Rousseau's Attempt To Criticize And Save The Crisis Of Modernity

This paper traces back and presents Rousseau's attempt to save the crisis of modernity,Rousseau's intention is to turn political issues into moral issues, to rebuild"The modern moral politics",in order to solve the conflict between individual desires and the morality. The article begins with Rousseau and Hobbes' argument about human nature,Rousseau demonstrates self-preservation and compassion are two human natures before the rationality. The natural state protects the total independence of the individual, human is naturally free and equal,and thus life is happy.It is accidental for human to enter to civilization,Rousseau believes that history doesn't have the prior end and purpose,so modern is not superior to the ancient. He criticizes the modern mainstream values. First of all,he indicates science and art is incompatible with the health and virtue of the society:Science only uses progress and retrogression as the standard of the good or bad, this causes the human to indulge in the selfish desires. Rousseau doubts the art's effects on the civil society by discussing dramas. Ultimately,it proves the virtues experience is only exist on the stage, its effect on the morality is negligible. The most serious consequence of human depravity is the generation of the modern personality bourgeois. The virtues of the bourgeois society fall into oblivion. The bourgeois not only does not have the honesty of nature state,but also the noble virtues of the citizen, constantly pursuing the superiority,indulging in the selfish greedy desires. The conflict between human and civil bourgeois is rooted in private property. To Locke,the establishment of private property solves the political issues,while Rousseau thinks it is the root of human lasting plight. Rousseau says that the community opposition exists between the selfish greed of the rich and the suffering poor,he cares about those who have no land and no survival necessities.From the criticism and reflection of modern human predicament,Rousseau proposed the program to save the crisis:First of all,Rousseau attempts to resort to"Socratic wisdom",this wisdom is not knowledge but action or behavior control,it has responsibility to protect moral from all the sophistry and artifice,it can enlightenment people on the obligations and various characteristics of the good society . In order to fulfill this function,the wisdom of Socrates must be the monarch of theoretical science,so this wisdom can only exist among a very small number of people. Only the wise know really well what is good for the soul in all cases,the justice can only exist in the society where the wise have absolute dominant status,every person is given the natural good things for himself. It can only be relied on philosophers to rule the city to put Socratic wisdom into practice,but these people tend to just focus on the pursuit of knowledge,have no time to care about human affairs,on the other hand, the ability of the wise to convince the unwise is extremely limited. The ideal city set up by the wisdom of Socrates is difficult in practice.Secondly,beyond the classical wisdom,Rousseau establishes a"general will theory",to find out a combination to protect the body and wealth of every member. To Rousseau,the only solution is that people govern themselves,and everyone will deliver all the powers and their property to the community. Through this combination,all special wills become a unified general will,that is the general will. General will as a pure good will beyond all personal interests,it is only concerned about the public good. Social contract creates an artificial personality,the State,which has will like a natural personality,intends apparently all the necessary and yearning things of that personality. What is desired by all people forms the law. Law is the product of general will. The essence of the legislation of general will is:everyone obeys the law of their own. It replaces the natural freedom by the social freedom,to seek a civil substitute for self-preservation to replace of the natural weakening compassion. The social contract creates the sovereignty. The government exists between the sovereign and the individual citizen. The social freedom can be realized only when everyone,especially the government,is completely subordinated to the will of the free society.The real difficulty that Rousseau's general will theory encountered embodies in two issues:the general will always put social benefits at first,which always has good intentions,can't be always clear what the interest of the community is;the natural persons entirely controlled by the private interest,can not achieve a qualitative change as a citizen who always places private interest above the general will. To Rousseau's view,this problem can only use political philosophy to express, but to resolve. Or more precisely,the solution of this difficulty is precisely threatened by political philosophy which leads to it.General will is the goal Rousseau inspires the human. The so-called good life lies in the return of freedom on the humanitarian level. Despite his freedom essentially has no clear humanitarian content,we have to realize that just this ambiguity,in Rousseau's eyes,become its most perfect rational basis. So it becomes a tool to realize freedom. Rousseau is romantic,his proposal is utopian, but in any case we notice Rousseau's morality is not a definite setting,but an issue to be considered. He begins with the truth of the human,trying to depict and restore the fundamental sweet life tirelessly,which is the insurmountable task of the human that pursue perfection.