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ArgumentMan is good, society corrupts him
Man is born good; it is social inequalities and rivalries that awaken wickedness in him.
Supports
Rousseau · · 1755
- In the state of nature, before society, man has only two springs: self-love, the care of his own preservation, and pity, the reluctance to see a fellow creature suffer. Neither of the two makes him wicked: pity, on the contrary, holds him back from harming others.
- Wickedness, envy, cruelty, the thirst to dominate, presupposes comparison: one must measure oneself against others, wish to be preferred, in order to wish them harm. Now this comparison, amour-propre, arises with social life, property, inequality.
- Where one thinks one sees an evil nature, one is really seeing the effect of a history: unjust institutions have set men against one another.
Therefore So evil is not in the depths of man but in the society that has disfigured him: to make men better is to that corrupt them, not to tame a perverse nature.
How far does this reasoning convince you?
Not at all
Entirely
Put to the test
Objection