Ethics
Rousseau and Diderot good buddies.
Rousseau’s discourse made him kinda famous even during his time.
He takes distance from the radical enligthenment.
He doesn’t believe that it can leave us a life without superstition.
Used beautiful polite language, was a man of letters.
By cultivation, by being part of a social culture, morality is corrupt and people become bad. Being sociable and all these things, being polite, the more you become viscious. Rather, he wants to return to a state of nature where people are innocent and lack any sophisticated desires.
He directed these writings against people like Diderot.
He disliked the kind of despise that was made of the intellectuals toward the common people. He was against the elite; the people who think that they know stuff. It is a kind of hypocritical way of dealing with people.
When Rousseau gives a picture of the common people, it is a very painful picture. Even before the industrial revolution there were clear problems with health and working hours. There was a very strong distinction between upper class and lower class, who were almost slaves. Lower class people also didn’t have a soul so it’s okay to discriminate them.
The lower classes were seduced to act and do things for the upper class people, by their superior manners. [doubtable lol].
Idk what he means but something about common people not having language and fucking eachother and being jealous.
The state of nature isn’t something we should return to though.
Animals are not social in some way. There is no will among them according to Rousseau.
Rousseau tried to become an eremite to be able to cultivate his philosophy.
Rousseau’s love novels were very successful. They couldn’t print enough books even. He wrote soapoperas more or less.
Religion is more about knowing one’s own responsibility about what one needs to do in the cosmos, as in Profession de foi du Vicaire savoyard. Russeau didn’t take care of his own children, but wrote a lot about it lol.
Russeau was convinced he could convince the world that in the end he was not such a bad person in his Confessions.
In the social contract Rousseau argues against something, and is just angry. He is angry about elitism it seems. He wants everyone to be equal. What a nerd. He tries to defend that kind of person that Diderot hated, ie. Stupid people.
He explains that the position of Diderot is unreasonable. If we people are living together, then one should get out of it a general will of humanity as a whole, rather than only a will of the elite. The whole critique of Diderot is left out of the actual book.
The essay starts with the ”everyone is born free, yet everywhere everyone is in chains”, we need to make it so that people are free from their chains.
What kind of laws are those that we actually need to obey?
People have the idea that freedom is doing whatever you like and following your instincts.
But, in our lives, we constantly do things that we are expected to do.
He explains that if we start with the idea that someone needs to do something because someone else has more power. If someone has more power than someone else, then they have a legitimate right to rule. This kind of conflict would be everlasting. Hobbes solution was that people should submit themselves to a sovereign. Rousseau realised that there must be a moment at which you actually decide to be submit. If a society wants to be represented by a sovereign, then there is an instance of that community in which it is more than a bunch of individuals. There must be a general will, and from this general will, we can analyse what is important for that community. Hobbes and Rousseau are very close to each other.
The notion of the general will that we submit ourselves to was already quite old, already in eg. Malebranche (though in relation to God).
The rule of law says that everyone is equal under the law or whatever maaaaaan I am falling asleep.
The general will considers everyone’s right as sacred.
The nation must defend the rights of the individual in such a way as their identity and property is guaranteed.
We need civic freedom and not animal freedom. Fucking private property-cel.
What are emotions in Rousseau?
Not empathy or sentimentality. Empathy and sympathy are a very private thing. Which don’t necessarily imply real cooperation. It’s not the final solution of it… so to speak…
The knowledge that you are responsible for the ”we”, is the real thing that cultivates people living together. This kind of original reason, the knowledge of what is really good, is reachable by everyone. Everyone has their own dignity and must be respected as a human being. From the general will, everyone is equal. This is pretty close to Kant.
Kant believed that Rousseau changed his mind on a lot of matters. Every human being has their dignity. Everyone is able to have a good will. So in the end he thinks that the perspective of humanity as a whole is the guiding principle.
He suggests that this general will is what the supreme being has given us, as we are created by God in our heart. He is actually not so radical in enlightenment.
Difficult to pin down. (This usually means altright grifter)
Among moral virtues, only true virtue is sublime (whatever that means).
Universal good will is a kind of principle that everyone is equal and one needs to have respect for each other. This is not emotional. You don’t need to cry for everyone who suffers a little bit.
What is the most important moral disposition? Is what he is trying to answer.
Rousseau was a protestant l bozo.
It is not by accident that Kant is also a protestant. Individuality is stressed as important, and the fact that that individual autonomous person needs to recognise everyone else’s dignity. People are ends in themselves.
Rousseau thought that everyone is completely different and everyone has the right to develop that individual nature. There is a meaningful insight about ourselves before we even approach society. The hardcore me that was there before I was born, is something unique that is not entirely a part of society.
These ideas only developed because there was an audience for it.
There is no authoritative audience anymore who scrutinises what we do. There is no exclusion of what is more or less reasonable, there is a kind of babylonian babble all over the world. The situation of universities right now is very problematic, as no one is prepared to listen. There is no trust in the fact that one story is more valuable than the next.
If there is no gathering where one can have reasonable discussions, then public opinion gets sprawled everywhere.
Kant :::
He makes sense.
Is work is very systematised and logical. There is trouble regarding how it connects to real life however.
Kant specialists are very thorough.
The way of turning to Kant via Rousseau is fun.
What Kant realises is that the general will perspective, in the sense that humanity as humanity follows reason, this means that we would end up recognising that human beings are special.
They are human beings and have a special way of being, which is that they have their own way of thinking. They set their own goals. They make decisions through process, and have a will. If you force them to do certain things without taking into account what they are willing, then you are not treating them with respect, and are going against what you should be doing in accordance with the world-community. Then we would need to conclude that we need to respect each other as autonomous wills, that can develop this will as we like.
Rousseau’s critique against diderot is that the human will is too abstract, and so it needs to be part of a real community. Humanity as such is not yet a community at that time, but it needs to be.
This is the same in Hegel, we need a real community among concrete people instead of on an abstract level.
If we deal with Kant, it’s quite important to see how we can interpret his categorical imperative.
It must be something that can be agreed upon on a world-point-of-view. Everyone can take the position of legislator, and from that position, rationally come to the conclusion of what can and can’t be done based on the idea that it can or cannot be universalised.