Jean Jacques Rousseau Presentation: Social Contract, Freedom and the Natural State

[gergywergy123]

so does man obey themselves and remain free in the social contract?

[milzz100]

Can someone give me some important distinctions? I am comparing Rousseau and Mill on their arguments regarding Freedom.

[arzadi11]

what about the food that i just gulped down in my stomach? is it mine? is it my private property? true, the fruits of earth belongs to all, but every fruit has a private owner. at some point every common property must branch out into private properties, otherwise individuals cannot survive. private property is necessary for the private survival. what makes private property evil is GREED(most for me but little for the rest).

[OnlinePhilosophy]

@arzadi11 Those are legitimate questions!

[arzadi11]

@OnlinePhilosophy i still can't deny that in a society there are less violence when we're using public or common properties. private property surly makes us more aggressive and indifference to our fellow human beings, but up to a degree private property is necessary for the survival of the individual. one should not all dedicate himself to his society, he should care for himself too. so a combination of private and common properties are necessary for the survival of individual & society.

[RonGOdenJr]

"The social pact is achieved by collectively renouncing our individual rights and freedom in the state of nature (in which there is no government)." Wait: did you say "no government"? If a group puts aside it's individual rights in servitude of an idea, doesn't the idea act as a law? If there's a law in place to conform the people, then haven't you just defined the basis of government? Or are you describing anarchy as a transitional state preceding the birth of a new order?

[youztuber5000]

How is humanty to survive unless we all collectively work and sacrifice for the well being of everyone and everything? Are we not responsible for an unfortunate lifes unhappiness when we have the resources to resolve it? Are we to stupid to break our selfish instincts? Don't you feel guilty driving your SUV to the mall to shop for clothes when there are hundreds of thousands who suffer and die everyday?

[EclecticSceptic]

I think determinism is true. Free-will is an illusion and is entirely unfounded. I don't agree with compatibliism, I think it's a desperate attempt to postulate free-will. Saying that animals other than human live deterministic lives but humans don't is illogical. It is an arbitrary assertion born out of human chauvinism and scientific ignorance. Humans can't evade determinism just by reason of their consciousness. Consciousness doesn't endow a human to control past events.

[CWSmith1982]

Thoes who place equality over liberty will recieve neither. Thoes who place liberty over equality will recieve a great deal of both.

[Ematched]

@CWSmith1982 An unqualified claim. A sort of haphazard counter might be: It is in the individual's best interest to work together and sacrifice with members of the community because the result is a lightened labor load for all, as well as increased available goods and greater leisure time.

[CWSmith1982]

@Ematched And if that individual doesent act in what YOU consider to be his best interest what is to happen to him? Should we take away his liberty and force him to do so? Thats not very equal now is it? Exactly who chooses that he must work for the benefit of someone else? Can we vote his unaleniable, self evedent, and irrefutable rights away from him in order to force him to act in the manner of which the political class descides? Destroy libert for equality and you get neither. Unqualified?

[Ematched]

@CWSmith1982 Mistake #1: the "YOU" placed into the equation. There is no singular entity decreeing anything (Communism failed in this regard). Rousseau supports a collectively established framework for which we can behave civily in the company of others, a framework subject to change with social progress and simple passage of time. There is no political class. Don't confuse his proposition with current political systems.

Cite "liberty" because it's en vogue, and you relinquish free thought.

[CWSmith1982]

@Ematched It is impossible to have people to act against the benefit of themselves and for the benefit of others without the use of force. All attempts to benefit the collective at the expense of the individual have resulted in neither, but for the pelitical class who rules both with the excuse of helping the colective. No political class? Then how are you to acheive this utopian idea? Convince people to act in the social interest at the expense of their own? Not likely.

[lescastor]

@CWSmith1982 That seems to me as a very ethnocentric view of people. In Euro-American culture its drilled into our heads that being selfish is good for us (more material things, money, power, prestige, etc) but in hunter-gatherer societies there is a great deal of sharing involved and thus a strong motive to act in the social interest. To them helping their own kin is not at the expense of their own interests because everybody relies on everybody else for co-survival.

[CWSmith1982]

@lescastor People say that were are all individualists but we are really family oreinted. I see nothing wrong with helping family. I see nothing wrong with helping others. I see alot wrong when people want to force me to help others. And if you want a communal scociety then appointing others to force us to work for the benefit of others is unavoidable.

[lescastor]

@CWSmith1982 I can definitely agree on your point that forcing people to help others is a bad thing, imo a kind dictator is no less of a dictator. Still, I'm not sure that forcing people is the only way. The reason our culture is so materialistic is because it's the way we learned to live by instruction and example; its how all humans learn. Its not that a communal society is impossible w/o force, it is the way we see and understand the world from our perspective which makes it unavoidable.

[Ematched]

@CWSmith1982 "It is impossible to have people to act against the benefit of themselves and for the benefit of others without the use of force."

Apparently, you've never heard of compromise and self-sacrifice. They're pretty popular ideas, though not followed often enough.

I'm sad you've gone so long cocooned and solipsistic. A world exists outside the self: plants, animals, planets, star systems...We use the word "empathy" to place our ability to feel outside ourselves. Take the red pill.

[CWSmith1982]

@Ematched After 10 years of service in the United States Marine Corps I dont beleive you to be the authority on lecturing me about sacrafice.

[Ematched]

@CWSmith1982 I probably can't lecture you on "sacrafice," but I offered a wonderful explanation of how you can break through your semper fi-induced self-absorbtion. You don't have any authority whatsoever. My brother, father, both grandfathers served in the Navy. Does that mean I owe them any latitude on matters of philosophy and social anthropology? Absolutely not.

Maybe your decade of duty has eliminated all means of persuasion, save "the use of force." Some of us have free minds.

[Ematched]

@CWSmith1982 (cont.) btw, It's "sacrifice." Do they teach proofreading in the Marines?

[OnlinePhilosophy]

Times were very different. The notion of a well-intentioned society was greatly needed, and encouraging society to be well-intentioned was not necessarily naive in itself because actions of kindness were likely to be reciprocated. For instance, if 2 people go hunting and only one is successful, sharing is beneficial because next time, things might work out differently; today you have a little more, while tomorrow you may have nothing.

[resesmilk2]

@OnlinePhilosophy look at what is happening in America as an example of this "social contact" ideology. the simple corruption of man is proof enough to debunk its philosophy. unless you can decentralize on an enormous scale (which won't happen... in fact the complete opposite will happen-is happening) it will be open to exploitation. if not; where do you suppose we are going to find these angels that will organize society for us?

[resesmilk2]

@OnlinePhilosophy and it is not sharing when someone does it for you.

[OnlinePhilosophy]

Stated this way, the idea of a social contract, and the idea what we *all* come together in agreement, seems naive. The idea that there is a *general will* seems naive. And I admit that this term is vague, at best. But try to see things through Rousseau's eyes. Put yourself in the historical context in which Rousseau was writing. At the time, humanity needed compelling arguments just to be convinced that it was OK to extend a helping hand to other nations in times of peril.

[resesmilk2]

knowing this flaw, he simply explains that general will exists to protect individuals against the mass, not to require them to be sacrificed to it. these fuzzy words simply do not make any sense. so you're not allowed to own anything... and you're not allowed to compete...? does this mean nobody is allowed to possess more than anybody else? heart surgeons will live right next door to someone who flips burgers for a living? in the exact same size house? same size lawn? same size family???

[resesmilk2]

you can understand why rousseau, from a historical perspective, would be so bent on "fixing" society as he so tried. but his theory on what he calls "general will" is simply naive and unrealistic because it is based on the premise that every single person in that society has to exhibit a complete and true loyalty to the collective good.

furthermore and contrary to what rousseau claims, a person cannot be free if he is constrained by general will.

[fireman12888]

It is a stupendous claim that "everone agrees to this contract", it does not entail the harm that comes from people that use the government to initiate force, yet this "social contract" is asserted as justification for all their(gov') irrational violence. How absurd is this!

[OnlinePhilosophy]

@resesmilk2 I would rather be confined by the general will than live in fear that I can be shot by my neighbor so that she might take my house. So in a sense, the social contract, while taking freedoms away from me, makes me more free.

[resesmilk2]

@OnlinePhilosophy

think hard about what you just said.

[Fu50popo]

@OnlinePhilosophy but under Rousseau you should be shot if you do not conform to what the government tells you is the general will. Thus any opposition to your government is reason for execution.

[Ematched]

@Fu50popo That is a grosse distortion of intent. Rousseau didn't advocate execution of citizens. He was appealing to the generous portion of every man. Claiming "under Rousseau you should be shot if you do not confort to what the government tells you is the general will" is on par with saying you should be shot if you refuse to participate in the stock market of contemporary capitalism. Absurd. You're imposing 1984 on The Social Contract, conflating totalitarianism with social progress.

[saintdracula]

aWEOme

[japaneselizard]

HELL YEAHHHH