Rousseau’s Observations on Inequality and the Causes of Moral Corruption

Abstract

Rousseau’s passionate attack on inequalities political, social, and economic, his critique of reigning governments in the name of democracy, and his questioning of the authority of science or philosophy in defense of moral virtue shook the century of Enlightenment and the aftershocks are still felt today. We examine a neglected but important writing in which he first brings together his diverse but interrelated preoccupations: the Observations, his lengthiest defense of the Discourse on the Sciences and the Arts. We analyze the argument in the Observations regarding the causes of moral corruption, taking our cue in part from several structural anomalies. These textual anomalies reveal two causal arguments: first, a political argument identifying inequality as the first cause of corruption, and, second, an argument about the corrupting effects of philosophy on religious faith and popular morality related to the first argument through a common concern with pride and inequality.