What does Rousseau say about liberty?

Natural liberty, Rousseau states, is the freedom to pursue one’s own desires whereas civil liberty is the freedom to pursue the general will.

Does Rousseau believe in equality?

Jean-Jacques Rousseau is considered one of the key Enlightenment philosophers, and his writings reveal that he was concerned with “equality among men,” but he certainly did not make women’s equality his focus.

What did Rousseau say about equality?

Rousseau and Kant believed that moral equality derives from human rationality—the capacity to direct our own thinking, a capacity they take to be unique to humans and to be found equally in all of us.

How does Rousseau define equality?

kind of political equality, specifically, equality of political rights. He asserts, “The social contract establishes equality among the citizens in that they. are all obligated under the same conditions and are all entitled to the same.

What is Rousseau theory on inequality?

Rousseau, in brief, propounded that inequality comes from property, but the increase in inequality is caused by the development of the human spirit. Further, he said that vanity among human beings and differences in property led to inequality – the rich became richer and the poor became poorer.

How does Rousseau account for individual rights?

For Rousseau, the most important function of the general will is to inform the creation of the laws of the state. Accordingly, though all laws must uphold the rights of equality among citizens and individual freedom, Rousseau states that their particulars can be made according to local circumstances.

How does Rousseau define freedom?

Simpson writes that Rousseau “defined moral freedom as autonomy, or ‘obedience to the law that one has prescribed to oneself'” (92), though to illustrate this idea he gives an example of an alcoholic who is said not to possess moral freedom “because he is unable to live according to his own judgment about what is good …

What did Rousseau say about inequality?

Rousseau’s argument in the Discourse is that the only natural inequality among men is the inequality that results from differences in physical strength, for this is the only sort of inequality that exists in the state of nature.

How does Rousseau solve inequality?

The aim of the Discourse is to examine the foundations of inequality among men, and to determine whether this inequality is authorized by natural law. Rousseau attempts to demonstrate that modern moral inequality, which is created by an agreement between men, is unnatural and unrelated to the true nature of man.

How is Liberty a social contract?

People get together and agree to give up some of their liberty to a government. They agree, for example, not to try to steal from others. Thus, we can say that liberty is part of the social contract because the government protects people’s most important liberties when they enter into the social contract.