Man was born free, and everywhere he is in chains.

[Zeno]

The fundamental principle of all morals, on the basis of which I have reasoned in all my writings, and which I have developed in this last one [Emile] with as much clarity as I was able, is that man is naturally good, loving justice and order; that there is absolutely no original perversity in the human heart, and that the first movements of nature are always right.

-Rousseau [in a letter to Christophe de Beaumont]

[slickpoppa]

Well, you posted a quote without commenting on it so I don't know what your intentions are. So do you want to know what I think about this quote? Okay, I will tell you.

I really don't see anything profound in this quote by itself, and I'm not a really big fan of short quotations in general. Usually when someone references a quote such as this they are attemtping to prove a point with minimal effort, sophistication, or evidence. People think that when quoting something such as, "Ignorance is bliss," the quote speaks for itself and they have proven that ignorance is indeed bliss. I'm not saying that the original poster was actually trying to do the same thing with the Rousseau quote, but that is a common problem I have with the usage of such quotes in arguements. The aforementioned quotation is really no more profound than the statement that ignorance is bliss. All the quote does is assert without any justification that humans are naturally good. Of course, I don't think that it is possible to prove in one or two sentences that man is naturally good. So I don't really see the value in this quote. As far as I can tell, all the quote does is make the assertion that man is naturally good with a lot of unnecessary language added that does not really strenghten the validity of the assertion.

[lastchance]

That's stupid. Rousseau was an idiot. In the natural state, Men follow their dick, their stomach, and their instincts.

Instincts tell you about fight or flight. Instincts tell you a lot of good stuff. But instincts can be wrong, a lot of the time.

Generally, the society we have right now is +EV. Otherwise, it wouldn't exist.

[zaxx19]

OK HOBBES

[Dr. Strangelove]

[ QUOTE ]
The fundamental principle of all morals, on the basis of which I have reasoned in all my writings, and which I have developed in this last one [Emile] with as much clarity as I was able, is that man is naturally good, loving justice and order; that there is absolutely no original perversity in the human heart, and that the first movements of nature are always right.

-Rousseau [in a letter to Christophe de Beaumont]

[/ QUOTE ]

LMFAO

[EliteNinja]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
The fundamental principle of all morals, on the basis of which I have reasoned in all my writings, and which I have developed in this last one [Emile] with as much clarity as I was able, is that man is naturally good, loving justice and order; that there is absolutely no original perversity in the human heart, and that the first movements of nature are always right.

-Rousseau [in a letter to Christophe de Beaumont]

[/ QUOTE ]

LMFAO

[/ QUOTE ]

I second your LMFAO.

[nothumb]

[ QUOTE ]
OK HOBBES

[/ QUOTE ]

Best post you ever made.

I'll throw one in here for all those who hate mankind:

"The Christian resolution to find the world ugly and bad has made the world ugly and bad."

You bunch of savages.

NT

[bholdr]

"That's stupid. Rousseau was an idiot. In the natural state, Men follow their dick, their stomach, and their instincts"

Ding Ding Ding!! (<--- i know...)

anybody that assumes that "man is by nature" anything is just asking for it. that's the same assumption Marx made, and his philosiphies damn near destroyed the world.

[arabie]

I could just as easily say, man is inherently born evil. But i would have no basis to make any claim about man's inherent evil or good.

Common Zeno, what would Parmenides say! I suspect something along the lines of: there is no way to advocate true explanation because if the ideas are only in the mind, and mind is our representation of reality, therefore, reality is only in the mind.

[lastchance]

It's Gauthier, not Hobbes. Gauthier has a much stronger argument than Hobbes did, even though they were both arguing the same thing.