SCMA*1090 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Middle Ages, Idle No More, Francisco Goya
Document Summary
Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains. Rousseau was from the democratic cite state of genena he had seen democracy work- Like hobbes and locke, rousseau used the idea of a state of nature (ie. no government, no law courts, no permanent settlements) to argue for the theoretical necessity of a social contract. Note: in every theory of the state of nature, there is an idea of what human nature is. Even today, many (all) arguments in the social sciences include differing conceptions of human nature: different: pedagogies, professional ethics, research methods, management, negotiation. Hobbes: pessimistic: life in the state of nature is nasty, poor, brutish and short. ". Locke: neutral: every person is a blank slate, ready to be written on by experiences. Rousseau: optimistic: before civilization corrupted us humanity was a noble savage" (p. 39) Rousseau thinks hobbes" description of the world is basically right, but appalling; like universal slavery.
