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Objectives:
Key Questions:
Key Philosophers
The Overview Notes
Plato and Aristotle held to the idea of regimes or “constitutions” (politeia, singular)— in Aristotle's version, the three “good” regimes were monarchy, aristocracy, and a moderate form of democracy; and their three “perversions” being tyranny, oligarchy, and a bad form of democracy. These ideas informed the discussion of politics in the context of the “mixed regime” of the Roman republic, held to combine elements of all three of the good regimes. And they remain relevant today.
Plato held, along with his allegory of the cave, and through is writings - The Republic - that the purest form of government was an aristocracy (rule by the best), in the for of philosopher kings: those who were enlightened, and wisest regarding the truth of the world and how best to live and to govern.
"By making the claim of the philosophers to rule depend on their knowledge of the good and of the other Platonic Forms (in conjunction with their moral character and tested practical experience), the dialogue vindicates the Socratic and Platonic thought that ruling well—what we might call “rule” proper – requires a rare form of expertise rather than lay judgment, rhetorical advice, or common knowledge." (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
But what about justice?
"Justice was conceived by poets, lawgivers, and philosophers alike as the structure of civic bonds which were beneficial to all (rich and poor, powerful and weak alike) rather than an exploitation of some by others. Hesiod's late eighth-century epic poem Works and Days, for example, contrasts the brute strength with which a hawk can dominate a nightingale (“You are being held by one who is much stronger… I will make a meal of you, if I want, or let you go,” lines 206–208), with the peace and plenty which flourishes wherever justice, such as rendering fair verdicts to foreigners, is preserved (lines 225–230).
So understood, justice defined the basis of equal citizenship and was said to be the requirement for human regimes to be acceptable to the gods. The ideal was that, with justice as a foundation, political life would enable its participants to flourish and to achieve the overarching human end of happiness (eudaimonia), expressing a civic form of virtue and pursuing happiness and success through the competitive forums of the city." (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
The Trial of Socrates
That engagement with political philosophy was dramatically intensified when Socrates was, at the age of seventy, arraigned, tried, and sentenced to death by an Athenian court. Brought in the usual Athenian way by a group of his fellow citizens who took it upon themselves to prosecute him for the sake of the city, the charges against him were three-fold: not acknowledging the city's gods; introducing new gods; and corrupting the young.
Socrates' speeches in the court trial—literary versions of which were produced by Plato, Xenophon, and a number of other followers—forced him to confront directly the question of his role in an Athens defined by its democratic institutions and norms. In Plato's account, after countering the religious accusations, Socrates acknowledged this abstention from public affairs but claimed to have had a more significant mission laid on him by the god Apollo when his oracle at Delphi declared that no man was wiser than Socrates. He claimed that his efforts in the town squares were meant to benefit each person by encouraging him to care for virtue rather than wealth. In that way, he said he should be treated to the free meals given to Olympic heroes for a lifetime.
But when his trial concluded: when the time came, he drank the poisonous hemlock prescribed. Before that moment, Plato imagines Socrates being visited in prison by his friend Crito (in a dialogue which bears his name), and urged to escape for the sake of his friends and family, a practice which was tolerated in Athens so long as the escapee fled into exile.
Socrates argues against Crito with the concept that it is better to suffer injustice than to commit it, and that to escape was against the "Laws of Athens." Obedience is owed because the “Laws” have provided the whole basis for Socrates' education and life in the city, a city in which he has notably chosen to remain, never traveling abroad except on military service. This image of Socrates tried, convicted, and made to die (by his own hand) at the city's command has come to be the most vivid and powerful symbol of tension in the relationship between political philosophy and political authority.
- Demonstrate an understanding of the main questions of social and political philosophy
- Evaluate the responses of major philosophers and major schools of social and political philosophy (e.g., individualism, communitarianism, feminism) to some of the main questions of social and political philosophy, making reference to classic texts.
Key Questions:
- What are the just limits of state authority? Do people have a right to equal treatment?
- Should individual citizens be free do do what they want? (See John Stuart Mill)
- What are an individual's rights and responsibilities?
- Do we have responsibilities to the state? To one another?
- What is justice? How do we achieve it?
- What is the proper boundary between public policy and private morality?
- What is authority? Who has it? Why do they have it?
- Is war ethically permissible?
- Why should we obey the law?
- Is the government responsible for promoting equality?
- Is it okay to rebel against the government? When?
Key Philosophers
- Hammurabi
- Confucius
- Socrates
- Plato
- Machiavelli
- Francis Bacon
- Thomas Hobbes -Leviathan
- John Locke
- Montesquieu
- Baruch Spinoza
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau - Social Contract
- Simone de Beauvoir - The Second Sex
- Immanuel Kant
- Thomas Jefferson
- Jeremy Bentham
- Georg W.F. Hegel
- Arthur Schopenhauer
- John Stuart Mill
- Henry David Thoreau
- Karl Marx
- Friedrich Nietzche
- Bertrand Russell
- Martin Heidegger
- Albert Camus
- Jean-Paul Sartre
- Ayn Rand
- Noam Chomsky
The Overview Notes
Plato and Aristotle held to the idea of regimes or “constitutions” (politeia, singular)— in Aristotle's version, the three “good” regimes were monarchy, aristocracy, and a moderate form of democracy; and their three “perversions” being tyranny, oligarchy, and a bad form of democracy. These ideas informed the discussion of politics in the context of the “mixed regime” of the Roman republic, held to combine elements of all three of the good regimes. And they remain relevant today.
Plato held, along with his allegory of the cave, and through is writings - The Republic - that the purest form of government was an aristocracy (rule by the best), in the for of philosopher kings: those who were enlightened, and wisest regarding the truth of the world and how best to live and to govern.
"By making the claim of the philosophers to rule depend on their knowledge of the good and of the other Platonic Forms (in conjunction with their moral character and tested practical experience), the dialogue vindicates the Socratic and Platonic thought that ruling well—what we might call “rule” proper – requires a rare form of expertise rather than lay judgment, rhetorical advice, or common knowledge." (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
But what about justice?
"Justice was conceived by poets, lawgivers, and philosophers alike as the structure of civic bonds which were beneficial to all (rich and poor, powerful and weak alike) rather than an exploitation of some by others. Hesiod's late eighth-century epic poem Works and Days, for example, contrasts the brute strength with which a hawk can dominate a nightingale (“You are being held by one who is much stronger… I will make a meal of you, if I want, or let you go,” lines 206–208), with the peace and plenty which flourishes wherever justice, such as rendering fair verdicts to foreigners, is preserved (lines 225–230).
So understood, justice defined the basis of equal citizenship and was said to be the requirement for human regimes to be acceptable to the gods. The ideal was that, with justice as a foundation, political life would enable its participants to flourish and to achieve the overarching human end of happiness (eudaimonia), expressing a civic form of virtue and pursuing happiness and success through the competitive forums of the city." (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
The Trial of Socrates
That engagement with political philosophy was dramatically intensified when Socrates was, at the age of seventy, arraigned, tried, and sentenced to death by an Athenian court. Brought in the usual Athenian way by a group of his fellow citizens who took it upon themselves to prosecute him for the sake of the city, the charges against him were three-fold: not acknowledging the city's gods; introducing new gods; and corrupting the young.
Socrates' speeches in the court trial—literary versions of which were produced by Plato, Xenophon, and a number of other followers—forced him to confront directly the question of his role in an Athens defined by its democratic institutions and norms. In Plato's account, after countering the religious accusations, Socrates acknowledged this abstention from public affairs but claimed to have had a more significant mission laid on him by the god Apollo when his oracle at Delphi declared that no man was wiser than Socrates. He claimed that his efforts in the town squares were meant to benefit each person by encouraging him to care for virtue rather than wealth. In that way, he said he should be treated to the free meals given to Olympic heroes for a lifetime.
But when his trial concluded: when the time came, he drank the poisonous hemlock prescribed. Before that moment, Plato imagines Socrates being visited in prison by his friend Crito (in a dialogue which bears his name), and urged to escape for the sake of his friends and family, a practice which was tolerated in Athens so long as the escapee fled into exile.
Socrates argues against Crito with the concept that it is better to suffer injustice than to commit it, and that to escape was against the "Laws of Athens." Obedience is owed because the “Laws” have provided the whole basis for Socrates' education and life in the city, a city in which he has notably chosen to remain, never traveling abroad except on military service. This image of Socrates tried, convicted, and made to die (by his own hand) at the city's command has come to be the most vivid and powerful symbol of tension in the relationship between political philosophy and political authority.
There is also an ethical question which Thrasymachus poses in Plato's Republic, and which Plato's brothers Glaucon and Adeimantus reformulate—why should the individual be just if he or she can get away with not being just, when elevated above the demands of ordinary justice either by special power or good fortune? If you have power, should you be just? Or if you have been luckily blessed, should to do something that would otherwise be considered unjust, if you can?
In the Melian Dialogue, it is stated, "The strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must."
Aristotle
The two Platonic themes of superior political knowledge and, expressed particularly in his Laws, political participation, also structure the political thought of Aristotle.
Aristotle's work diverged and led him away from the world of forms and philosopher kings. He believed in the senses and their ability to tell us the truth about our world. He believed that biological creatures work to fulfill the realization of their end or telos, a specific way of living a complete life characteristic of the plants or animals of their own kind, which is the distinctive purpose that defines their fundamental nature. He believed that humans did this by following the golden mean. Sticking to the middle and experiencing things in moderation was the key to the good life, and it was this focus that led him toward his political and ethical philosophy.
"Practical reason is the domain of ethics and politics, the uniquely human domain, but the political life is not necessarily the best life, compared with that devoted to the divinely shared human capacity for theoretical reason and contemplation. Aristotle's understanding of civic unity insists on respect for human plurality as the condition of political action; however, since this potential for politics can only be fulfilled by those who are indeed capable of virtue, politics is most fully realized not by an arithmetically based democracy in which all who can be counted as individuals can vote, but rather by a regime in which citizenship is limited to all and only the (sufficiently) virtuous." (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
“There is also a doubt as to what is to be the supreme power in the state:—Is it the multitude? Or the wealthy? Or the good? Or the one best man? Or a tyrant?” (III.10, 1281a11–13). He develops in particular detail the arguments that might be made on behalf of the many and the knowledgeable one respectively. The many can judge, as they did in Athenian dramatic audiences, juries, and the Assembly (where they “judged” the merits of a speaker's proposal).
In the contrasting case of the one supremely excellent person, Aristotle argues that such a person has, strictly speaking, no equals, and so cannot be made justly to take his turn in rule as one citizen among others. Instead it is right that such a person should rule:
If, however, there be some one person, or more than one, although not enough to make up the full complement of a state, whose excellence is so pre-eminent that the excellence or the political capacity of all the rest admit of no comparison with his or theirs, he or they can be no longer regarded as part of a state; for justice will not be done to the superior, if he is reckoned only as the equal of those who are so far inferior to him in excellence and in political capacity. Such a man may truly be deemed a god among men ….men like him should be kings in their state for life. (III.13, 1284a3–11…1284b32–34; cf. III.17, 1288a24–29)
Hobbes:
People are evil in a state of nature. By evil, we mean that a person does not contribute to the "common good" from an altruistic motivation, but rather will contribute from a self-interested position, even when altruism appears to be the cause of one person helping another, they are really acting from self-interest by way of reasoning that they will gain a feeling of having done something good. This good feeling, is still evidence of self-interest. We can see this unfold in begging / giving situations on the street where a person who will stop at one time, will not stop at others. One possible reason for this is that the cost/benefit analysis that the "giver" undergoes in each instance is different. One moment, they will have that good feeling, and it outweighs the loss of the money - thus their self-interest wins. In the other instance, where the person does not give money, the "good feeling" does not outweigh the cost of the money. So we can see through an empiricist explanation of our experiences that there may be evidence for what Hobbes proposes.
Locke: People are inherently good and seek to do good for others. We see this "good" as an echo of Aristotle's good. We are good when we go good, not for ourselves (as in the case above for Hobbes), but when we do it for its own sake.
Rousseau: People are "born free but are everywhere in chains." We are good, but property, and society corrupt us. Education is a corrupter of the youth and brings evil and self-interest into our hearts. Rousseau states that laws serve the self-interested and the rich. They protect property, and therefore are only good for those who have property. This was the case before the French and American Revolutions. Laws were created to increase and protect the wealth and property of those who had it.
JS Mill: Liberalism. Freedom for people and for industry. Freedom should only be taken away when it impinges upon the liberty of another. You may not do harm to another, or to another's business. Free speech stops at shouting that "corn-dealers are starvers and killers of women and children." This is because your speech would cause a riot, but more importantly, it would take away the freedom of the corn-dealer.
Bernard Mandeville: Selfish actions can lead indirectly to socially desirable consequences. This is a moral relativist approach to understanding actions. It flies in the face of absolutism.
Adam Smith: "Man is an animal that makes bargains." Important Concepts: Bargaining, self-interest, the common-interest. He expanded on the commercial society of David Hume. He assumes that we are partly benevolent and partly self-interested. He believes that we can see self-interest as the stronger force, and we use empirical observations to validate that. "The best way for you to get what you want is for you to give me what I want."
He also said thatr the exchange of useful objects is a distinctively human characteristic. However, see the example below:
A striking example of honest trading or bargaining has been described (Hazlett, 1980). In hermit crabs there is good evidence that empty shells are a limiting resource.
An individual may find itself in a shell which is either too large or too small. A large crab in a small shell and a small crab in a big shell can both benefit by exchange, and such exchanges do in fact take place. One crab will initiate an exchange by tapping or shaking the shell of another in a manner that is characteristic of the species. The non-initiating crab may stay inside its shell, or it may come out of its shell after first tapping the initiator on its shell. If it comes out of its shell an exchange of shells takes place. When an exchange of shells would leave a non-initiating crab in a shell further from its preferred size, then no exchange takes place. Neither the size nor the sex of the initiating crab influences the likelihood of an exchange, so it seems that an exchange requires mutual benefit, and cannot be enforced by the initiator.
Adam Smith Continued: Smith argues that it is our ability to bargain which allows us to stop relying solely on ourselves to supply a multitude of goods. We can focus on producing one good, and bargain for the other goods we need. Think about staying in a hotel and the number of people required to provide all of the services: a bed, bathroom, food, and all of the other amenities. It requires the "cooperation and assistance of a great multitude." So the bargaining is done with a "self-interested" or selfish motivation. I will get something by giving something. Smith calls this a "division of labor".Though this sounds like Hobbes' view that we are evil and self-interested. Smith doesn't go that far. He believes that there are good actions that are evidence of goodness in people. Smith says that everyone can take part in this marketplace, bringing their skills/products to trade for other services/products. In this way, we specialize. Smith saw the market as key to establishing a fair and equitable society. Only those who could not work should rely on charity.
Smith was influenced by the Industrial Revolution. He felt with the factory system, that the jack-of-all-trades could not survive. People needed to specialize. He argued for the FREE MARKET (the basis for Free Trade Agreements) where the market should be left unregulated. Everyone is free to pursue his own interests. His goal was "the creation of a society not divided by competitiveness but drawn together by bargaining based on mutual self-interest. Society benefits from people pursuing their self-interest. His case is that self-interest is not an evil, as Hobbes would argue. It can lead to good. He also recognized that the bargaining of wages for working time was one that was ongoing and could be unfair. So he called for some government regulation (possible minimum wage?) And he argued that a country's wealth should not be measured by its gold reserve, but by its labor. This was a revolutionary idea. It is an idea tied to our current measure of GDP (Gross Domestic Product). We measure by the goods we produce, which create wealth, but are produced by the laborers. This the idea is tied to labor.
John Ruskin: Argued against Adam Smith, that materialism was inherently bad and anti-Christian. Amassing material goods went against the beliefs espoused in the Bible and therefore he stated that Adam Smith was too materialistic in his views.
Questions for readings:
JS Mill:
1. What is the only purpose which justifies government in forcefully restricting the actions of individuals?
2. Why does Mill believe the state may not stop an individual from acting, "for his own good"? Do you agree?
3, Mill says that freedom of expression stops at the right to do things like shout "corn dealers are starvers of the poor!" to an angry and starving mob outside the home of a corn dealer. What would be a similar situation be today?
4. Does the state have the right to set a minimum wage? Ensure product safety?
5. Is our government liberal?
Rousseau:
1. According to Rousseau, is man naturally good or evil?
2. Hobbes says that life in nature is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." But what is his reasoning? How is this different from Rousseau's view? What makes us evil according to Rousseau?
3. What is the thing that causes a need for laws?
4. Give me a famous quote from Rousseau.
5.What did laws do, in Rousseau's view?
6. How should we be governed, according to Rousseau? What system is that most like?
7. Is education good? What does it cause? Could you find a link to his early Calvinist upbringing for this belief?
In the Melian Dialogue, it is stated, "The strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must."
Aristotle
The two Platonic themes of superior political knowledge and, expressed particularly in his Laws, political participation, also structure the political thought of Aristotle.
Aristotle's work diverged and led him away from the world of forms and philosopher kings. He believed in the senses and their ability to tell us the truth about our world. He believed that biological creatures work to fulfill the realization of their end or telos, a specific way of living a complete life characteristic of the plants or animals of their own kind, which is the distinctive purpose that defines their fundamental nature. He believed that humans did this by following the golden mean. Sticking to the middle and experiencing things in moderation was the key to the good life, and it was this focus that led him toward his political and ethical philosophy.
"Practical reason is the domain of ethics and politics, the uniquely human domain, but the political life is not necessarily the best life, compared with that devoted to the divinely shared human capacity for theoretical reason and contemplation. Aristotle's understanding of civic unity insists on respect for human plurality as the condition of political action; however, since this potential for politics can only be fulfilled by those who are indeed capable of virtue, politics is most fully realized not by an arithmetically based democracy in which all who can be counted as individuals can vote, but rather by a regime in which citizenship is limited to all and only the (sufficiently) virtuous." (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
“There is also a doubt as to what is to be the supreme power in the state:—Is it the multitude? Or the wealthy? Or the good? Or the one best man? Or a tyrant?” (III.10, 1281a11–13). He develops in particular detail the arguments that might be made on behalf of the many and the knowledgeable one respectively. The many can judge, as they did in Athenian dramatic audiences, juries, and the Assembly (where they “judged” the merits of a speaker's proposal).
In the contrasting case of the one supremely excellent person, Aristotle argues that such a person has, strictly speaking, no equals, and so cannot be made justly to take his turn in rule as one citizen among others. Instead it is right that such a person should rule:
If, however, there be some one person, or more than one, although not enough to make up the full complement of a state, whose excellence is so pre-eminent that the excellence or the political capacity of all the rest admit of no comparison with his or theirs, he or they can be no longer regarded as part of a state; for justice will not be done to the superior, if he is reckoned only as the equal of those who are so far inferior to him in excellence and in political capacity. Such a man may truly be deemed a god among men ….men like him should be kings in their state for life. (III.13, 1284a3–11…1284b32–34; cf. III.17, 1288a24–29)
Hobbes:
People are evil in a state of nature. By evil, we mean that a person does not contribute to the "common good" from an altruistic motivation, but rather will contribute from a self-interested position, even when altruism appears to be the cause of one person helping another, they are really acting from self-interest by way of reasoning that they will gain a feeling of having done something good. This good feeling, is still evidence of self-interest. We can see this unfold in begging / giving situations on the street where a person who will stop at one time, will not stop at others. One possible reason for this is that the cost/benefit analysis that the "giver" undergoes in each instance is different. One moment, they will have that good feeling, and it outweighs the loss of the money - thus their self-interest wins. In the other instance, where the person does not give money, the "good feeling" does not outweigh the cost of the money. So we can see through an empiricist explanation of our experiences that there may be evidence for what Hobbes proposes.
Locke: People are inherently good and seek to do good for others. We see this "good" as an echo of Aristotle's good. We are good when we go good, not for ourselves (as in the case above for Hobbes), but when we do it for its own sake.
Rousseau: People are "born free but are everywhere in chains." We are good, but property, and society corrupt us. Education is a corrupter of the youth and brings evil and self-interest into our hearts. Rousseau states that laws serve the self-interested and the rich. They protect property, and therefore are only good for those who have property. This was the case before the French and American Revolutions. Laws were created to increase and protect the wealth and property of those who had it.
JS Mill: Liberalism. Freedom for people and for industry. Freedom should only be taken away when it impinges upon the liberty of another. You may not do harm to another, or to another's business. Free speech stops at shouting that "corn-dealers are starvers and killers of women and children." This is because your speech would cause a riot, but more importantly, it would take away the freedom of the corn-dealer.
Bernard Mandeville: Selfish actions can lead indirectly to socially desirable consequences. This is a moral relativist approach to understanding actions. It flies in the face of absolutism.
Adam Smith: "Man is an animal that makes bargains." Important Concepts: Bargaining, self-interest, the common-interest. He expanded on the commercial society of David Hume. He assumes that we are partly benevolent and partly self-interested. He believes that we can see self-interest as the stronger force, and we use empirical observations to validate that. "The best way for you to get what you want is for you to give me what I want."
He also said thatr the exchange of useful objects is a distinctively human characteristic. However, see the example below:
A striking example of honest trading or bargaining has been described (Hazlett, 1980). In hermit crabs there is good evidence that empty shells are a limiting resource.
An individual may find itself in a shell which is either too large or too small. A large crab in a small shell and a small crab in a big shell can both benefit by exchange, and such exchanges do in fact take place. One crab will initiate an exchange by tapping or shaking the shell of another in a manner that is characteristic of the species. The non-initiating crab may stay inside its shell, or it may come out of its shell after first tapping the initiator on its shell. If it comes out of its shell an exchange of shells takes place. When an exchange of shells would leave a non-initiating crab in a shell further from its preferred size, then no exchange takes place. Neither the size nor the sex of the initiating crab influences the likelihood of an exchange, so it seems that an exchange requires mutual benefit, and cannot be enforced by the initiator.
Adam Smith Continued: Smith argues that it is our ability to bargain which allows us to stop relying solely on ourselves to supply a multitude of goods. We can focus on producing one good, and bargain for the other goods we need. Think about staying in a hotel and the number of people required to provide all of the services: a bed, bathroom, food, and all of the other amenities. It requires the "cooperation and assistance of a great multitude." So the bargaining is done with a "self-interested" or selfish motivation. I will get something by giving something. Smith calls this a "division of labor".Though this sounds like Hobbes' view that we are evil and self-interested. Smith doesn't go that far. He believes that there are good actions that are evidence of goodness in people. Smith says that everyone can take part in this marketplace, bringing their skills/products to trade for other services/products. In this way, we specialize. Smith saw the market as key to establishing a fair and equitable society. Only those who could not work should rely on charity.
Smith was influenced by the Industrial Revolution. He felt with the factory system, that the jack-of-all-trades could not survive. People needed to specialize. He argued for the FREE MARKET (the basis for Free Trade Agreements) where the market should be left unregulated. Everyone is free to pursue his own interests. His goal was "the creation of a society not divided by competitiveness but drawn together by bargaining based on mutual self-interest. Society benefits from people pursuing their self-interest. His case is that self-interest is not an evil, as Hobbes would argue. It can lead to good. He also recognized that the bargaining of wages for working time was one that was ongoing and could be unfair. So he called for some government regulation (possible minimum wage?) And he argued that a country's wealth should not be measured by its gold reserve, but by its labor. This was a revolutionary idea. It is an idea tied to our current measure of GDP (Gross Domestic Product). We measure by the goods we produce, which create wealth, but are produced by the laborers. This the idea is tied to labor.
John Ruskin: Argued against Adam Smith, that materialism was inherently bad and anti-Christian. Amassing material goods went against the beliefs espoused in the Bible and therefore he stated that Adam Smith was too materialistic in his views.
Questions for readings:
JS Mill:
1. What is the only purpose which justifies government in forcefully restricting the actions of individuals?
2. Why does Mill believe the state may not stop an individual from acting, "for his own good"? Do you agree?
3, Mill says that freedom of expression stops at the right to do things like shout "corn dealers are starvers of the poor!" to an angry and starving mob outside the home of a corn dealer. What would be a similar situation be today?
4. Does the state have the right to set a minimum wage? Ensure product safety?
5. Is our government liberal?
Rousseau:
1. According to Rousseau, is man naturally good or evil?
2. Hobbes says that life in nature is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." But what is his reasoning? How is this different from Rousseau's view? What makes us evil according to Rousseau?
3. What is the thing that causes a need for laws?
4. Give me a famous quote from Rousseau.
5.What did laws do, in Rousseau's view?
6. How should we be governed, according to Rousseau? What system is that most like?
7. Is education good? What does it cause? Could you find a link to his early Calvinist upbringing for this belief?