Rousseau's Romantic Idealism And Contradictions In His Work

Monika Mahmutovic (301180032)

WL 306 Summer 2015

Instructor: Dr. John Whatley

July 08, 2015

Presentation Summary: Rousseau, his Romantic Idealism, and Contradictions in his Works

(Overview)

There are a couple of things that I want to do throughout this presentation, which includes (1) giving a more in depth and detailed overview of Romantic Idealism, as espoused by Jean-Jacques Rousseau; (2) but then, I am also going to point out some of the conflicting commitments that he see seems to have in some of doctrines and theories, and some of the tensions that then arise between these commitments to the preceding Age of Reason and his new theories; (3) I finally want to suggest how a lot of these theories as well as their contradictoriness inspired

the emergence of the transcendental idealists (i.e. Kant).

What is Romantic Idealism?

Romanticism in philosophy is a movement within a much larger and incredibly complex tradition in philosophy that was developing during the Modern period—the Age of Enlightenment.

Now, Romanticism is very commonly thought of as being a reaction to various other schools of thought in philosophy that are commonly attributed to the preceding Age of Reason. This extends to branches of metaphysics and epistemology such as rationalism, empiricism, scientific rationalism, etc. (Bristow). Though this is a gross oversimplification, and indeed, many of these traditions did continue into the Enlightenment (and actually play crucial roles in the development of Enlightened thought), we can nevertheless understand Romanticism as being rather unique in this movement.

Importantly, what Romanticism continues to be concerned with is science, but it is important to note that one of the more prominent topics for inquiry here was the “science of man” (Bristow). Thus, cosmology, along with being the science of the origins of the universe, was also thought to largely concern itself with humanity’s place in the

universe.

Importantly, scientific rationalism and empiricism sought to understand the universe in terms of mechanistic interaction and deterministic causal laws. Likewise, though, they sought to understand the human, or at least the human mind, as having some sort of elevated or privileged position in the cosmos—after all, the human was characterized by self-assertion and self-awareness (Bristow). This was the rational mind.

But then, self-awareness and self-assertion was also key to the Romantics’ understanding humanity and its rightful place in the world. Nevertheless, this is where Romanticism begins to differ. Whereas many of the proponents of scientific rationalism and empiricism had an atomized conception of the universe (not all however; again, this is a gross generalization and oversimplification), the romantics attempted to gain an understanding of the world as a unity.

Rousseau and Romantic Idealism

This is where Rousseau enters into this conversation, in a way.

For Rousseau, the only way he thought we ever could have a sense of morality and ethics was through understanding our world via a unified whole and subjectivism (Christopher).

Rousseau quite famously wanted to resist the previous understanding of the world that was sprouted by the scientific movement, whereby the world was merely constituted of a series of atomized entities. Not so for Rousseau (or any other idealist for that matter). One thing that was borrowed here from the empiricists was that the world was relative to the perceiver and therefore subjective. A subjective understanding of the world therefore can actually give us insight and knowledge of the moral.

It is difficult to see on the face of it, but Rousseau begins to justify his positing that subjectivism is the groundwork for our knowledge of morality once he posits his belief that human beings are naturally good (Christopher). With this, Rousseau is essentially refuting the Hobbesian thought that the state of nature is essentially the “war of all against all” (Hobbes XIII.9). Rousseau took this to merely be justified the tyranny (Rousseau, Social Contract 4), and indeed he accused quite a number of philosophers of this in The Social

Contract.

Once he has this, Rousseau (in two texts namely the Discourse on the Origins of Inequality and Second Discourse) outlines two instinctive drives to all creatures: (1) the amour de soi (self-love), and (2) pitié (compassion or pity). What this means is that our subjective nature to the world will drive us to tend to our own needs for the purposes of self-preservation. But at the same time, our knowledge of our own plight, in a sense, makes us compassionate to the plight of others (Christopher).

Rousseau, then, in The Social Contract wants to set up a kind of model society for a utopia based on what he will call the general will. The general will is divided into three subcategories, which is the private will (characterized by selfishness), the collective will (characterized by participation in the will of the society as a citizen), and the corporate will (characterized by the will of a subset of the populace) (Christopher).

To most of us, this will be immediately alarming, because given Rousseau’s commitment to subjectivism, there is no such thing as objective moral standards; and yet, he is trying to create a universalized good in society. He thinks that as long as a society remains uncorrupt (which to him is the origins of evil) then these three kinds of will, which make up the general will, can function to maintain an innocence in society. As soon as a community finds that a system becomes corrupt, they are free to discard it, and start anew to recreate a ‘good’ social system.

Problematically, the nature of “natural goodness” is never explicitly cashed out with Rousseau (Christopher), and consequently is left ambiguous and therefore problematic for being the groundwork of a moral system.

Transcendental Idealism

Kant famously, for these very reasons, wanted to reject much of Rousseau’s theories, most of all the Discourse on the Origins of Inequality as well as Emile. Kant did not think that humans were naturally good. In fact, according to him they could not be, and self-interest was precisely evidence for this. One of the underlying fears for this is that without a stricter code or groundwork to base and guide a moral system, communal interest and considerations could and would too often be trampled by self-interest.

Kant’s move then is to discard this thought that any ideally moral society can be based on some subjective standard of goodness (i.e., the general will), where the members of the society determine what they consider to be good or immoral and corrupt (Rohlf). In order to avoid this, Kant believes that some objective standard for understanding goodness is required (Rohlf).

He then divides goodness into two categories, namely the purely good will, and relativized goodness. Now, purely good will is ultimately determined by doctrine that he refers to as the categorical imperative. Kant explains that this categorical imperative is going to be a universalized standard of goodness that importantly is objective (Rohlf).

Importantly, for Kant, maxims will in general be subjective, that is, they are courses of action that are determined by subjective goals and desires. However, the categorical imperative is determined by an objective universalized maxim, which ought to be completely void of our personal desires, goals or emotive states. Essentially, what Kant thinks is that goodness ought to be carried out for its own sake, and not for any independent or personal selfish interests we might have—it is doing good for the sake of goodness itself (Kant 6-7).

In contrast to pure good will and the categorical imperative, Kant finds that the nature of relativized goodness (which is akin to Rousseau’s general will with respect to its subjectivity) is inherently corruptible, as it is a goodness that is relative to the individual and their personal gains or profits. This for Kant, rather than being groundwork for a utopia, is in fact the source of radical evil (Rohlf).

One could question how the categorical imperative truly provides any such objective, universal standards to guide moral systems, and whether Kant has really avoided the subjective instability of Rousseau’s framework. But Kant, in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals establishes a doctrine which determines the manner in which we as humans can determine and identify other individuals who are deserving of being treated with the equal respect that we ourselves enjoy. Kant posits that when are faced with any rational being (i.e., a creature that is capable of autonomous decision making and reasoning), they can be held responsible for their actions and from certain obligations within a society. But once we consider someone as burdened with responsibility, then they are likewise entitled to and owed respect by other member of that community.

Thus, Kant, unlike Rousseau, does not offer a social contract that is centered on individuals’ self-interest, which is then moderated (hopefully) by compassion. Instead, what we get is a much stricter social contract, that is shaped and regulated by objective codes and obligations that are universally applicable to all members of a community.

Bibliography

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Bristow, William. “Enlightenment.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. (Summer
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http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2011/entires/enlightenment/
Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan. ed. Noel Malcolm. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.
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Kant, Immanuel. Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. trans, Jens Timmermann. ed.
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Rohlf, Michael. “Immanuel Kant.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, (Summer 2014
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-- The Social Contract. tans. Maurice Cranston. New York: Penguin Books, 2004. Print.