Rousseau's State of Nature: The Natural Man and the Origin of Inequality

Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s account of the state of nature, developed in his Discourse on the Origin of Inequality (1755), is one of the most original and most controversial contributions to the modern theory of human nature. While Rousseau on the Origin of Inequality examines the Discourse in detail, this article focuses on the conceptual content of the state of nature itself: what Rousseau meant by it, how it differed from the versions developed by Hobbes, Locke, and Pufendorf, and the influence of Rousseau’s distinctive account on subsequent thought.

Rousseau was not the first modern philosopher to develop a theory of the state of nature. The concept had been used by Hugo Grotius, Thomas Hobbes, Samuel Pufendorf, and John Locke to describe the hypothetical condition of human beings before the establishment of civil society. But the four thinkers developed very different accounts of the state of nature, and their differences shaped the subsequent development of the social contract tradition.

Hobbes had argued that the state of nature was a state of war, in which life was “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” The proper response, on Hobbes’s view, was the establishment of an absolute sovereign authority to enforce peace. Locke had argued that the state of nature was a state of equality, in which the natural rights of individuals were protected by the law of nature, even if the protection was not always effective. The proper response, on Locke’s view, was the establishment of a limited government to protect the natural rights. Pufendorf had developed a more moderate version, emphasizing the sociability of human nature and the natural tendency to form families and political communities.

Rousseau’s account of the state of nature was very different from any of these. Where Hobbes had emphasized the war of all against all, Rousseau emphasized the peace of the solitary natural man. Where Locke had emphasized the natural rights of individuals, Rousseau emphasized the natural goodness of human beings and the natural freedom that they enjoyed in the absence of civil society. Where Pufendorf had emphasized the natural sociability of human beings, Rousseau emphasized their natural solitude and their self-sufficiency.

The Natural Man

The natural man, for Rousseau, is a solitary, peaceful, and happy creature. He has few needs, and he is able to satisfy those needs without depending on others. He is not aggressive or violent, because he has nothing to fight about. He is not competitive or envious, because there is no basis for comparison. He is not proud or vain, because there is no one to impress.

The natural man has two main characteristics that are anterior to reason and society: the love of self (amour de soi) and the pity (pitié). The love of self is the natural concern for one’s own well-being, which is not the same as the selfish amour-propre that develops in civil society. The pity is the natural repugnance at the sight of the suffering of others, which is a kind of pre-rational moral sentiment.

The natural man is also characterized by a kind of freedom that is not available in civil society. He is not subject to the arbitrary power of other human beings, and he is not subject to the artificial opinions and values of society. He is, in this sense, naturally free, and his freedom is the standard by which Rousseau measures the injustices of modern life.

Rousseau’s Distinctive Contribution

Rousseau’s account of the state of nature was distinctive in several important respects.

The first distinctive feature is the radical idealism of the account. Where Hobbes and Locke had developed accounts of the state of nature that were intended to be plausible reconstructions of how human beings actually lived in some early stage of human history, Rousseau’s account was a much more idealized construction. The natural man, as Rousseau described him, was a creature of the philosophical imagination, and the state of nature was a standard for the critique of modern life rather than a description of any actual historical condition.

The second distinctive feature is the emphasis on the natural goodness of human beings. Where Hobbes had argued that human beings are naturally selfish and aggressive, and where Locke had argued that they are naturally reasonable and peaceable, Rousseau argued that they are naturally good — that the original natural man is free, peaceful, and happy, and that the corruption of human nature is the result of the development of civilization rather than of any inherent defect in human nature.

The third distinctive feature is the use of the state of nature as a critical standard. Where Hobbes and Locke had used the state of nature as a foundation for the justification of political authority, Rousseau used it as a standard for the critique of political authority. The state of nature, on Rousseau’s view, was a condition of natural freedom and equality that had been lost in the development of civil society, and the proper response to the corruption of modern life was the development of political institutions that would allow human beings to recover some of the values of the natural condition.

The Influence of Rousseau’s Account

Rousseau’s account of the state of nature has had a profound influence on the subsequent development of modern thought. The German Romantics, the various communitarian thinkers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the contemporary environmental movement, and the various contemporary critics of modern industrial society have all drawn on Rousseau’s account in their critiques of modern life.

The account has also been an important source of the modern anthropological study of human societies. The work of Lewis Henry Morgan, the early work of the anthropologists of the nineteenth century, and the various contemporary efforts to understand the development of human societies have all drawn on the kind of hypothetical history that Rousseau developed in the Discourse on the Origin of Inequality. The contemporary anthropological debate about the nature of the “primitive” societies and the proper understanding of the development of human civilization is, a continuation of the debate that Rousseau began.

The State of Nature in the Social Contract Tradition

The Natural Man

Rousseau’s Distinctive Contribution

The Influence of Rousseau’s Account

Further Reading