‘Liberty’ only a simple word?
The whole world speaks about freedom. The call for freedom is as old as mankind itself. The first man, who was born into the world, already carried the ‘cry for freedom’ in his heart without realising that the demand for freedom was becoming the main idea in the era of Enlightenment and of the French Revolution. Once we had developed the intellect and the awareness to understand what it means – to be free – we immediately started to lose it again. These may have been the words of a great man (between genius and insanity). I’m talking about Jean – Jacques Rousseau – a ‘human soul’ full of colour and interesting faces, scarred for his whole life by the damning circumstances of today’s world, ostracised and pursued in most stages of his life, respected all over the world – only after his death.
„I know my heart, and have studied mankind; I am not made like any one I have been acquainted with, perhaps like no one in existence; if not better; I at least claim originality, and whether Nature did wisely in breaking the mould with which she formed me, can only be determined after having read this work..“ (Rousseau, 2006 : 12)
I think he was right: he is definitely not like anyone else. His thoughts – full of audacity an ingenuity. His heart – full of emotion and passion. His pessimism – a strong reminder to the people of his time. When we are reading Rousseau’s writings then we are not simply reading his writings – but rather the story of his life.
In this essay I want to convey an impression to the reader of Rousseau’s concept of liberty, but also with the consciousness that I cannot fulfil its complexity within a few pages. Rather I want to raise the reader’s awareness for the ‘Reveries of a Solitary Walker’ (philosopher, educator and political thinker). We are all writing a part about ourselves, when we are writing about Rousseau and in doing so we can learn a lot about our own personality. Liberty in Rousseau’s understanding is not only a simple word – it’s an all-encompassing attitude towards life.
‘The Savoyard Priest’
In the ‘Creed of a Savoyard Priest’ we gain an insight into the metaphysical portrayal of the fundamentals of humans liberty. Rousseau develops a radical contrary position towards the contemporary materialism in this part of the Emile.
Firstly, the priest describes, according to Descartes, his experience of uncertainty and the state of radically doubt, which is essential to the search for truth.
“I exist, and I have senses through which I receive impressions. This is the first truth that strikes me and I am forced to accept it.” (Rousseau, 2011: 286 )
While we grasp our own existence as such, we are also making a crucial step towards the widening of our conscious mind and also one step further on the way to the search for truth.
“My sensations take place in myself, for they make me aware of my own existence; but their cause is outside me, for they affect me whether I have any reason for them or not, and they are produced or destroyed independently of me. So I clearly perceive that my sensation, which is within me, and its cause or its object, which is outside me, are different things.“ (ibid.: 286)
He does not only acknowledge the existence of his own personality, but rather also of other entities, which he calls the ‘objects of his mind’. Everything that he feels outside of himself and which acts upon his senses, he calls matter (ibid.). Furthermore, he discovers the power of his sensation and finds his mental ability to compare them before he finally comes to the conclusion that “to perceive is to feel; to compare is to judge; to judge and to feel are not the same things“. (ibid.) The fact, that man is able to compare things shows awareness and therefore the activity of the process of thinking and for Rousseau that is sufficient proof of freedom. The process of thinking and its consequences must be the result of a special cause:
“(…) inanimate bodies have no action but motion, and there is no real action without will. This is my first principle. I believe, therefore, that there is a will which sets the universe in motion and gives life to nature.“ (ibid.: 290)
This is the prime dogma of the savoyard priest and the first article of his creed. He goes further:
“I will do something and I do it; I will to move my body and it moves, but if an inanimate body, when at rest, should begin to move itself, the thing is incomprehensible and without precedent. The will is known to me in its action, not in its nature. I know this will as a cause of motion, but to conceive of matter as producing motion is clearly to conceive of an effect without a cause, which is not to conceive at all.“ (ibid.: 291)
Finally his thoughts lead him to his second creed.
“If matter in motion points me to a will, matter in motion according to fixed laws points me to an intelligence; (…)“ (ibid.: 292)
Because of our human behaviour and our sophisticated manner of comparing things in the universe we are characterised as an active and intelligent thinking being – this is the proof of our existence. Consequently, in Rousseau’s opinion, men have a special position in the universe because of their unique will and their free actions which results from their selfawareness.
“It is true, therefore, that man is lord of the earth on which he dwells; for not only does he tame all the beasts, not only does he control its elements through his industry; but he alone knows how to control it; by contemplation he takes possession of the stars which he cannot approach. (…) Wretched soul, it is your gloomy philosophy which makes you like the beasts; or rather in vain do you seek to degrade yourself; your genius belies your principles, your kindly heart belies your doctrines, and even the abuse of your powers proves their excellence in your own despite” (ibid.: 296)
Men, as the most intelligent being on earth, should be anxious by nature to love and cherish that, which was given to them by God. After all the nature – thought in proportion, harmony and peace – goes to the other extreme: chaos – confusion – disorder. The power given by God became the ‘evil on earth’. Men’s passions and sensations flow into a nasty game – man is a ‘free’ slave of his senses.
“No; man is not one; I will and I will not; I feel myself at once a slave and a free ma; I perceive what is right, I love it, and I do what is wrong; I am active when I listen to the voice of reason; I am passive when I am carried away by my passions; and when I yield, my worst suffering is the knowledge that I might have resisted. (ibid.: 297)
Finally, the personal autonomy plays an important role. Because of the fact that the individual will is independent of humans’ senses, man has the free choice to decide if he will yield to his passions or if his pure reason will be the winner.
“When I blame myself for this weakness, I listen to my own will alone; I am a slave in my vices, a free man in my remorse; the feeling of freedom is never effaced in me but when I myself do wrong, and when I at length prevent the voice of the soul from protesting against the authority of the body.” (ibid.: 299p.)
The human reason enables man to make comparisons and to deduce his judgments from it – it is the same with the freedom of man. If we make the right judgment, we choose the royal road to all good things at the same time; but if we make the wrong judgment, all bad things reveal themselves to us. It is our cognitive capacity which lets us choose one way or another. Therefore, the cause is grounded in ourselves. It follows the third creed of the Savoyard Priest:
“Either there is no original impulse, or every original impulse has no antecedent cause, and there is no will properly so-called without freedom. Man is therefore free to act, and as such he is animated by an immaterial substance; that is the third article of my creed.” (ibid.: 300)
So it is also up to men to decide what is good and to oppose bad thoughts in his mind. Nature gave them the freedom and the natural talent to want the ‘good’ – but in the end it will never prevent men from making bad decisions.
In conclusion, Rousseau initiated a positive notion of freedom with the third creed of the Savoyard Priest, while humans have the capability to act out of themselves. Now we have to ask the questions: How have men actually lived in natural autonomy (as long as it has ever existed). And which stages of development did he experience before he divested himself of that natural good? How did the transition from the state of nature to the modern, civilised society take place – a state whose chains are ultimately put on by man himself?
‘The Roots of Liberty and the Loss of the Natural Autonomy‘
While Rousseau was writing the second Discourse, he had a France in his mind, in which the social downfall seemed to be unstoppable. As a ‘child of his time’ he digested all impressions of the society with a clearly culture pessimistic ‘handwriting’. At the heart of the second question, proposed by the ‘Academy of Dijon’ , is the analysis of human anthropology. In Rousseau’s opinion it is necessary to know humans nature itself before you can deal with the question of ‘the origin and the foundation of the inequality among mankind’.
He constructs a pre-social state, the ‘homme naturel’, and describes man’s development into a civilised being in the ‘homme civilisé’. The theory of the existence of a ‘state of nature’ should be seen as a comparison with the present society and not as a demand to go backwards to a natural fabric which has probably never existed (Gülbahar, 2000: 42pp.). It follows a reflection of pristine mankind, its real needs of beneficiaries to work out what the ‘divine will’ has created and what human hand pretends to have created. Rousseau makes a distinction between two species of inequality among men: firstly, the natural or physical inequality, which is established by nature and consists in the difference of age, health, bodily strength and the qualities of the mind or of the soul; and secondly, the moral or political inequality, which is the main reason for men’s misery, because it is anxious for the privileges of the riches, the scholars and powerful people – in the end a social malady of the poor and weak people. Rousseau characterised man in the state of nature as the following:
„[…]always walked on two feet, made the same use of his hands that we do of ours, extended his looks over the whole face of nature, and measured with his eyes the vast extend of the heavens “ (Rousseau, 2004: 5)
The natural selection decides, who will survive (he, who has a strong constitution) and who will be killed (he, who has a weak nature). The body of the ‘wild men’ is wild men’s only instrument – the instrument to survive. Unfortunately, the men of our days are in a delirious state of their own sensations and have forgotten to use their natural strength. Men in the state of nature wear a robust and almost unalterable amour, which protect them loyally and faithfully from all unnatural diseases. The only enemies are the natural infirmities – infancy, old age and sickness of every kind. In civilisation “we inflict more diseases upon ourselves than medicine can supply us with remedies“. (ibid.:8) Man is going to be weak, fearful and martial once he is looking for a life in society and becames the slave of the civilisation. While the animal always goes by its natural instinct and steer the course that have been prescribed to it, man on the other hand diverges from the rules laid down for him by his detriment. As already shown in the ‘Creed of the Savoyard Priest’, man is, because of his independent will, free in his actions, which also means that he consequently does not always decide on the best path with regards to his own life. Another difference between man and beast is the ‘faculty of improvement’ (perféctibilité). Whereas a beast is, after a few months, the master of its natural faculties, man always aspires to greater things during his whole life. Here you can find the ‘root of the evil’. Because of the perceived endlessness of human’s faculties, man progressively walks away from his original condition and “at long run, renders him both his own and nature’s tyrant.” ( ibid.: 12) At first, savage man is inferior to nature relying purely on instinct and lived with functions that are merely animalistic. His soul lives from plain sensation [“to will and not to will, to wish and to fear” (ibid.: 12)] until his wants to develop, kindle his passions and improve his reason – the desires of savage man never extend beyond his physical wants:
“(…) he knows no goods but food, a female, and rest; he fears no evil but pain, and hunger; I say pain, and not death; for no animal, merely as such, will ever know what it is to die, and the knowledge of death, and of its terrors, is one of the first acquisitions made by man, in consequence of his deviating from the animal state“ (ibid.: 12)
Savage man is not anxious to give up his wildness. His humility is the reason why it is easy to fulfil all necessary wants for his self-preservation. His heart asks nothing from him and his soul rests in its pure existence – he doesn’t know any sorrows or needs. That means that man in this condition is only able to feel rather to reflect these feelings. In the state of ‘pure feelings’, human’s inner life is still not made for profound emotional relations. They just contact other beings of his species for the reason of self-preservation. To sum up Rousseau’s main thoughts regarding to men’s life in the state of nature, it is an unworried and satisfied life in absolute autarky.
After all of this we come to the decisive turning point. For the reason that in humans nature the drive to perfectibility is inherent, he has to find a way to advance his faculties. Coincidently, he has to learn to communicate with others to express his interest towards them. Thinking implies the development of a common language – to master a language implies thinking.
“The first language of man, the most universal an most energetic of all languages, in short, the only language he had occasion for, before there was a necessity of persuading assembled mulitudes, was the cry of nature“ (ibid.: 17)
With the birth of speech moral relations also become closer. Now, man is reaching a crossroads between his natural behaviour and the step into the fatal floods of passion, which is an unavoidable result of human life as a community. The only virtue of humans given by nature is, as Rousseau believes, that of natural pity.
“In fact, what is generosity, what clemency, what humanity, but pity applied to the weak, to the guilty, or to the human species in general? Even benevolence and friendship, if we judge right, will appear the effects of a constant pity, fixed upon a particular object: for to wish that a person may not suffer, what is it but to wish that he may be happy“
All social virtues and moral relations emerge from the natural pity. With the increasing distance of the original condition of human beings the pity loses its expressive power at the same time when man makes use of his reason. It is reason that engenders self-love, the philosophy establishes loneliness – man becomes egoistic and thinks: “You may perish for aught I care, nothing can hurt me.” (ibid.: 24) Rousseau characterises the pity as a natural sentiment which moderates the activity of self-love in every individual and keeps the whole human species alive. It is like a natural law, which stands for manners and virtue in the state of nature. The individuals base their lives intuitively on the maxim of natural goodness: “Consult your own happiness with as little prejudice as you can to that of others” (ibid.). That is also the proof that Hobbes was wrong with his assumption that man is evil by nature, because he has no concept of goodness. Moreover, Rousseau assumes, that savage men had no notion of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ nor any idea of justice, because his reason is still not ready to teach them its meanings. Finally, all passions, which make humans forget their original nature arises from the pity. The strongest and most spiteful character of all passions has the feeling of love which seems capable of destroying the human species. Such moral ‘degenerate’ emotions we find only in an advanced society. Savage man by contrast is a being:
“wandering about in the forest, without industry, without speech, without any fixed residence, an equal stranger to war and every social connection, without standing in any shape in need of his fellows, as well as without any desire of hurting them, and perhaps without ever distinguishing them individually one from the other, subject to few passions, and finding in himself all he wants (…) savage man thus circumstanced had no knowledge or sentiment […]“ (ibid.: 27)
The origin of oppression and slavery can therefore not be rooted in the state of nature – Rousseau only sees this phenomenon in civilisation. Furthermore, savages cannot know the meaning of domination and servitude (this presupposes dependency) – he only enjoys his life in natural autonomy as his own master. Thus, the inequality between man and man in the state of nature is hardly perceivable; so the root of all evil rests at the ‘foot of civilisation’. Now that we know how savage man differs to the civilised being, we consider the heart of misery.
“The first man, who, after enclosing a piece of ground, took it into his head to say, „”his is mine“, and found people simple enough to believe him, was the true founder of civil society” (ibid.: 30)
To ‘own something’ establishes ‘property’; property establishes ‘richness’ and ‘poverty’; poverty and richness imply domination and power – the birth of inequality and slavery. When man was about to gain property he was still so far alienated from his original condition that nothing could stay as it was. In this stage of civilisation man is no longer only anxious about his sentiments; he is going to perfect his faculties. Now, the era of progress has started – the heart is going to be softened; families arise and exist as the first little societies and with them the typical roles of the sexes. Man in society is going to be lazy; he forges tools, to become more lazy – body and mind lose their assets. In addition to the families whole peoples emerge – unified through morals and culture – where in former times forest existed.
The savage, who was once so free, is going to be a part of a social fabric – far away from the unworried life in autarky. Humans no longer only want to eat, sleep and hunt, they want to possess – more than others; they want to be pretty – prettier than others; they want to be able – more able than others; they want to love and to be loved – in the end leading to their own misery driven by jealousy, envy, vanity and shame. Ferocity crosses the country; the natural pity seems to be no longer adequate to protect humans from themselves. The equality of men is history; they became interdependent when they decide to cooperate with others. They cultivate fields in the community and divide them among themselves. The first law, that arises from here, will be called the ‘right of property’, which could not have been wanted by nature. Because:
“The man that had most strength performed most labour; the most dexterous turned his labour to best account; the most ingenious found out methods of lessening his labour; the husbandman required more iron, or the smith more corn, and while both worked equally, one earned a great deal by his labour, while the other could scarce live by his.”(ibid.: 40)
Dependencies were formed; self-love became selfishness – closely followed by a martial condition and the destruction of humans. The highest level of inequality is reached when the most powerful man in the state becomes a despot and only the ‘right of conquest’, which in Rousseau’s opinion is no right at all, sets the rules of society’s life – this is state of nature, which Hobbes describes as “war of all against all”.
Rightly, you could ask yourself now if men were really born free, as Rousseau maintains. As we have seen in the Second Discourse, the desire to perfectibility was a natural desire, which ends in social dependence with the outburst of passions. Therefore men gave birth to the ‘chains of misery’. Finally, mankind is standing on the abyss of despair and so we have to ask the question: “How does man can save himself from his self-destruction?”
‘ Political Freedom – Civil Virtue through the Social Contract ‘
The result of the second discourse is very dark – the forthcoming task is even more difficult. How can the true social life of humans be arranged one, which is not based on a relation of ‘ruler’ and ‘ruled’ but rather which allows the sovereignty of the people to take its proper place? Moreover, an identity of the individual and the common will must be established to transform the state of war into a social environment ruled by morality and humanity. Slavery cannot have been wanted by nature, because strength and power do not produce a ‘right’ in its natural meaning – legitimate authority between people relies only on contracts. A free man could never ‘alienate’, ‘sell’ or throw his liberty away on somebody else because it belongs to them and no one has the right to dispose of it.
“To renounce liberty is to renounce being a man, to surrender the rights of humanity and even its duties. For him who renounces everything no indemnity is possible. Such a renunciation is incompatible with man’s nature; to remove all liberty from his will is to remove all morality from his act.” (Rousseau, 2010a:8)
The self-preservation of mankind requires, that all people unite and find a form of communal life, in which everyone only obeys himself. Everybody sings his individual rights over, his property and his strength to the community and therefore he accepts a role subordinate to that of the highest authority – the ‘volonté générale’ or ‘gerneral will‘. As a consequence, a synthesis of individual and common will results, so that therefore law and liberty can also be realised coincidently – a society, in which “right means power and power means right” (Neumann, 2000: 153); everybody is immediately going to be a part of a great racial corpus. In the end you will find a social structure, in which every individual is as free as before the social contract. Natural freedom of men will be substituted by civil freedom in his role as a ‘citoyen’ – “each man, in giving himself to all, gives himself to nobody” (Rousseau, 2010a:12). Furthermore, every citizen is bound in a double capacity: firstly, as a member of the sovereign he is bound to the individuals; and secondly, as a member of the state to the sovereign. Everyone’s individual security is protected by the collective so long as the body consists in its unity.
[i]“[…]whoever refuses to obey the general will shall be compelled to do so by the whole body. This means nothing less than that he will be forced to be free […]”(ibid.: 14)
While man gains ‘civil liberty’ he also gains a ‘moral liberty’, that brings the true ‘master of himself’ to life. The obedience to a law, which we prescribe to ourselves is liberty – liberty with the meaning of a free agreement of free people. The civil liberty will be lifted in a transcendend sphere of higher human morality – the ‘general will’ (according to Immanuel Kant’s categorical imperative); the law functions as a bridge to gain civil virtue. For this reason the inalienability of sovereignty is an essential point of Rousseau’s theory. You cannot devolve a political and, coincidently, morally justified will – it holds the social and collective bond together. The will of people (and therefore also the will of the sovereign), can only be practised by the will of people; this justifies the theory of absolute sovereignty of people. Consequently, the ‘general will’ is also inalienable:
“[…] for will either is, or is not, general; it is the will either of the body of the people or only of a part of it. In the first case, the will, when declared, is an act of Sovereignty and constitutes law; in the second, it is merely a particular will, or act of magistracy – at the most a decree.“(ibid.: 19)
Emile -The Circle of Liberty ‘
Just to remember: The transition of men’s natural liberty via the loss of that freedom through the ‘chains of our passions’ lead to “a form of association which will defend and protect with the whole common force the person and goods of each associate, and which each, while uniting himself with all, may still obey himself alone, and remain as free as before” (ibid.:11).
After we have understood, why ‘man is born free’, he is going to resign to the course of nature, become a slave of his passions and, driven by reason, he finally accepts that he will only reach his individual perfectibility if he would subordinate his personal interests to the volonté générale in favour of the common good, we should ask at this point how man obtains after all the faculty and knowledge to live up to expectations of a good and loyal citizen of peoples community. In a word: by education. Unfortunately, this question cannot be a part of this essay; a fact that I deeply regret!
When we write about the Social Contract, we also partially write about education; and when we talk about education we must also talk about the Social Contract. It is not a coincidence that both works were published in the same year. The process comes full circle with the education of a child so that he can become a free and virtuous citizen. Rousseau’s concept of liberty find its solution in the ‘Emile’.
You have to look at Rousseau’s complete works to appreciate his thoughts (of an impetuous freethinker), fears (especially of the cultural decay under the influence of the French absolutism) and dreams (life in a free society, which maybe just Geneva came close) and to understand this philosopher and his appeal to his friends and foes, the admirers and the envious, fellow-citizens and rulers and finally to all his readers. In the end there is a path which may lead you in many different directions and it is up to the reader, which one he chooses.
In the end I will tell him: “While you are reading Rousseau, you are reading in your heart. You will find in his works what your desire hopes to find.”
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