Rousseau begins the “Discourse on Inequality” with a metaphor in which he uses a statue to describe the human race. The statue can be molded and weathered, resulting in change over time. His argument on inequality is based in human nature, which, like the statue, changes. He tries to examine the root of human characteristics and develops the idea of perfectibility. Perfectibility is the mental and physical power that differentiates humans from their animal counterparts, and Rousseau uses this to support his account of the breakdown of inequalities in humans. Perfectibility is derived socially. Rousseau believes there’s a limit to perfectibility, and once reached, perfectibility can cause some negative qualities.
To begin to define Perfectibility, …show more content…
He begins with the idea that humans are like animals by nature, but we carry a difference. He says “I see in every animal only an ingenious machine to which nature has given senses to revitalize itself and protect itself, up to a certain point, from everything that tends to destroy or disturb it. I perceive precisely the same things in the human machine, with this difference: that nature alone does everything in the operations of the beast whereas man contributes to his own operations in his capacity as a free agent” (pg. 71). The ability to act as a free agent means that humans contain the capacity to reason and that it is the difference that separates them from animals. Although there are natural inequalities between humans, Rousseau claims that true inequalities become present with influence of societies. It becomes clear as he introduces love and family “Each family became a little society…and it was then that the first difference was established in the way of life of the two sexes” The inequality between humans progresses to develop feelings like pride and jealously. Inequalities only continue to grow as society does with the development of farming and government. Without the social aspect there might not be a case of inequality ever coming into being. He suggests “that perfectibility the social virtues and other faculties natural man had received potentially never could …show more content…
Rousseau finds that these mental and physical capabilities can cause a decline in our natural instincts based on our dependence on desires. He gives the example of a domesticated animal and applies it to man. He adds “In becoming sociable and a slave he becomes weak, timid, groveling, and his soft effeminate way of life completes the enervation of both his strength and his courage” (pg. 70). As previously stated, once man leaves Nascent society there is a development of ideas like pride. These feelings become stronger and lead to what Rousseau thinks of as the downfall of man because they start to work against the characteristics of the natural man. Rousseau explains “It is reason that turns man back upon himself…that separates him from everything that bothers and afflicts him. It is philosophy that isolates him; it is by means of it that he secretly says the sight of a suffering man: perish if you will, I am safe.” (pg.84). This weakens the natural human as they feel emotions like jealously they start to push against their natural repugnance to see human suffering. These new desires are part of interacting with other people, they begin to have needs that are beyond the natural necessities. He talks about these necessities and how the passion attribute to the natural man. He explains “With the sole exception of the physically necessary, which nature itself requires, all our other needs are such only but habit, before which they were not needs, or