Please answer ONE of the following questions in 3-4 double-spaced pages. All papers must be uploaded by 5pm, Tuesday, May 12.
Footnotes and bibliographies are NOT necessary. Please use in-text, parenthetical citations referencing the chapter and page number of the cited work.
1. Compare Rousseau’s praise of virtue in his First Discourse (e.g., D1, Part 2, para. 60-61) with Montesquieu’s treatment of virtue in Books 3-5 of his Spirit of the Laws (e.g., SL 3.3, SL 4.5, and SL 5.2). Is the perspective of the virtuous citizen that Rousseau adopts compatible with the fusion of “power” and “enlightenment and wisdom” that he hopes to accomplish (D1, Part 2, para. 59)? Why or why not? Answer with reference (a) to the distinction that Rousseau makes between who he writes for (D1, Preface, para. 2) and who he speaks as (D1, Introduction, para. 4); (b) to the “flawed origin” that Rousseau roots all human knowledge in (D1, Part 2, para. 37); and (c) to the “corrupting” or “softening” effect that Montesquieu claims commerce necessarily has on “mores” (i.e., on virtue) (SL 20.1-2).
2. It is often claimed that Rousseau’s account of the state of nature in the Second Discourse romanticizes the so-called “noble savage.” In this view, Rousseau presents savage man’s way of life as more “natural” than, and therefore superior to, civilized man’s way of life. Is this an accurate interpretation of Rousseau’s account of the state of nature? Who, according to Rousseau, is savage man, and to what extent does he differ from natural man on the one hand, and civilized man on the other? Answer with reference to man’s independence or non-sociality in the original state of nature, and to the problematic origin of language, agriculture, and metallurgy in the “history” of man that Rousseau sketches.
3. Why, according to Rousseau, must the social contract be a project conceived by “the rich” to fool “the poor” (D2, Part 2, para. 30-32)? How and why did “the rich” succeed (i.e., why did “the poor” fall for the social contract)? Answer with reference to the causes of “the most horrible state of war” that the social contract is meant to end (D2, Part 2, para. 29). If, as Rousseau claims, these causes were unavoidable, why does he depict the social contract as illegitimate?
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