Rousseau talks of man’s state of nature (nature of being) in the first and second sections of the first part of his discourse. The second part delves more into inequality by tying the state of nature and man’s activities.
According to Rousseau man is fundamentally an animal like any other, differing only with regard to perfectibility. Man, being exposed to nature, is able to learn and develop rational thinking, which guides man's activities. However, in...
Rousseau talks of man’s state of nature (nature of being) in the first and second sections of the first part of his discourse. The second part delves more into inequality by tying the state of nature and man’s activities.
According to Rousseau man is fundamentally an animal like any other, differing only with regard to perfectibility. Man, being exposed to nature, is able to learn and develop rational thinking, which guides man's activities. However, in the preceding state of nature, man is unaware of the concept of good and evil because of the diminished level of reasoning or rational thinking. In this regard, Rousseau invokes caution against Hobbes’s conclusion that man in a state of nature (and with the inability to perceive the concept of goodness) is thus “naturally bad”. He supports Mandeville’s assertion that man was accorded pity in order to reinforce morality and the ability to reason. This led to the conclusion by Rousseau that man is driven by pity and the need for mutual preservation in the quest to establish the nature of being.
It is therefore certain that pity is a natural sentiment, which, by moderating in every individual the activity of self-love, contributes to the mutual preservation of the whole species. It is this pity which hurries us without reflection to the assistance of those we see in distress; it is this pity which, in a state of nature, stands for laws, for manners, for virtue, with this advantage, that no one is tempted to disobey her sweet and gentle voice: it is this pity which will always hinder a robust savage from plundering a feeble child, or infirm old man, of the subsistence they have acquired with pain and difficulty, if he has but the least prospect of providing for himself by any other means: it is this pity which, instead of that sublime maxim of argumentative justice, Do to others as you would have others do to you, inspires all men with that other maxim of natural goodness a great deal less perfect, but perhaps more useful, Consult your own happiness with as little prejudice as you can to that of others. (Section II Part I)
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