The Affective and the Political: Rousseau and Contemporary Kantianism (original) (raw)

Rousseau on the ground of obligation: Reconsidering the Social Autonomy interpretation

In Rousseau's Social Contract, political laws are rationally binding because they satisfy the interests that motivate individuals to obey such laws. The later books of Emile justify morality by showing that it is continuous with the natural dispositions of a well-broughtup subject and is thus conducive to genuine happiness. In both the moral and political cases, Rousseau argues for an internal connection between the rational ground of an obligation and the broader aspects of human psychology that are satisfied and expressed by acting from that obligation. Yet, inspired by Kantian philosophy, the recent and influential Social Autonomy interpretation has disjoined rationality and psychology. Criticising this interpretation, I argue that for Rousseau, obligations are justified because they satisfy the demands made by our moral psychology, most notably amour-propre, i.e. the desire to have one's worth recognised by others.

Rousseau and the minimal self: A solution to the problem of amour-propre

European Journal of Political Theory, 2013

Over the past few decades, scholars have reassessed the role of amour-propre in Rousseau's thought. While it was once believed that he had an entirely negative valuation of the emotion, it is now widely held that he finds it useful and employs it to strengthen moral attachments, conjugal love, civic virtue and moral heroism. At the same time, scholars are divided as to whether this positive amour-propre is an antidote to the negative or dangerous form. Some scholars are confident that 'inflamed' amourpropre can be overcome while others adopt a more fatalistic view. While mindful of Rousseau's pessimism in his most famous works, this essay seeks to identify a middle position. By contending Rousseau's discussion of amour-propre is largely concerned with the problems surrounding identity construction in commercial, urban societies, it will be argued that amour-propre can be lessened to manageable levels in more rural societies, that is, agrarian provincial life.

Nature, Politics and Romantic Life: "Melancholy" in Rousseau's political philosophy

There are two main interpretations of "The Question of Jean-Jacques Rousseau" proposed by Ernst Cassire, the psychological interpretation of Starobinsky and the intellectual-history interpretation of the Straussians, and this paper aims to combine the two through "melancholy": the essence of melancholy as an individual existential emotion is a product of the conflict between Nature(Physis) and Convention(Nomos) in the history of ideas, which can be divided into four levels in Rousseau's thought: natural, political, moral and romantic. The melancholy of nature comes from the development of society, and Rousseau pointed out in the The Second Discourse on Inequality that the confusion of nature and society by the natural law school required a new study of "man", and he first conducted a philosophical study to replace reason with pitié, in order to reconstruct the natural law, and then a dynamic study that blurred the historical and logical states of nature, revealing the close connection between the evolution of political inequality and language, and suggests that it is possible for legislators and political art to escape this dilemma. Politics is also melancholic. Although The Social Contact constitutes a dialectical development of The Second Discourse, politics still must expel the nature in order to eliminate authoritarianism behind it, and the separation of the two makes the lie indispensable: politics built on convention committed to combining justice and profit through volonté générale, which has become the central secret of the covenant of personality within the citizen and the construction of the modern state, but its exclusion of politics and economy makes this combination dependent on the civil religion established by the legislator. The melancholy of morality lies in its own fragility: Rousseau preserved the nature eroded by society through the education of nature in Emile, and taught him about society and higher existence with faith and emotion, and finally reunites nature and politics through political education. But this marriage based on delicate language and emotion is fragile, the individual moral life is a separable option for Rousseau, who, after experiencing the great grief and anger of expulsion, also voluntarily bids farewell to politics and morality and returns to the romantic life. Rousseau anchors his memories through his senses, and his Pygmalion gaze on Madame de Warrens and other women is doomed to failure. The melancholy of the Romantics lies in the fact that a tender heart constantly runs into walls in the face of reality, and eventually Rousseau retreats completely into his inner world, indulging in reverie and the emotion of pure existence.

July 2007INDIVIDUAL DELIBERATION, MORAL AUTONOMY AND EMOTIONS ROUSSEAU ON CITIZENSHIP

2009

The present study addresses the question of uncertainty in individual deliberation in Rousseau’s philosophy. Accordingly, it intends to consider in a new light his account of virtue and citizenship which cannot possibly be defined as systematic obedience to the general will. Weakness of the will, indeterminacy and prudence have not yet been adequately emphasized, despite some convincing evidence. Chapter XI, book III, of the Social Contract on the death of the body politic, for example, prompts us to reconsider the individuals ’ allegiance to the general will. However, it would be equally extreme to dismiss the core of his thought which affirms the legitimate superiority of the general will over particular desires. Rather it will be illustrated here that, when brought together, these two propositions provide a fruitful way of approaching this ethical issue. RESUME Cet article se pose la question du caractère incertain de la délibération individuelle dans la philosophie de Rousseau. ...

A Flawed Moralist? On Kantian and Other Constructive Interpretations of Rousseau's Life and Thought

Political Science Reviewer

Of the two leading philosophical paradigms interpreting Rousseau’s corpus as a whole, only one defends him as a moralistic and constructive author. We offer the first comprehensive and critical introduction to this paradigm, which was first articulated by Ernst Cassirer, but extends far beyond Kantians. We question its firm distinction between a lofty normative philosophy and claims amounting to merely personal deviations. First, we find Rousseau’s theory of natural goodness to be in some ways subversive of his theories of virtue and community, especially regarding foresight, the status of politics, and the commitment to domestic virtue. Second, the autobiographies develop the idea of natural goodness in philosophically substantive ways, and in depicting Jean-Jacques as preeminent in goodness, this two-tiered system of judgment grounds a broad range of self-exculpation. Despite this paradigm’s illumination of what is most elevating in Rousseau, it has not done full justice to his philosophy as a whole.

The Aesthetic Dimensions of Esteem in Rousseau: amour-propre, general will, and general taste

British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 2022

This article reframes the approach to Rousseau in political philosophy and histories of political thought by emphasizing some neglected aesthetic dimensions of amour-propre and the general will. I argue that Rousseau’s account of the origins of amour-propre in aesthetic judgment alerts us to his view that the potentially dangerous effects of amour-propre can be mitigated if its ’extension’ to others is grounded in an aesthetic appreciation of beauty. This pushes back against the predominant ’revisionist’ interpretation of amour-propre in terms of Hegelian ’recognition’ or Rawlsian ’social bases of self-respect’. It also clears the ground for my recovery of Rousseau’s neglected analogy between the general will and what he called the general taste. I argue that reconstructing the general taste and reconsidering the general will in its light yields a significant argument by analogy: like the general taste, the general will is democratically determined by majority vote, not constrained by transcendent standards.

Freedom, Rationality and Emotions: Rousseau on Citizenship‖

University of Cambridge, Robinson College, http:// …, 2008

This paper deals with Rousseau's idea of freedom in terms of rationality and deliberation. It gives support to Berlin's interpretation of the general will as a rational and objective will but dismisses the idea that Rousseau's theory necessarily leads to authoritarianism. The general will, publicly expressed by the law, may be defined as the rational and self-regarding will agents would have if put in an independent and objective state, i.e. the state of nature. The general and the particular will, henceforth considered from an individual point of view, theoretically constitute two alternative choices for an agent. A special focus will then be placed on the function of the law in the process of individual deliberation. By signalling the general will, the law urges individuals to deliberate and to question the autonomy of their preferences. I shall argue that citizenship denotes for Rousseau the tendency of individuals to favour the general will and to master their natural weakness of will. The achievement of citizenship, however, strongly relies upon man's identification with the community, i.e. patriotism, and upon the emotions stirred by the potential death of the body politic.

The Primacy of Pity: Reconceiving Ethical Experience and Education in Rousseau

Ethics and Education, 2016

For Rousseau, there are only three things he does not reason away apart from reason itself: self-interest, the good and, at least until Emile, pity. This paper argues that it is Rousseau’s original formulation of pity in the Second Discourse that is able to provide the extra-rational conception of ethics that his political and educational philosophy lacks when limited to a reading of the Social Contract and Emile. This paper will also show how the reconceptualisation of these existential predicates is usefully aligned with a reading of Derrida’s conceptions of immunity and autoimmunity. By reconceiving Rousseau’s educational and political thinking in terms of the primacy of pity rather than reason, this paper will present a kind of philosophical prototype for beginning to rethink contemporary educational and political logic in terms of the primacy of pity more generally.

Redeeming Love:Rousseau and Eighteenth-Century Moral Philosophy

Journal of Religious Ethics, 2000

This essay employs Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) as a vehicle to explore love in eighteenth-century French moral philosophy and theological ethics. The relation between love of self and love of God was understood variously and produced contrasting models of the relation between the public and the private. Rousseau, perhaps more than any other figure in the eighteenth century, wrestled with the complex, competing traditions of love, and in doing so he probed and articulated the tension between and the harmony of life alone and life together. Using as ideal types a set of historical models of private and public vice and virtue, the author describes Rousseau's three contradictory proposals for dealing with the corruption of social institutions and the human heart and discloses their underlying cohesion.