Defending Uselessness: Rousseau’s Harmless and Happy Idleness

Introduction

Idleness is morally and politically problematic. Even if we wish for more free time, it is a conflicted wish. Idle hands are the devil’s workshop, and working, as Judith Shklar argues, is a central duty for democratic citizens (Shklar 1991, 63). In liberal societies at least, working and contributing to the economy is a form of citizenship. At the same time, there seems to be a growing demand for idleness and leisure, and not just from critics of liberalism, but even from the liberals themselves. For instance, Rose argues that we are owed, as a right or entitlement, hours for “what we will” (Rose 2016). But what benefit is there to “free time”? And is it coherent with our duty to be productive? Arguably, no one explains and highlights the conflicts and tensions in the human soul better than Rousseau, and this includes the tensions in the desire for idleness. As Todorov asserts, Rousseau offers three distinct, and potentially contradictory, lives to lead in response to the challenges of human life created by civilization: the citizen, the moral individual, and, most relevant here, the solitary individual who lives a life of idleness (Todorov 2001, 18). ¹ Closely reading Rousseau, therefore, offers us a way to explain our desire for idleness and the promises that may be fulfilled in it, but also helps us recognize, and perhaps resolve, its tensions, such as the tension between idleness and the duties of the citizen and moral individual. Despite these tensions, Rousseau finds idleness defensible, but only if certain conditions hold; and as we will see, those conditions set a high bar for idleness to be both morally defensible and capable of delivering its promises for human happiness. I address those conditions and promises by interpreting Rousseau’s Reveries of the Solitary Walker. ² Rousseau’s final writing should be of interest to us here, as Rousseau there describes his highest happiness comprised of an idle floating in Lake Bienne (Rousseau 1992, 64), ³ and amongst his descriptions of that idleness, also gives a moral and political argument as to its legitimacy.

Though he discusses Rousseau’s idleness at some length, Todorov concludes that it is not the solitary individual, but the moral individual, that Rousseau “recommends without hesitation” (Todorov 2001, 65–66). Though Todorov is justifiably quick to qualify the happiness of the moral individual as “frail,” it is still a curious claim, as the two prominent examples of such a path in Rousseau’s corpus, Emile and Julie, are hardly recommended “without hesitation.” As impressive as the two characters are, Emile still requires governing at the end of his education, and in the Solitaires, we see that Emile’s life cannot summarily be called happy. Similarly, Julie’s happiness is conflicted, and she dies, most likely willingly (see also Okin 1979, 175–76; Slonina 2020, 10). Though the happiness of the idler is also “frail,” Rousseau’s characterization of it as his highest happiness sufficiently suggests that we should take a closer look, a look as long as those often taken at the examples of Emile and Julie.

Aside from the account of idleness and its relationship to happiness, interrogating Rousseau’s Reveries clarifies Rousseau’s concern for nature and freedom. As Schwartz argues, human nature and human freedom, as well as their relation, “are always Rousseau’s central questions” (Schwartz 1984, 142). Beginning with nature, I argue that Rousseau’s idleness is not so much a return to nature as a transcendence beyond, but consistent with, nature. Though it is true that Rousseau’s savage of the Second Discourse is also idle, Rousseau’s personal idleness, and likewise any idleness we could hope for, remains distinct from savage idleness. We have been changed too much by civilization in the development of faculties that were dormant in the state of nature. The composition of our idleness must therefore be different. Idleness is not to be understood as a lack of activity, but a lack of duty and external reward. Further, Rousseau’s development allows him to experience greater happiness, as seen in his experience of the sentiment of existence, the “expansion of being,” and in his use of imagination. However, what connects “civilized” idleness to savage idleness is the reconstruction of natural goodness, especially in the form of freedom from vanity. ⁴

At the same time that idleness demands freedom from vanity, idleness is also the ground of achieving our natural freedom. The freedom of idleness is different from, and even opposed to, the freedom of the citizen, but idleness is how we concretely connect to freedom as inclination of the will, rather than freedom as the fulfillment of obligation. We should already recognize, then, that examining Rousseau on idleness is not a mere academic endeavor. If we wish for idleness today, Rousseau demands we overcome both vanity and duty, both of which, according to Rousseau, are inherent to civilization. Rousseau’s challenge is therefore, at least partly, our own: How do we achieve idleness in a world that demands we not be so? What is promised in that idleness? And is such an achievement normatively defensible?

Solitude

Rousseau’s idleness is of a particular kind, and his idleness necessitates a particular form of solitude as well. The particularity and the necessity of Rousseau’s solitude will thereby be our first clue to Rousseau’s idleness. Let us begin at the middle, with the most famous scene of the Reveries. There, in the Fifth Walk, Rousseau movingly describes the happiest moments of his life as being on St. Peter’s Island (Rousseau 1992, 64), where, among other activities, Rousseau would:

slip away and go throw myself alone into a boat that I rowed to the middle of the lake when the water was calm; and there, stretching myself out full-length in the boat, my eyes turned to heaven, I let myself slowly drift back and forth with the water, sometimes for several hours, plunged in a thousand confused, but delightful, reveries which, even without having any well-determined or constant object, were in my opinion a hundred times preferable to the sweetest things I had found in what are called the pleasures of life. (Rousseau 1992, 66)

Not only does Rousseau describe what he was doing during this peak point of his life, he also describes the nature of the happiness that he experienced:

What do we enjoy in such a situation? Nothing external to ourselves, nothing if not ourselves and our own existence. As long as this state lasts, we are sufficient unto ourselves, like God. The sentiment of existence, stripped of any other emotion, is in itself a precious sentiment of contentment and of peace which alone would suffice to make this existence dear and sweet . . . (Rousseau 1992, 69)

Consider first the circumstances surrounding Rousseau’s float: it is a form of escape from others. He enjoys the company of those on the island, but when the pause for lunch “took too long and good weather beckoned,” (Rousseau 1992, 66) he would make his escape. Rousseau even rows to the center of the lake, which is the furthest point from human civilization. Not only is Rousseau alone here, he also actively leaves the company of others, and gets as far from them as possible.

When the lake is too rough for peaceful drifting, Rousseau sits on a secluded peace of the shore and sinks into a reverie which makes him “feel [his] existence with pleasure” (Rousseau 1992, 67). ⁵ Rousseau must escape others because it is alone that we fully feel the sentiment of existence. He does not feel the sentiment of existence, in these peak moments, in communion or in solidarity with others. To fully feel his being is to feel it in its natural state—which is alone. Rousseau does not say that his reverie led to our experience of our shared existence, but my feeling of my existence (Strauss 1953, 292). Others, therefore, could only distract and detract from this experience of enjoying “nothing external to ourselves” (Rousseau 1992, 69). Interestingly, Rousseau does raise the possibility of experiencing the sentiment of existence as a “sociable man,” though in a weakened form, as it requires the judgment and opinions of others (Rousseau 1964, 179). The happiness found in idleness is certainly not the same as the happiness of the citizen, but they are both manifestations of the psychic unity necessary to human happiness in all its forms (see also Melzer 1990, 45). Most civilized humans are divided against themselves, but the peak of civilian life is found in the wholeness of the social body and common unity (Rousseau 2009, 39–40). Psychic unity is achieved by the citizen in the matching of her desires with the desires of society. And while the citizen will develop vanity, as Cooper persuasively argues, that amour-propre will be of a “wholesome” variety (Cooper 1999, 25). Furthermore, even though the citizen must be denatured, in preferring the needs of society against the natural preference for the self, the citizen still achieves that necessary and original psychic unity. Therefore, while anti-natural in its method, the citizen arrives at natural unity. The unity of the idler is more proximate to our original unity, particularly in being free from obligation, but the idler also goes beyond nature in achieving an expanded sentiment of existence. Thus, while the citizen and the idler follow distinct and contradictory paths, with the citizen’s path being far less “natural,” they only achieve the goal of happiness insofar as they achieve the same goal of unity. As we will see later, this also applies to the “moral” defense of idleness. Rousseau’s idleness is morally defensible, as he does no harm, and this is only possible because of the circumstances of his solitude.

As made clear in the Second Discourse, the sentiment of existence was our first sentiment, existing prior to civilization (Rousseau 1964, 142). To experience it, then, is a way of reaching back to our original condition. Still, the enjoyment of the sentiment of existence, at least to the extent that Rousseau does, is something beyond the capabilities of original man. ⁶ This is what is intended by describing Rousseau’s brand of idleness as a transcendence of, rather than a return to, nature. Rousseau transcends the savage, while remaining coherent with the principles of nature, and avoiding the corruptions of society. The savage may not be miserable like most civilized persons, but Rousseau goes beyond the capacities of the savage to achieve a higher happiness. As will be elaborated below, this is also accomplished in the use of the imagination and in the “expansion of being.”

Though Rousseau’s rowing to the center of Lake Bienne, and his meditation aside it, are repeated activities on St. Peter’s Island, his founding of a rabbit colony is a single act. In this strange and short scene, Rousseau describes himself as a founder, and it is here that we see Rousseau’s most social act on the island. However, even here, we see that it remains more solitary than not. First, Rousseau is only founding a society, not joining one—he leaves the smaller island after releasing the rabbits. The conditions on the smaller island are perfect for the rabbits (Rousseau 1992, 66), which not only speaks to Rousseau’s general pessimism about the chances of founding just and happy regimes (see also, Mendham 2011, 177–78), but it is even more important in its relation to his solitude. Rousseau would not have been interested in this beneficent act if further responsibilities were placed upon him as a result of his founding. After the releasing of the rabbits, it is up to forces outside of himself as to whether they are strong enough to survive the winter (Rousseau 1992, 66). He gives them the best chance to survive and thrive, but washes his hands of the ultimate outcome. This helps demonstrate that it is not simply the presence of or interaction with others that Rousseau dislikes about society, but it is the bounding of his freedom, found in duty and obligation, that is burdensome. As he states in his first letter to Malesherbes, his lazy independence is responsible for the “slightest duties of civil life” being unbearable (Rousseau 1995, 573). Grant is correct to note that social relationships that do not admit of vanity are possible (Grant 1997, 144), and dependence is not itself necessarily to be avoided (Grant 1997, 164), but such relationships are rare and difficult, and solitude is Rousseau’s method of retaining his natural goodness.

We also see his hesitancy with duty in his rejection of charity in the Sixth Walk. Rousseau took great pleasure in helping a disabled boy, but: “This pleasure, having gradually become a habit, was inexplicably transformed into a kind of duty I soon felt to be annoying.” (Rousseau 1992, 74–75). Rousseau’s paranoia comes into play here, but even that is not the primary issue. The primary problem is that the single act of charity transformed into a duty, which undermines his need to follow his own inclination. Continuing to give charity would be done, not because of an in-the-moment feeling of pity, but because of an obligation, which is necessarily at odds with independence understood as passionately following one’s inclination (see also Rousseau 2009, 215). The isolated act of charity, free from duty, is beautiful in much the same way as the isolated reverie is beautiful. Once duty is added, the charm is lost (Cantor 1985, 376; Davis 1999, 195). ⁷

Rousseau is able to follow his inclination in founding the rabbit colony without having later duties. It is for this reason that Rousseau needs to tell us that founding the colony was his own idea (Rousseau 1992, 66). His motivation seemingly comes from a similar place as his desire to help the disabled boy. Rousseau, then, is not strictly alone, but his relations with others lack obligation. As Lane argues, Rousseau keeps “emotional distance” from others on the island (Lane 2006, 483). This is reflective of solitude in the state of nature, but more importantly, this form of solitude is necessary to his idleness, which is also reflective of natural idleness. Social idleness would not allow him to experience the peak pleasures of the sentiment of existence, and, as we will see later, this will also become Rousseau’s central justification for his idleness being morally defensible.

Calming of Reason

Not only are Rousseau’s “thousand” reveries marked by solitude, they are also absent of coherent connection. They are “confused . . . without having any well-determined or constant object” (Rousseau 1992, 66). Later along the shore, he notes that he feels and enjoys the sentiment of his existence “without taking the trouble to think” (Rousseau 1992, 67). There are several stated reasons for the lack of coherent thought found in Rousseau’s reveries: his intellectual powers have waned, he does not derive much satisfaction from the activity, and the results of such thinking would no longer be of benefit to him. However, there is a greater issue underlying or overriding each of those explanations: the human being is not by nature rational (Rousseau 1964, 114). Rousseau is certainly not in the state of nature while on St. Peter’s Island. For instance, he is there with others, and he interacts with and enjoys their company daily. However, nature again is his compass, especially during his moments of reverie. Whereas Aristotle, perhaps the only philosopher who privileges leisure or idleness as much or more than Rousseau in the Reveries, finds theoretical contemplation to be the peak of leisure (Aristotle 2012, 1177b), Rousseau seeks to go beneath, and also transcend, theoretical contemplation in his idleness. He goes beneath by pointing to the primordial person who does not have the ability to reason. However, this is also a transcendence. Being exposed to civilization, Rousseau must overcome the tendency to reason. Being a sentiment, the sentiment of existence cannot be achieved by reason. Rousseau would occasionally feel thoughts and ideas arising in him during his reveries, but he would push them aside (Rousseau 1992, 67). Just as Rousseau must push aside the company of others to achieve the sentiment of existence, he must also do the same with theoretical contemplation. Rather than joining Aristotle in carefully separating leisure from other inferior forms of idleness, like play (Aristotle 2012, 11776b–177a), Rousseau elevates idleness above leisure, and sometimes even denies any difference between the two (Rousseau 1986b, 84).

The difference between Aristotle and Rousseau on this question stems from their disagreement over human nature, and this difference goes far in explaining Rousseau’s insistence on the calming and shaping of reason. Whereas Aristotle finds the development of reason to be a development and fulfillment of our nature, Rousseau denies the necessity of reason, instead arguing that freedom is what separates us from other beings. ⁸ Masters is correct that Rousseau’s emphasis on freedom is what separates him most from classical political philosophy (Masters 1968, 351). However, Rousseau is not alone in this emphasis, and we therefore need to be more precise and separate him from the other moderns that also emphasize freedom. The separation of these two, reason and freedom, is perhaps what most makes Rousseau unique among the moderns. He agrees with Hobbes and Locke that freedom marks our natural condition, but Rousseau is singular in driving a wedge between freedom and reason. Locke also finds us to be a free agent, but reason is part of freedom and he separates it from irrational license (Locke 1988, 270–71). Whereas for Locke, the will must be combined with reason in order to achieve freedom, Rousseau separates those faculties, allowing us to be free without reason. Instead of having its source in reason, Rousseau’s will has its source in the sentiment of existence (Masters 1968, 324). The irrational might be unfree for Locke, whereas the will precedes reason for Rousseau. Our will need not be reasonable, we must only be conscious of it, in the same way that we are conscious of our own existence.

Given the emphasis on the lack of certain forms of rationality, Rousseau’s interest in botany should surprise us. Botany involves investigation and, importantly, classification. This seeming paradox, however, helps us further clarify Rousseau’s transcendence beyond our natural condition. Notice first that Rousseau is careful to separate his interest in botany from the typical way in which the subject is studied. In the Seventh Walk, Rousseau mentions that it is “without profit” and “without progress” (Rousseau 1992, 90). In seeking to understand the plants around him, Rousseau is not hoping to find nutritious plants or those that have medicinal qualities (Kelly 1997, 36; Rousseau 1992, 92–93). Such a concern would not be enjoyable and would undermine Rousseau’s pastoral pleasures: “I even feel that the pleasure I take in wandering through groves would be poisoned by the sentiment of human infirmities, if I were led to think about fever, stones, gout, or epilepsy” (Rousseau 1992, 94). There are two motivations for such a statement. First, there is the psychological fact that undergoing an activity for some other sake undermines the pleasure we derive from it. And second, this comment also seems to be motivated by the deeper concern with living consistent with nature. Though the study of plants may not seem natural given Rousseau’s portrayal of the faculty of understanding as unnatural, this is even more the case when it comes to studying plants for their utility. Rousseau’s enjoyment is a simple delight in curiosity. He does not seek to write books so as to advance humanity’s knowledge on the subject, and he is often re-doing the work others have already accomplished (Rousseau 1992, 90). Aside from being born of sickness (Davis 1999, 217), searching for medicinal qualities involves foresight and calculation, which is the more specific form of reason that Rousseau denies to the savage in the Second Discourse (Rousseau 1964, 117). Foresight, as well as the passions that cause it, are “born only in society” (Rousseau 1986a, 266n1). It is not always reason, simply or generally, that Rousseau finds missing in original man, but foresight that separates the civilized from the savage, and also goes on to make the civilized unhappy. ⁹

Rousseau’s innocence of foresight and calculation is further developed in his experience of time. On Lake Bienne, he is afloat “sometimes for several hours” (Rousseau 1992, 66), but there is both inconsistency and vagueness to his time on the water. Rousseau does not spend a regular span of time adrift, but he instead follows his inclination. In other words, he is not drawn back by his next obligation. Furthermore, the vagueness suggests that his experience operates within a distinct experience of time. His reverie does not arrive like an on-schedule train. It has a different, spontaneous and indefinite, “order” of its own. In both cases, on the boat and along the shore, Rousseau describes himself as “plunged [plongé]” into reverie. We can neither control nor predict its arrival or duration. Night would often surprise Rousseau with its arrival. And if anything bounded his reverie, it was not the discrete time of a watch, but the movement of nature. The setting of the sun told him that he needed to row back to shore, not the time on his watch combined with the feeling of an outside obligation. As Saint-Armand does well to notice, the son of a watchmaker, the sometimes citizen of Geneva, refuses the watch, that “Genevan instrument of measurement par excellence” (Rousseau 2004, 319; Saint-Amand 2011, 67). This scene finds a companion in Rousseau’s description of pre-civilization life, also equipped with an allusion to water, this time describing collection of humans at watering holes:

Imperceptibly water came to be more needed, the cattle were thirsty more often; one arrived in haste, and left with reluctance. In this happy age when nothing recorded the hours, nothing required them to be counted; the only measure of time was enjoyment and boredom (Rousseau 1986a, 201).

Like his solitude, Rousseau’s experience of time connects him to nature, and is a rejection of man-made artifice, but more importantly, its associated obligations and foresight.

Rousseau’s work as an amateur botanist, therefore, is not guided or even marked by a concern for its results. In addition, Rousseau is not seeking to develop a new universal system for posterity. Rousseau does not deny that there is an order to nature, only that he is incapable of completely sorting it out, and that there is great pleasure in feeling the weight of the world around him without fully understanding and systematizing it. Rousseau gives a more detailed account of this in his third letter to Malesherbes:

Soon I raised my ideas from the surface of the earth to all the beings of nature, to the universal system of things, to the incomprehensible being who embraces everything. Then with my mind lost in that immensity, I did not think, I did not reason, I did not philosophize; with a sort of sensual pleasure I felt myself weighed down with the weight of that universe, with rapture I abandoned myself to the confusion of these great ideas. (Rousseau 1995, 579)

The universal system of things exists, then, but Rousseau is hesitant about analyzing it. He often writes of his lowered intellectual powers in the Reveries, but here we see that there is a bigger principle under his lack of a unifying system. In line with our nature being a-rational, Rousseau finds the greatest delight in a sentiment rather than in the experience of great thought. He still uses reason to get him to that sentiment, but he uses it like Wittgenstein’s ladder (Wittgenstein 1998, 6.54): his reason is a means of climbing and achieving a state, after which he can, and must, throw down the ladder of reason. This sentiment of existence allows him to see the greatness of being, but this experience remains a feeling and not an act of reason. In the same way that Rousseau’s account of a legitimate political community involves radical denaturing in order to achieve a natural good, it is Rousseau’s reason, which is foreign to original man, that allows him to achieve the peak of a natural pleasure. Rousseau’s use of reason, then, is further evidence that, while not present in our original condition, it may still be natural. ¹⁰ The use of these faculties opens the door to many threats to our happiness, but their development, in a controlled form, is in line with nature, and Rousseau’s development beyond natural man allows him to experience the sentiment of existence beyond the capability of the savage (Storey 2009, 268).

Rousseau’s interest in botany should further surprise us because it does not initially appear to be idle, as the activity requires motion. It is important that botany does not require a great deal of equipment or an exhausting expense of energy, but Rousseau is not quietly floating in a boat when pursuing his interest in botany, but is moving about the island, is actively searching for particular plants, and is codifying them (Rousseau 1992, 98). There is a work involved in this, and yet Rousseau tells us that botany is particularly suitable to an “idle and lazy solitary person” (Rousseau 1992, 98). Botany remains idle because it is free of utility, and is so in three interrelated senses: it is not profitable for others, it is not profitable for himself, and it does not serve his vanity. The first two have already been discussed. Botany, at least has he practices it, is not intended to cure disease, and, unlike the study of minerals, Rousseau is not seeking to become rich through the discovery of something precious. However, Rousseau’s botany is also idle because he is not seeking to write a book and thereby gain fame, to gain respect from others, or even to teach others. As Grant argues, Rousseau finds multiple sources of corruption (Grant 1997, 143), but vanity is the most important source, and is also itself the root of later corruptions (Grant 1997, 153). To do any of those things would be to undermine the “sweet charm” of his activity (Rousseau 1992, 98–99; Schwartz 1984, 98). The inclusion of outside rewards weakens enjoyment, at least for those lazy and solitary creatures like him.

In sorting through Rousseau’s solitude and his relation to the faculty of reason, we have answered some of our guiding questions. We have found that our desire for idleness is rooted in our nature and is as much a part of our nature as our freedom. The defining features of idleness are solitude, in the form of independence from and lack of obligation to others, and a calming of reason, particularly in relation to foresight and utility. As to the method of attaining idleness, it should now be clear that it is no small task. Rousseau’s idleness requires the renunciation of most of our sociality and its concomitant faculties. Idleness cannot be part-time; we cannot slide in and out of it for a weekend or for a vacation. Weekends and vacations still require foresight, which is revealed in our defense of such forms of relaxation. We say that such relaxation is necessary because it is restorative. But this restoration assumes a purposiveness which is antithetical to Rousseau’s idleness. As such “idleness” is utilitarian, Rousseau cannot abide.

The Expansion of Being

Though we have found a preliminary answer to why we are attracted to idleness, the difficulty of achieving idleness requires us to say more. If we must renounce much of ourselves to become idle, we must say what is to be gained by that idleness. Furthermore, we will also eventually add further requirements when we see Rousseau’s moral defense of his idleness. That Rousseau is happiest while idle has already been discussed, but we must now explain the nature of that happiness, which will be found in the expansion of being and the consciousness of that expansion.

When floating in Lake Bienne, Rousseau is focused on his interior state and its motions. He loses track of time because he is absorbed with his own being. It is not enough to say he is alone—his attention is also focused inward. Botany, on the other hand, is a study of the world outside of ourselves. When it comes to this, Rousseau portrays botany as a way of blending and expanding his being: “I never meditate, I never dream more deliciously than when I forget myself. I feel ecstasies and inexpressible raptures in blending, so to speak, into the system of beings and in making myself one with the whole of nature” (Rousseau 1992, 95). Saint-Amand describes this as a “dissolution” of the self that “coincides with death” (Saint-Amand 2011, 75). However, this is not precise, and we should instead draw the opposite conclusion. The “forgetting” of the self is a blending of our self with other beings; that is, botany helps him experience his being connected to other beings that otherwise seem separate. The self is therefore stretched, and in this way, expanded: “I am nevertheless unable to become entirely wrapped up in my own self, because in spite of my efforts, my expansive soul seeks to extend its feelings and existence over other beings” (Rousseau 1992, 95). ¹¹ Rousseau’s study of plants, then, is not a matter of forgetting the self in favor of other beings, but an expansion and aggregation of those beings into his own. We find an analogue in the citizen. The citizen dismisses personal interest in the name of her country, but it is to identify with something larger. Similarly, the study of common plants on St. Peter’s Island is not simply to forget his troubles, but also to see and experience his being as part of a boundless whole (Cooper 1999; Melzer 1990, 90). As Cooper argues, the extension of being exists for Rousseau as an ultimate end, perhaps even above happiness (Cooper 2008, 153).

This expansion of being, rather than its dissolution, is also clear in the “delicious moment” Rousseau experienced upon regaining consciousness after being run over by a Great Dane:

I was born into life at that instant, and it seemed to me that I filled all the objects I perceived with my frail existence. Entirely absorbed in the present moment, I remembered nothing; I had no distinct notion of my person nor the least idea of what had just happened to me; I knew neither who I was nor where I was; I felt neither injury, fear, nor worry. (Rousseau 1992, 16)

The out-of-body experience makes Saint Armand’s “dissolution of the self” interpretation understandable, but again, the opposite conclusion follows. Despite having no notion of his person, he did not experience death, but instead experienced himself as “born.” ¹² Further, his consciousness did not leave his person to be thereafter dissolved, but it instead “filled all the objects [he] perceived.” If he loses his particularity, it is only to become everything. Making yet another allusion to water, Rousseau’s narration continues:

I watched my blood flow as I would have watched a brook flow, without even suspecting that this blood belonged to me in any way. I felt a rapturous calm in my whole being; and each time I remember it, I find nothing comparable to it in all the activity of known pleasures. (Rousseau 1992, 16)

Reconsidering Rousseau’s floating in Lake Bienne, water is an important source of his expansion. While floating, the water assists his feeling that he is merging with all around him. Even listening to the water on the shore “took the place of the internal movements which reverie extinguished.” While the air preserves his experience of being separate from all things, water becomes the medium of his expansion, where everything merges, as in the river of his own blood.

The expansion of being also requires purity. This is implied in Rousseau’s discussion of expansion’s inverse: being nothing. Consider one of the more striking passages from the Emile:

He who in the civil order wants to preserve the primacy of the sentiments of nature does not know what he wants. Always in contradiction with himself, always floating between his inclinations and his duties, he will never be either man or citizen. He will be good neither for himself nor for others. He will be one of these men of our days; a Frenchman, and Englishman, a Bourgeois. He will be nothing. (Rousseau 2009, 164)

Here, the problem is not failing to feel the sentiments of nature; it is the attempt to exist in both the civil and natural orders. The lack of purity, caused by internal incoherence, means he cannot “be” anything. The Spartan lives a very different life than the solitary Rousseau, but she still “is.” Each life requires a dedication and purity. Therefore, Rousseau’s lack of duty and foresight are necessary to his idleness. Rousseau with duty and foresight would be incapable of reverie alongside Lake Bienne. The melting of his being into others in the forgetfulness of time would be made impossible by the checking of his Swiss watch to mark the return to his Genevan duties. Torn between incompatible lives, he would thereby be unable to feel his being expanded, or even to be anything at all. Despite the seeming death of the self, then, Rousseau not only feels his being partake of everything, he also still feels, and feels a great pleasure, even if that pleasure is found in a calm, unlike the active, ardent, and continual pleasures found in society. There is no experience of a particular self, but of the self in all things. If Rousseau experiences anything like death, then, it is only to become like God (see also Grace 2001; Rousseau 1992, 69).

The overriding theme of Rousseau’s reveries in and alongside Lake Bienne is a turn, but not a re-turn, to nature. His experience of time is not of the man-made clock, but of the setting of the sun. Further, his reveries lack reason. Ideas sometime threaten his reveries, but the reveries themselves are confused and without order and coherence. Built into this lack of reason is freedom. While on the island, Rousseau follows his will and is only loosely attached to the other inhabitants on the island. He does not renege on responsibilities, and thereby do harm, because he does not enter into those obligations in the first place. Aside from the lack of duty adding to his moral defense, this lack of responsibility allows him to follow his inclination. As he states in his Letters to Malesherbes, his soul had a natural tendency toward laziness, and this laziness was indelibly tied to, and was even a cause of, his passion for freedom (Rousseau 1995, 573). However, we should not let this point end as a statement about Rousseau’s personal and unique nature, for this is a facet of human nature generally, according to Rousseau. Starobinksi makes this point well: “By setting himself in opposition to others, Rousseau is not seeking merely to impose his own unique personality; he is making a heroic effort to live in accordance with universal values: freedom, virtue, truth, and nature” (Starobinski 1988, 40). Rousseau states the naturalness of idleness directly in a note in his Essay on the Origin of Languages:

The extent to which man is naturally lazy, is simply inconceivable. It would seem that he lives solely in order to sleep, to vegetate, to remain motionless; he can scarcely decide to go through the motions required to keep from dying of hunger. Nothing sustains the savages’ love of their state as much as this delicious indolence. The passions that cause man to be restless, provident, active, are born only in society. To do nothing is man’s primary and strongest passion after that of self-preservation. (Rousseau 1986a, 266)

The early society of the family, it should be noted, while part of the movement away from nature, still produces great leisure. That first division of labor allows for greater accumulation of resources. This eventually takes away from our leisure in complex economies, as noted in the Second Discourse, but its initial result remains leisure (Rousseau 1964, 147).

As Meier does well to notice within this theme of going beyond, and not simply returning, to nature, Rousseau’s idleness is also a positive achievement, not just a negative one (Meier 2016, 15–16). Though Meier points to the achievement of nature and meditation as the positive achievement, the expansion of being also shows us that the development and exercise of the imagination plays a crucial role. If we were to read only the Second Discourse, we would come away with a wholly negative view of this faculty. The savage does not have this capacity, but once the human being develops it, the physical desire for sex transforms into a desire for love, creating much of our later ills (Rousseau 1964, 135). However, in the Reveries, we see Rousseau make good use of the imagination. Combining these seemingly contradictory treatments in a coherent fashion is possible once we examine the more complete discussions of imagination in the Emile and the Confessions.

If the imagination were simply an evil development, our task would be to stifle its growth, but we need to examine the following passage from the Emile:

In what, then, consists human wisdom or the road of true happiness? It is not precisely in diminishing our desires, for if they were beneath our power, a part of our faculties would remain idle, and we would not enjoy our being. Neither is it in extending our faculties, for if, proportionate to them, our desires were more extended, we would as a result only become unhappier. (Rousseau 2009, 80)

The goal is, therefore, not to stifle our faculties, but to guide them (see also 325). It is without coincidence that Rousseau immediately goes on to mention imagination, the “most active of all” faculties, which expands what is possible for us, “whether for good or bad” (80-81). Todorov argues that the solitary individual “inhabits the body” (Todorov 2001, 18). This, I think, stems from an undue conflation of the idler with the original human. The savage may inhabit the body, but Rousseau, through the extreme exercise of the imagination, transcends the body. Meier’s analysis rings truer, writing that the imagination liberates Rousseau “from the bonds of the body and thus from bondage to space and time” (Meier 2016, 133). Furthermore, this controlled use of the imagination is not limited to the philosopher. Melzer makes this point starkly: “The whole point of Emile, for example, is to show that a man could develop his foresight, imagination, and reason without destroying his natural goodness” (Melzer 1990, 54n8). This point, combined with the great dangers suggested in the Second Discourse and elsewhere, suggests that the imagination is responsible, not just for great unhappiness, but for expanding our happiness as well.

Is Idleness Morally Defensible?

So far, we have seen the various ways in which Rousseau’s idleness removes him from citizenship (see also Gauthier 2006, 175). Furthermore, Rousseau’s interest in idleness has its partial basis in circumstances that make citizenship impossible for him. And here, unsurprisingly, we must sort through yet another seeming paradox: this time between disparate claims regarding uselessness and harm. The question here is no longer the possibility of achieving idleness and all that it promises, but is whether it is morally defensible. The standard here, as always throughout the examination of idleness, is nature. Just as the standards of happiness and the sentiment of existence require disparate lives for the idler and the citizen, the same original standard of morality applies in very different ways to the idler and the citizen. The most important “moral” ¹³ principle of nature is the duty to not harm. This principle follows from the natural sentiment of pity, which suggests an amended form of the Golden Rule: “Do what is good for you with the least possible harm to others” (Rousseau 1964, 133). Being a natural duty, Rousseau must therefore answer to this principle, and if idleness is to be defensible, it must satisfy this condition (see also Shklar 1985, 46).

At the end of the Sixth Walk, Rousseau writes: “Their wrong, then, was not to turn me out of society as a useless member, but to proscribe me from it as a pernicious member. For I admit that have done very little good; but as for evil, my will has never in my life entertained it, and I doubt that there is any man in the world who has really done less of it than I” (Rousseau 1992, 84). Alone, this argument is clear and reasonable enough. Rousseau admits that he has been useless, but denies that he has done any active harm. In this way, there seems to be little evidence of his idleness contradicting the supreme duty to not harm—his existence was neutral, and his relationship with civil society is therefore not troublesome.

However, this position is made difficult by a statement in the First Discourse: “it is a great evil to fail to do good, and every useless citizen may be considered a pernicious man” (Rousseau 1964, 49). The language is consistent, suggesting that this connection was intentional (Gourevitch 2012, 507). However, looking closely at the context of the claim in the First Discourse, which is the effect of science on society, science is shown to be malevolent because it goes beyond idleness:

Did I say idle? Would to God they really were! Morals would be healthier and society more peaceful. But these vain and futile declaimers go everywhere armed with their deadly paradoxes, undermining the foundations of faith, and annihilating virtue. They smile disdainfully at the old-fashioned words of fatherland and religion, and devote their talents and philosophy to destroying and debasing all that is sacred among men. (Rousseau 1964, 50)

The “idle” actively work to destroy common morality. Science and philosophy have an inherent tendency to treat common morality and religion with disdain (Black 2009, 175–76). As expressed in the Reveries, however, Rousseau seems to portray himself as truly idle. Whereas the scientists and philosophers discussed in the First Discourse publicly disapproved of common morality, Rousseau is removed from civil society on St. Peter’s Island. Thus, even if Rousseau finds virtue to be an unworthy goal for his own life, his lack of vanity keeps him from undermining it in others. He does not publish his thoughts on the system of nature, and, so he says, he never intended to publish the Reveries. This supposed lack of interest in publishing the Reveries often baffles readers, but the line of interpretation presented here suggests that it has to do with his lack of vanity. They are intended for his own reading and reflection, to “double” his existence through reading them (Rousseau 1992, 7), and not for any vain wish (Butterworth 1992, 160). We must, then, introduce an addendum to his position in the First Discourse: to fail to do good is to do great harm, but only for those that are vain. Most philosophers and scientists are too vain to let common morality and virtue be. Meanwhile, Rousseau is truly idle (Strauss 1947, 478), which allows him to fail to do good without also doing great harm, at least while he is solitary on St. Peter’s Island.

The best evidence of true versus false idleness is solitude. As Saint-Amand notices, idleness is only presented as good by Rousseau when solitude is also present (Saint-Amand 2011, 60). Solitude, at least in the form of being removed from “cultured” civil society, is necessary because its opposite, social idleness, must always be other-directed. As Rousseau explains in his Confessions, social idleness is a “forced labor.” Social idleness, therefore, is always false idleness. Solitude is not only evidence of true idleness, it also acts as a remedy. As Rousseau states more clearly in his Letter to D’Alembert, solitude calms the soul and appeases the passions that social life creates (Rousseau 2004, 256).

Of course, we can question Rousseau’s sincerity as to his lack of vanity. There are a few passing references to a “flash of pride” in the Reveries, such as when he imagines himself, incorrectly, in a location no other human has trod (Rousseau 1992, 100). Furthermore, Rousseau claims that the Reveries are for his own enjoyment, but he likely knew they would be published eventually. However, we should keep two distinctions in mind. First, a “flash of pride” should not be conflated with a vain state of being for the same reason that a single desire for cake does not make one a glutton. Not all forms of amour-propre are the same, with Rousseau separating a positive pride from a negative vanity (Rousseau 2011, 154). Additionally, we should take seriously Rousseau’s discussions of his relative lack of vanity described above, such as his practice of botany, which was done for its own experience, rather than the pride that would come from publishing a system of botany. As Kelly persuasively argues, the Confessions and the Reveries offer the possibility of overcoming vanity (Kelly 1987, 73; see also Cooper 1999, 25). And second, even if Rousseau experiences occasional twinges of pride, which he certainly seems to, his circumstances keep that in check. As suggested throughout, Rousseau’s circumstances are crucial to his idleness, and are so in a variety of ways. For instance, his persecution partly explains his inability to be good for others and enforces his solitude. But more importantly here, his circumstances limit his vanity. Looking again at the “flash of pride” cited above, this event occurs precisely because he thought “persecutors could not unearth” him in his “refuge unknown to the whole universe” (Rousseau 1992, 100). He quickly realizes he is not in as remote an area as he thought, reminding him that his persecutors could reach him. Thus, even if we doubt that Rousseau has internally overcome vanity, his circumstances, through his persecutors, as he says in the First Walk, have forced him to give up any hope of present, or even future, pleasure in society (Rousseau 1992, 4). He may occasionally forget, but he is quick to remember. Solitude, which is enforced by Rousseau’s persecution, becomes, as Davis notes, “its own solution” (Davis 1999, 127). Even if persecution partly explains Rousseau’s inability to do good, the resultant solitude keeps him from doing harm, and allows the fulfillment of the happiness to be found in idleness. While this explanation may make Rousseau seem fickle, this is consistent with his story of humanity. What makes people develop vanity is the movement out of the state of nature—that is, accidental circumstances. Rousseau may have capacities beyond the average person, but he remains subject to the same pressures. We said earlier that Rousseau’s sentiment of existence made him “like” God. However, while he may be, in those moments, like God, he is human.

That Rousseau’s defense of his idleness is made, in part, to his unique circumstances, should not surprise us. As we saw, idleness is not the only solution presented by Rousseau. Part of Rousseau’s claim is that a combination of his individual character and political circumstances led him to idleness, whereas different circumstances may have led him to citizenship. If led to citizenship, his idleness would have been unjustified. However, citizenship is likewise conditional in its justification. Though it is civilization that is to blame for our disunited souls, modern politics makes unified existence near impossible, as it is built upon self-interest, which is, by definition, a denial of citizenship in the form of identifying completely with society (see also Melzer 1990, 79–80). This too becomes the partial basis, and likewise circumstantial defense, of the private education in Emile.

The lack of luxury is a second standard of authentic idleness. Luxury is born in idleness, but also nurtures idleness in turn (Rousseau 1964, 50). Luxury is a great vice because it requires us to forget virtue. Luxury leads to the dissolution of morals, which in turn leads to poor taste. Artists are vain, making their art worse in times of luxury, where appeals are to the lowest common denominator. However, Rousseau claims to not be infected with vanity, meaning his work does not appeal to the tastes of the masses. Rousseau’s idleness, therefore, is true idleness, which does not harm in the way of the false idleness of most scientists and artists. He claims to still have deserved being thrown out of society, but not because he commits great harm that undermines the virtue of the citizen. His idleness implies that he does not actively support virtue, which gives citizens the right to banish him, but he adds a wrinkle to his earlier argument that idleness is evil and pernicious.

Cantor, in a study of Rousseau’s preoccupation with botany, makes that case that Rousseau carves out the aesthetic as an autonomous realm (Cantor 1985, 363). This is true in the sense that Rousseau does seem to find some goods contradicting other goods. The idler of the Reveries cannot also be the citizen of the Social Contract. But Cantor’s claim is untrue if it is taken to mean that the standards of some goods are completely separate from the standards of other goods. As the no harm principle of the Reveries makes clear, Rousseau still requires a defense of the idle life that is consistent with his defense of other lives. We cannot be both the idler and the citizen—the two lives are certainly very different, and the citizen could not also be an idler—but they share the same foundational standard (see also Cooper 1999). Even further, though the idler cannot be the citizen, Rousseau’s justification is in the face of the claims of the citizen. The citizen claims that the idler does harm in doing no good, and it is precisely that claim that Rousseau answers between the First Discourse and the Reveries.

Conclusion

Rousseau’s Reveries paint a complicated picture. While setting up an ideal of sorts, with its claims to peaks of happiness, its value is certainly conditional, and conditional in three ways. First, it is conditional in terms of capability: Rousseau achieves true idleness because of his freedom from vanity, obligation, and foresight. Though his intellectual powers have waned, he is also aided by his great imagination, which allows him to experience and enjoy the sentiment of existence and extend his being. Second, it is conditional in the sense that it is in tension with other goods. Rousseau misses out on the value of the citizen. However, this does not imply that he is exempt from answering to the citizen, which leads to the third way that the value of idleness is conditional: it is morally and politically conditional. Not only does Rousseau need to be capable of true idleness, he must also defend his way of life as not immoral. He accepts that he is useless, but ultimately denies that he is harmful.

On the surface, Rousseau’s idleness seems easy. While Aristotle requires a supportive political regime in order to achieve leisure, Rousseau merely flees to beautiful Lake Bienne. And yet, after closer examination, Aristotle’s fundamental changing of the regime may sound like the easier path. There are a number of boxes to check on the way to achieving defensible idleness. We must possess great abilities and natural goodness, as idleness is more than the irresponsible pushing away of duties, and still more than the rejection of the “goods” found in civil society. Salkever correctly notes that “circumscription,” closing ourselves off to certain desires and pleasures, is necessary for Rousseauian happiness (Salkever 1978, 40). Many of those “goods” found in civil society, such as honor, may be false and rely upon vanity, but it nevertheless requires a certain type of soul to not be tempted, or at least be capable of pushing aside those temptations, and to do so in favor of the standards of nature. Rousseau’s persecutors help him here, but without natural goodness and the ability of great imagination, the greatest pleasures of idleness will not be open to us. Finally, but built into the above discussion, we must also ensure our idleness does not harm, which itself is surprisingly and exceedingly difficult to accomplish. The test of this is whether we are truly interested in, and can be satisfied with, solitude. Most are not, and seek to, at best, profit from their “idleness,” or, at worst, harm others by undermining others’ attachment to virtue and piety. We may, therefore, be free to travel to St. Peter’s Island with a clear conscience, but the cost of admission is beyond what most of us are capable of paying, or even willing to pay.