Jean-Jacques Rousseau Case

Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer of 18th-century Romanticism of French expression. His political philosophy affected the French Revolution as well as the overall development of modern political, sociological and educational thought. . In Rousseau's study of the state of nature, the social contract takes the place of law. He believed that people in the state of nature were innocent and were at their best and that they were corrupted by the unnaturalness of civilization. In the state of nature, people lived entirely for themselves, possessed an absolute independence and were contented.

The state of nature is just a term in political philosophy used in social contract theories to describe the theoretical condition that preceded governments. While Hobbes view the 'State of Nature' as brutal, Locke views it as peaceful and moral , Rousseau's says that he doesn't think it is either of those theories because people rarely met which he goes on by saying that people in the state of nature and those in civilization are as like as chalk and cheese. A social contract, which is also known as the political contract, is an agreement among the members of an organized society or between the governed and the government defining and limiting the rights and duties of each person, it essentially combines people into a community that exist for mutual preservation.

Rousseau states and explains the concept of freedom in two ways, one is that a natural man is physically free because he is not constrained by a repressive state apparatus or dominated by his fellow men meaning that their actions are not restrained in any way, but they are little more than animals, slaves to their own instincts and impulses and two, he is psychologically and spiritually free because he is not enslaved to any of the artificial needs that characterize modern society , his freedom from need makes up a particularly insightful and revolutionary component of Rousseau's philosophy.

A social contract takes the place of law in Rousseau's state of nature because as we know, in the beginning everyone lived for themselves, there was not a government and monarchs began to claim absolute or divine power over his/her subjects. Rousseau and the other philosophers thought that this was merely a form of slavery and a denial of human autonomy. They also thought that government was necessary and so they eventually agreed with one another to make a state by contract which is known as the social contract, where men within a given area joined together each surrendering personal freedom as necessary to promote the safety and well-being of all. By this contract the members created a government which gives them the rights and responsibilities to both the citizenry and the government. The social contract enables individuals to come together and form a contract which conforms to their interests and