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Rousseau,
Nature, and the Problem of the Good Life Laurence D. Cooper
1999 | 6 x 9 inches
Political Philosophy, Political Theory
Hardback: $56.00 SH
ISBN: 978-0-271-01922-2
Paperback: $23.00 SH
ISBN: 978-0-271-02988-7
The
rise of modern science created a crisis for Western moral and political
philosophy, which had theretofore relied either on Christian theology
or Aristotelian natural teleology as guarantors of an objective standard
for "the good life." This book examines Rousseau's effort to show
how and why, despite this challenge from science (which he himself
intensified by equating our subhuman origins with our natural state),
nature can remain a standard for human behavior.
While recognizing an original goodness in human being in the state
of nature, Rousseau knew this to be too low a standard and promoted
the idea of "the natural man living in the state of society," notably
in Emile. Laurence Cooper shows how, for Rousseau, conscience—understood
as the "love of order"—functions as the agent whereby simple savage
sentiment is sublimated into a more refined "civilized naturalness"
to which all people can aspire.
Laurence
D. Cooper is Assistant Professor of Political Science at
Carleton College.
