Rousseau's Natural State Analysis

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In political theory we have covered readings of many authors that all have their own opinions on how a government should be run and what the purpose of having a government is. Most of the political theorists we have read about inform us of a person’s natural state or how they act while not among a civil society. In the natural state that each political theorist creates, he is able to create his hypothesis of how a government should be setup in the transition from a natural state to a civil society. Whether to preserve the natural state of man or to place laws against man’s natural state is the main question for the political theorist. I believe that Rousseau does the best job of answering this question because of his creation of the social
When a man attempts to gain everything he desires, he enslaves himself under his own natural rights. Rousseau states that “Men are not naturally enemies, if only for the reason that, living in their primitive independence, they have no mutual relations sufficiently durable to constitute a state of peace or a state of war.” (pg. 160) Rousseau believes that in nature man also has no personal relations amongst people and they live to simply fulfill his desire to what he wants. For example, if a man was in possession of the last apple that another man wanted, the one man would attempt to steal the apple. The attempt to steal the apple is not in an act of competition but to obtain what he wants. A person in nature does not have the right to property so he is unable to become more powerful with the possession of an object. Once a person moves from their natural state to a civil society he is placed under Rousseau’s social contract. Rousseau states that “man is born free, everywhere he is in chains.” (pg. 156) A free man who swears into the social contract is now restricted under the “chains” created by the general will of the people. The general will is the rational idea of how a persons behavior should be guided. A man no longer acts upon what his natural urges and instead makes his decisions in the favor of the general

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