''Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among Men'' (french: Discours sur l'origine et les fondements de l'inégalité parmi les hommes), also commonly known as the "Second Discourse", is a 1755 work by philosopher
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (, ; 28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Age of Enlightenment throughout Europe, as well as aspects of the French Revolu ...
.
Rousseau first exposes in this work his conception of a human state of nature, broadly believed to be a hypothetical thought exercise and of human perfectibility, an early idea of
progress
Progress is the movement towards a refined, improved, or otherwise desired state. In the context of progressivism, it refers to the proposition that advancements in technology, science, and social organization have resulted, and by extension w ...
. He then explains the way in which, in his view, people may have established
civil society
Civil society can be understood as the "third sector" of society, distinct from government and business, and including the family and the private sphere.private property is the original source and basis of all
inequality
Inequality may refer to:
Economics
* Attention inequality, unequal distribution of attention across users, groups of people, issues in etc. in attention economy
* Economic inequality, difference in economic well-being between population groups
* ...
.
Context
The text was written in 1754 in response to a prize competition of the
Academy of Dijon
In France, various types of institution have the term "University" in their name. These include the public universities, which are the autonomous institutions that are distinguished as being state institutes of higher education and research that p ...
answering the prompt: "What is the origin of inequality among people, and is it authorized by
natural law
Natural law ( la, ius naturale, ''lex naturalis'') is a system of law based on a close observation of human nature, and based on values intrinsic to human nature that can be deduced and applied independently of positive law (the express enacte ...
?" Rousseau did not win with his treatise (as he had for the ''
Discourse on the Arts and Sciences
Discourse is a generalization of the notion of a conversation to any form of communication. Discourse is a major topic in social theory, with work spanning fields such as sociology, anthropology, continental philosophy, and discourse analysis. F ...
''); a
canon
Canon or Canons may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* Canon (fiction), the conceptual material accepted as official in a fictional universe by its fan base
* Literary canon, an accepted body of works considered as high culture
** Western ca ...
of
Besançon
Besançon (, , , ; archaic german: Bisanz; la, Vesontio) is the prefecture of the department of Doubs in the region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté. The city is located in Eastern France, close to the Jura Mountains and the border with Switzer ...
Rousseau's text is divided into four main parts: the dedication, the preface, an extended inquiry into the nature of the human being and another inquiry into the evolution of the human species within society. It also includes an appendix that elaborates primarily on eighteenth century anthropological research throughout the text. Rousseau discusses two types of inequality: natural, or physical inequality, and ethical, or moral inequality. Natural inequality involves differences between one human's body and that of another—it is a product of nature. Rousseau is not concerned with this type of inequality because he claims it is not the root of the inequality found in civil society. Instead, he argues moral inequality is unique to
civil society
Civil society can be understood as the "third sector" of society, distinct from government and business, and including the family and the private sphere.love of self
Self-love, defined as "love of self" or "regard for one's own happiness or advantage", has been conceptualized both as a basic human necessity and as a moral flaw, akin to vanity and selfishness, synonymous with amour-propre, conceitedness, ego ...
(''amour de soi même'')—and a "natural repugnance" to suffering—a natural pity or compassion. Natural man acts only for his own sake and avoids conflicts with other animals (and humans). Rousseau's natural man is more or less like any other animal, with "self-preservation being his chief and almost sole concern" and "the only goods he recognizes in the universe" being food, a female, and sleep... Rousseau's man is a "savage" man. He is a loner and self-sufficient. Any battle or skirmish was only to protect himself. The natural man was in prime condition, fast, and strong, capable of caring for himself. He killed only for his own self-preservation.
Natural man's anthropological distinction (from the animal kingdom) is based on his capacity for "perfectibility" and innate sense of his freedom. The former, although translated as "perfectibility," has nothing to do with a drive for perfection or excellence, which might confuse it with virtue ethics. Instead, perfectibility describes how humans can learn by observing others. Since human being lacks reason, this is not a discursive reasoning, but more akin to the neurological account of
mirror neuron
A mirror neuron is a neuron that fires both when an animal acts and when the animal observes the same action performed by another. Thus, the neuron "mirrors" the behavior of the other, as though the observer were itself acting. Such neurons ha ...
s. Human freedom does not mean the capacity to choose, which would require reason, but instead the ability to refrain from instinct. Only with such a capacity can humans acquire new habits and practices.
The most important feature of Rousseau's natural man is that he lacks reason, in contrast to most of the Western intellectual tradition. Rousseau claims natural man does not possess reason or language (in which reason's generation is rooted) or society—and these three things are mutually-conditioning, such that none can come into being without the others.
Rousseau's natural man significantly differs from, and is a response to, that of
Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes ( ; 5/15 April 1588 – 4/14 December 1679) was an English philosopher, considered to be one of the founders of modern political philosophy. Hobbes is best known for his 1651 book ''Leviathan'', in which he expounds an influe ...
; Rousseau says as much at various points throughout his work. He thinks that Hobbes conflates human being in the state of nature with human being in civil society. Unlike Hobbes's natural man, Rousseau's is not motivated by fear of death because he cannot conceive of that end; thus fear of death already suggests a movement out of the state of nature. Also, this natural man, unlike Hobbes's, is not in constant state of fear and anxiety. Rousseau's natural man possesses a few qualities that allow him to distinguish himself from the animals over a long period of time.
The process by which natural man becomes civilized is uncertain in the ''Discourse'', but it could have had two or three different causes. The most likely causes are environmental, such that humans came into closer proximity and began cohabitation, which in turn facilitated the development of reason and language. Equally, human "perfectibility" could explain this change in the nature of the human being. Rousseau is not really interested in explaining the development, but acknowledges its complexity.
What is important is that with primitive social existence (preceding civil society), humans gain "self-esteem" ("amour propre") and most of the rest of Rousseau's account is based on this. Rousseau's critique of civil society is primarily based on psychological features of civil man, with amour propre pushing individuals to compare themselves with others, to gain a sense of self corresponding to this, and to dissolve natural man's natural pity.
The beginning of part two dramatically imagines some lone errant soul planting the stakes that first establish private property: "The first person who, having enclosed a plot of land, took it into his head to say this is mine and found people simple enough to believe him, was the true founder of civil society". But Rousseau then clarifies that this moment was presaged by a series of environmental and rational conditions that made it possible. For Rousseau, even the ''concept'' of private property required a series of other concepts in order to be formed.
, Rousseau's birthplace. On the face of the dedication, he praises Geneva as a good, if not perfect, republic. The qualities he picks out for praise include the stability of its laws and institutions, the community spirit of its inhabitants, and its good relations with neighboring states, neither threatening them nor threatened by them, and the well-behaved women of Geneva. However, this is not how Geneva truly was. This is the type of regime Rousseau wished for. The epistle dedicatory is a highly ironic and idealized version of the Geneva Rousseau really wanted. Also, his description is in great contrast with Paris, where he had spent many years previous to writing this discourse, and which he had left bitterly. Thus, his description of Geneva is in part a statement against Paris.