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This 3 page paper gives an overview of Rousseau's "Second Discourse" in which he discusses the origins of civil society. Bibliography lists 1 source.
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3 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_HV2ndDis.rtf
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inequality. Like the First Discourse, Rousseau wrote this paper in response to a question from the Academy of Dijon; the members asked, "What is the origin of inequality among men;
and is it authorized by the natural law?" (Delaney, 2006). While Rousseaus first paper was highly regarded, the second was not a success (Delaney, 2006). The Second discourse is typical
of Enlightenment thinking, since it rejects the idea that human beings are "naturally social" (Delaney, 2006). Like Hobbes and Locke, Rousseau understands that society is an invention, an artificial construct,
and he "attempts to explain the nature of human beings by stripping them of all of the accidental qualities brought about by socialization" (Delaney, 2006). If we are to truly
understand human beings, Rousseau argues, we have to understand them as they appear in a "pure state of nature" (Delaney, 2006). Rousseau, however, is somewhat contradictory in explaining what exactly
this natural state might be; on one hand it seems that he does not mean this to be a "literal historical account"; on the other, some sections of the Discourse
seem to be a true historical record (Delaney, 2006). "Some of the stages in the progression from nature to civil society, Rousseau will argue, are empirically observable in so-called primitive
tribes" (Delaney, 2006). And so we cannot know precisely what Rousseau meant by these definitions. The first part of the Discourse describes this state of nature, which for Rousseau is
"radically different" from that of his fellow Enlightenment thinkers (Delaney, 2006). For Hobbes, man in a state of nature lives a life that is, in the famous quote, "nasty, brutish
and short" (Delaney, 2006). Men in this state are in a state of constant war against all their fellow men, resulting in the deplorable condition Hobbes described (Delaney, 2006). But
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