Hello everyone, here is a small broadcast of reading, today we continue to share, the famous 18th century Enlightenment thinker, The philosophical thought of Rousseau. Rousseau's most famous masterpiece is The Social Contract, which deals with a rational political system. We often hear the word politics, which refers to the behavior and mechanisms of governing a country, but what about political philosophy? What are the problems that political philosophers are concerned with and solve?
Political scientist Jonathan Wolff says political philosophers are concerned with two questions: Who gets what first? That is, the problem of the distribution mechanism of social resources; a question of who has the right to speak, that is, the distribution of political power. We can even more simply say that political philosophy deals with the question of whether the distribution of power, or whether it is reasonable.
Rousseau was certainly not the first thinker to discuss this issue, and the Debate on political topics in the West has a long history, from Plato's "Republic", Aristotle's "Political Science", to hobbes's "Leviathan" and Locke's "Theory of Government" in the modern West, all of which are classic Western political science works. So, before sharing the book Social Contract, today we compare the thinking of three key figures in the field of modern Western political philosophy: Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau.
Hobbes lived in the 16th and 17th centuries, more than 100 years before Rousseau, Hobbes was also the earliest political philosopher in the modern West, and he discussed the formation of the state and the distribution of power in the book Leviathan. Hobbes believed that to discuss how the state originated, it is necessary to return to the natural state of man and see how the entity of the state evolved step by step. Hobbes's answer was: The fear of death led us to create a nation. Let's take a look at how Hobbes came to this conclusion. First, Hobbes's assumption of human nature is that human nature is inherently evil, and Hobbes says that everyone has an innate, continuous attempt to increase power, that is, to take possession of wealth and people.
Second, everyone has the desire to pursue happiness, but the two are in conflict. Because in the state of nature, everyone is roughly equal, and all people have roughly the same level of physical strength and skill, but this equality is fatal, because it means that anyone has the ability to kill others. And in this case, no matter what you have, others may want it, so we must always be vigilant and even always want to get what others have. So, Hobbes pointed out, in the state of nature, no one can avoid the possibility of being attacked, a situation in which everyone is endangered by equality, which Hobbes calls "war of all men against all."
Hobbes said that even if I had nothing, I was not immune from fear. Because others may see me as a threat, I could easily end up being a victim of pre-emptive action. From this, Hobbes argues, from the evil of human nature, the equality of human beings, and the desire for power, the pursuit of happiness, it is deduced that the state of nature will be a state of war. To put an end to this state of fear, people united to create a nation, with a powerful third party, to ensure the safety of all. So, Hobbes pointed out, society is a group of people who are subordinated to the authority of one man, and each person surrenders natural power to this authority to maintain internal peace and resist external enemies. This sovereignty, whether monarchy, aristocracy or democracy, must be a "Leviathan", an absolute authoritarian power, and the role of the law is to ensure the execution of this contract.
Of course, Hobbes put forward this point of view in fact because of the background of his time, in the era of Hobbes's life, the years of civil war and anarchy in Britain, the frequent wars, the lack of livelihood, which made Hobbes deeply aware that there is no worse thing than losing the protection of the state, so we need a strong government to ensure that we are not caught up in the war of all people.
But in Hobbes's theory, two important factors are overlooked, one is the law of nature or primitive moral principles, and the other is human compassion. Later, the philosopher Locke questioned Hobbes, saying that the distinction between the state of nature and the state of war is as different as the difference between the state of peace, goodwill, mutual assistance and security and the state of hostility, malice, violence, and cannibalism, but some confuse the two. Locke believed that even in the absence of a state and government, people could live in peace, because of moral constraints, which Locke called "the laws of nature." In Hobbes's thought, we do anything that is good for our own survival, usually completely rational and free from moral criticism, even if it means attacking innocent people.
Locke, on the contrary, said that although the state of nature is not a state of complete laissez-faire, it has a natural law that governs it, which imposes obligations on everyone. Locke believed that the state of nature was governed by a moral law that everyone could enforce. In addition, Locke believed that all people in the state of nature are equal and independent, and that no one has the right to infringe on the "life, liberty, or property" of others. Therefore, Locke opposed the absolute monarchy, advocated the separation of powers, he put forward the concept of "civil society" in the "Theory of Government", he advocated that the government power should be supervised and balanced, Locke is also known as the "father of liberalism", Locke's theory inspired the later American Revolution and the French Revolution, and his theory had a great influence on the US Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.
Later Rousseau added another factor to the morals of Locke, that is, man's innate compassion or compassion. Earlier I introduced Rousseau's view that in the state of nature, in primitive society, human life is not, as Hobbes described, a war between all men against all, a dark world of violence and cruelty, but on the contrary, an ideal world in which everyone is at ease and living in harmony. In addition to the laws of nature, morality and compassion. The reason hobbes and Locke and Rousseau's views differ so much is because their assumptions are very different: resource scarcity.
Hobbes believed that a key factor in causing people's conflicts and wars was the scarcity of resources in the state of nature, so people fought each other and became enemies in order to survive and pursue happiness, but Locke and Rousseau made another hypothesis, that is, natural resources are not so scarce, and even very rich, such as Rousseau believes that in primitive societies, human beings only need to talk about a small amount of time every day to get the food they need for life, but people will spend a lot of time to pass their leisure time. So, in a nutshell, the societies described by Hobbes and Rousseau in their state of nature are the complete opposite. The political system they propose is also completely opposite, Hobbes proposed an autocratic and centralized political system, and Rousseau proposed a political system of "republic", so what is a "republic", and how does Rousseau discuss his own political philosophy? We will begin with his classic masterpiece, The Social Contract, in the next article.
Well, today's content is this, I will continue to share more later, Rousseau's philosophical ideas, if you like my article, please pay attention to "Small Broadcast Reading", we will see you in the next article.