POLB72H3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Amour-Propre, Hugo Grotius, Social Contract
Document Summary
Lecture 8 j. j. rousseau: the origins of inequality and the quest for liberty, equality and community. Situating rousseau: an early modern critic of modernity. Going back to the authentic state of nature: rousseau argues that neither locke nor hobbes went far back enough in their accounts of the state of nature. They inadvertently read attributes of their own civil societies back into the state of nature. The dual attributes of the savage in the state of nature: self-preservation (more of a flight rather than a fight conception, the capacity to feel pity or compassion in response to the suffering of other sentient beings. There is no sense of interpersonal comparison or vanity: a cry of nature = when someone is in pain, you detect it and know it is wrong. Inequality is exacerbated by the development of metallurgy and the advent of material scarcity. Inequalities in material resources fuel interpersonal comparison and the quest to outmaneuver and outdo others.
