Rousseau And the Ethics of Virtue (Continuum Studies in Philosophy)

170 Pages·2006·8.3 MB·English

by  James Delaney

Rousseau and the Ethics of
Virtue
James Delaney
Continuum
Rousseau and the Ethics of Virtue
Continuum Studies in Philosophy
Justin Skirry, Descartes and the Metaphysics of Human Nature
David A. Roberts, Kierkegaard's Analysis of Radical Evil
Dale Wilkerson, Nietzsche and the Greeks
Matthew Simpson, Rousseau's Theory of Freedom
Llyod Strickland, Leibniz Reinterpreted: The Harmony of Things
Carlos Garcia, Popper's Theory of Science
David Roberts, Dialect of Romanticism
Andrew Fiala, Tolerance and the Ethical Life
Rousseau and the Ethics of
Virtue
James Delaney
continuum
Continuum International Publishing Group
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© James Delaney 2006
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ISBN: 0826487246 (hardback)
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Contents
Acknowledgements vii
Introduction 1
1 Virtue Ethics Past and Present 7
2 Virtue and the State of Nature 41
3 Virtue as the Cultivation of the Individual 73
4 The Virtuous Citizen and Rousseau's Political Philosophy 103
5 Toward a Rousseauian Theory of Virtue 129
Bibliography 157
Index 163
Acknowledgements
After reading Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Discourse on the Origin of
Inequality for the first time, I was fascinated. As I pursued this
fascination further, reading other works and discussing them with
others, I realized quickly that there were many who did not share
my zeal for his thought. Rousseau's philosophy has been accused of
being unsystematic and contradictory. Perhaps because I was so
sympathetic to many of his claims, I wanted to take it upon myself
to defend him against some of these charges. In at least some small
way, I hope this book serves that purpose.
There are so many people whose support and help were
invaluable to me in undertaking this project. I owe a great deal
to my professors in the philosophy departments at Xavier
University and SUNY Buffalo for their guidance and patience. I
thank my colleagues at Niagara University for their day-to-day
encouragement. I also thank my many students who continue to
bring energy, creativity and enthusiasm to the study of philosophy.
I must mention by name three people who read earlier drafts of
the chapters and whose comments were so incredibly helpful to me.
My deepest thanks go to Jeffrey Dueck, Kevin Klipfel and Kenneth
Shockley.
Finally, I thank my wife Sarah for her constant love and support,
and S. Miles Grey, to whom this work is dedicated.
Introduction
This book is partly a work on the philosophy of Jean-Jacques
Rousseau and partly a study of the ethical theory commonly
referred to as 'virtue ethics'. My hope is that bringing these two very
different subjects together will serve to say something original about
both of them. Given their somewhat distinct natures, I think it will
be helpful to the reader for me to begin by giving a brief
introduction: to Rousseau, to virtue ethics, and to the subjects of
the five chapters that follow.
Rousseau was one of the most influential, as well as enigmatic,
thinkers during the famous Enlightenment period of eighteenth-
century France. Originally born in Geneva in 1712, Rousseau had a
troubled youth. His mother died only a few days after his birth, and
his father fled Geneva leaving Rousseau with an uncle when he was
still only a child. After an unpleasant stint as an apprentice to an
engraver as a teenager, Rousseau left Geneva and eventually settled
in France. One of his great loves was music, and in 1742 he went to
Paris to become a musician and composer. It was shortly after this
that Rousseau became acquainted with several other famous French
Enlightenment thinkers, among them, d'Alembert and Diderot.
Shortly thereafter, he began his own philosophical career.
In 1750, Rousseau published his first major philosophical treatise,
the Discourse on the Sciences and Arts. This work, as well as later ones
such as the Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, were widely read but
also raised much controversy. One reason for this is that it is difficult
to say whether Rousseau is properly classified as a participant in the
Enlightenment project or a critic of it. The Enlightenment project
prided itself on progress. Building on the advances that had been
made in metaphysics and science in the modern period, beginning
in the sixteenth century, the Enlightenment project consisted in
2 Rousseau and the Ethics of Virtue
large part in applying the same methods to topics in ethics and
sociopolitical philosophy. Perhaps there is no greater example of
such a project than as it is expressed in the work of Voltaire, who
advocated the progression of the sciences and arts with great zeal.
It's not at all surprising that Voltaire was one of Rousseau's most
outspoken critics. For Rousseau, while he shared some of the
Enlightenment project's ideals, also claimed that far from improving
life, society, and this supposed 'progress', had actually done more to
hurt humanity than to help it. Hence, it is difficult to classify his
philosophy: is he an Enlightenment thinker or a counter-Enlight-
enment thinker? There is still debate about this among contempor-
ary scholars just as there was during Rousseau's own time.
Rousseau's public life was certainly marked by conflict and
controversy, but his private life was even more tumultuous. He
feuded with friends and acquaintances throughout his life, which led
to fallouts with Diderot and David Hume among others. Rousseau
himself argues that these feuds were the result of people who, either
because of jealousy or unjustified contempt, had conspired against
him.
When we look back at Rousseau's writings, we are left with many
puzzles and seeming contradictions. Part of the task that I
undertake in this book is to offer something in the way of solutions
to some of these puzzles, and clarifications of some of these apparent
contradictions. Though it may be subtle, one observes the theme of
virtue arising again and again in Rousseau's major works. This I
will argue is no accident, and although the ways in which Rousseau
uses the term vary in some cases from text to text, there is a common
thread that runs through them: one that I hope to articulate in this
book. To put it another way, I hope to show that Rousseau's ethical
thought is best understood as an ethics of virtue.
And this leads us to the second major subject of this book: virtue
ethics. Virtue ethics is usually regarded among philosophers, along
with deontology and consequentialism, as one of three major
competing ethical theories. Very often these theories are associated
with their most famous advocates in the history of philosophy.
When one thinks of deontology, one usually thinks of the moral
philosophy of another famous Enlightenment philosopher, Imma-
Introduction 3
nuel Kant (1724—1804). Consequentialism is expressed in the
respective utilitarian positions of Jeremy Bentham (1748—1832)
and John Stuart Mill (1806—73). These philosophers, it should be
noted, lived relatively recently in terms of the Western philosophical
tradition. By contrast, the most famous advocate of virtue ethics is
Aristotle (384-322 BC). Aristotle's ethics was part of an all-
encompassing philosophical system that was the established school
of thought when the modern period began.
Aristotle's science, particularly his teleological metaphysics, was
being discarded in the modern period and was replaced by
mechanistic views such as those of Descartes and Hobbes. Enlight-
enment thinkers, and those who followed, attempted to formulate
ethical systems that would replace Aristotle's ethics in the same way.
But more recently, beginning in large part with G. E. M. Anscombe's
1958 article, 'Modern Moral Philosophy', virtue ethics enjoyed a
revival. One of the major issues that this revival raised was the
possibility of salvaging a basic Aristotelian framework in ethics
without accepting a full-blown Aristotelian physics that would fly in
the face of modern science.
As Rousseau is a key figure in the Enlightenment, I contend that
his writings must be examined if we are to understand the tradition
of virtue ethics, from its beginnings in the ancient period to the
present. Furthermore, since I will argue that Rousseau's ethical
thought is best understood as a system of virtue ethics, pulling these
two subjects together is a worthwhile project.
The book will proceed in five chapters. Chapter One, 'Virtue
Ethics Past and Present', presents a very general overview of
Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. Aristotle's ethics begins with the
fundamental claim that human beings have a natural end for which
they are intended, an end that we all agree is 'happiness'. But while
we all agree that happiness is the goal for which we are all striving,
there is great disagreement as to what precisely happiness is.
Ultimately, Aristotle will argue that happiness is achieved only
when one exhibits virtues, or excellences, in the performance of his
or her natural function. Some of these virtues are intellectual, such
as contemplative and practical wisdom. Others, such as temper-
ance, courage and proper anger, are moral virtues. It is only by