Rousseau's State Of Nature And Freedom

Jean-Jacques Roussseau who was born in Geneva in 1712 is seen as the philosopher of liberty both spiritual and ethical. He saw the human world as a product of human intelligence. He generally believed that human beings were born good but the evils in society quickly corrupted them. Evils such as power politics, insecurity and immorality were all human creations and could simply be overcome by human will. Despite all the negativity created by humans, Rousseau still strongly believed that any evil could be redeemed through the reconstitution of the state on ethical principles (Boucher& Kelly, 2009). Rousseau attempts to explore what it entails to live a good life. Through his findings, he asserts that freedom is central to being human (Levine, 2002). Rousseau believes that “ the state of nature is neither a social nor a moral condition since nature gives us no …show more content…
This section focuses on Rousseau’s ideas of the state of nature and freedom.

Rousseau argued that human beings are ‘born free’ meaning that they are morally autonomous agents. In regimes of private property, they became un-free as the imperatives of rational accumulation increasingly governed what they did (Levine, 2002). He began his exploration into the human condition with the isolated individual in the state of nature. However, he believed that they could be a difficulty in using the idea of a state of nature because those who employ it project characteristics found only in society upon men in their original condition. As a result of this, the state of nature was simply a hypothesis to him. He went ahead to dismiss Hobbes idea that men were self-seeking and competitive by nature and in the absence of goodness in the state of nature men are naturally evil. Rousseau notes that one of the main problems humans face is that although they want to be free, they also want the advantages of living in society because it is only as a citizen that man can fulfil