Abstract

In his Discourse on Inequality Jean Jacques Rousseau proposes two different interpretations of what distinguishes men from the animals. Firstly he suggests that man is separated from the other animals through his freedom of will. While an animal is governed wholly by instinct, man feels the call of instinct "but realizes he is free to acquiesce or resist." Humans are distinguished from the animals, then, by the power of willing and the consciousness of this power. Moreover, these qualities, Rousseau contends, indicate the "spirituality" of the human soul; they cannot be adequately explained by the scientific laws of mechanics. But, as he notes, this understanding of the human species characteristic is open to philosophical dispute. ;Therefore, Rousseau suggests another, less controversial quality which may separate us from the animals---perfectibility. Perfectibility, as Rousseau understands it, is compatible with the materialist science of his day, while metaphysical free will dearly is not. Rousseau does not want his work to be dismissed by materialist thinkers, as it would be if it were to be based wholly and explicitly on a metaphysical understanding of free will. Thus the teaching of the rest of the Discourse on Inequality is explicitly based on the faculty of perfectibility. ;With this in mind, some interpreters suggest that Rousseau does not truly believe that free will is the defining characteristic of humanity, instead they suggest he feigns this belief for the sake of salutary politics and to avoid persecution by religious authorities. These interpreters further suggest that when he bases his explanation of man's development in the Discourse on Inequality, on perfectibility, he effectively discards the concept of free will. ;The thesis of the dissertation is that the preponderance of evidence indicates that Rousseau's teaching about free will is proposed in earnest. Moreover, I suggest that Rousseau does not abandon his idea that free will distinguishes human beings. Rather it has an important, if implicit, role in the Discourse on Inequality and a significant role in Emile. In both texts Rousseau suggests that man's consciousness of free will contributes to the development of amour propre, morality and vice