01/21/2016

12 Monkey movie?

Initial question: Will we be able to create new land and new values?
124
The gay reading: land=culture, values
Boat = our values; The first time you get into a boat you get a feeling of
freedom.
We destroy the old values (we feel free) When the whale bumps into
the boat, it feels the most confined place in the world.
The values Nietzsche is talking about:
o Old regime vs. new regime (maybe)
o Religions vs. laicism (we have put God behind us and it feels free
and it is very difficult to go back to him once we have done this)
Can we create values if we do not believe in a God?
125
Christian God (metaphor for the objective truth) + organizing point
of western culture

Horizon = framework for deciding for what is good and bad. What do we do
know? We have unchained the earth from the sun (Platos metaphor for
truth?) is there still a high and a low? Is there an up or down? We can
understand context, but not right and wrong.

Gravediggers = we still exist on the same lands

We accomplished this goal of putting gods behind us. Are we worthy of the
task? Are we capable of creating new values? (what are the good and bad
things; it was easier to do that when we thought it was coming from a God)
Skepticism is the best for destroying old lands, but it is not good for creating
new lands.

Nietzsche anticipates that the people of his time do not recognize their
deeds yet. We have unchained our earth from the sun and it will be the
generations of the future dealing with this.

The talking heads (band professor uses as metaphor)

Descartes
Cosmological doctrines od the Christianity/ancient groups were either
voluntary myths or.
He is an incredibly subtle writer. In the Discourse on Method he will
start out by talking about the importance of founders (ppl creating new
 modes of practices) He himself wants to be the founder of the entire
new world.
His writing in terms of tremendous religious wars (protestants and
Catholics) and the counterenlightment + theology is considered the
highest form of knowledge (he wants to change that not easy to do
given the historical contexthis writing is quite subtle)
What does he consider the highest type of knowledge (sciencehigh
degree of skepticism but a tremendous quest for certaintythis is an
oxymoron) in some ways this is a retreat=only focus on what we
can be certain about; therefore any truth we establish is surely true;
What is the problem with other types of knowledge?
His discussion on what is the legislator and what are the founders;

January 26, 2016 Descartes 1

Introductory points
This is his 1st major written work; he was widely known for 9 years
because of his approach to math and physics
The is in the midst of the Copernic revolution (this cut against what
had been ancient political philosophy and religion (Geocentricismthe
Earth was at the bottom at the Universe) The Earth was low (material)
heaven was high, spiritual. The task of a human was to purify their soul
as much as possible so as to live a good afterlife.
His theory caused a lot of shock in the intellectual community of
Europe (D is truly a groundbreaker)
He focuses on the difference between being and appearance (things
are not what they appear to bethe Sun might not be revolving
around Earth) Among the intellectuals there is tremendous skepticism;
However, there was a strong sense of shock amongst these people
Religious wars at at their peak (reformation started in 1517) During
this period the Catholics launched a tremendous counter
enlightenment; In 1551 Catholicism banned publications that
established the new physics. !613 Copernicuss books are burned;
1632 the King of Sweden enters the 30-year war.
Descartes actually has two tasks that he is trying to resolve in his
political philosophy:
o he is seeking to find a political an social order that will best allow
this new view of thinking to develop and to flourish;
o his political and social order will be a reflection of his philosophy

Part 1
 1. There is no fundamental mental capacity amongst us; The difference
lays in methods of thinking.
2. Descartes is upset about his ignorance; in this sense he reminds of
Socrates (he finds all the people around him are ignorant) Descartes
goes through the prevailing truths of phil/hist/pol/lit/customs/poetry
and rhetoric
Section 4 + Section 8 + section 10 + section 7
He likes mathematics because it promotes certainty, while all the other
things (listed above) cultivate skepticism and doubt;
Part II
The discussion about founders
Not clear what he is going after until we get to section 6
He is in the war and he decides to take a break and he goes in his
heated room alone;
He starts thinking about founders (more of a continental thing
Americans prefer to talk about social adaptation that leads to
improvement);
o Founders often create entire new modes of thought and practice
D argues that it is better to have a single architect design a building
than a bunch of different ones (cities, peoplespart of the reason that
they developed in such an efficient way was their founding father,
religionsreligious wars, reason)
He sees laying a new foundation as a personal quest (he wants the
new foundation to exist in the old foundation because it would cause a
lot of convulsion) (Sect 14)
o +some people have the ability to disengage their mind from old
customs and habits; They can disengage their minds from all its
thoughts;
o most people need to be mediated by the prevailing customs,
ideas, religion
He is very prudent, he is worried bout creating social convulsion and has a
long-game plan (he is not hoping for immediate impact)

1. This is where he introduces his method.

A. Focus on the things that are certain, in particular the tangible
He chooses to focus on the tangible because it is harder to
generate controversy when talking about hard facts such
as the ones provided by science;
B. Break the subject down in simple parts
C. Go from the simple to the complex
D. Establish a quantitative relationship rooted in mathematics for
how something is working;
There is an offensive feature and a defensive feature to the enlightenment.
Defensive (focus on the tangible) Offensive (although we think about less, we
will be really aggressive about what we think about);
Part III

Provisional Morality (a prudent morality so that they can start doing

their work)
Respect the gods and the rules of the place where they are living
Their pursuit of the truth is the best life that there is to live;
There is the sense that he feels that time is on his side

He talks about how he continues to travel. He still holds back from publishing
and he wound up in Amsterdam, and he likes it there. He likes it there
because it was a commercial city (people are concerned with their own
private good, they dont bother anybody else and people there are
concerned with science because science creates commodity.) Descartes
thinks he can do his work in that environment. He decides to publish because
(analogy to Socrateswhen condemned to death he says: look I wanted to
disprove the Delphic oracle who said I was the wisest;) Descartes says he
decides to publish because he wanted to prove his reputation that he was
the wisest.

January 28, 2016

The character of the type of knowledge promoted by D:

1. Elements of Socratic knowledge
o PhaetonSocrates embraces science as the highest form of
knowledge. How the scientist would be able to make a physical
assessment of Socrates. However, the scientist cannot explain
why he was about to drink the Hemlock. Conflicting ideas of the
good bring him to that situation. Socrates, however, never found
the idea of a good.
2. The images of the good set by the ancient philosophers set the stage
for the religious warsD is focusing more on matte/the tangible and
how we establish certainty rather than using imagination & art to
create ideas of the good
D has arrived in the commercial city of Amsterdam.

Part IV

He now tries to explain the foundation of who we are. He starts by doubting

anything he could. The only thing that he could believe that he could doubt
I think, therefore I am. (p.19)
This new world is going to be rooted and found in thought (not in the
gods/the ancestral/naturewe are not rooted in some sort of exogenous
source of authority.)

He recognizes himself: matter/finite/caused/always changing (ephemeral)

Yet he has a spirit that is: Good/wise/powerful/eternal

How can something so low have an idea of something so perfect. His

argument is that his idea presupposes the idea of something high. This is
the Cartesian circle. (p. 19)

But the idea of perfection cannot come from an imperfect being.

If you deny God it does not mean you get metaphysical certainty,
because science cannot explain everything. It can only explain the
tangible. The question is: Are you giving the weaker minds
metaphysical certainty and at the same time are you clearing out a
God that will no longer get in the way of science.

He says that the question about God is not as important as the Laws of
Nature that this God left us with. He proposes a shift of focus. He is going to
portray these laws of nature as if he is going to do a painting.

He then discusses the formation of the universe which in a sense mimics the
book of genesis, because it goes through 6 stages:
1. Matter
2. Chaotic event
3. Specific material configurations which are animated by laws of nature
4. Planets and light with earth at the center
5. ?
6. Development of Humanity
He then goes through how the human body works like a machine. He
is back to his method now: break it down into small parts (they are
all animated by mechanical laws and to imitate them in order to
generate cures.)

Is there any difference between humans and machines? It is difficult because

he anticipates machines that will speak and think. They will not have the
ability to reason in new circumstances.
He is missing one point in terms of what distinguishes the human from the
machine and the animal: the soul (p33.)

Weak minds will not act virtuously if they do not believe in afterlifehe
declares the soul immortal. (this is the only way to make the weak minds live
a decent life.)
Part VI

He wanted to published, but Galileo got trialed for his position on physics. He
says that he had to recast the way he was presenting things, but ultimately
he decides to publish because his understanding of physics was important.
He understands that it is a thing to not do things for the common good.
Descartes presents it as not what is good for the soul, but what is good for
the body. The scientist is the source of all that.

So far we needed commerce and a God of laws of nature. Now he says

that he needs a deal with the public: we can create a world of:
1. Convenience
2. Commerce
3. Comfort
4. Combat de death of the body
In turn scientists can become the masters and possessors of nature (p.35)
Virtue should be redefined as a host of qualities that promote the
model of the researcher (scientist) rather than the old values
promoted by the bible.

This was a very radical proposition. He argues that he publishes:

1. His view of physics
2. We need an army of experimenters
3. He says that when he looks back at ancient philosophers he says that
they never focused on who their followers were. He says that when he
talks to people, the people dont really understand what he is
doinghis solution is to publish. He is trying to establish a new world,
not by going out like Napoleon, but by trying to create a new spiritual
order, a new set of assumptions. His assumptions are now our
assumptions.

The three core features:

1. Philosophy has to be conceptualized, not contemplated. That gets us in

trouble. It should be a lot more concerned with certainty, practice,
utility;
2. There is a new science, which is a new form of establishing certainty;
3. A recalibration of the God is needed in order to make science flourish.
A god of nature
4. A new type of social order that would lead to convenience, health and
security and will enable science to flourish.

Revealed truth = the word of God through the prophets;

February 2nd, 2016

Hobbes

Hobbes picks up where D left off in terms of God. We ourselves have to

become the new Gods, do on Earth what God did in Cosmos. (Intro)
God created nature and laws of nature. To do Gods work is to do with what
God left us (fabricate social order.) All the Enlightenment thinkers refuted the
God of revealed biblical teachings. (We must build them ourselves)

Hobbes was a medical doctor. He made the 1st translation of Thucydides into
English. He was the tutor for Charles the Second (King of England.) He was
thought to be a revolutionary, became hugely influential both in political
science and political philosophy.

Liberalism = the highest goal is the freedom of the individual. Hobbes was a
liberal political philosopher. He is one of the first people to make the
argument we are equal. He establishes the difference between the public
and private sphere in society. Makes the argument that freedom resides in
the silence of the law. He presents position that the good life if the pursue of
objects one desires. He will argue fr the importance of a degree of
enlightenment that needs to be reached in order not to be too fearful of the
gods.

Absolute authority resides in the state. A social contract is irrevocable once it

has been established. He argues that the state has unlimited means to
ensure civil peace.

Establish the idea of state of nature.

He provides a key foundation to later philosopher. He also establishes the

categories that the opposers of the Enlightenment use.

Epicurus

Writes as Greece is in full decline. His understanding of science was so sharp

that he thought the atom was the underlying element of the Universe. He
makes the argument that the best life is a life of pleasure. Epicures argues
that the best one can live was to philosophize while drinking wine sitting
around wit your friends while watching other people trying to seek
immortality by praying to the gods/gain glory in war etc.

None if his books survived. Hobbes makes the argument that the
purpose of life is to seek pleasure and avoid pain. His goal in the
early chapters is to naturalize us as much as possible. Break us down to our
simplest characteristics (moving matter)we should seek those pieces
of matter that bring you pleasure and avoid those that bring you
pain.

Our knowledge of something is rooted in sensorial experience. Everything is

rooted in what experience has created for you.

There are two forms of reason:

1. Prudence:
a. Most of us have the capacity to develop=the ability to base our
present activity on how things have worked in the past and what
we expect from that in the future;
b. Chains of causation everything is part of a chain of causation;
everything can be broken down into its component parts; a
prudent human being is no different from an animal;
c. Science understands all the causations and establishes them
with laws of regularity
d. Hobbes dreams of a prudent (self-interested) public allied
with scientists
e. Hobbes argues that there is no conflict between reason and
passion. (unlike the ancient philosophers who advocated for the
minimization of the passions in favor of the reason.) Passion
should not be abandoned in favor if seeking a goal that is against
your passions. Reason is just calculates which passion you want t
pursue. The dualism between reason and passion is a false
dichotomy.
f. P.46-47: head of the family doing family expenses
g. P 58: deliberation
h. 33 regulated thinking vs unregulated thinking
Speech
2. enables us to further our chain of causation. We can communicate our
desires, reach further bacl etc. the disadvantage is that is can flame
the passions and we use words to generalize things or create universal
categories which enable us to communicate with one another. The
problem is that these are not real, though we think of them as
concrete.
3. Hobbes would argue that love is a word that we use for someone
developing feelings with another person. The problem: we treat
universal categories as real;

God is rooted in fear (of the unknown, where do we come from and where
are we going, so we should understand the categories that go in God.) While
speech enables us to identify chains of causations better, communicate
better, it poses the danger that we believe in these categories that
we see as true. In Hobbes mind, the parts are greater of the whole. The
whole is just a compilation of parts and while putting the parts in a whole is
helpful to us, it s also very dangerous.

Movement

1. Involuntary movement (the movement of the heart, the body

composes and decomposes continually)
2. Voluntary movement

Desires
1. Good / bad
2. like and dislike (back up with book)
3. Desires are primarily the product of our experiences. (The beer story
with Mufti)

Deliberation
1. Its not a spiritual quality of developing who we are. Its not separated
from the passion.

Will
1. Make the decision based on the last desire.

Felicity
1. The successful movement from object to object. Its temporary
movement because you are satisfied with an object for a while and
then you move on (p. 59, 60)
2. He seems to be anticipating commercialismhe anticipates the
capitalist order;
3. Adam Smith and David Hume (his students) are the key architects of
capitalism. He is laying the philosophical foundations for what later
thinkers use to build capitalism;

The State of Nature

1. Pre-social humanity
a. We are all relatively equal; he does say there are a few of
us who are smarter than the rest, but its pretty small and
it does not matter;
b. Almost all of us had the same ends and goals; Most of
them are prudent, self-interested beings.
c. The equality that we have is a problem, because any gains
that we may make are constantly in danger. We are
constantly in a state of insecurity. When there is no higher
power to regulate our behavior, we are in a state of war of
all versus all.
d. What animates us:
 i.
Diffident (mistrustful)
ii.
Insecure
iii.
Glory
iv.Therefore, in the state of nature we are asocial. The
ancients argue that we are social (we are a social
animal). Hobbes argue that we need to gain
something in order to create society. We only do that
if we gain something out of it. SO, without a higher
power there is a war of all vs. all.
e. The state of nature is a recurrent possibility that could
occur. In international politics all regimes are in insecure
positions.

Missing lesson

February 9th 2016

Review on Hobbes (7:30 Crane Room)

Review
Hobbes argues that the purpose of philosophy is to understand and use the
properties of nature in order to benefit mankind
State of nature = anarchy where we are animated by mistrust and lust for
glory; a life of solitary,
Fear of death, desire for commodious living and industrial gain build a
political society that is centered on that passion

Laws of nature
2. Seek peace -> transfer our rights to a third party (who will
enforce the laws of nature)
3. Prudent thinking (fear of punishment, external and internal
discord) we can overcome pride
The goal of the political society is civil peace. A state can do anything in its
power to ensure peace. The goal of civil peace is to allow self-interest and
activity. The goal is a framework of laws that will provide peace and allow
self-interested behavious. But if that behavior hinders peace, then the state
can quell such behavior

1. To Hobbes the state, the sovereign is irrevocable, while we have

willingly transferred our rights to a third party (this is a one-time deal)
 2. One must follow the majority in terms of transferring rights (you cannot
transfer rights selectively)
3. If you have agreed to this social contract, that precludes you obeying
an alternative social contract.
4. Hobbes give unlimited means to the state to pursue the end of civil
peace
5. Argues that the state has the right to adjudicate all spheres of society.
(it has the rights to adjudicate all spheres; it is not best if the state if
the state has to adjudicate all those spheres and it can devolve
authority away from the state and let civil society carry the sphere of
activity by itself the state can let housing/commercial life/ family life
develop by themselves; but if instabilities occur, the state has the right
to intervene)
p. 150:
It cannot devolve authority around militia, taxation and religious
authority; (this may lead to conflict;) Divided sovereignty (nonono)
Kingdom divided will not stand.
Why all this stuff about not being able to challenge the sovereign?
(151)
o We ignore the most fundamental problem the state of nature
(the failed state) and keep focusing on small ones; We tend to
look on whatever is paining us, but we dont think about what is
our greatest pain. Hobbes argument is to avoid the worst.
o We also underestimate the positive sum relationship between
state and the public. He argues that the state is sitting way on
top of the society. The states job is to go in the society if
anything goes wrong. But we dont realize that the state its
dependent on the society (if you screw over the public, its not
going to defend you in case you are attacked by another state)
o He is suggesting that checks on the state are not needed,
because they naturally exist.
Hobbes argues for freedom (you can move, marry who you want,
silence of the move, if the law does not say you cannot do
something, that means you can do it)
The center of liberty is FREEDOM in civil society. Republican liberty
(you are participating in making the laws) does not make you freer,
because historically republican liberty has put limits on the civil
society (groups that come to power might oppress others)

He argues that republican has a very spotty record on civil liberty, since it
usually undermines it (Rome and Athens);

We are causations:
1. We are a product of prior antecedents.
 2. There is no free will to Hobbes. We make our decisions based on some
type of antecedents. But we cant know those antecedents (only God
knows) We are natural beings just like all other beings he is trying to
cut off the idea that we some sort of spiritual beings that makes us
higher he is trying to cut of the religious angle (p.171)
The reason for people forming the social contract is self-preservation (this is
natural right that links us to all other species, its the only basis for you
rebelling against the social contract, and then it also leads to this
conundrum: whether you should fight for the sovereign when he wants you
to fight)

If the regime risks of going down, then you should fight. But then if you have
a timorous character, then you can appeal (he is vague hear, because the
right to self-preservation is the most fundamental one.) So Hobbes is
seeking to establish a regime that centers on rights. Only the most
fundamental one is preserved in all cases.

All of this thinking stands on Hobbes shoulders. Future thinkers will try and
moderate Hobbes.

Sources of decline (why will a regime fail):

1. A regime will fail if we made a bad regime. We understand the forces
of human matter and if we successfully institutionalize ways of
harnessing those passions of human matter, we can overcome nature
we can make an asocial species social. These natural qualities
that humans have not hinder social order.
2. Just like Descartes says that we will make machineries and discoveries
that will help us become the masters of the universe, so does Hobbes
believe that we can build a social order that will help us overcome our
human nature.
3. Private good and evil (religion) becomes the overcoming norm that
governs societypublic authority loses authority
4. Civil laws: private enterprises dictate what the state does
5. The most fundamental problem is the division between religious
authority and state authority (p251, 257)
a. A certain degree of enlightenment of the public so that they no
longer be fearful of the God, so that they dont be worried about
ghosts
b. Prudential thinking has to be promoted amongst the public, so
that the fear of god decreases and the fear of the state
increases
6. P.285
Conclusion:
1. There has to be more freedom at the bottom of the society
2. Centralize authority at the top (these two movements need to happen
concurrently)
 a. The state centralizes all the authority; It will devolve a lot of that
authority to the civil society, while always having the right to
limit that.
Review:
Positive sum relationship. State rulers depend on social prosperity
to secure their position.

ADAM SMITH

Him and David Hume are the key figures of the Scottish Enlightenment (at
Edinburgh,)
Smith is writing at the height of the Enlightenment and monarchs are
embracing it.
While Descartes and Hobbes and others of their day focused on the laws of
nature. Smith, Hume, Voltaire believe that we can discover social laws and
that we can operate in terms of them. The image they have in mind are
Keppler like laws for planetary movement.
Hume & Smith believed that people will engage in regular law-like activity,
not knowing necessarily why.
People pursue private goods. They lay the basis of capitalism. Smith argues
how a properly constructed social order leads to private actions that create a
moral consciousness that makes us act in a correct way.

11th of February

Like Hobbes he will strip us down to what he thinks is our most basic
construct. In an early reading he starts about how we interact with each
other in a most basic & fundamental way.
He raises issues and the sort of drops them and then comes back to them
later. He also raises problems and he does not offer solutions.

Morality
1. Enlightenment thinkers get the sense that God is being defeated and
that we need a new type of norms that will enable us to interact with
one another (this previously came from the gods)
2. We need a new type of norms that dont depend on our belief in God.
Like Hobbes he is saying that we are animated by the objects that make us
derive pleasure and pain.
+ We also derive pleasure and pain from what others do even if that does
not affect us directly.

Imagination
1. To Smith= we think about what it must be like for other people in a
certain situation.
 2. Whats it like when a parent dies?
3. Its a situational definition and it is based on out own
situational experiences.
Sympathy
1. He does not define it a Christian compassion and it does not mean that
you approve of others people actions;
2. It means that when you imagine what a situation is, you will think of an
appropriate response and you will evaluate that persons response.
Joke of the year: Devignes wife fucking Mufti.

Agents:
1. Receive either joy or alleviating pain from the response of spectators.
2. Alleviating pain is more important (it is more important when you are
having trouble to feel alleviated)
He also says that we as spectators often misplace sympathy.
e.g. People die and we wonder how theyre feeling, what theyre up to,
etc.
Fear or death is a source of justice.
Can we have happiness and can we have justice? Is it possible to have them
both?

Spectators and how they evaluate conduct (p.18):

He is arguing that there is a new (besides God and the law) foundation
for determining what is good and bad. We are God, the generators of a
new morality.
We are not a one-shot leviathan, but we are the creators of a moral
outlook that will allow us to function.
Is the new opinion that we create like the old God?
o This is a question that specifically interest the artist, the
philosopher and the mathematician.
o Will this new god interfere with people from these 3 categories
(p.21)?
o Our common opinion is on things that affect our daily lives; we
dont have strong opinions about math, art and philosophy; We
sort of admire people in those 3 categories, though we cannot
really understand them and we tend not to find about it. What he
is saying is that the philosopher, the artist and the
mathematician will mainly be ignored.
o What will cause us to be upset as spectators, will be not the
mathematicians, philosophers or artists, but by daily
interactions that by some sense could influence our own
conduct.
This new God (opinion) will not restrict anyone, but its not going to
embrace the people from those 3 categories (its just going to ignore
them)
The Dynamic between spectators and agents:

We are all spectators and agents. Its just a question of whether you are
acting or spectating. We evaluate, and imagine the others response and
seek to act appropriately.
The spectators dominate this relationship, since the agents need to act in
such a way that it be appropriate to what spectators will think of it.
Family
Friends
Acquaintances
Strangers + Society (they act as a tranquilizer on us and make
us quell our emotions and make us tame our anger and pain)
Life = theater and that there is a lot of acting that goes on in order to fit in
society. The self-love of agents is tamed. We often tame ourselves for selfish
reasons (I dont want everyone to think I am an asshole, so Ill just keep it in)
p.23
This is a softer form of restraint that the Leviathan and it allows
more room for happiness than the Gods.

He is going to call virtues:

1. The awful and the respectable virtues. (the good - Kant)
a. Qualities of character that lead to an individual to flourish (great
character, courage)
2. Amiable and civic virtues (the right Kant)
a. Qualities of character that lead to mutual interaction, character,
and ability to interact with one another in a mutual way. How can
we promote amiable and civic virtues and what are qualities of
character, laws that allow us to deal with one another
Smith makes the point that the two dont necessarily go hand in hand.

Spectators in General

As spectators we tend to look at what brings us pleasure rather than at

what brings us pain.
He talks about how this means that large sections of the public ignore
the plights of the indigenous of the lower class.
Smiths view is that this is not all bad because he expects that there
will be inequalities and that there will be hierarchy because people
love the rich and the famous (they will not rebel) There is a class
in itself. But he is arguing that there is not going to be a class
for itself (the outlook is going to be somewhat uniform,
because the lower class love the wealth and the fame)
He says that there are two roads to respectability:
o The road of virtue and wisdom
 Very small group take this road
o The road of celebrity and adulation
These guys love people to fawn over them.
The problem is that the public cannot distinguish the two.
(p.62)
o What for the rich and famous seems like it is, a lovely existence,
for the lower classes, if they adopt that way of life, they are
going to get screwed over (heroin in Bronx)
o He is making this other point that the wisest, the genuinely wise
are going to be ignored, because the public will generally follow
those who cultivate celebrity.

What is the link between the wisest being ignored and opinion being the new
God?

All of this is because we are the new God, but we are going to have a low
culture, because it comes from us. He thinks that it will be structured in
such a way that we will be just to one another.

Why would the wisest not have a large influence?

In Smiths mind this would only happen through force. By definition, if
the morality and the culture is going to come from us, we can create a
morality that will enable us to create decent, solid lives, but its also
going to be kind of vulgar.
To try to create a regime a regime that is centered around the wisest =
impose tyranny--. The Hobbesian premise that it is better to avoid the
worst than to have the worst, so we should choose a mediocre society;
You cant have a morality and ethos thats centered on the
public and not be mediocre.
This new God will create a new conduct of decent rules that will allow
us to improve our lives and create new conduct. But it will be an
ordinary regime, because it is rooted in us and we are by definition
ordinary.

February 16, 2016

Pivotal Class on Adam Smith

Recap:
He is trying to build on Hobbes premises (we are sentient beings that
perceive pleasure and avoid pain)
We seek the approval of spectators and we have developed that over
time (+developed it into a pol syst)
We are both spectators and agents
 We sympathize (imagination) with the actions that ppl take. Sympathy
does not mean that we automatically support (it means whether we
agree or not with their actionsit may imply resentment)
Public opinion is the new God, the determinant of right/wrong; But this
new God could corrupt us, because it has a difficult cause
distinguishing methods to upgrade yourself; public opinion might lead
to types of behavior that will lead to our decline rather than prosperity

Hobbes-Fear-Civil Peace-Authority-Liberty
Smith-Fear + Resentment-Civil Peace-Justice + Liberty

He will present this from two angles (the spectators angle and the
agents angle)

The spectators angle:

They look at the agents activity, resent a certain proportion and that
leads to moral jusrice
The Agents angle:
They fear the spectators opinion, which leads to justice

As the role of God is receding, the Enlightenment thinkers start to focus on

morality; the types of feelings that will animate our personal conduct. Smith
thinks that passions are short-lived (they are not sustainable)
against Hobbesand reason leads to skepticism and makes us feel
confused. Most of us will become passive if rooted in reason.

So he is looking for something sturdier than reason and that lasts

for longer than passions. These are the moral sentiments
(patriotism, moral justice, love.) Moral sentiments are compounds of
passions. This creates something greater than the parts.
Over time a decent country will create a sense of patriotism.

His argument:
1. Spectators evaluate conduct: we are grateful to people for it or we are
resentful to people for it.
a. If we dont like the motive and the action, then we are resentful
b. If we like their motives, but the action is weak, then we ignore
those people (bull shit artists)
c. You like the motive, you like the action grateful
 d. Weak motive, but a positive action occurs happy that they
happen, but they dont create any further feelings
2. The most important is resentment
a. We resent people who steal, hurt, kill
b. Therefore, those people whose practices harm us/other people;
c. We are partly motivated by fear + and sympathy (we resent the
behavior even if we ourselves are not directly affected by it)
d. P.77: resentment is the foundation to social life (an extension to
Hobbes argument based on fear) God has endowed us with
physical capabilities, moral sentiments (this is a break from
Hobbes) Like Hobbes he says that resentment comes from all of
us. There is no founder, just what is rooted in our own sentient
character.
3. He takes up the issue of beneficence (the highest Christian virtue,
where one wants to do work for others; the more odious the
task/person was, the highest the virtue was);
a. What is the relationship between beneficence and resentment?
When are we grateful for beneficence?
i. If its voluntary
ii. Someone does do a good work for you and its not (no one
said anything nice to me, so I feel resentfuldoes not
happen. So absence does not create resentfulness)
4. Resentfulness is the most important, because it restricts actions
that harms others.
a. It is the only quality of character that has to be enforced by the
state.
b. It creates the foundation to justice and liberty.
c. Its only by developing laws based on moral sentiments that we
can preserve civil peace. It is the only way that we can establish
liberty of movement on a firm footing.
d. The only impediments to our actions should be whether it hurts
other people. As long as its not harming someone else,
there should be no impediments to your actions.
e. The job of the government will be directed towards those who
get out of their lane and block other people. He is saying that
justice is a social virtue. Smith is saying that just life = not doing
anything bad. It is a negative virtue. All you have to do as a
good citizen is to not harm others.
f. Beneficence is no longer enforced.
g. The law is silent until it proves harm.
h. Our resentment to practices that harm other people is the
foundation to justice.
i. P. 79, p82, 83
i. He is arguing that resentment to practices that harm other
people leads to support from spectatorspromotes justice,
establishes life as a process, is a negative virtue(we are
 good by doing nothing), establishes a virtue for doing
nothing
ii. Most people will be commercially oriented;

The Good(ethics) and the Right(morality) (see analysis above)

1. The two dont necessarily coincide.
2. With the argument above he is trying to foster the right.
3. He is saying that you can choose or not choose to develop qualities of
the good or right. But the only enforceable quality is that you act
right (not harm other people.)
4. His concern is that we no longer develop qualities of character if we
focus on the right.

Justice is not an outcome for Smith, its a process.

In his mind law givers will find that establishing just rules will be supported
by the great majority of people. Justice is establishing precise rules that are
commensurate with specific violations that create harm (violate property, life
etc.) Smith argues that justice should not mingle with the realm of religion. It
should be physical acts of harm and he argues that the best society has both
justice and beneficence.
A society cannot subsist if this for of justice does not exist. Justice is the pillar
and practices that are good to other people (beneficence) is just an
ornament. Without justice, you dont have a society.

In general, he is saying that what he is saying conforms to a religious

outcome, because religion, too puts people who harms others in their place
(p.86, 81)
Reservoir Dogs (movie by trantino on this idea)
If you only have justice, you will have social problems(p.81)

The AGENT PERSPECTIVE

1. We fear the opinions formed by spectators and this will be a support
for justice.
2. He starts out by saying that by nature we have very few needs at all in
term as objects. There are very few objects that we actually need, and
its really because of the opinion of others that we extend ourselves to
acquire and pursue objects in a certain way.
3. He says that in that sense every agent is divided internally both in
terms of wanting something and thinking about what is the right way
to go about it. How do I get it without getting resentment from other
people?
4. The object that we pursue and the way we pursue them is deeply
affected by the spectators.

Institutional Settings
 1. In some settings you act in one way and in others in another way. Each
institution has its own set of norms and it takes a while to adapt to a
set of norms. (e.g. changing schools)
2. Smith argues that the one norm that prevails in all the institutional
settings is limitations on harm.
3. Moral norms start getting built around not harming someone else
starting with infancy.

February 23, 2016

Smith & Rousseau

Smith:
We are divided people (between our desire for an object and the proper
way to obtain that object without getting blamed by othersp.112,
113)
In all institutional settings have different norms and different practices
that over time we internalize. But the one universal norm is justice
(not to harm one another) In time we develop an impartial
spectator/moral consciousness.
This makes us think about not only going after an object, but what is
the right way to go about it. We hear the voice of moral consciousness,
which is internalized.
Smith is secularizing what has long been a religious theme in Western
culture (Judaism & Christianity.) For Judaism the obligation was the self-
preservation of the people, so that a reconciliation with God could
occur. In Christianity, ones obligation was the self-preservation of the
soul. The moral conscious developed around following the rules of
the church. The Goal is ones obligation, the soul.
Smith is saying that ones obligation is the self-preservation of the
individual and of society. This is why we will act in a right way as
agents:
o These is praise worthy conduct and blame worthy conduct. In
general most people do praise worthy conduct because of
interest and principle. Its not totally vulgarly self-interested
(there is some principle that animates you.) The higher that you
are as an individual, the more you do it for praise-worthy reasons
rather than for praise. But in general we are stuck somewhere
between praise and praise-worthy.
o Smith says that this does not work when you talk about blame.
We do everything to avoid the blame of hurting other people. It
causes too much psychic pain, isolation to hurt, rape, kill, etc. sb.
 o We spend a lot of time trying to stay away from that zonewe
will spend a lot of time as an agent acting justly. We will
internalize this morality for self-interested reason: avoiding
pain is the greatest good. out of private interest come
public benefits This is the way capitalism functions.
o Out of the private interest from both actors and agents leads to
practices that promote the private good. (p.117, 121-sect 15,
127 bottom)

The Natural Scientist/Artist/Philosopher in this new regime

1. Public opinion is mainly concerned with everyday conduct (1st time he
talks about it)
2. The second time he talks about this theme he talks about the
corruption of the public (celebrity culture which cannot be sustained by
the people from the lower and middle classes)
3. Third time:
a. The natural scientist and the philosopher are happy in this
isolation and are really not concerned with public opinion,
because it often gets in the way of what they want to do.
b. He argues that the artist has more trouble on this front, because
the artist needs feedback on his communication. He is dealing
with a public which is rooted in ordinary practices (difficulty)as
the artist communicates with them, he gets trouble as he
communicates with his public.
i. He just leaves it like this. Does not discuss it, does not offer
a solution.

He comes back to the

1. Amiable + Civic virtues (the rightterminology developed by Kant)
2. Awful and respectable virtues (the Good)
a. These are the qualities that lead to an individual to flourish
(discipline, fortitude)
b. These are learned through tension, but a political order that
promotes civic peace, does not create a lot of tension, so people
will lack the awful and respectable virtues.
3. Smith is saying that these are not necessarily positive sum. Smith is
saying that 1 will be promoted, but he is not sure that 2 will not
disappear. (p.123, 124, 152)
a. To make sure that there is a high culture, to make sure that the
wisest are followed gives license to tyrannywe are going to
create a nice, secure, safe social order and if it is able to have
some type of relationship between justice and beneficence it will
be really good, but if it only has justice, it will be decent enough.
Like Hobbes, Smith set out to naturalize humanity which operates very much
like a mechanistic instrument. We pursue pleasure, we seek to avoid pain.
Smith focuses on psychic pain (more then Hobbes) To hobbes civil peace is
established by the sovereign, vs laws o justice
To H free movement is a prudential concern of the sovereign (more effective
to ruleavoid civil disorder) Smith argues that the rules of justicefree
movement
Fearroot of justice (H) Smith adds resentment justice
Laws of nature (H) Smith argues that these can be manipulated to create
social laws.

Jean Jacques Rousseau

There are two currents of thought in Rousseaus thinking

1. The contractualist thinking: how can a society create the laws that it
lives under. This current of thought contributed directly to the French
Revolution.
2. Bohemian-Artistic Current:
a. Very directed to impressionism
b. One expresses his feelings in their deepest, natural sense;

Rousseau is generally associated with the French Revolution. He was the

1st/2nd novelist of his time. Defoe if the 1st novelist.
He is most well-known as the person that predicts the cataclysms that are
associated with the French Revolution. He writes at the same time with
Rousseau. Monarchism and the Enlightenment go hand in hand. Rousseau
predicts that its all going to come crashing down.

He predicts the cataclysms that will happen between 1789 and 1815(check
yeardoes it go up to Napoleon?)

His discourse on inequality is meant to be both a challenge to Genesis and

Hobbes (--challenges the genesis). Rousseau agrees that we are asocial, but
develops the idea more than Hobbes. He thinks we should spend more time
thinking what is nature & human nature.

He believes that human nature has been covered up by artifice

(civilization) very difficult for us to understand why ppl. React in different
ways. What is nature and what is artifice?

He says that what Hobbes is doing is taking present day humanity and
reading that into are past. The idea that we are avaricious, all competitive is
true of the modern individual but it is not necessarily what we are by nature.
What he says here is that what he wants to understand in the discourse on
inequality is what is the source of inequality that exists.
Those who are in the dominant positions in society are in no way of higher
nature. There isnt an important element of naturalism.

The pure state of natureterm used by Christianity to explain

humanity before the fall of Adam and Eve; its an analysis of pre-civil
humanity; His argument is that society is what corrupts the individual;
and the State of nature

February 25, 2016

Argument broken up into two pieces

1. The Pure state of Nature

2. When the individual is in society

The Pure state of nature

The physical side

1. Pre-society
2. He is talking about the human species. It was not necessarily better
than other species physically. He argues that it had a particularly
strong imitative instinct. It was able to observe what other animals
were doing. The human species was physically stronger that we are in
the State of Nature.
3. When we die there was no sense of the seriousness of that (we die just
the way animals die)
4. He is arguing that there was a fit between our needs and our capacity.
Our needs were primal (food, shelter, etc.) This is the base of his
argument that we are by nature good.
5. There was no need for us to change the way we live, because there
was a fit.

The Moral and Metaphysical side:

1. This is where we distinguish ourselves from other species, because we

do not operate strictly in a mechanistic way; (we often deny ourselves
pleasure, there is more to us than just mechanism)
2. There is more free agency than free will in the human species than in
others. The fact that people are often willing to deny themselves
pleasures that they might feel and that they do not act according to
patterns suggests free agency.
3. The human species has a self-making capacity to it (it constructs itself
in relation to the prevailing values that we ourselves have created)
a. E.g. Athenian values (excellence & art) vs. Medieval Christian
values (self-denial)
4. We have done this in a self-destructive way because we did not realize
that we were doing it. We did not realize that we were the creators of
the values that we were living under (we thought those values were
coming from the gods.) p.72
5. Our capacity to reason is what distinguishes us from other species. The
formation of languages, new distinct passions are coeval. Our ability to
reason is linked to our ability to form languages. In our asocial state
there was no language.
a. These asocial beings, who had a fit between their needs and
capacities faced some sort of natural calamities (famine in the
south and freezing in the North). These require people to
coalesce in order to self-preserve. The fundamental self-
preservation was in relation to nature, not from ourselves
against each other.
b. Now we have people who are trying to protect themselves from
nature. we had to start learning to communicate with each
other. We are also developing our capacity to think. Having a
language is the only way of doing so (same way we teach kids
how to talk)
c. As people coalesce, people form moral passions. Hobbes is
coming way in late just assuming that we have reason from the
beginning. Languages in the south are more sonorous and
romantic than the ones in the north, because its warm so you
have time to be artsy. In the north languages are specific,
expedient, creating a frame fro industry. The formation of
different languages came different ->ideas->cultures-
>civilizations;
d. If you go to different parts of the world, you will find all of these.
We live in a heterogeneous world of ideas and there is no fixed
human nature (we are shaped by our culture) Therefore, there
is no distinct faculty of reason (vs. ancients who believe
that it is a separate faculty) it develops in accordance to
our passions (it enables us to pursue our passions and avoid
pain.) The reason of different cultures is a congealed set of
passions and is not a separate faculty. To all of us, there is no
such thing as an unmediated individual (someone who comes to
things with a blank slate,) we are all mediated by a culture;
the enlightenment is shaping a civil individual; (p73, 79--
language)
6. Rousseau had a liberating effect in terms of seeking to understand
different cultures of different people. There is a certain liberating
aspect to it. There is a tyrannist implication to it (if we can control the
culture we can shape and reshape human nature.) A nihilist current
comes from Rousseau (influences German thinking Nietzsche.)
7. Rousseaus main concern is how do we gain and retain control over this
faulty piece of equipment that we have.
Are we by nature good?

1. (beneficence + Hobbes categories are wrong because they are

focused on the civil individual and not on the prosocial individuale.g.
need for property)
2. Natural individual not characterized by pride. Pride comes from
society. He is arguing that we were asocial (separated from each
other.) There is self-love, but that is different from pride.
3. Asocial means that we are not built for society.
4. We were characterized by a limited compassion (we had no reason to
hurt each other.) Not a lot of domination occurred in the state of
nature. we are characterized by our autonomy. We were in control
of ourselves. The downside is that we were indolent and could not
think. Can we gain autonomy while thinking? (p.81, 85limited
compassion, p90the famous slogan)

Part II

1. He argues that some people are moving in. There is a certain

embryonic recognition of each other, because there is a certain
mechanical prudence that this species has.
2. He is trying to explain what made us unite. Why did we form tribes to
deal with nature?
3. Besides mechanical instincts, there is no general will (everyone had
their own particular will at this point.)
4. The natural disasters kick in. These force people to coalesce. By his
emphasis on natural disasters he is trying to outhobbes hobbes (what
makes an asocial being become socialits a natural disaster, a
contingency.) He is seeing self-preservation as the foundation of
society (he is using Hobbes categories, but he thinks that he is
outhobbesing Hobbes)
5. Moral passions start developing:
a. Love and people desiring to be loved people started
developing a sense of self, because they are wondering what
other people are thinking of them.
b. This leads to the formation of pride and shame. This period was
probably fairly violent at first. (there were no norms on how to
deal with this.)
c. This was a good time, because we were no longer indolent, we
were gaining the benefits of society, but we were also
maintaining our autonomy.
 6. Another accident occurs (the discovery of metallurgysecond
accident)
a. The idea that fire and rocks can create something useful was
probably an accident. He is trying to emphasize the accidental
aspect of life.
b. We increasingly develop our capacity to labor. + revolution in
agriculture.
c. Inequality is born we have different skills and talents +
different degrees of lucknot all people end up with the same
amount of riches.
d. Conflict starts braking out over property. Here he argues that the
rich both to self-preserve themselves and also to preserve their
wealth come up with a plan. Their plan is to unite around justice
and not harming everybody. Lets respect each others persons
and property. We all play by the same rules. Humanity is now
condemned to a life of hard work. This is humanitys fault
(allusion to the ancestral sinAdam & Eve.

Hobbes vs. Rousseau

I. Hobbes says that justice has evolved in order to solve conflict, but that
conflict is found in the state of nature. Rousseau thinks that the
conflict is not a product of our natural existence, but a product of
social life. The regulations that we created come out of the conflict.

March 1, 2016

Eve = tension between reason and faith;

In addidtion to the social divisions that we get into (covered in last class)
there is also a division of labor:
Different centers of occupations in different parts of the world and
dislocations occur in different ways in these different parts of the
worldinequality is exacerbated; Rousseau says that inequality
happens due to luck conflict, tension so we need to create the
principles of justice (establish some type of civil peace);
There is another important change. Because of huge division of labor
(specialization) all of us lose our autonomy; We all have all sorts of
needs, but we no longer have the capability of realizing those needs;
We are now dependent on others to fulfill our needs;
o the modern individual becomes an obeyer and a user of
other people, of the market and of technology;
 o The only way we can realize our needs is by conforming and
using other people; The modern individual is a concerned egoist;
We are constantly shaping ourselves out of concern of what
others think about ourselves in order to gain advancement;
The good individual = sincere, authentic, uninterested (this is very
hard in modern society because we are very concerned with the
opinions of other people); The modern individual is a hypocrite (=in a
traditional way means that you talk in one way and act in a different
way) Rousseau argues that the hypocrisy of the modern individual is
that we lack any type of core and this is built into what modernity is.
(p. 100. 116)
o Where does pride take us in Hobbes? --> pride to Hobbes:
something is more important to them than self-
preservation (warlords, religious zealots, etc.)
o Rousseau also believes that opinion is the new God. (=Smith)
Smith suggests that this enables us to tame ourselves and
pursue self-interested activity in a decent way; falseness to
modern life;

Divided Society

1. This is a Hobbesian type of society, but it is a product of society, not a

natural state. War of all vs. all.
2. Rousseau is the founder of social democracy; Rousseau argues that
modern justice of Voltaires type establishes legal justice, but moral
injustice; (e.g. property is a zero sum game we look at the formal
unity that we have through the law, but we miss that there isnt a
substantial unity in society a lot of harm can be legally done)
3. The community established regulations of justice and the poor went
along with it because they wanted property and because they were
under threat. The wealthy wanted it both for self-preservation and to
protect themselves. Then they found that they lacked enforcement
powers; In this context, magistrates were established. (Find
parallel in Hobbes when we voluntarily give up our rights.)
4. So in terms of a historical analysis of social contract, Rousseau is
arguing that it occurred late in the process; The contract that got
agreed to around justice was negative sum; the contract between
magistrates and society was different from what Hobbes says;

Division of societies generates a new state of nature International

Conflict

Each of the societies that exist are characterized by a gradation of

power, which are rooted in distinctions of:
o Wealth
 o Merit
o Rank
They key he argues to understanding the level of decay in a society is
the degree to which everyone is pursuing wealth, because when you
are doing so your pursuit pushes you towards more powerful social
concerns, which gives magistrates more power; This leads to less
concern for the public good and more space for the magistrate to gain
arbitrary power; Everything now becomes power and luck;
Rousseau is predicting that we are on a road to tremendous amount of
conflict and destruction.
He believes that all societies fall because we are by nature an
asocial species and nature always win (every regime will die)
Pages: 115;

Summary:

1. In total, Rousseau has describes 4 states of nature

a. The prosocial one (we were autonomous, but we could not think)
his argument is that modern individual is different and that
Hobbes is trying to read civil ind into the natural order
b. The initial state of conflict over property (need for justice
c. Conflict between society (gen will vs. part will gov vs sov)
d. Return to the state of nature with the dissolution of authority and
the decline of power
2. In part 2 he makes an argument that the division of labor that is create
d with specialization, modern ind becomes a divided ind (he obeys
others in order to use others) There is a parallel to Smith (ag and spec)
3. Rousseau also establishes the outline for what would become and
argument for social justice and legal justices displaces the conflict from
a political center into society; (I Dont get this)
4. Commerce is a weapon and that soft power is a vehicle for domination
and this becomes an extremely powerful thought in the west from that
point on.
5. Rousseau is predicting an epic of wars and revolutions and whether
that is the situation whether that would occur in Europe from 1789 to
1989 (backed up by history)

The Social Contract (the most famous work)

1. Because it was adhered to by many of those who launched the French
Revolution;

Page 163;

He wants to reconcile utility and justice (interest and right)

 Interest = what we ought to do, what is good for us Hobbes and
Smith focus to much of this
Right = what we should to do; The ancients focus too much of this
(e.g. the 5th book of the Republic)
o E.g. Spartan woman who has 4 sons in the battle with the
Persians; She loses all four of them, but only cares if the
Spartans won the battle;

He says that there is no going back to nature; We need each other to survive
just in terms of relationship to nature; The bonds of society are around us.
His quest: how can they be legitimate;
1. We have to look at what the social order is and what the agreement
that goes into the social order is. From that we can find what are the
legitimate bonds or not.
2. His reference point is one where all of us have mutual obligations and
are consistent with our self-presrvation.
3. What provides mutual advantages and obligations and respects our
need for self preservations? (this is a form for social structures
that split utility and justice)
a. Kids have an obligation to their parents until they grow up; After
you grow up, it becomes a choice and furthermore you can
somewhat be concerned or have a feeling that your parents love
you; Why would you think like that about a monarch? This would
not work;skewed relationship between goals and obligations

How are we going to unite with other people while still obeying ourselves?
(page: 172)
Every individual in forming a society they alienate all of their rights to
the community and then are participants in the discussion and the
making the morings and laws as to how those laws will be used; Then
we will be a participant in how those rights will be used.
He uses four different terms
1. Sovereignty
a. The collective membership when it is politically active
(e.g. all the people from Tufts meeting in front of Ballou
Hall) This is a normative spin on the concept of
sovereignty; Part of what is doing is trying to undermine
monarcy; The people are the only legitimate law maker;
b. For Hobbes, sovereignty is the highest authority (e.g.
Washington, the president, etc.)
2. The state:
a. All of us when we are politically passive
b. All of us who are living under the laws we just made; He
uses the word state in a way that is somewhat similar to
the way we use the word society;
 3. Citizen
a. Person who is contributing to making the laws
4. Subject
a. Person livng under the laws
Rules:
1. A sovereign has to keep in mind the needs and capabilities of the
subjects when making these rules;
2. The relationship of the subject to the sovereign is problematic because
we are asocial; Ultimately we are going to undermine the general will,
but its not the only way its going to corrode;

March 3, 2016

p. 173: this is where he introduces important terminology;

p. 175: 2 most important commitments in the social contract:

Relationship between the subjects and the sovereign; he believes that
we will create laws with a light touch to them because we think that we
will have to live under them;
As citizens, our particular will makes us want to undermine the
sovereign law or the civil law;
The sovereign keeps in mind the individuals living under those laws
and he believes that the sovereigns will always keep in mind the
interest of the subject no limits on the sovereign are needed. As
subjects we have a tendency to erode and push away the laws that we
made;
When the subject breaks from the sovereign, at that point he needs to
be brought back into line with the laws that he made; If that does not
happen, then the whole social contract unravels;

When an individual is part of the sovereign and contributes to laws that he or

she will live under reflects a huge change in humanity; The human species is
acting in relationship to justice (this proves that we are not mechanical
beings) we are taking into account what is the relationship between our
good and the good of others;

Rousseau is saying that the human animal is transcending nature, they do

not function solely on appetite;

Rousseau is arguing is that being concerned more with the general and less
with the particular makes you more human. (unlike animals which are
animated by appetite)
The Social Contract

He wants to reconcile utility and justice; The 1st three chapter are focusing
much more on it as a consensus; He distinguishes the will of all from the
general will;

He argues that it is not possible for the particular will to be congruent with
the general will all the time. There is tension between the two;

1. There has to be a limited number of factions for the social contract to

work; (the equivalent of todays modern party);
2. Not all divisions are bad.
3. The general will cannot bind itself; it always has the option to refute
what it decreed before;
4. The general law cannot be divided;
5. An issue like war is not a product of the general will, because it is a
particular decision;
6. Some divisions are positive divisions, but a division within the
sovereign is not;

Page 179:
Relationship between the particular and the general will
P 182 gen will no act wisdom

The laws that are created from the general will come from all and
they affect all:
1. E.g. a general rule around taxes;
2. This happens because when we are making the law, we are pushing
our self-interest; By putting in the framework of society, the reference
point becomes what is good for society as a whole (the general
good)this process of establishing rules from all to all reconciles our
concern with our particular good and the concern for the
general good;
3. He is arguing that this is his attempt to reconcile self-interest and
justice; You are thinking about yourself, but it has been framed in such
a way that you are thinking about the general good;
4. To Rousseau, the form of the law, not the substance of the law is what
makes it just; What is most important that form = it comes from all and
it goes to all;
a. Different peoples will establish different universal rule; Its a
general rule specific to each specific people (page 184, 185, 189

So his argument is that if you believe that the laws protects your self-interest
and that it reflects of what you feel is the general good you become loyal,
fight and die for the regime. He explains what Hobbes cant (for him
everything is about self-preservation); His goal here is to establish this nice
relationship between interest and justice.

But how the hell is all of this going to happen? We are naturally
asocial beings (Devignech7 -> discussion abt religion)
1. God? Nope
2. Reason? Reason is not enough to make us loyal; He is arguing that
there are no natural laws that lead us to come together.
3. Its all rooted in the agreement that we created.
4. Devigne: Something must have happened to us to make us reconcile
the general and the public good. So how do we create this effect?
a. It requires an individual with different nature, different needs,
but also has concerns with his/her post-humus reputation and
has the help of God;
b. He is talking about a Descartes founder (Athens, Rome, Geneva,
Judaismpeope who stand through thick and thin and were not
simply based on interest they all had their Mohammeds,
Moseses) In leading those people through hard times they
reshaped those people into being citizens. In many ways, those
people were denatured and became concerned with people as a
whole. And what they did in terms of establishing people: all of
them had to invoke the Gods so that people saw
themselves as distinct and special;

So R is saying that Moses figures out that his ppl need laws and an outlook to
sustain themselves through thick and thin with the ability to transcend their
nature. Rousseau says Moses had a choice:
1. Come back from the mountain and say we need laws or do the whole
tablet thing (Devignes impression of Moses was <3) (Page 191, 193)
a. He is suggesting that the sovereign has to be duped in order to
become the source of power.
Page 192:
ANSWER TO QUESTION ABOVE

What are the conditions for a sovereign becoming a sovereign?

2. For a people to become a sovereign, it has to be young and flexible;
But he also says that they have to be mature and experienced
(Devigne How is that possible?)
a. Its revolution that makes a difference (page 194, second p.)
b. He is convinced that the monarchs will only be replaced by
sovereigns through revolution;
c. He is hoping that the common bond of the general will will be
established through the conflict generated by the sovereign
trying to establish himself;
d. But the sovereign has to always feel that it is under threat, or it
will tend to dissipate;
 3. Rousseau is going to argue that the strength of ones will is a function
of his degree of concentration; The will of a hundred people will be
stringer than that of 10.000.000 people; The more people that are
involved, the more diffuse that will will be its hard to establish a
general will over a large territory;
4. Rousseau argues that the question of unity is most important; This will
allow people to merge self-interest and some sort of general will
(transcendent self.)
5. If the regime is caught in too much international conflict, they will
never be able to function properly. The particular will of individuals
replaces the general will in situations of crisis.

112 Miner Hall 7:30 (on Thursday)

Page 205
1. While the sovereign establishes the general will, it now creates an
institution to execute those laws (thats the government)
a. Government = administers the law and decides who is doing
what; R is the strictest separation of powers that you will ever
finddifferent people do different functions; The opposite is the
mixed government. Rousseau is way over on the extreme of the
separation of power (the sovereign are the exclusive law makers,
while the government is the exclusive administrator.) If the
sovereign starts administering it war of all vs. all
b. There are two distinct steps:
i. Formulating what you are going to do
ii. Actually doing that thing
2. He is using numbers as an explanation for concentration of power; As
the will is spread over lots of ppl, the more diffuse that will will be;
a. The will of 100 ppl > will of 100,000,000 people;
b. The larger the general will, the more diffuse it is the
government is required to be more concentrated and
active (inverse relationship) The government, when its
dealing with a diffuse general will has to be a lot more active and
it has to prevent subjects from undermining the general will;
c. This creates a danger to the sovereign it will become an
independent institution working against the sovereign; The only
way that the sovereign can defend itself is by remobilizing itself;
It has to reconstitute itself; (page 208)
d. Only when our autonomy and self-preservation are affected do
we act in a more social and politically active way;
e. Page 210: within the government there are three wills
i. The corporate will of the government
ii. The general will
iii. The will of the leaders of the government
 f. In the natural order the leader is concerned with himself, then
will the corporate will and then the common good; The more
perfect a regime/citizen is, the more unnatural it is; there is
a power gradation: ind will stringers gen will weakest
3. There should be an inverse relationship between the size of the
sovereign and the government:
a. Small democracy
b. Medium Aristocratic
c. Monarchic Monarchic
4. Exceptions:
a. Democratic Government:
i. Corrupted, only goods for gods and not for humanity
ii. Good for very small simple people;
iii. Sovereign both makes the laws and executes them (this
defies his idea of separation of power only gods or an
extremely simple people)
iv. Democracy is a recipe for civil war
b. The Aristocratic Government
i. The natural aristocracy (small tribe, for extremely simple
people)
ii. The Hereditary aristocracy (the worst possible)
iii. The Elected Aristocracy (people vote for whom they
determine is the best Aristotelian view) Rousseau says
this is the best form of government; The problem is that if
thats true, the sovereign would have to decide who is
good and who is bad, which is not a general law;
c. The Monarchy
i. All the power is concentrated in one individual (very
vigorous)
ii. There is no relationship between the private interest of the
Monarch and the interest of the public (against Hobbes)
The most important thing to the monarch is that the people
are submissive; the most important thing is to maintain the
monarchya submissive public is needed;
iii. He argues that there is really no room for monarchy

Page 213, 214, 215, 216, 218,

Once a government is established, it has a tendency to work against the

general will;

Different cultures and different people have different types of

governments:
 Rousseau is advocate for revolution and goes deep into the social
conditions that will lead to revolution; those conditions are more
propitious in the North than in the South. In the North life is harder,
greater work required to make consumption and greater concentration
of people in cities; Revolutions more likely to occur in the North; The
conflict will be between the sovereign and the government;
The people in the South are more isolated and prone to tyranny;
But within these northern people there will be this debate whether they
are citizens or subjects; The citizen is concerned with the security of
people, whereas the subject is concerned with his private life; The
citizen is willing to engage in conflict to realize liberty, while the
subject is willing to live in civil peace so that they can pursue money;
Civil peace leads to servitude it makes you be into yourself and
nothing else (e.g. Veterans day is a good day to sleep in;)

Now they come back to the framework. How he sees the future and
what makes Rousseau the founder of the modern left in the West:

1. He is arguing how all regimes will eventually die, because all regimes
will be characterized by two concurrent movements;
a. The undermining of the general will by our particular
will:
i. Society has a tendency towards fragmentation and
dissolution where what used to be prevailing things
become more and more fragmented;
b. The government concentrates its power to fix what is
dissolving; The government thus replace the sovereigns
lawmaking feature; We are complacent in this, because
we are rarely concerned about the public good
i. We at some point come back and remobilize
ii. If we dont we can either have
1. Tyranny (= the gov replaces the sovereign, but
acts in the spirit of the general will) The danger
of a tyranny is that it will eventually lead to
despotism;
2. Despotism (the gov destroys the general law)
iii. Rousseau argues that the greatest danger is the
government; However, he is insisting that the public is
complicit in some ways;
c. More fundamentally, Rousseau is arguing that we are living in
Hobbes world:
i. Concentration of power and free movement at the base of
the society tendency towards dissolution and
concentration of power;
Rousseau also argues whether a sovereign is able to maintain itself is
decided by whether it has gone through protracted conflict;

The division between the general will and the government is good; The
pressure put by the government is what causes the sovereign to reconstitute
itself (an asocial species would not do it otherwise); Divisions within the
sovereign are BAD;

Remedies:

1. Absolute authority of the sovereign over the government; The more

the people are engaged, the less there will be movements towards
tyranny and despotism;
2. The absolute authority of the government over the subject (He is the
founder of the left-wing tyranny)

All regimes will die

He says that a regime will live longer and healthier, if there is more
sovereignty in it;

OH 5:30-7:00 tmrw;

March 10, 2016

page 231+228: why every regime will die

1. Unlike Hobbes, Rousseau is arguing that even the best regime will fall
(Hobbes argues that if a regime falls, its a fabrication fault); Rousseau
thinks that we cannot conquer our asocial nature;
a. We are more concerned with our particular will than we are with
the general will; the government increasingly displaces us as
the lawmakers; In the long run the fundamental role of the
sovereign will be eroded
b. The only reason the sovereign is reconstituting itself is that the
government puts pressure on it; It forces the asocial people to
become social;
The sovereign is the heart of the regime, while the brain =
government;

The strength of the regime is based on the character of the

sovereignty;
The most important aspect of the sovereign are the assemblies;
He suggests that representative governments will lead to slow decay;
o Part will we are more concerned with this than the public will
o Quiet will the government becomes more and more
independent from the sovereign
o Public interest
He makes the case that what is more important are regular
assemblies; The more the public is involved, the more tyrants are
forestalled;

Mixed Governments:

2. Juries (lot)
3. Most important (elected);
a. The law is supposed to be general; Its not supposed to be
focused on specific individuals/events;
b. He comes up with a little trick: when a sovereign meet, it should
first debate what the form of the government its wants is;
c. The sovereign will turn itself temporarily into a government and
it will elect the individual that it wants as administrators and
then it dissolves from its function as a government;
d. The next sovereign should do the same thing;

Characters of general will that will exist

1. Peasant societies
a. They have a spontaneous general will;
2. Divided states
a. A division between the government and the sovereign; This is
where the general will is the liveliest; Its the threat of the
government that leads a part of the people to want to
reconstitute the sovereign
b. Healthy general will
3. The general will-part will:
a. Over time people will start corrupting the gen will to serve their
particular perspective (this is a high stage of corruption)
4. Corruption like London and Paris
a. So corrupt that its silly to talk about the general will;

Pages: 244
1988 upper Westside graduate school of Columbia; Son is 6 years
old public school with no 12. In the class they have a rabbit; Spring
break->Mikey wants to bring the rabbit home; Whoever is the 1st kid
to school gets the rabbit; He gets up an hour early, janitor lets him
in;

He does not get a rabbit; Lizzie gets the rabbit. The Timmy letter.
Offered to divide the rabbit; They got the rabbit; They bring the
rabbit to the apartment (very hot apartment);

Next morning, he gets up, the rabbit is dead; Timmy is the name of
the rabbit; Call the soupier (ran a pet store) Karen comes up, looks
at it -> dead;

Puts the rabbit in the Macys bag; Where was he going? What did he
do with the rabbit?

It helps to know the context of ny at the time. 111 broadway ave

Page: 70 answer to the death of timmie;

Back to lesson

Something higher than the sovereign The SOCIAL CONTRACT

It is sacred and has to be defended at all costs

He gets into various government and government agencies which are
required to protect the social contract. There are times when either the
sovereign or the government is overwhelmed by the other (social
contract is getting weak)
In such a case, tribunes should form (above the sovereign) and they
should restore the balance; He is vague but offers the formula that
they should be in power for a specific time; There is no clear
formulation as to how they are introduced;
Similarly, he uses the concept of dictatorship; Dictatorship was not bad
in his time; There are times when the social contract is too rigid for the
situation (e.g. invasion, crisis, etc.==>no time for the whole legislative
process)
These new extra-government agencies have an unlimited right to
resolve the situation (social contract too strong/weak)

Civil Religion
 1. Founders always use religion for political reasons. Now (ch8) he looks
at religion and evaluate the advantage and disadvantage of religion
do they foster political unity or not?
2. The intertwining of political and religious outlooks is no longer relevant
because a key section of humanity is recognizing that we are the
creators of our values and those are not coming from the gods;
3. We have a universal religion that exists in Western culture
(Christianity) which is not linked to a certain people. The idea of each
people having their own distinct god is gonehumanity is the source of
values

History part:

Initially every people that flourished had a god; there was an

intertwining of religious and political authority (Persians Zarathustra,
Athenian godsGreece)
There was no universal god and when one people defeated another
god, that god generally was extinguished; Judaism was the first people
that seeks to hold onto itself after it has been defeatedpersecution;
The Romans developed an empire and set the bases for the eventual
development of a universal religion (mixture of Gods that had a
certain commonality)
This engenders the development of Christianity, a religion for all
people, not as one of a specific people/tribe
At first they are persecuted, but then they take over. They created the
most violent despotism that humanity has ever seen and it divided
sovereigntypeople did not know who they were supposed to be loyal
to (god or political leader) Mohammed tried to get out of that problem
by trying to integrate the state and religion, but Islam created a great
empire, did not seek to stay within a specific people; The problem is
that the empire receded, the Muslims left behind did not know who to
be loyal to (they divide sovereignty as well)
He argues that Hobbes has the best insight on this. Hobbes recognizes
the power of divided sovereignty.

What are the choices of sovereigns coming into power in relation to religion?

Protestantism (pure religionyou have an unmediated relationship

with god)
o Rejects even reformed Christianity because: how can a universal
religion be fateful to a sovereign? It undermines political unity;
The religion of the citizen
o Nope because people cannot think that their religion is better
than another one xenophobia
 The religion of the priest (Catholicismnope nope because having a
priest is divided sovereignty)

Can you reconcile what is right, what is good for unity and what is useful; He
argues that the sovereign is not concerned with any beliefs in practice that
do not cause disunity; You can do whatever you want as long as you do not
cause disunity; Every sovereign, when he comes into power:

Extremely lose, flexible religious premises which are mainly to

reinforce the sovereign and the sovereign should create them
(sovereign = body of people vs. Hobbes where the sovereign is
an institution)
The only thing that cannot be tolerated is any types of teachings that
say you should be more loyal to the god than to the people; so
Rousseaus position is very similar to that of Hobbes:
o You can believe whatever you want to believe, but if the
sovereign says no, the sovereign says no. What is shows you is
that with Hobbes and Rousseau, they are in unity about one
major project move Christianity out of the way;

Hobbes and Rousseau:

1. Differences on freedom
2. Politics
3. These differences contributed to fundamental conflicts within the west;

The Exam

1. Stay at the general logic; particularize;

2. 10 pages;
3. The key is answering the question;

Review Session

On the sovereign

Hobbes:

Whatever polit institution has the highest authority; That institution

has undivided authority, if dividedwar of all vs all
Preference for Monarchy (because he is interested in keeping his
subjects happy he does this for self-interested reason)
Rousseau

There is only one sovereign (the people) he wants to delegitimize all

other forms of authority (monarchy, religion, etc.)
The sovereign = the lawmaking people;
The monarch is more interested in the people being passive and the
most important thing for them is maintaining power

Adam Smith

Important for extending Hobbes argument; because of the capacity of

our imagination so that we will become our own policeman and that we
will adhere to and embrace norms of justice that will enable us to rule
ourselves in a moral way in which the Leviathan is not needed; A self-
interested behavior achieves public benefits; You act socially for self-
interested reasons just like he would argue that you develop
economically beneficial practices for self-interested reasons;

Rousseau

When a sovereign stops making the framework (the general law) the
scene is set for a war of all vs. all; The sovereign should not consider
the particular;
Steps for setting up a gov
o Sovereign decides the no of magistrates
o Then the sovereign becomes a democratic government
o Then the sovereign dissolves
o Then the sovereign constitutes itself again and vote up and down
again
We lived mechanistic lives in the state of nature, unable to
think (social construct through mutually interacting) Rousseau
has the concept that by nature we are self-sustainable and
good;
The ability to think and the ability to communicate are coeval
in different parts of the world you get different practices and
different ways of thought;
Adam Smith picks up his argument from the moment after the individual gets
out of the state of nature; He does not really care about how that happened.

Rousseau thinks that Hobbes makes the jump from the state of nature to the
social state way too fast.