Jean-Jacques Rousseau
1712-1778 · French Enlightenment · Prominent
Rousseau was a Geneva-born philosopher who worked in France and held that human beings were peaceable and self-sufficient until society got hold of them. Property and comparison with your neighbours did the damage. Authority is legitimate only when it carries the general will of the whole people, what they want as one body. Let a child's nature unfold at its own pace; drilling him deforms it.
Signature
The position Rousseau is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Society
- leans Collectivism
- Government
- Direct Democracy / Polis Model
Positions on the 4 axes the sources answer
- Society
- leans Collectivism (25 on a 0–100 scale from Collectivism to Individualism)
- Meaning
- mildly between Constructed and Inherent (55 on a 0–100 scale from Constructed to Inherent)
- Order
- leans Horizontal (75 on a 0–100 scale from Vertical to Horizontal)
- Nature
- leans Harmony (83 on a 0–100 scale from Mastery to Harmony)
16 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Rousseau refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Deism
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Government
- Direct Democracy / Polis Model
What is your ideal form of government? - Highest Good
- Freedom
What is the highest good? - Good and Evil
- Social Invention
What is the fundamental nature of good and evil? - Knowledge
- Intuition
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Ethics Basis
- Social Contract
What is the ultimate basis of ethics? - Agency
- Libertarian Free Will
What is the nature of human agency and freedom? - Time
- Other
What is the fundamental shape of time? - Authority
- Consent of the Governed
What is the legitimate source of authority? - Law
- Social Contract
What is the ultimate source of legitimate law? - Human Nature
- Innate Good / Political Animal
What is human nature? - Primary Bond
- Nation / Humanity
What is your primary bond and loyalty?