election. Thus, Rousseau argued that no individual or group should have the ability to manipulate the government into granting its own wishes at the expense of others.
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