Hobbes and Rousseau Laws and Lawmaking
Uploaded by bulldawg on Oct 27, 2011
This essay examines the beliefs of the two philosophers with regard to the law, and concludes that if taken to the extreme, we could label the two men as liberal and conservative as the words are used today.
I Introduction
Thomas Hobbes and Jean-Jacques Rousseau seem diametrically opposed in most of their viewpoints; certainly their view of humanity is almost a direct contrast. Hobbes sees man as intrinsically evil, with a life that is “nasty, brutish and short,” while Rousseau sees man as essentially good.
Given these widely divergent viewpoints, it’s perhaps somewhat surprising that their opinions with regard to law are as similar as they are, though they grow apart as the philosophers develop their theories.
In this paper we’ll look at Hobbes’s and Rousseau’s visions of law and lawmaking, and extrapolate from those observations to discuss what each finds important politically. I believe that after examining their ideas about laws and lawmaking, we can consider Rousseau a Liberal and Hobbes a conservative, as the words are used today.
II Rousseau and the Law
Rousseau was the opposite of Hobbes. For him, man before the coming of law existed in a “state of nature.” He lived as an animal does, and in so doing was at peace with himself and his surroundings. The downfall of man began, according to Rousseau, with the introduction of the dual concepts of property and dependence.
“So long as men … undertook only what a single person could accomplish, and confined themselves to such arts as did not require the joint labour of several hands, they lived free, healthy, honest and happy lives, so long as their nature allowed, and as they continued to enjoy the pleasures of mutual and independent intercourse. But from the moment one man began to stand in need of the help of another; from the moment it appeared advantageous to any one man to have enough provisions for two, equality disappeared, property was introduced, work became indispensable, and … slavery and misery were soon seen to germinate and grow up with the crops.” (Rousseau, Inequality, PG).
Rousseau tells us that as humanity developed, it became necessary for a man to develop “not merely his share of property” but also “wit, beauty, strength or skill, merit or talents” and that if he didn’t possess these qualities, he had to appear to have them. (Rousseau, Inequality, PG). This meant...