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Rousseau Discourse On Inequality Summary

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Rousseau in "Discourses on Inequality" and "On the Social Contract" investigates the nature of freedom and its place in human society. At the same time, equality is a concept that Rousseau explores and is a central question that our society today focuses on. Thus, it is worthwhile to investigate whether a free society is necessarily an equal one; in other words, whether freedom is synonymous to equality. Rousseau separates absolute equality into both physical and moral equality; therefore, the discussion will proceed by first investigating whether both or either forms of equality are possible within a free society, whether in the state of nature or in Rousseau's social contract. One more sentence here about my argument. Ultimately, there is never an absolutely equal society whether or not there is freedom.
Rousseau argues that men are naturally free in the state of nature; and yet, even in this free and untainted society, there exists physical inequality, suggesting that a free society is not necessarily an equal one. As Rousseau claims in the Discourses on Inequality, "they are born men and free," freedom is a prerogative of humanity (160). He asserts that there is a natural, …show more content…

Such being the case, that original state cannot subsist any longer, and the human race would perish if it did not alter its mode of existence" ("On the Social Contract" 163).
It appears necessary that men aggregate into societies and it is impossible for humanity to revert back to the ideal solitary state of nature. As previously demonstrated, inequalities are bound to multiply with the development of societies, whose formation is inevitable in

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