Three Stages of Existence

1. State of Nature

• Man's nature is not shaped by the society.
• Understanding this state sheds light on social experience can shape men.
• Man is unsocial; it has native knowledge and has not acquired other knowledge.
• Man is independent, cannot be influenced by others.
• Man is innocent, is leaning to self-preservation, is lacking interest, his
• Man cannot return to its primeval state.

2. Social Dependence

• As new needs arise, man needs the service of other men.

• Possessions & division of labor = evils of social life.

  > A man with possessions is a man with something to lose, and a man who is dependent on the activities of others is also dependent upon their dispositions.

• Everyone is connected in circumstantial dependence & undesirable comparison

  • unequal circumstances may cause the "state of war"; it is where the government must exist to protect the rich's property and the poor's rights.

• Social existence stay and cannot return to primitive nature.

3. Social Contract/ Community

• Men should overcome conflicts that may dissemble men.
• Men must think that the goal is not to outdo each other but is to establish mutual connection.

• General will must manifest thru democracy, only by abolishing unequal privileges and partial combinations

  > all institutions and practices that mediated the direct relationship of man to community or that divided man's loyalty—were declared illegitimate.

• Better constitution = better influence

• Men as we know them are formed by society, they are malleable, and their social and political participation is potentially inherently re-warding.

The Enlightenment

• Period where advances in science & philosophy broke through in "the light of reason"

  > Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night. God said, "Let Newton be!" and all was light.

• Leading figures: Montesquieu & Voltaire

• Dissent is valid and can contribute to the society

• Social Institutions = usefulness + reasonableness, using the light of "reason"

  • The reason must be accessible to all intelligent readers
  • In effect, institutions' power can weaken.

• Banishing ignorance can establish a just society.

• Radical ideas emerged, such as making new societies.

  > If you are desirous of having good laws, burn those which you have at present, and make fresh ones

• Declaration of Independence - greatest & influential document during the Enlightenment; Takes for granted, however, that government is a voluntary creation of free men.

> The appeal to a Creator is an assertion of the primordial nature of things. In that state, men are equal and there are no hereditary rulers. Men have inalienable rights, rights that no one, not even those who hold and enjoy them, can take away. These rights set limit9 on the legitimate purview of government. Governments, therefore, are deliberately created institutions, which are given their legitimacy not by hallowed tradition but by their utility in the service of human rights. Governments, thus, are subject to criticism, to alteration, and to overthrow by the people, who retain the ultimate sovereignty.

• French Declaration - Men are free and equal, governments exist to preserve human rights
• Social Order = reason + utility
• French's view is more radical since it dismantled the Church and the noble class.
• Reason in English - prudence + tradition
• Reason in America - did not ponder on social class systems.
• Reason in French - dissolution & reconstruction of society itself.

> These philosophies established an idea of great sociological and political significance: that society can neither be understood nor justified as an unchanging order established by superhuman agency but is, rather, something enacted and reenacted by human beings.

Rousseau: Man is a Social Product

> The nation is essentially the source of all sovereignty; nor can any individual or any body of men, be entitled to any authority which is not expressly derived from it.

• Nation is the source of sovereignty.
• Rousseau focused on how social experience creates men and destructs their desires.
• Questions to ask:

  • What is the nature of man?
  • What has been the price paid for civilization?
  • What are its benefits?
  • How can these benefits be retained while regaining the purity of natural existence.