States of Nature

In his introduction to his English translation of Ernst Cassirer’s The Question of Jean-Jacques Rousseau , Peter Gay comments (p. 27): “Rousseau’s ‘one great principle’ – that man is good, that society makes him bad, but that only society, the agent of perdition, can be the agent of salvation is a critical tool. It affirms not only that reform is desirable but, more important, that it is possible, and it suggests that a society which creates not only knaves and fools has forfeited its right to existence.” Inequality, Gay goes on to say, is what Rousseau sees as the greatest evil, freedom the greatest good.

The details don’t concern me here. What’s intriguing is how the state of nature functions for Rousseau, as a basis for hope. It functions, in other words, like the doctrine of the fall in Christian theology – which demonstrates that evil is not knit into the nature of the world and which gives hope that the world can be redeemed.