What follows from Rousseau’s reinterpretation of the State of Nature?

In his dissertation The Discourses and Other Early Political Writings Rousseau re-examines Hobbes’ state of nature argument by questioning the legitimacy of government. He endeavors to trace “the origin of inequality among men, and whether it is authorized by the Natural Law.” Rousseau is careful to point out that it is political inequality that is pertinent to the question he posits before the discourse, which arises when humans enter into a society. This distinction is critical for it not only demonstrates Rousseau’s premise for re-examining Hobbes’ claims that human beings are inherently wicked and thus needs to be moderated in a civil society, but also questions inherent properties of political societies which appear to undermine the argument that a social context is a better alternative than existence in a state of nature.
Rousseau disagrees with Hobbes that man is a fearful and inherently evil individual in the state of nature. For Rousseau, it is not possible to conjecture man’s tendencies and innate behavior simply by hypothesizing the individual outside of society, as it makes several presuppositions about human nature for the sake of justifying the transition from the state of nature to civil society. He argues that Hobbes’ fearful depiction of the Savage man does not legitimize the government, any more than the way religion legitimizes the claim that mankind is inherently morally deficient. For this reason, it is impertinent in his Discourse that Rousseau considers what he believes is a more accurate depiction of Savage man in the state of nature.
Unlike Hobbes, Rousseau believes that the individual in the state of nature is simple and content, harboring no ill desire to provoke other individuals. As he clearly demonstrates, it is the state in which “the care for our own preservation is least prejudicial to the self-preservation of others,” and it follows that this state was “the most conducive to Peace and the best suited to Mankind.” By considering the state of nature simply as an absence of civil or political context, Rousseau deduces that it is also an innocent state of man freed from the complications and complexity that arises from the establishment of a society. Moreover, the state of nature is the also a state of [moral] ignorance: “the calm of the passions and the ignorance of vice that keep them from evil-doing.” In so doing, Rousseau demonstrates how Savage man is neither wicked nor good, and in actuality, it is “the ignorance of vice [that] profit these than the knowledge of virtue profits those [evil-doings].” For this reason, Rousseau claims that individuals did not enter into a communion out of common fear but instead, as he later shows, out of a common consensus and recognition of the private as well as the general will.
Rousseau further shows how the most basic faculties endowed to the Savage man decisively prevented him from manipulating them to very high degrees of self-interest and individualistic actions. As he clearly shows, the Savage man is not simply oriented by his Passions or desires, but also has reasoning capabilities:
“We seek to know only because we desire to enjoy, and it is not possible to conceive why someone who had neither desires nor fears would take the trouble to reason. The Passions, in turn, owe their origin to our needs, and their progress to our knowledge.”
As such, at the most basic level, the Savage man experiences only the first beginnings of reason and knowledge, both of which eventually led him to conclude that a social context of some sort is more secure and which appeals to his need for personal security. At this critical moment, the Savage man cannot be induced to seek objectives beyond fulfilling his primitive desire: “deprived of every sort of enlightenment, his Desires do not exceed his Physical needs.”
The premise for Rousseau’s state of nature is significant to his argument against Hobbes’ method of alienating man from society. For Rousseau, there is nothing to contend nor argue against the Savage man. In his criticism of Hobbes, Rousseau shows how Hobbes “improperly included in Savage man’s care for his preservation the need to satisfy a multitude of passions that are the product of Society and have made Laws necessary,” and thereby incorrectly imposing the concerns of a civil and social man onto Savage man. In his most succinct claim and explanation why Hobbes’ state of nature argument is flawed, Rousseau again shows how the Savage man is not only ignorant of evil and virtue, but that if Hobbes’ claim were true, it would have been torturous for the Savage man. Rousseau shows that this contradiction would imply: “Nothing would have been as miserable as Savage man dazzled by enlightenment, tormented by Passions, and reasoning about a state different from his own.” The Savage man in Hobbes’ state of nature would have been burdened with faculties and ideas that are irrelevant, and therefore, incompatible with his existence in the state of nature.
Rousseau further criticizes Hobbes’ state of nature argument by mocking how Hobbes’ argument on the threat posed by Savage man himself inherently claims otherwise that his faculties would be designed by “a very wise Providence.” Rousseau elaborates that it would mean that those faculties the Savage man possesses “be superfluous and a burden to him before their time, [and] belated and useless in time of need.” By pointing out this absurdity, Rousseau shows how Hobbes’ definition of Savage man is not only incompatible but also incorrectly deduced.
Where Rousseau and Hobbes agree is the fact that the political individual is conditioned and shaped by society as society progresses. Savage man did not abuse his faculty of reason, as Hobbes believed, but instead initiated the first steps towards society by reason alone: “In instinct alone he had all he needed to live in the state of Nature, in cultivated reason he has no more than what he needs to live in society.” However, Rousseau makes an extended argument that man becomes conditioned and changes as society progresses and develops. His thesis about perfectibility suggests that man has the potential to cultivate himself and his rationality. Rousseau also notes that man’s [unfortunate] liability to lose his perfectibility and to become imbecile hinders the progress of mankind, and is not necessarily more favorable compared to the simple, indolent Savage man in the state of nature. As he summarizes, perfectibility is the faculty which not only removed man from the “tranquil and innocent days” spent in nature, but also the same faculty which caused “his enlightenment and his errors, his vices and his virtues to bloom, [and which] eventually makes him his own and Nature’s tyrant.”
This divergence highlights an important aspect of Rousseau’s and Hobbes’ argument. According to Rousseau, “being sturdy and being dependent are two contradictory assumptions in the state of Nature; Man is weak when he is dependent, and he is emancipated before he is sturdy.” Rousseau believes that because man’s conditions are malleable once he enters into a society and becomes a social being, it is not possible to apply backward induction to trace the origin of the state of nature. Moreover, because of man’s capability to perfect oneself, he must also increase his dependency on other individuals. So arises, out of a growing and developing society, and most importantly, political inequality. It is physical inequality that led individuals to form societies. At the same time, political inequality becomes realized.
Thus, Rousseau concludes that political inequality is not natural. The government is not necessarily legitimate, because it can never be absolutely perfect and always justifiable. However, physical inequality, which is inherent from the natural state and which individuals have inherited from the state of nature has necessitated political inequality. For without any natural inequality whatsoever, there would never have been discrepancies in physical might. Nor would there have been differentiated individuals who, by living socially and collectively, would contribute to the improvement of the Savage’s basic primitive conditions so well. Rousseau’s argument shows how natural inequality facilitated the transition from state of nature to society, and more importantly, how political inequality facilitated society’s progress. Perhaps it is impossible, if not, extremely difficult to achieve a perfect statehood and a perfectly legitimate government that fulfills every individual’s needs, interest, and extent of mutual interdependence. Rousseau believes that because it is necessary that political inequality must exist and proceed from the beginning, the very early forms of society are the best societies with respect to social conduct and mutual dependence. As he observes, civil societies were formed under the impression that one’s security of freedom would be secured, albeit the act entails displacing natural freedom: “for while they had enough reason to sense the advantages of a political establishment, they had not enough experience to foresee its dangers.”
Rousseau’s argument not only encompasses this transition but also shows how the government is not necessarily justified and legitimate to the individual. His state of nature explains why a political society is not natural not because it is a removed state from that of the Savage man, but that it imbues the individual with notions of political inequality. As Rousseau exemplifies, showing how Hobbes’ depiction of Savage man is wrong, society has “made a being wicked by making it sociable.”