Rousseau’s Answer to Biological Determinist Justifications of Social Inequality

We have seen three different biological determinist arguments that social inequality is justified, Aristotle's, Powers', and Beveridge's. All three depended on the claim that some individuals or groups are inferior in ways that are dictated by their biological nature, and cannot be changed. The opposite view denies that biology dictates social inequality. One way of expressing this is to claim that "all men are created equal," as the U. S. Declaration of Independence does:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

This passage contains no arguments defending the view that "all men are created equal," but merely asserts that this is self-evident, and needs no proof. In principle, at least, it is possible to find empirical evidence that would decide whether people are naturally equal in ways that matter most for social inequality, for example, whether nearly everyone can develop the ability to reason fairly well, if he or she has an appropriate environment from childhood onward.

Testing the claim in the previous sentence is difficult, however, since it would be immoral to conduct an experiment that raised large numbers of children in different environments just to see how they came out. One method that is often tried to separate the genetic and environmental contributions to individual differences is to study identical twins who are raised apart. It is very difficult to do this well, however, since you have to find a lot of pairs of twins, and assure yourself that they are in quite dissimilar environments. Since adoption agencies often place twins in a very non-random way (many go to well-off homes, or are sent to families similar to those of their biological parents), there is plenty of room for distortion of the results, and lots of controversy among scientists who evaluate this research.

Trying to separate the contributions that genes and environment make to some characteristic an individual has is a big problem for another reason: all characteristics of a living individual result from both environment and genes, and these can interact with each other, rather than acting independently. The right concept of clearing this up is called the norm of reaction (of certain genetic make up to a given set of environments) and the way this works is complicated. For example, genes which tend make a plant taller than average in one kind of environment may make it shorter in another. Environments that tend to produce taller plants when they have certain some genes will tend to make those of the same species with different genes smaller, etc. In general, you can't just "add up" genetic and environmental component to individual differences.

Rousseau's project is to try to reason hypothetically from the principles he says are part of human nature to prove that in the "state of nature," a non-social state that may never have existed, humans would be very nearly equal in their mental or physical abilities. Rousseau uses two main principles that he believes characterize human nature. These are:

1. Humans have instincts like other animals, but they can choose to obey these instincts or not.

2. Humans have the ability to adapt by developing new abilities. He calls this ability "self-perfectibility". We see how this works below.

There are two other principles about human nature that Aristotle defended, but which Rousseau rejects:

3. Humans are essentially rational, and

4. Humans are essentially social.

Rousseau denies both of these. He agrees that people can develop the ability to reason, but he says that they don't do this in the state of nature. He also denies that human beings are essentially social animals, since he thinks that they would not be social in the state of nature.

The most interesting part of Rousseau's case against Aristotle (and others who use supposed natural inequality to justify social inequality) is his development of principle 2. This principle does not seem to depend on his rejection 3. and 4., which is not very plausible anyway. The following diagram shows how he thinks that principle 2 works:

How Principle 2 Works, According to Rousseau

Natural needs

(food, sex, rest)

\

\ development of

unmet needs à passions à physical and mental abilities

/ (strong /

/ feelings) /

Artificial needs /

(luxuries, other people's ß---------------------------------------/

approval, etc.)

The basic idea is that the ability to develop new abilities works by changing you to meet the your needs that would otherwise go unmet. Everyone needs food, sex, and rest, but other needs are produced by the new abilities you develop, and especially by social influences. Savage man (man in the state of nature) finds it easy to be satisfied because his needs are very simple. People who live in society, and especially society with highly developed sciences and arts are pretty miserable compared with savage man because they have complex needs and most people don't get to satisfy them.

Rousseau uses principle 2 to argue that people would have nearly equal abilities in the state of nature, since their needs would be practically the same. He also says that people would not reason in the state of nature, but that does not seem to be required for his conclusion to follow. In any society, and especially societies divided into social classes, people's lives (and therefore their needs) differ a lot from one social role to another. Therefore they develop different abilities. A factor worker or a farmer needs strong muscles more than a lawyer, so the average worker or farmer will end up being stronger than the lawyer. A lawyer could decide to become a weightlifter, of course, but most inequality does not result from deliberate choices like this. Instead, Rousseau claims, difference of social role is the main source of natural inequality. That is, social inequality produces most natural inequality, not the other way around, as the biological determinists maintain. Rousseau also says that differences in individual characteristics are often taken for or assumed to be natural (in the sense of biologically determined) when they are actually the result of individuals' habits and life styles. We saw Aristotle make this mistake when he said that natural slaves have a natural tendency to have muscles and bad posture. Can you think of modern mistakes like this? Use the following information: Studies done in the 1930s showed that men whose parents were Japanese but who grew up in Hawaii were 1.6 inches taller than male Japanese immigrants to Hawaii, and 1.75 inches taller than Japanese men living in Japan. (Harrison, et. al., Human Biology, 2^nd edition, Oxford U. Press, 1977, p. 200.)

You might notice a confusion about the way that Rousseau uses the term "natural." He defines natural inequalities as individual differences in "age, health, strength, and qualities of mind or the soul." But he also uses "natural" the way Aristotle uses it, that is that what is natural is the result of the operation of laws of nature, which human beings cannot change, at least, not much. Thus you could put Rousseau's claim this way: natural inequality is not natural.