Rousseau challenges the idea presented by Hobbes in his book the Leviathan arguing that man is naturally aggressive only wiling to accept a \u201csocial contract\u201d with a ruler solely for the purpose of survival.\u00a0 In essence, Hobbes\u2019 argument takes a pessimistic view of the savage man contrary to Rousseau.\u00a0 Government and rulers are necessary in order to keep mankind from constant conflict with one another.\u00a0 This argument is the opposite as Rousseau\u2019s claim.\u00a0 Hobbes\u2019 saw man as naturally evil.\u00a0 Civilization is a means for man to protect himself from the brutality of other men.\u00a0 There are similarities between the arguments but ultimately, Rousseau uses strong evidence to make his claim that man is naturally good and in the state of nature man is peaceful.<\/p>\n
He uses concrete and abstract evidence to prove that man is not naturally even, in fact he is even somewhat compassionate.\u00a0 Rousseau\u2019s argument stems from the idea of man in the state of nature who knows nothing but his immediate surroundings and what he needs to survive.\u00a0 Man has no clue what vice and virtue are.\u00a0 From that Hobbes claims that since man knows no good he only knows evil.\u00a0 However, Rousseau counters that claim first by arguing that compassion is nature within the savage man.\u00a0 He argues, \u201cAn animal never passes the corpse of a creature of its own species without distress. (Rousseau 99).\u00a0 This quotation projects his belief that creatures have compassion for their own kind.\u00a0 This compassion is natural to the savage man.\u00a0 Although he does not know right or wrong that does not mean he is left with brutality alone.\u00a0 Man is more complex, even in the state of nature.\u00a0 He goes further into this idea, claiming that man cares about the self-preservation of his species.\u00a0 In seeing his own kind suffer he will naturally feel empathy and distress.<\/p>\n
In addition, he makes an abstract argument in which he argues that man does not have the ability to commit vice, to the extent Hobbes argues, because they do not understand what it means to do good, and they have their needs under control.\u00a0 First, man does not understand the difference between right and wrong.\u00a0 He has no moral code and acts on instinct alone.\u00a0 With no laws in place, man will act in order to satisfy his needs.\u00a0 Rousseau claims, \u201c\u2026 but the calm of the passions and ignorance of vice which prevents them from doing evil. (Rousseau).\u00a0 By the \u201ccalm of his passions,\u201d he means that man\u2019s natural needs are satisfied in nature.\u00a0 With sufficient food and shelter man will have no reason to harm one another. Additionally, he does not understand evil and what it means.\u00a0 Since he feels compassion for the pain of his own kind than he will not be inclined to cause any violence unless there is a reason.<\/p>\n
This contributes to his overall argument that civilization is what caused the inequalities among men because it helps the reader understand the steps man took toward this inequality.\u00a0 It was not to stay safe in an otherwise dangerous environment, but it was our will too improve and the ambitions of men that formed societies.\u00a0 If this is wrong then Rousseau\u2019s entire argument, that man is more peaceful in the state of nature, falls apart.<\/p>\n
I have neither given nor received unauthorized assistance in the completion of this work.<\/p>\n
Works Cited<\/p>\n
Rousseau challenges the idea presented by Hobbes in his book the Leviathan arguing that man is naturally aggressive only wiling to accept a \u201csocial contract\u201d with a ruler solely for the purpose of survival.\u00a0 In essence, Hobbes\u2019 argument takes a …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2401,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[33146,33147],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-portfolio","category-student-posts","column","twocol"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6CkTy-4Q","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fysutopiasfall2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fysutopiasfall2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fysutopiasfall2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fysutopiasfall2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2401"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fysutopiasfall2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fysutopiasfall2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":624,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fysutopiasfall2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300\/revisions\/624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fysutopiasfall2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fysutopiasfall2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fysutopiasfall2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}