1. By Jamie Chase, Manuel Alonzo,
Mario Carrasco and Greg Bartley

2.  In what ways is Rousseau diametrically opposed to
Hobbes?
 How accurate is his statement that “Man was born
free, but everywhere is in chains? Were we really “born
free? Have we ever been “free”?
 Is it accurate to describe “society” (a general term
indeed) as nothing but a system of oppression?

3.  The first part of the topic addresses the different
stances of two great thinkers on the basis of their
published work. This is quantifiable… a direct
comparison that can have (at least relatively) correct
answers. The second and third portions of the topic,
however, are not as simple. These are subjects that are
at the center of a centuries-long debate. Even in our
relatively small group, the answers are not always the
same. So we strove in this presentation to offer a
continuation of this debate, including our humble
perspectives on the subject.

4.  Hobbes and Rousseau both used the idea of the
“savage” man in a state of nature in an attempt to
analyze human nature.
 Each tried to hypothetically separate man from the
influences of culture, religion, government and
society … imagining what life would be like without
externally imposed values.
 The conclusions they made based on their flights of
fancy are very different, however.

5. Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Thomas Hobbes:
 Man in a state of nature is Man in a state of nature is
essentially peaceful; selfish; sovereigns keep
society is the corrupting man from war of all
influence. against all.

6. Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Thomas Hobbes:
 To unite populace under To prevent the state of war
the “General Will”. by enforcing law and order.
 Government concerned Government protects the
with the best interests of people from themselves.
the citizens.
 Sovereign only does what Sovereign has absolute
benefits the people. power, not subject to laws.

7.  Rousseau and Hobbes took things to unnecessary
extremes. Humans are more complex than either of
them accounted for in their theories.
 “The two most basic purposes of life are to live and to
reproduce, it should do everything it can to avoid
dying through a lack of resources.” (Richard F.
Taflinger) Instinct causes animals to fight and
compete against one another. They cannot consciously
react in a less savage way.
 Humans also have such instincts.

8.  Humans have reason in addition to instinct, the ability
to think rationally.
 Theoretically, reason should be able to overcome
instincts, but that isn't always what happens.
 Instinct and reason do not always agree, and
sometimes greed and power get the better of us.
 Hobbes and Rousseau were both right and both
wrong. Humans are never consistently one way or the
other.

9.  Humans are a mix of both good and bad, instinct and
reason, avarice and empathy. The amount of each
varies from person to person and in the individual can
vary from moment to moment.
 Societies are human creations. They are a reflection of
the people who create them and so are also mixed.
 Society and government can either moderate our bad
behavior or encourage it. Which it does is dependent
on both the type of organization and the qualities of
the people from which it is made.

10.  Good people do not need a state to tell them how to act
and the bad ones will do as they wish. So what is the point
of having a government?
 Hobbes believed it was for the protection of those that are
good. People who want to do “bad” things may ignore the
laws, which is why a government must have the power and
strength to enforce them.
 But how much power should they have? What form of
government is best?
 Democracy, monarchy, socialism, communism … it’s a
matter of how much human rights you’re willing to give up.

11.  There is no perfect, universal form of government.
 Rousseau states in “Social Contract” that “all forms of
government do not suit all countries.”
 Hobbes points out the weakness of democracies,
aristocracies AND monarchies in “Leviathan.”
 The popular variant on a quote attributed to Abraham
Lincoln fits the theory of government;
"You can please all the people some of the time,
and some of the people all the time,
but you cannot please all the people all the time.”

12.  “Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and
the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of
the most extreme liberty.” - Plato
 “At his best, man is the noblest of all animals;
separated from law and justice he is the worst.” –
Aristotle
 “Each person possesses an inviolability founded on
justice that even the welfare of society as a whole
cannot override. For this reason justice denies that the
loss of freedom for some is made right by a greater
good shared by others”. – John Rawls

13.  "So what is government?... Very simply, it is an agency
of coercion. Of course, there are other agencies of
coercion … such as the Mafia. So to be more precise,
government is the agency of coercion that has flags in
front of its offices." - Harry Browne, Libertarian

14.  “If the average man had had his way there would
probably never have been any state. Even today he
resents it, classes death with taxes, and yearns for that
government which governs least. If he asks for many
laws it is only because he is sure that his neighbor
needs them; privately he is an unphilosophical
anarchist, and thinks laws in his own case superfluous.
In the simplest societies there is hardly any
government.” - Will Durant

15.  “Although humans are animals, we also have
something that no other animal has: the most complex
social structure on Earth. […] The combination of
biology and society is what makes us what we are and
do what we do.” - Richard F. Taflinger
 “We are all civilized people, which means that we are
all savages at heart but observing a few amenities of
civilized behavior.” - Tennessee Williams

17.  If we are going to determine whether man
is ever free, we must first understand …
What does free really mean?

18.  Merriam-Webster defines the word, as it pertains to
the state of being for a person, as:
a : having the legal and political rights of a citizen
b : enjoying civil and political liberty
c : enjoying political independence
or freedom from outside domination
d : enjoying personal freedom:
not subject to the control or domination of another

19.  Humans must, in order to live within any given society,
must follow and abide by a set of laws and rules. If
such is the case, then are humans really free to make
the choice that they want to or are they making the
best possible choice allowed by such rules and laws?

20.  We have a birth certificate issued by the government.
We are given a social security number, and many other
governmental controls and laws are placed upon us,
such as being required to attend school, laws on
drinking, and smoking. Where I live there are
weekends, especially holiday weekends that, when
pulled over, if you are suspected of drinking and
driving you are required to give a blood sample. How is
that being free? – Gregory Bartley

21.  Part of the definition is ‘not subject to the control or
domination of another’ and by that definition I would say
that man is never free. As children, we are dependent on
our parents to protect and provide, but this means we are
subject to their control, susceptible to their influence. As
parents, we are not free either because we are obligated to
care for our children. When you add in all of the things that
Rousseau tried to remove in hypothesizing about a state of
nature ... social conventions, religious dogma, government
... all inform the way we think and feel about the world we
live in, so even if they were removed from our lives they
would still be a part of us … from birth we are the property
of our society. – Jamie Chase

22.  I don't think we were ever born free. We have the
natural instinct to survive as a species and take care of
our own. In order to be able to survive, we need order
in society. – Manuel Alonzo

23.  I think that Rousseau meant that we are born free, not
slaves or servants. We are born with a right to choose
who we are, what we become, where we go and who we
go with. We are born free to make such choices
however, we remain chained and not totally free
because we can only be that person that is accepted.
We can only go where we are allowed to go, we can only
choose those friends that choose to be with us, so at
the end we remain chained to the society and
constraints that we as human created. We have set our
own limits and now we must live by and within them.
– Mario Carrasco

24.  “Our thoughts are free.” – Cicero
 “No man is free who depends on his government for
his sustenance, job, home, or hope.” - John Perkins
 “When liberty is mentioned, we must always be careful
to observe whether it is not really the assertion of
private interests which is thereby designated.” - Georg
Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

26.  1 : companionship or association with one's fellows
: friendly or intimate intercourse
 2 : a voluntary association of individuals for
common ends; especially an organized group working
together or periodically meeting because of common
interests, beliefs, or profession
 3 a: an enduring and cooperating social group
whose members have developed organized patterns of
relationships through interaction with one another
b : a community, nation, or broad grouping of
people having common traditions, institutions, and
collective activities and interests

27.  1 a : unjust or cruel exercise of authority or power
b : something that oppresses especially in being
an unjust or excessive exercise of power
 2 : a sense of being weighed down in body or mind

28.  When looking at society as American society, with
government and laws, that it is oppressive. However
most people are willing to give up some of their rights
as a means of protection . – Greg Bartley

29.  Society is a system of oppression in some ways but I
think it an over exaggeration to say that it is "nothing
more than" that. People are social by nature, we want
to be loved, accepted, to belong ... so we create
divisions between us so that we have a place to call our
own, we set standards for ourselves in order to meet
our personal needs then judge others who do not
conform. But like children who are dependent on
parents, we need the support of our created societies. –
Jamie Chase

30.  I feel that no matter what kind of government you
have, there will always be someone dictating your
mannerisms/life. Don’t do this, don’t do that. It’s never
going to end. Society is and will always be oppressive
in that way ... but if that is the norm, can we really call
it oppression? – Manuel Alonzo

31.  I really think that society is nothing but a system of
oppression. Although it is through the formations of
societies that we can say human kind has advanced, it
is also through the formation that it has been
oppressed. I would have to agree with Hobbes when
he says that a society is nothing more than the
powerful convincing those of less power to unite for
the greater good, when in reality it is to assist those in
power to remain in power. – Mario Carrasco

32.  “Neither biology nor society stands without the other.
For some people, this is a contradiction -- either nature
(biology) controls people, or nurture (society) does.
But in fact we filter everything through both to
determine how we react to stimuli.”
- Richard F. Taflinger
 “Society is not really made to be a purely competitive
operation. […] There is dominance, hierarchy. They
sometimes fight. They sometimes even kill each other.
But they stick together because they survive together
much better than alone.” - Frans De Waal

33.  “The most unpardonable sin in society is
independence of thought.” – Emma Goldman
 “Man seeketh in society comfort, use, and protection.”
– Francis Bacon
 “Hitherto, every form of society has been based ... on
the antagonism of oppressing and oppressed classes.” –
Karl Marx
 “Through both the hereditary and the social factors in
his life a man is bound into the whole of which he is a
member, and to consider him apart from it is quite as
artificial as to consider society apart from individuals.”
– Charles Horton Cooley

34.  “To cut himself off in thought from all his
relationships of race, and country, and citizenship -- to
get rid of all those interests, prejudices, likings,
superstitions, generated in him by the life of his own
society and his own time -- to look on all the changes
societies have undergone and are undergoing, without
reference to nationality, or creed, or personal welfare;
is what the average man cannot do at all, and what the
exceptional man can do very imperfectly.” – Herbert
Spencer

35.  Could humans ever find a suitable median for having
state and yet remain free? John Stuart Mill puts it best
when he states, “the only legitimate reason for limiting
liberty is the prevention of harm to others. We are free
to think, believe, say, desire, and choose as we see fit –
as long as we do not harm our fellow citizens.” Seems
like Mill was able to bring the best of Hobbes and
Rousseau together and make it work.
The question is, can you and I make it work?