171 Final-Rousseau, Marx, Mill, Toqueville

Natural law understood by the Romans, moderns, and Rousseau

Romans: Rules for common preservation of animate beings, applied indiscriminately to men and other animals

Moderns: Has many unique definitions based on vague, complex principles, applied to moral beings

Rousseau: Believes modern law of nature can only be understood by a select few who have undergone/developed in an enlightenment. States that natural law is based on two principles: self-preservation/wellbeing, and an apathy for seeing others suffer (pity)

Rousseau-rules of natural right

Everyone attends to their own wellbeing while causing minimal harm to others

Natural inequality

Physical inequality (size/age)

Moral inequality

Inequality concerning ideas, i.e. wealth, power, fame

Self love (amour de soi)

An innate motive, the desire to do what you need to do to survive→limited by pity

Amour-propre

Not to be confused with self-love, the desire to be seen positively by others for the qualities/things you value in yourself, develops during Age of Gold

Perfectability

Capacity/potential to develop reason

Pity

Pain at the sight of other’s suffering

Rousseau-natural goodness of man

Pity keeps men in SofN from causing unnecessary harm

Maxim of reasoned justice

Do unto others as you would like them to do unto you

Rousseau: maxim of natural goodness

Do your good with the least possible harm to others

Three moments in state of nature, divided by three revolutions

1. Pure state of nature: first revolution brings about family, settlement, languages, man focuses on true needs exclusively

2. Gold Age (Nascent Society): Birth of amour propre, evil, competition/consideration/deception, second revolution brings about division of labor, claims to property, economic growth, material dependence for survival. Amour propre can manifest as greed/ambition, bringing about…

3. State of War: all against all war, reason>pity, ended by third revolution: civil society established by consent, government is established with collective holding sovereign

Three moments in civil society and the transitions that divide them

1. Civil society without government: body politic establishes fundamental, general laws by consent and reciprocal agreement

2. Legitimate government: Established by consent, magistrates w/ power in political scenarios, elective democracy that follows 3 rules:

   1. follow general will

   2. individual wills conform to general will

   3. support, not just protect, public need

3. Despotism: Created by corrupting, compounding inequalities, and sustained by ambition of leader to lord over others and lower officials to rule over those below them

General will

Body politic addressing common good making laws

Rousseau’s origin of property rights

The general will-the first civil society was established when someone took claim to land and everyone else agreed

Rousseau-fundamental maxim of political right

“If he have a prince, it is so that he may preserve us from having a master”→people elect leaders to preserve themselves from enslavement

Rousseau-domestic (private) economy

“Government” of the household, where, for instance, paternal power is rightful→consulting one’s heart is rightful

Rousseau-Political economy

To be profoundly dictated by general will, specifically by leader through laws→teaching individuals to act consistently with their own judgement, consulting heart as a leader is treasonous

Sovereignty: Rousseau v. Hobbes

Rousseau: collective possess sovereignty and apply it according to general will (including electing leaders to some extent)

Hobbes: Leader (King) is sovereign and possesses arbitrary, absolute power: leader creates “good laws”

Government: Rousseau v. Locke

Rousseau: Government furnishes and supports public need instead of just protecting it

Locke: Protecting right to property through stable, clear law and fair punishment

Agree that public possesses some level of sovereignty, electoral powers of some sort

Three rules of political economy

1. Follow general will

2. More specific wills should align with general will

3. Support/provide for public need, don’t just defend it

Rousseau’s virtue

Conformity of individual wills with general will

Tocqueville’s social state

Regime

Tocqueville’s democracy

Social state of equality

Tocqueville’s aristocracy

Social state of legitimate, natural inequality (not degrading if you don’t acknowledge leader), and is never returning

Tocqueville’s popular sovereignty

Furnishes “happy equality” of democracy

Advantages of small states, large states, federal systems

Small states: efficiency/convenience, easier to issue/execute law and also to attain democracy (Rousseau: Geneva)

Large states: administrative decentralization furnishes liberty and makes people feel like they’re “owners”
Federal systems: allow big state powers to be controlled in one place while also delegating power to smaller areas and allowing individuals to feel like they are owners

Marx: four aspects of alienation

1. Workers are alienated from the product of their labor

2. Workers are are alienated from production—it becomes an ends to a means rather than the satisfaction of a need

3. Workers are alienated from their “species-life” as humans. They do not make nature their (individual) organic body for survival

4. Workers are alienated from each other.

Species being/life

Humans live freely by their own will and consciousness. They wake up and want to make the world a better place, and use the raw materials of nature to survive and better their lives.

Crude, unthinking communism

First stages of communism post revolution. Abolition of private property, nationalizing, no inheritance, heavy taxes, all should work, abolition of family. Still sees some living a capitalist life. Communism with marriage

Complete communism

More developed communism, after division of labor has been overcome. “Riddle of history solved,” meaning inequality and self-understanding, living with meaning and plentitude in harmony

Three aims of communist revolution

1. Abolish private property

2. Abolish family

3. Abolish the country/nationality as it’s known

Marxist idealism

How the material world adheres to ideas, considers sensuous human activity

Materialism

All institutions stem from economic activity of the ruling class

Historical materialism

Humans are producers: thus, history begins when human beings begin to produce

Dialectical movement of history

Next historical movement arises from preceding one

• first good→then a problem→replaced

Marx-Ideology

Has no history since it is only the reflections of the ruling class at each age

Base

Material structure

Superstructure

Everything that follows base

Marx-The state/political power

Organization/organizational power of the means of production

Bourgeoisie

Owners, 1%

Proletariat

“Enslaved” wage workers, 99%

Capital

Wealth that grows as it is circulated

Classical conceptions of property

Tribal ownership, undeveloped division of labor with low population and lots of uncultivated land

Develops into communal/state ownership, many tribes joining together in a city→communal private property of citizens keeps them associated and above growing population of slave

Feudal property

Hierarchical ownership of land, with serf labor and labor as a whole becoming property of owners/lords

Utopian socialism

A socialist state without any control or conflict resolution

Scientific socialism

Socialism as an inevitable outcome of dialectical history

Mill: social tyranny

Repression/judgement of others’ opinions, requires moral conviction not to practice

Abstract right

A right without understanding why it is important/a right, i.e., no causation

Mill-Utility

Usefulness i.e. the benefits of freedom

Utilitarianism

Actions in proportion with happiness as the end goal and only value

Harm principle

The only rightful societal interference in individual’s freedom is to prevent harm to others

Self-regarding actions

Actions that only effect the individual conducting them

Other-regarding actions

Others that effect (harm) others

Freedom of speech, press

Defense against overbearing individuality, freedom of speech leads to discovery of the truth

1. no one knows the truth

2. censorship could prevent the truth from being discovered

3. no one idea is the complete truth

Spirit of liberty

Not too sure it’s right

Dead dogma

Undebated truth that is held as prejudice

Mill-Freedom of action

Individuals are free to pursue their own good up to the point that it harms others

Rousseau-economic freedom

Free market is essential for human progress, intervention when many are in need

Individuality

Recent expression from new idea, in its wrong form, erroneous judgement leading to apathy and withdrawal from society. Not the same as selfishness