Poli Sci 6C Midterm 1 Quotes

Lack of "an established, settled, known law, received and allowed by common consent to be the standard of right wrong," absence of "a known and indifferent judge, with authority to determine all differences according to the established law," and no "power to back and support the sentence when right, and to give it due execution" (66)

Locke - 3 defects that make the state of nature unsafe and insecure - no established law, no indifferent judge, and no power to support judicial decisions - there needs to be an agreed upon executive, legislative, and judicial authority - reasons people leave the state of nature

"every one has the executive power of the law of nature" (12)

Locke - an inconvenience of the state of nature - people are judges in their own cases - self-love (partial to themselves), ill nature, passion, and revenge make punishments too severe

"in the state of nature every one has the executive power of the law of nature, I doubt not but it will be objected, that it is unreasonable for men to be judges in their own cases, that self-love will make men partial to themselves and their friends: and on the other side, that ill nature, passion and revenge will carry them too far in punishing others; and hence nothing but confusion and disorder will follow, and that therefore God hath certainly appointed government to restrain the partiality and violence of men. I easily grant, that civil government is the proper remedy for the inconveniencies of the state of nature, which must certainly be great, where men may be judges in their own case, since it is easy to be imagines, that he who was so unjust as to do his brother an injury, will scarce be so just as to condemn himself for it: but I shall desire those who make this objection, to remember, that absolute monarchs are but men; and if government is to be the remedy of those evils, which necessarily follow from men's being judges in their own cases, and the state of nature is therefore not to be endured, I desire to know what kind of government that is, and how much better it is than the state of nature, where one man, commanding a multitude, has the liberty to be judge in his own case, and may do to all his subjects whatever he pleases, without the least liberty to any one to question or controul those who execute his pleasure?" (12-13)

Locke - because of self-love, people will be biased when deciding how to punish others for an offence - ill-nature, passion, and revenge might make punishments too harsh - Locke believes that the best solution to the inconveniences of the state of nature is a legitimate gov't with the consent of the governed - absolute monarchs are not beneficial because they will be just as bad as anyone in the state of nature

"A state also of equality, wherein all the power and jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one having more than another; there being nothing more evident, than that creatures of the same species and rank, promiscuously born to all the same advantages of nature, and the use of the same faculties, should also be equal one amongst another without subordination or subjection" (8)

Locke - equality - no subordination or natural order - no one has permanent power over anyone else

"That all men by nature are equal, I cannot be supposed to understand all sorts of equality: age or virtue may give men a just precedency: excellency of parts and merit may place others above the common level: birth may subject some, and alliance or benefits, to pay an observance to those to whom nature, gratitude, or other respects, may have made it due: and yet all this consists with the equality, which all men are in, in respect of jurisdiction or dominion one over another; which was the equality I there spoke of, as proper to the business in hand, being that equal right, that every man hath, to his natural freedom, without being subjected to the will or authority of any other man" (31)

Locke - equality in the state of nature

"the execution of the law of nature is, in that state, put into every man's hands, whereby every one has a right to punish the transgressors of that law to such a degree, as may hinder its violation" (9)

Locke - everyone has the power to execute the law of nature - right to punishment and amends if someone commits a crime against you

"what shall be understood to be a sufficient declaration of a man's consent, to make him subject to the laws of any government. There is a common distinction of an express and a tacit consent, which will concern our present case. No body doubts but an express consent, of any man entering into any society, makes him a perfect member of that society, a subject of that government. The difficulty is, what ought to be looked upon as a tacit consent, and how far it binds, i.e. how far any one shall be looked on to have consented, and thereby submitted to any government, where he has made no expressions of it at all. And to this I say, that every man, that hath any possessions, or enjoyment, of any part of the dominions of any government, doth thereby give his tacit consent, and is as far forth obliged to obedience to the laws of that government, during such enjoyment, as any one under it; whether this his possession be of land, to him and his heirs for ever, or a lodging only for a week; or whether it be barely travelling freely on the highway; and in effect, it reaches as far as the very being of any one within the territories of that government" (63-64)

Locke - expressed vs. tacit/implied consent - implied consent is given simply by being within the territorial limits of the society

"There is therefore, secondly, another way whereby governments are dissolved, and that is, when the legislative, or the prince, either of them, act contrary to their trust" (111)

Locke - gov'ts break down if the ruler abuses their power - must have consent of the governed - right to revolt

"I doubt not but this will seem a very strange doctrine (everyone has executive power of the law of nature) to some men: but before they condemn it, I desire them to resolve me, by what right any prince or state can put to death, or punish an alien, for any crime he commits in their country. It is certain their laws, by virtue of any sanction they receive from the promulgated will of the legislative, reach not a stranger: they speak not to him, nor, if they did, is he bound to hearken to them. The legislative authority, by which they are in force over the subjects of that common-wealth, hath no power over him. Those who have the supreme power of making laws in England, France or Holland, are to an Indian, but like the rest of the world, men without authority: and therefore, if by the law of nature every man hath not a power to punish offences against it, as he soberly judges the case to require, I see not how the magistrates of any community can punish an alien of another country; since, in reference to him, they can have no more power than what every man naturally may have over another" (10-11)

Locke - gov'ts have no authority over people who remain in the state of nature - must give expressed consent first to join society and required to follow the laws - in the state of nature, everyone has executive power

"Men being, as has been said, by nature, all free, equal, and independent, no one can be put out of this estate, and subjected to the political power of another, without his own consent. The only way whereby anyone divests himself of his natural liberty, and puts on the bonds of civil society, is by agreeing with other men to join and unite into a community for their comfortable, safe, and peaceable living one amongst another, in a secure enjoyment of their properties, and a greater security against any, that are not of it. This any number of men may do, because it injure not the freedom of the rest; they are left as they were in the liberty of the state of nature. When any number of men have so consented to make one community or government, they are thereby presently incorporated, and make one body politic, wherein the majority have a right to act and conclude the rest" (52)

Locke - need to give your expressed consent to leave the state of nature - by giving consent, you agree that all decisions in the society will be made by majority vote - gov't gets its authority from the consent of the governed

"for the mutual preservation of their lives, liberties, and estates, which I call by the general name, property" (66)

Locke - people are willing to join society to protect their property

" the love and want of society" (54)

Locke - people create society because the need for communication and human contact isn't fulfilled in the state of nature

"But though this be a state of liberty, yet it is not a state of licence: though man in that state have an uncontroulable liberty to dispose of his person or possessions, yet he has not liberty to destroy himself, or so much as any creature in his possession, but where some nobler use than its bare preservation calls for it. The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges every one: and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions" (9)

Locke - perfect freedom - you can do whatever you want, but you ought to be guided by the law of nature (reason)

"Though the earth, and all inferior creatures, be common to all men, yet every man has a property in his own person: this no body has any right to but himself. The labour of his body, and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever then he removes out of the state that nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his labour with, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property. It being by him removed from the common state nature hath placed it in, it hath by this labour something annexed to it, that excludes the common right of other men: for this labour being the unquestionable property of the labourer, no man but he can have a right to what that is once joined to, at least where there is enough, and as good, left in common for others. He that is nourished by the acorns he picked up under an oak, or the apples he gathered from the trees in the wood, has certainly appropriated them to himself. No body can deny but the nourishment is his. I ask then, when did they begin to be his? When he digested? Or when he eat? Or when he boiled? Or when he brought them home? Or when he picked them up? And it is plain, if the first gathering made them not his, nothing else could. That labour put a distinction between them and common: that added something to them more than nature, the common mother of all, had done; and so they became his private right" (19)

Locke - right to property - things become yours through your own labor

"As much land as a man tills, plants, improves, cultivates, and can use the product of, so much is his property. He by his labour does, as it were, inclose it from the common" (21)

Locke - right to property is limited - only take as much as you can use

"in which case he who hath received any damage, has, besides the right of punishment common to him with other men, a particular right to seek reparation from his that has done it" (11)

Locke - right to punishment and reparation

"People are not so easily got out of their old forms, as some are apt to suggest" (112)

Locke - right to revolt

"such revolutions happen not upon every little mismanagement in public affairs. Great mistakes in the ruling part, many wrong and inconvenient laws, and all the slips of human frailty, will be born by the people without mutiny or murmur. But if a long train of abuses, prevarications and artifices, all tending the same way, make the design visible to the people, and they cannot but feel what they lie under, and see whither they are going; it is not to be wondered, that they should then rouze themselves, and endeavour to put the rule into such hands which may secure to them the ends for which government was at first erected" (113)

Locke - right to revolt against a corrupt and unjust gov't - people are unlikely to revolt though - gives power to ordinary people: if you dislike the gov't you can overthrow them with a revolt

"but only to retribute to him, so far as calm reason and conscience dictate, what is proportionate to his transgression, which is so much as may serve for reparation and restraint" (10)

Locke - the punishment should only be harsh enough proportional to the wrongdoing committed against you - we judge based on our own experiences, but the punishments may not always be reasonable --> one of the inconveniences that causes people to leave the state of nature

"If man in the state of nature be so free, as has been said; if he be absolute lord of his own person and possessions, equal to the greatest, and subject to no body, why will he part with this freedom? Why will he give up this empire, and subject himself to the dominion and controul of any other power? To which it is obvious to answer, that though in the state of nature he hath such a right, yet the enjoyment of it is very uncertain, and constantly exposed to the invasion of others: for all being kinds as much as he, every man his equal, and the greater part no strict observers of equity and justice, the enjoyment of the property he has in this state is very unsafe, very unsecure" (65-66)

Locke - uncertainty - state of nature is very uncertain, biased, arbitrary, free-for-all - people give up some of their freedom from the state of nature in exchange for the certainty in society

"perpetually and indispensably obliged to be, and remain unalterably a subject to it, and can never be again in the liberty of the state of nature; unless, by any calamity, the government he was under comes to be dissolved" (65)

Locke - you can't go back to the state of nature unless the society breaks down

"So all republics should establish a similar institution" (138)

Machiavelli

"constructing a constitution with elements of each" (91)

Machiavelli - 1st principle from the Discourses - mixed constitution are better than any of the pure types of gov't

"Anyone who reads the history of Rome with care will recognize how useful religion was when it came to commanding armies, to inspiring the populace, to keeping men on the straight and narrow, to making criminals ashamed of themselves" (114)

Machiavelli - 2nd principle from the Discourses - successful states should have a religious basis

"Thus, monarchies easily become tyrannies, aristocracies become oligarchies, and democracies slide into anarchy" (89)

Machiavelli - 3 good types of gov't: monarchy, aristocracy, democracy - 3 bad types of gov't: tyranny, oligarchy, anarchy

"Men always praise the olden days and criticize the present, but they do not always have good reason for doing so. They are so biased in favor of the past that they do not celebrate only those periods they know about because of the surviving descriptions of them written by men alive at the time; they also, once they have become old, praise the way they remember things having been in their youth. When their praise of the past is mistaken, as it usually is, there are, I think, several reasons why history plays tricks on them" (158)

Machiavelli - 3rd principle from the Discourses - people view the past better than it actually was

"Auxiliaries are the other sort of useless troops. You rely on auxiliaries when you appeal to another ruler to come with his own armies to assist or defend you . . . Auxiliary troops can be useful and good when fighting on their own behalf, but they are almost always a liability for anyone relying on their assistance. For if they lose, it is you who are defeated; if they win, you are their prisoner" (42)

Machiavelli - auxiliaries are only loyal to their own ruler - you can't replace a person's identification with/commitment to the organization they belong to

"A legislator should, however, use care and skill to ensure that the power he has seized is not inherited by a successor" (108)

Machiavelli - b/c people usually do more bad than good, a hereditary ruler is more likely to abuse his power - a single person may establish a gov't, but authority should be shared among many people/institutions

"And if your Magnificence, high up at the summit as you are, should occasionally glance down into these deep valleys, you will see I have to put up with the unrelenting malevolence of undeserved ill fortune" (6)

Machiavelli - dedicated The Prince to the Medici family to regain power in Italy

"So, if we look at all the things Borgia did, we will see he had laid solid foundations for future power. I do not think it irrelevant to discuss his policies, because I cannot think of any better example I could offer a new ruler than that of his actions. And if his strategy did not lead to success, this was not his fault; his failure was due to extraordinary and exceptional hostility on the part of fortune" (22)

Machiavelli - fortune - imitating good historical examples should give a ruler success, unless fortune acts against you

"They are ungrateful, fickle, deceptive and deceiving, avoiders of danger, eager to gain. As long as you serve their interests, they are devoted to you. They promise you their blood, their possessions, their lives, and their children, as I said before, so long as you seem to have no need of them . . . For love attaches men by ties of obligation, which, since men are wicked, they break whenever their interests are at stake" (52)

Machiavelli - humans are self-interested - realistic view of humanity

"Is it better to be loved than feared, or vice versa? My reply is one ought to be both loved and feared; but, since it is difficult to accomplish both at the same time, I maintain it is much safer to be feared than loved" (51)

Machiavelli - if possible, a prince should be both feared and loved, but this is hard to achieve - it is easier to keep power if you are feared

"For men almost always walk along the beaten path, and what they do is almost always an imitation of what others have done before. But you cannot walk exactly in the footsteps of those who have gone before, nor is it easy to match the skill of those you have chosen to imitate. Consequently, a prudent man will always try to follow in the footsteps of great men and imitate those who have been truly outstanding, so that, if he is not quite as skillful as they, at least some of their ability may rub off on him" (18)

Machiavelli - imitation - the prince should use historical examples to understand how to be a successful ruler

"Nevertheless, since our free will must not be eliminated, I think it may be true that fortune determines one half of actions, but that, even so, she leaves us to control the other half, or thereabouts" (74)

Machiavelli - life is driven by both free will and fortune - there are no guarantees, even if you follow good examples

"both monarchs and republics need to be regulated by laws" (157)

Machiavelli - maintains order in society - no one is above the law

"Mercenaries and auxiliaries are both useless and dangerous. Anyone who relies on mercenary troops to keep himself in power will never be safe or secure, for they are factious, ambitious, ill-disciplined, treacherous . . . This is why: they have no motive or principle for joining up beyond the desire to collect their pay. And what you pay them is not enough to make them want to die for you. They are delighted to be your soldiers when you are not at war; when you are at war, they walk away when they do not run" (38)

Machiavelli - mercenaries and auxiliaries are unreliable because they are only motivated by money - loyalty can't be bought

"I conclude, then, that since fortune changes, and men stubbornly continue to behave in the same way, men flourish when their behavior suits the times and fail when they are out of step. I do think, however, that it is better to be headstrong than cautious, for fortune is a lady. It is necessary, if you want to master her, to beat and strike her. And one sees she more often submits to those who act boldly than to those who proceed in a calculating fashion. Moreover, since she is a lady, she smiles on the young, for they are less cautious, more ruthless, and overcome her with their boldness" (76-77)

Machiavelli - misogynistic view; personifies fortune as a woman - the best way to defeat fortune is to act boldly

"If you look you will see that the dictators, as long as they were appointed according to the constitutional procedures, and did not appoint themselves, were always good for the city. Those appointments made and those powers claimed by non-constitutional means harm republics; but those that are constitutional do no harm" (137)

Machiavelli - need a temporary dictator in times of war to take immediate action

"old men are poor judges of the relative merits of the times of their youth and their old age" (160)

Machiavelli - older people are biased in favor of the past and tend to criticize the current society

"The real problem is people do not properly understand the history books. When they read them they do not get out of them the meaning that is in them. They chew on them but do not taste them. The result is countless people read them and enjoy discovering in them the great variety of events they record, but never think of imitating them, presuming it would not be just difficult but would be simply impossible to do as the ancients did. As if the heavens, the sun, the elements, human beings had changed in their movement, organization, and capacities, and were quite different from what they were in days gone by. My intent has been to rescue men from this mistake, so I have decided I must write about all the books of Livy's history that have survived the ravages of time, explaining whatever I think is important if one is to understand them. In doing so, I will draw on my knowledge of ancient and modern affairs. My hope is that those who read my comments will be able without difficulty to draw from them those practical benefits one ought to expect to grain from the study of history" (83-84)

Machiavelli - people don't understand how to properly use examples from history - wants us to study history because the patterns of humanity have remained constant over time

"But my hope is to write a book that will be useful, at least to those who read it intelligently, and so I thought it sensible to go straight to a discussion of ***how things are in real life*** and not waste time with a discussion of an imaginary world. For many authors have constructed imaginary republics and principalities that have never existed in practice and never could; for the gap between how people actually behave and how they ought to behave is so great that anyone who ignores everyday reality in order to live up to an ideal will soon discover he has been taught how to destroy himself, not how to preserve himself" (48)

Machiavelli - realist - wants to know how the world really is, not how things should be

"He who comes to power with the help of the elite has more difficulty in holding on to power than he who comes to power with the help of the populace, for in the former case he is surrounded by many who think of themselves as his equals, and whom he consequently cannot order about or manipulate as he might wish. He who comes to power with the support of the populace, on the other hand, has it all to himself: There is no one, or hardly anyone, around him who is not prepared to obey. In addition, one cannot honorably give the elite what they want, and one cannot do it without harming others; but this is not true with the populace, for the objectives of the populace are less immoral than those of the elite, for the latter want to oppress, and the former not to be oppressed" (31-32)

Machiavelli - rule 1: elite vs. populace - a successful prince should have the support of the populace - the elite can't be trusted because they want power for themselves - the populace want a leader that will protect their rights and not oppress them

"a ruler needs to have the support of the populace, for otherwise he has nothing to fall back on in times of adversity" (33)

Machiavelli - rule 1: elite vs. populace - the populace is more reliable than the elite

"But anyone who becomes a ruler with the support of the elite and against the wishes of the populace must above all seek to win the populace over to his side, which will be easy to do if he protects their interests. And since people, when they are well-treated by someone whom they expected to treat them badly, feel all the more obliged to their benefactor, he will find that the populace will quickly become better inclined towards him than if he had come to power with their support. There are numerous ways the ruler can win the support of the populace" (32-33)

Machiavelli - rule 1: elite vs. populace - the prince can get the populace's support if he treats them well

"all men are alike, and if any type of person is better than the rest, it is the common man who is . . . the populace is generally more prudent, more predictable, and has better judgment than a monarch" (156)

Machiavelli - rule 1: elite vs. populace - the prince should listen to the concerns of the people because their judgement is usually right

"For anyone who wants to act the part of a good man in all circumstance will bring about his own ruin, for those he has to deal with will not all be good. So it is necessary for a ruler, if he wants to hold on to power, to learn how not to be good, and to know when it is and when it is not necessary to use this knowledge . . . But one cannot have all the good qualities, nor always act in a praiseworthy fashion, for we do not live in an ideal world" (48)

Machiavelli - rule 2 - a prince must know when to be good and when not to be to maintain control - realistic p.o.v. - no one is good all the time

"men never do anything that is good except when forced to" (93)

Machiavelli - rule 2 - realistic view of humanity - humans are self-interested

"So you see a wise ruler cannot, and should not keep his word when doing so is to his disadvantage, and when the reasons that led him to promise to do so no longer apply. Of course, if all men were good, this advice would be bad; but since men are wicked and will not keep faith with you, you need not keep faith with them" (54)

Machiavelli - rule 2 - the prince shouldn't be expected to keep all his promises is it puts him at a disadvantage

"So we see a ruler cannot seek to benefit from a reputation as generous without harming himself. Recognizing this, he ought, if he is wise, not to mind being called miserly. For, as time goes by, he will be thought of as growing ever more generous, for people will recognize that as a result of his parsimony he is able to live on his income, maintain an adequate army, and undertake new initiatives without imposing new taxes. The result is he will be thought to be generous towards all those whose income he does not tax, which is almost everybody, and stingy towards those who miss out on handouts, who are only a few" (49)

Machiavelli - rule 3: appearance - a frugal reputation is better for the prince because he can be generous to his people when it is required

"Let me begin, then, with the qualities I mentioned first. I argue it would be good to be thought generous; nevertheless, if you act in the way that will get you a reputation for generosity, you will do yourself damage. For generosity used skillfully and practiced as it ought to be, is hidden from sight, and being truly generous will not protect you from acquiring a reputation for parsimony. So, if you want to have a reputation for generosity, you must throw yourself into lavish and ostentatious expenditure. Consequently, a ruler who pursues a reputation for generosity will always end up wasting all his resources; and he will be obliged in the end, if he wants to preserve his reputation, to impose crushing taxes upon the people, to pursue every possible source of income, and to be preoccupied with maximizing his revenues" (49)

Machiavelli - rule 3: appearance - a reputation for generosity is not beneficial because the prince will always have to maintain his generous image, even if he runs out of resources - requires heavy taxes

"Everyone sees what you seem to be; few have direct experience of who you really are" (55)

Machiavelli - rule 3: appearance - people judge you based on appearance - your reputation is important

"So a ruler need not have all the positive qualities I listed earlier, but he must seem to have them. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that if you have them and never make any exceptions, then you will suffer for it; while if you merely appear to have them, they will benefit you. So you should seem to be compassionate, trustworthy, sympathetic, honest, religious, and, indeed, be all these things; but at the same time you should be constantly prepared, so that, if these become liabilities, you are trained and ready to become their opposites. You need to understand this: A ruler, and particularly a ruler who is new to power, cannot conform to all those rules that men who are thought good are expected to respect, for he is often obliged, in order to hold on to power, to break his word, to be uncharitable, inhumane, and irreligious. So he must be mentally prepared to act as circumstances and changes in fortune require. ***As I have said, he should do what is right if he can; but he must be prepared to do wrong if necessary.*** A ruler must, therefore, take great care that he never carelessly says anything that is not imbued with the five qualities I listed above. He must seem, to those who listen to him and watch him, entirely pious, truthful, reliable, sympathetic, and religious" (55)

Machiavelli - rule 3: appearance - to be a good ruler, you should seem to be good but be able to act bad according to the situation

"Indeed, there has not been a single founder of an exceptional constitution for a nation who has not had recourse to divine authority, for otherwise it would have been impossible for him to win acceptance for his proposals" (115)

Machiavelli - rulers with divine authority are considered to be more legitimate

"I reached the conclusion that the world is always in the same overall condition. There has always been in it as much good as bad, but both the good and the bad are redistributed from territory to territory" (159)

Machiavelli - the characteristics of humanity are constant across generations

"So the church has not been powerful enough to conquer Italy, but has prevented anyone else from conquering her. This is the reason why Italy has never been united under one ruler, but has been divided among numerous princes and rulers, which has resulted in so much division and weakness that she has been reduced to being the victim, not only of powerful foreign states, but of anyone who cares to attack her. We Italians owe all this to our Italian church and to no one else" (118-119)

Machiavelli - the church has kept Italy divided, but keeps the country safe against foreign invasion

"the cruel deeds of the multitude are directed at those whom it fears will endanger the common good; those of a monarch are directed at those whom he fears will endanger his own interests" (158)

Machiavelli - the populace are concerned about the common good - a ruler is concerned about maintaining power

"He who dares to undertake the establishment of a people should feel that he is, so to speak, in a position to change human nature, to transform each individual (who by himself is a perfect and solitary whole) into part of a larger whole form which this individual receives, in a sense, his life and his being; to alter man's constitution in order to strengthen it; to substitute a partial and moral existence for the physical and independent existence we have all received from nature. In a word, he must deny man his own forces in order to give him forces that are alien to him and that he cannot make use of without the help of others" (181)

Rousseau - 1st function of the lawgiver - unites the people into a society

"savages are not evil precisely because they do not know what it is to be good; for it is neither the development of enlightenment nor the restraint imposed by the law, but the calm of their passions and their ignorance of vice that prevents them from doing evil" (62)

Rousseau - 1st phase: happy savage - no reason - have no idea of good or evil, but are instinctively good - humans in the 1st phase act good b/c they don't know what it means to be evil

"By itself the populace always wants the good, but by itself it does not always see it. The general will is always right, but the judgement that guides it is not always enlightened. It must be made to see objects as they are, and sometimes as they ought to appear to it. The good path it seeks must be pointed out to it. It must be made safe from the seduction of private wills. It must be given a sense of time and place. It must weigh present, tangible advantages against the danger of distant, hidden evils. Private individuals see the good they reject. The public wills the good that it does not see. Everyone is equally in need of guides. The former must be obligated to conform their wills to their reason; the latter must learn to know what it wants. Then public enlightenment results in the union of the understanding and the will in the social body - hence, the full cooperation of the parts and finally the greatest force of the whole. Whence there arises the necessity of having a legislator" (180)

Rousseau - 2nd function of the lawgiver - guides the people to make better choices that benefit the general will

"But it must be noted that society in its beginning stages and the relations already established among men required in them qualities different from those they derived from their primitive constitution; that, with morality beginning to be introduced into human actions, and everyone, prior to the existence of laws, being sole judge and avenger of the offenses he had received, the goodness appropriate to the pure state of nature was no longer what was appropriate to an emerging society; that it was necessary for punishments to become more severe in proportion as the occasions for giving offense became more frequent; and that it was for the fear of vengeance to take the place of the deterrent character of laws. Hence although men had become less forbearing, and although natural pity had already undergone some alteration, this period of the development of human faculties, maintaining a middle position between the indolence of our primitive state and the petulant activity of our egocentrism, must have been the happiest and most durable epoch. The more one reflects on it, the more one finds that this state was least subject to upheavals and the best for man, and that he must have left it only by virtue of some fatal chance happening that, for the common good, ought never have happened" (74)

Rousseau - 2nd phase: emergent society - most durable and happiest phase - people living together harmoniously

"He who drafts the laws, therefore, does not or should not have any legislative right" (182)

Rousseau - 3rd function of the lawgiver - doesn't write the laws, but gets the laws from a divine authority and gives them to the people - the people are not obedient/loyal to the lawgiver, only follow the laws given to them

"Emerging society gave way to the most horrible state of war; since the human race, debased and distressed, was no longer able to retrace its steps or give up the unfortunate acquisitions it had made, and since it labored only toward its shame by abusing the faculties that honor it, it brought itself to the brink of its ruin" (78)

Rousseau - 3rd phase: war - the state of war is a culmination of the phases, not a fundamental characteristic of the state of nature

"two principles that are prior to reason, of which one makes us ardently interested in our well-being and our self-preservation, and the other inspires in us a natural repugnance to seeing any sentient being, especially our fellowman, perish or suffer" (42)

Rousseau - behavior driven by self-preservation and compassion/pity

"You are neither rich enough to enervate yourself with softness and lose in vain delights the taste for true happiness and solid virtues, nor poor enough to need more foreign assistance than your skills procure for you" (35)

Rousseau - believes the middle class is the best place to be

"The savage lives in himself; the man accustomed to the ways of society is always outside himself and knows how to live only in the opinion of others" (91)

Rousseau - civil man is alienated in society - we base our self judgment on other people's opinions of us

"As long as they applied themselves exclusively to tasks that a single individual could do and to the arts that did not require the cooperation of several hands, they lived as free, healthy, good, and happy as they could in accordance with their nature; and they continued to enjoy among themselves the sweet rewards of independent intercourse. But as soon as one man needed the help of another, as soon as one man realized that it was useful for a single individual to have provisions for two, equality disappeared, property came into existence, labor became necessary. Vast forests were transformed into smiling fields that had to be watered with men's sweat, and in which slavery and misery were soon seen to germinate and grow with the crops. Metallurgy and agriculture were the two arts who invention produced this great revolution" (74-75)

Rousseau - cooperation, symbolized by metallurgy and agriculture, leads to inequality and the development of property - society breaks down

"The legislator is in every respect an extraordinary man in the state" (181)

Rousseau - divine authority - no authority over the people, only the laws

"In searching for the best maxims that good sense could dictate concerning the constitution of a government, I have been so struck on seeing them all in operation in your own . . . If I had to choose my birthplace, I would have chosen a society of a size limited by the extent of human capacities, that is to say, limited by the possibility of being well governed, and where, with each being equipped to perform his task, no one would have been forced to delegate to others the functions with which he was charged; a state where, with all private individuals being known to one another, neither the obscure maneuvers of vice not the modesty of virtue could be hidden from the notice and the judgement of the public, and where that pleasant habit of seeing and knowing one another turned love of homeland into love of the citizens rather than into love of the land" (31)

Rousseau - favors a small society to maintain the general will - vice and virtue can't be hidden in a small-scale society

"The general will is always rights and always tends toward the public utility . . . There is often a great deal of difference between the will of all and the general will. The latter considers only the general interest, whereas the former considers private interest and is merely the sum of private wills" (172)

Rousseau - general will vs. will of all - general will - common good - will of all - combination of individual interests

"let us not conclude with Hobbes that because man has no idea of goodness he is naturally evil; that he is vicious because he does not know virtue; that he always refuses to perform services for his fellowmen he does not believe he owes them; or that, by virtue of the right, which he reasonably attributes to himself, to those things he needs, he foolishly imagines himself to be the sole proprietor of the entire universe" (61)

Rousseau - humans have no idea of goodness, but are not naturally evil - humans are good without reasoning whether to be good or bad - non-reflective and live without reason

"As long as several men together consider themselves to be a single body, they have but a single will, which is concerned with their common preservation and the general well-being. Then all the energies of the state are vigorous and simple; its maxims are clear and luminous; there are no entangled, contradictory interests; the common good is clearly apparent everywhere, demanding only good sense in order to be perceived. Peace, union, equality are enemies of political subtleties. Upright and simple men are difficult to deceive on account of their simplicity. Traps and clever pretexts do not fool them. They are not even clever enough to be duped. When, among the happiest people in the word, bands of peasants are seen regulating their affairs of state under an oak tree and always act wisely, can on help scorning the refinements of other nations, which make themselves illustrious and miserable with so much are and mystery?" (224)

Rousseau - identification in a society brings people together under the common good - the general will occurs in small societies, but the idea can be applied to a larger society

"pity is a natural sentiment, which, by moderating in each individual the activity of the love of oneself, contributes to the mutual preservation of the entire species. Pity is what carries us without reflection to the aid of those we see suffering. Pity is what, in the state of nature, takes the place of laws, mores, and virtue, with the advantage that no one is tempted to disobey its sweet voice. Pity is what will prevent every robust savage from robbing a weak child or an infirm old man of his hard-earned subsistence, if he himself expects to be able to find his own someplace else" (64)

Rousseau - in the state of nature, pity/compassion replace reason

"In short, competition and rivalry on the one hand, opposition of interests on the other, and always the hidden desire to profit at the expense of someone else. All these ills are the first effect of property and the inseparable offshoot of incipient inequality" (Pg. 77)

Rousseau - inequality, property, and cooperation lead to the deterioration of men and the third phase of "war" - breakdown of the best and happiest phase in the state of nature

"Alone, idle, and always near danger, savage man must like to sleep and be a light sleeper, like those animals that do little thinking and, as it were, sleep the entire time they are not thinking. Since his self-preservation was practically his sole concern, his best-trained faculties ought to be those that have attack and defense as their principal object, either to subjugate his prey or to prevent his becoming the prey of another animal. On the other hand, the organs that are perfected only by softness and sensuality must remain in a state of crudeness that excludes any kind of refinement in him. And with his senses being divided in this respect, he will have extremely crude senses of touch and taste; those of sight, hearing, and smell will have the greatest subtlety" (52)

Rousseau - instinct of self-preservation

"My dear fellow citizens, or rather my brothers, since the bonds of blood as well as the laws unite almost all of us, it gives me pleasure to be incapable of thinking of you without at the same time thinking of all the good things you enjoy, and of which perhaps none of you appreciates the value more deeply than I who have lost them" (34)

Rousseau - kicked out of Geneva into France - wants to go back to Geneva

"Since, therefore, the legislator is incapable of using either force or reasoning, he must of necessity have recourse to an authority of a different order, which can compel without violence and persuade without convincing. This is what has always forced the fathers of nations to have recourse to the intervention of heaven and to credit the gods with their own wisdom, so that the peoples, subjected to the laws of the state as to those of nature and recognizing the same power in the formation of man and of the city, might obey with liberty and bear with docility the yoke of public felicity" (182-183)

Rousseau - lawgiver doesn't argue or instruct their followers - serves as an intermediary b/w an abstraction (God) and the people - has divine authority

"Such was, or should have been, the origin of society and laws, which gave new fetters to the weak and new forces to the rich, irretrievably destroyed natural liberty, established forever the law of property and of inequality, changed to adroit usurpation into an irrevocable right, and for the profit of a few ambitious men henceforth subjected the entire human race to labor, servitude, and misery" (79)

Rousseau - laws and society restrain the behavior of the weak and protect the property of the rich - can't go back to the state of nature

"From the cultivation of land, there necessarily followed the division of land; and from property once recognized, the first rules of justice" (76)

Rousseau - metallurgy and agriculture led to the development of property

"pity is a natural sentiment, which, by moderating in each individual the activity of the love of oneself, contributes to the mutual preservation of the entire species. Pity is what carries us without reflection to that aid of those we see suffering. Pity is what, in the state of nature, takes the place of laws, mores, and virtue, with the advantage that no one is tempted to disobey its sweet voice. Pity is what will prevent every robust savage from robbing a weak child or an infirm old man of his hard earned subsistence, if he himself expects to be able to find his own someplace else" (64)

Rousseau - pity prevents people from harming others - humans only hurt others if they need to for self-preservation

"I am referring to pity, a disposition that is fitting for beings that are as weak and as subject to ills as we are; a virtue all the more universal and all the more useful to man in that it precedes in him any kind of reflection, and so natural that even animals sometimes show noticeable signs of it" (62)

Rousseau - pity replaces the need for reason

"Most of our ills are of our own making, and that we could have avoided nearly all of them by preserving the simple, regular, and solitary lifestyle prescribed to us by nature. If nature has destined us to be healthy, I almost dare to affirm that the state of reflection is a state contrary to nature and that the man who meditates is a depraved animal" (50)

Rousseau - reason is acquired (not natural) and ruins humans

"Reason is what engenders egocentrism, and reflection strengthens it. Reason is what turns man in upon himself. Reason is what separates him from all that troubles him and afflicts him. Philosophy is what isolates him and moves him to say in secret, at the sight of a suffering man, 'Perish if you will; I am safe and sound.' No longer can anything but danger to the entire society trouble the tranquil slumber of the philosopher and yank him from his bed. His fellowman can be killed with impunity underneath his window. He has merely to place his hands over his ears and argue with himself a little in order to prevent nature, which rebels within him, from identifying him with the man being assassinated. Savage man does not have this admirable talent, and for lack of wisdom and reason he is always seen thoughtlessly giving in to the first sentiment of humanity" (63-64)

Rousseau - reasoning makes us more reflective - as we acquire reason, we get further away from our own emotional sense of self

"For liberty is like those solid and tasty foods or those full-bodied wines which are appropriate for nourishing and strengthening robust constitutions that are used to them, but which overpower, ruin, and intoxicate the weak and delicate who are not suited for them. Once peoples are accustomed to masters, they are no longer in a position to get along without them. If they try to shake off the yoke, they put all the more distance between themselves and liberty, because, in mistaking for liberty an unbridled license that is its opposite, their revolutions nearly always deliver them over to seducers who simply make their chains heavier" (32)

Rousseau - restrictive view of liberty

"A rich man, pressed by necessity, finally conceived the most thought-out project that ever entered the human mind. It was to use in his favor the very strength of those who attacked him, to turn his adversaries into his defenders, to instill in them other maxims, and to give them other institutions that were as favorable to him as natural right was unfavorable to him. With this end in mind, after having shown his neighbors the horror of a situation that armed them all against each other and made their possessions as burdensome as their needs, and in which no one could find safety in either poverty or wealth, he easily invented specious reasons to lead them to his goal. 'Let us unite,' he says to them, 'in order to protect the weak from oppression, restrain the ambitious, and assure everyone of possessing what belongs to him. Let us institute rules of justice and peace to which all will be obliged to conform, which will make special exceptions for no one, and which will in some way compensate for the caprices of fortune by subjecting the strong and the weak to mutual obligations. In short, instead of turning our forces against ourselves, let us gather them into one supreme power that governs us according to wise laws, that protects and defends all the members of the association, repulses common enemies, and maintains us in an eternal concord . . . They all ran to chain themselves, in the belief that they secured their liberty, for although they had enough senses to realize the advantages of a political establishment, they did not have enough experience to foresee its dangers" (79)

Rousseau - rich man manipulates people to unite into a society - rich man argues they need society to protect their rights and property - state of nature is ended - Rousseau believes property is not natural, but acquired through agriculture and leads to inequality - society's central motivation is to preserve inequality (because of agriculture, some people have more than others)

"Amiable and virtuous women citizens, it will always be the fate of your sex to govern ours. Happy it is when your chaste power, exercised only within the conjugal union, makes itself felt only for the glory of the state and the public happiness" (38)

Rousseau - role of women as good wives and mothers

"Savage man and civilized man differ so greatly in the depths of their hearts and in their inclinations, that what constitutes the supreme happiness of the one would reduce the other to despair. Savage man breathes only tranquility and liberty; he wants simply to live and rest easy; and not even the unperturbed tranquility of the Stoic approaches his profound indifference for any other objects. On the other hand, the citizen is always active and in a sweat, always agitated, and unceasingly tormenting himself in order to seek still more laborious occupations. He works until he dies; he even runs to his death in order to be in a position to live, or renounces life in order to acquire immortality" (90)

Rousseau - savage man lives leisurely; civil man is constantly working

"While the governments and the laws see to the safety and well-being of assembled men, the sciences, letters, and the arts, less despotic and perhaps more powerful, spread garlands of flowers over the iron chains with which they are burdened, stifle in them the sense of that original liberty for which they seem to have been born, make them love their slavery, and turn them into what are called civilized people" (6)

Rousseau - science and the arts contribute to the acquisition of reason and civilizing people in society

"Our souls have become corrupted in proportion as our sciences and our arts have advanced toward perfection." (8)

Rousseau - sciences and the arts corrupt humans - we become more rational that keeps us further away from our emotions

"Wandering in the forests, without skills, without speech, without dwelling, without war, without relationships, with no need for his fellowmen, and correspondingly with no desire to do them harm, perhaps never even recognizing any of them individually, savage man, subject to few passions and self-sufficient, had only the sentiments and enlightenment appropriate to that state; he felt only his true needs, took notice of only what he believed he had an interest in seeing; and his intelligence was no more developed than his vanity. If by chance he made some discovery, he was all the less able to communicate it to others because he did not even know his own children. Art perished with its inventor. There was neither education nor progress; generations were multiplied to no purpose. Since each one always began from the same point, centuries went by with all the crudeness, of the first ages; the species was already old, and man remained ever a child" (66-67)

Rousseau - summary of phase 1 - no vanity or intelligence - humans are primitive in the 1st phase

"The general will, to be really such, must be general in its object as well as in its essence; that it must derive from all in order to be applied to all; and this is loses its natural rectitude when it tends toward any individual" (174)

Rousseau - the general will involves each individual in a larger group

"For it is no light undertaking to separate what is original from what is artificial in the present nature of man, and to have a proper understanding of a state that no longer exists, that perhaps never existed, that probably never will exist, and yet about which it is necessary to have accurate notions in order to judge properly our own present state" (40)

Rousseau - wants to understand the world we live in - artificial vs. original - what have we learned from society vs. what is natural to us - the state of nature may have never existed, but we have to pretend it did to understand the true nature of humans

"For by its nature the private will tends toward giving advantages to some and not to others, and the general will tends toward equality" (170)

Rousseau - will of all - sum of private wills that benefit individuals over the whole group