Nature And Virtue

In the thought of Rousseau, there are two important aspects, which are nature and virtue. The main purpose of this article is to study the relationship between nature and virtue in his thought. This problem is very important for us to grasp the whole idea of Rousseau because solving this problem can help us to select the appropriate approach to explain Rousseau’political philosophy. In this paper, we first deal with the issue of nature and virtue separately (chapter two and three), and then we will understand their position and the mutual relations in Rousseau’s thoughts within a unified framework (Chapter four).In chapter two, we start from the religious ideas of Rousseau to examine Rousseau’s emphasis on virtue. We argue that religion is not an important aspect of Rousseau’s thought. Some scholars believe that Rousseau is a religious thinker and we should interpret Rousseau’s thought from a religious point of view. But we argue that Rousseau’s thinking on religion is subordinate to his thoughts on politics and morals. Rousseau take religion very seriously because he is concerned about morality and virtue. Incidentally, we illustrate the particular art of writing used by Rousseau, which provides favorable conditions for us to explain Rousseau’s texts.In chapter three, we will argue that his concept of nature contains two meanings: one is lower, which is "self-preservation"; the other is higher, which is the "perfection". Through the analysis of Plato’s works, we found that the ancients also think the problem of "origin". Like modern philosophers, ancient philosophers also realized that the "self-preservation" is an important part of man’s nature. In addition, we also find that Rousseau does not think that only the things in the state of nature is "natural" and that his understanding of nature also contains the meaning of "perfection".In chapter four, we summarize a psychological framework from Rousseau’s thoughts of nature and virtue and examine their position and the mutual relations in Rousseau’s thoughts within this framework. From the point views of Rousseau, since the man in civil state is unable to escape the "amour-propre", the key question is to which aspect it is directed. The man in civil state who has amour-propre can also be natural. If he has feelings of pity and live a life with exquisite taste, then he would be more close to nature. Pity and taste will guide amour-propre towards good and natural direction. At the same time, the different types of virtue can also be discussed in the psychology of amour-propre. Diverse forms of virtue are only different generalized forms of amour-propre. From the point of view of Rousseau, the republican virtue in ancient polis is going too far on the road of "denature" that amour-propre completely stifled the natural inclinations and appetites. The virtue of Emile is different. Because he is "denatured" in a much lower level and his virtue does not stifled his natural inclinations and appetites. His amour-propre depends on true opinions and his perfection can help him maintain his nature. Nature and virtue got the best integration in Emile.