Rousseau on needs,language and pity: The limits of ‘public reason’

Frederick Neuhouser ( 2008) Rousseau’s Theodicy of Self-Love: Evil, Rationality, and the Drive for Recognition, pp. 197-8. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Ibid. p. 195.

Rawls himself claims that the ‘idea of deliberative reason’ he attributes to Rousseau anticipates that which he calls ‘public reason’ . Cf. John Rawls (2007) Lectures on the History of Political Philosophy, ed. Samuel Freeman , p. 231. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1959-95) ‘Du contract social; ou, principes du droit politique’, in Œuvres complètes, 5 vols, ed. Bernard Gagnebin and Marcel Raymond, vol. 3, pp. 371-2. Paris: Gallimard, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade. Eng. tr.: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1997) ‘Of the Social Contract’, in The Social Contract and Other Later Political Writings, ed, and tr. Victor Gourevitch. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. The Eng. tr. contains the pagination of the French edn.

Rousseau (1959-95, in n. 3), ‘Discours sur l’économie politique’, in Rousseau (n. 3), vol. 3, p. 243. Eng. tr. Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1997) ‘Discourse on Political Economy’, in The Social Contract and Other Later Political Writings, ed. and tr. Victor Gourevitch. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. The Eng. tr. contains the pagination of the French edn.

Rousseau (n. 4), p. 243.

Ibid. pp. 248 and 252-3.

Rousseau (n. 3), p. 439.

Immanuel Kant ( 1991) ‘An Answer to the Question: ‘‘What is Enlightenment?’’’, in Political Writings , 2nd edn, ed. Hans Reiss , tr. H. B. Nisbet, p. 55. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Ibid. pp. 56-7.

John Rawls ( 2001) Justice as Fairness: A Restatement, ed. Erin Kelly , p. 89. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Ibid. p. 92.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Robert Derathé (1948) Le rationalisme de Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.

For an attempt to assert the importance of needs as a political concept in the face of the dominance of a rights-based discourse which can be linked to the Kantian tradition of political philosophy, see Lawrence Hamilton (2003) The Political Philosophy of Needs. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1959-95) ‘Essai sur l’origine des langues. Où il est parlé de la mélodie et de l’imitation musicale’, in Rousseau (n. 3), vol. 5, p. 380. Eng. tr.: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1997) ‘Essay on the Origin of Languages in which Something is Said about Melody and Musical Imitation’, in The Discourses and Other Early Political Writings, ed. and tr. Victor Gourevitch. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. The Eng. tr. contains the pagination of the French edn.

My account of Rousseau’s views on language is thus limited in scope. For a broader discussion of Rousseau’s account of the origin of languages in relation to his own use of language, see Jean Starobinski (1988) ‘Rousseau and the Origin of Languages’, in his Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Transparency and Obstruction, tr. Arthur Goldhammer. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. For an account of Rousseau’s depiction of spoken language as a condition of being able to persuade others, rather than convincing them by means of reasoned argument, see Christopher Kelly (2003) Rousseau as Author: Consecrating One’s Life to the Truth, pp. 66-9. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Rousseau (n. 16), p. 378.

Ibid.

Ibid. p. 380.

Ibid.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1959-95) ‘Discours sur l’origine et les fondemens de l’inégalité parmi les hommes’, in Rousseau (n. 3), vol. 3, p. 148. Eng. tr.: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1997) ‘Discourse on the Origin and the Foundations of Inequality among Men’, in The Discourses and Other Early Political Writings, ed. and tr. Victor Gourevitch. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. The Eng. tr. contains the pagination of the French edn.

Rousseau (n. 16), p. 395.

Ibid. p. 406.

Ibid. p. 401.

Ibid. p. 405.

Rousseau nevertheless seeks to explain the differences between the Southern and the Northern languages in terms of the idea that the former have their origin in the passions while the latter are said to have theirs in human need. When it comes to the Southern languages, Rousseau appeals to the fourth of the explanations listed concerning the formation of societies, since he begins by referring to the meetings which must have begun to take place between girls coming to fetch water for the household and young men coming to water their herds at the same source. In time these meetings gave rise to new sentiments in these young people and the desire to communicate them to each other. These sentiments were those of love, which gestures alone could not properly express but only a voice accompanied by passionate accents. On this basis, Rousseau concludes that ‘in mild climates, in fertile regions it took all the liveliness of the agreeable passions to start men speaking’. Rousseau (n. 16), p. 407. He thus appears to think that, although people would have already been driven by their needs to unite and form societies prior to the development of the Southern languages as national languages, they could have relied on gestures alone to satisfy their needs insofar as their satisfaction required that people cooperate with each other. It is therefore not the case that the young lovers develop a new, particular language, namely that of love, on the basis of a pre-existing national language which originally arose on the basis of human need. Rather, this national language itself develops on the basis of the lovers’ new language. Rousseau’s account of the essential differences between the Southern and the Northern languages makes it hard to tell, in fact, whether he is attempting to explain the origins of spoken language as such or, as the title ‘Essay on the Origin of the Languages’ implies, the origins of particular families of languages. Rousseau claims that song and speech have a common origin (Rousseau (n. 16), p. 410). Moreover, he occasionally appears to want to suggest that all human beings at first spoke a poetical and musical language, so that ‘languages were songlike and passionate before they were plain and methodical’. Ibid. p. 381. He immediately qualifies this statement, however, stating that it is not valid without exception. This qualification can be seen as an expression of Rousseau’s recognition of the difficulties involved in reconciling this claim with what he has to say about the origin of the Northern languages.

Ibid. pp. 407-8.

Ibid. pp. 408-9.

Ibid. pp. 381 and 425.

Rousseau appears to question the benefits of languages becoming more rational, as is shown by his claim that, ‘In proportion as needs increase, as [men’s] dealings get more entangled, as enlightenment spreads, language changes in character; it becomes more precise and less passionate; it substitutes ideas for sentiments [il substitue aux sentimens les idées], it no longer speaks to the heart but to reason . . . language becomes more exact, clearer, but more sluggish, more muted and cold’. Ibid. p. 384. Rousseau sees this process, whereby language achieves greater clarity but, in so doing, loses its emotive character, as being reinforced with the invention of written languages and grammatical rules.

Ibid. p. 429. Earlier in the same chapter Rousseau also claims that in ancient times ‘persuasion occupied the place of force’ whereas today ‘public force [la force publique] replaces persuasion’. Ibid. p. 428. Loss of freedom can therefore be largely explained in terms of fact that instead of persuading people to accept certain laws and measures, it has become necessary to coerce people in modern societies into accepting them. Similar ideas are expressed in the later Social Contract, in which we encounter another unfavourable comparison between modern Northern societies and ancient Greek society in the following claim: ‘Your harsher climates make for more needs, six months of the year you cannot stay out on the public square, your muted languages cannot make themselves heard in the open, you care more for your gain than for your freedom, and you fear slavery less than you fear poverty.’ Rousseau (n. 3), p. 431. Rousseau here introduces another reason as to why genuine democratic politics may not be possible in modern northern European societies, namely, the lack of desire to stay outside during the cold winters, together with another explanation as to why persuasion is no longer enough, which is that people’s self-interest will prevent them from wanting to engage in political activity, which requires some degree of self-sacrifice.

Martin Rang ( 1965) Rousseaus Lehre vom Menschen, 2nd edn. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.

Ibid. p. 179.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1959-95) ‘Emile ou de l’éducation’, in Rousseau (n. 3), vol. 4, p. 481. Eng. tr.: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1979 ) Emile or on Education, tr. Allan Bloom, p. 203. New York: Basic Books. Page numbers of the Eng. tr. hereafter given in parentheses.

Ibid. p. 417 (pp. 157-8).

Ibid. p. 344 (p. 107).

Ibid. p. 481 (p. 203).

Ibid. p. 486 (p. 206).

Ibid. pp. 313-14 (p. 87).

Ibid. p. 515 (p. 222). Rousseau’s account of the natural sentiment of pity here recalls what he has to say about it in the Second Discourse, in which pity is described as ‘a natural repugnance to seeing any sentient Being, and especially any being like ourselves, perish and suffer’. Rousseau (n. 22), p. 126. It is therefore said to precede all reflection in a human being. Ibid. p. 154.

Rousseau (n. 16), pp. 395-6.

Rousseau (n. 35), pp. 505-6 (p. 223).

In Emile we also encounter an awareness of the important role that spoken language plays in human relations. In this work, language is seen to develop at a very early stage, one that does not go beyond mere sensation. For, in line with his understanding of the origins of the Northern languages, Rousseau views language as having its origin in the needs that the child, whose condition is one of ‘want and weakness’, cannot satisfy by itself, so that language finds its first expression in ‘complaint and tears’. Ibid. p. 286 (p. 65). This language made up of cries of pain and distress caused by unsatisfied needs is gradually replaced by words that serve to express that the child is in pain. Ibid. p. 299 (p. 77).

The question arises as to whether the different things that Rousseau has to say about pity are compatible with each other. One problem relates to Rousseau’s identification of pity in the Second Discourse as a principle that is independent of self-love and which, moreover, corrects the feeling of self-love by limiting it (Rousseau (n. 22), pp. 125-6 and 154). In Emile, by contrast, he came to treat pity as an extension of self-love. One suggestion as to how we might reconcile the earlier with the later position is that self-love and pity are both modifications of a single, more basic form of self-love. Cf. Iring Fetscher (1968) Rousseaus Politische Philosophie: Zur Geschichte des demokratischen Freiheitsbegriff, 2nd edn, pp. 64-5. Neuwied am Rhein: Luchterhand. Another issue concerns the way in which pity is described in the Second Discourse as a natural sentiment prior to all reasoning, whereas Rousseau seems to adopt a more intellectual conception of pity in the Essay on the Origin of Languages and Emile, when he claims that it requires reason and judgement. It has been argued that this contrast is present in the Second Discourse itself, and that it can be explained in terms of the different forms pity takes in primitive man, on the one hand, and in civilized man, on the other. Cf. Victor Goldschmidt (1974) Anthropologie et politique: Les principes du système de Rousseau. Paris: Vrin.

Rousseau (n. 35), p. 520 (p. 233).

Whether the pupil in Emile experiences pity for others for the right reasons is another matter, for he is described as positively enjoying his experience of pitying others. Ibid. p. 514 (p. 229). Rousseau’s psychology of pity also makes pity depend on the fact that the person who pities another person is not suffering, leading him to associate the sentiment of pity with a form of pleasure. Rousseau claims that pity ‘is sweet because, in putting ourselves in the place of the one who suffers, we nevertheless feel the pleasure of not suffering as he does’. Ibid. p. 504 (p. 221).

Rousseau (n. 3), pp. 360-1.

Whether Rousseau’s theory of the social pact is really able to overcome the problem of unequal relations of dependence, given his own understanding of this problem, is another matter. For a discussion of this issue, see David James (forthcoming) ‘Rousseau on Dependence and the Formation of Political Society’, European Journal of Philosophy.