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Second Discourse of Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The Second Discourse of Jean-Jacques Rousseau deals with the origin of inequality among men. In looking at the savage condition of man Rousseau attempts to identify the specific traits that separate human beings from animals. In physical terms the savage man will perfect those senses that are important to his survival -- he will do this in much the same way that animals do. It is in metaphysical and moral terms that man is truly distinguished from animals. Savage man may have operated in much the same way as the animals but while the animals' choices were based on instinct, human choices could be made by virtue of men being free agents. The animal cannot deviate from nature's rules, even if it would be to his benefit. Men, however, can even make choices that are detrimental to them. Rousseau believed that it was in man's consciousness of this freedom of choice that "the spirituality of the human soul" was shown (148). A second trait which follows logically from the freedom to choose is the human "faculty of perfecting oneself" (149). This faculty, depending on circumstances, develops all the other human faculties and is present in the species as well as in the individual. By perfectibility Rousseau meant that man had the ability to improve on the qualities that he possessed and to pass these improvements on as part of the human heritage.

But the idea of perfectibility also raises the problem of imperfection. After a few months, Rousseau says, the animal is everything that he will ever be and everything that his species will be after a thousand years have passed. But human beings can rise very high and descend, due to old age "or other accidents", to a level even lower than that of the animals (149). The animal always retains all its instincts but the human being can lose those acquired abilities that have raised him above nature. This raises the important question of whether perfectibility is the source of the human ra...

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Second Discourse of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 04:06, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1692435.html