Société québécoise de science politique

Rousseau and the Domestication of Virtue

Author(s): Peter Emberley
Source: Canadian Journal of Political Science / Revue canadienne de science politique, Vol. 17,
No. 4 (Dec., 1984), pp. 731-753
Published by: Canadian Political Science Association and the Société québécoise de science
politique
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3227965
Accessed: 22/02/2010 18:53

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at
http://dv1litvip.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless
you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you
may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cpsa.

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed
page of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Canadian Political Science Association and Société québécoise de science politique are collaborating with
JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Canadian Journal of Political Science / Revue canadienne de
science politique.

http://dv1litvip.jstor.org
Rousseau and the Domestication of Virtue

PETER EMBERLEY Carleton University

Rousseau has often been understood as decrying the doctrines of his

contemporaries and appealing to the virtues of classical Greece.
Nonetheless, in so far as he appears to have accepted some of the major
principles of modern science, Rousseau's theory of morality involves an
ambiguous appropriation of the Greek perspective. It can be shown that
he adopts the modern psychology outlined by Hobbes (with revisions
made by the encyclopaedists generally) and agrees with the modern
rejection of the existence, or at least the knowability, of a transcendent
reality, or summum bonum, which would serve to order a man's soul.
Moreover, the modern denial of man's natural sociability and
rationality, with which Rousseau appears to concur, necessitates (in his
mind) jettisoning various traditional solutions to the human condition.
What makes Rousseau's account innovative, and noteworthy in the
modern age, is his attempt to restore virtue as a social principle while
nonetheless embracing modern principles. This conjunction entails,
however, two revisions to the classical account. First, Rousseau,
supporting the modern opinion that man is not by nature a rational
creature, proposes that the activity which displays a man's humanity
most fully can no longer be expressed unambiguously as reason's
control over the passions, nor made manifest in the primacy given to
intellectual excellence over moral virtue. Secondly, Rousseau accepts
the modern opinion that man is no longer to be understood as a political
creature by nature. As a consequence of these revisions, Rousseau
proposes that a man's virtue-the excellence which constitutes his
humanity-is to be taken out of the public realm and privatized, to be
constituted in the practices of labour and love. The social partnership of
intimacy thus replaces the public appearance of political speeches and ac-
tions. The character of these two revisions is the subject of this article.

1
A curious feature of most accounts of human aspiration is that the
virtuous life prescribed by each appears to require of men that they
transcend their humanity. Classical and Christian authors claimed that
Canadian Journal of Political Science / Revue canadienne de science politique, XVII:4 (December/
decembre 1984). Printed in Canada / Imprime au Canada
732 PETER EMBERLEY

this transcendence was towards the divine, meaning that men should
aspire to a life of the mind or soul or heart and disdain their merely
mortal, earthly condition. Thus the Socratic model of human
excellence-the philosopher-is described as divine-like and blessed
because he is free of a preoccupation with the necessities required to
sustain his body, and has the leisure to pursue the experiencing of
eternity. His self-sufficiency and happiness are a result of a con-
templative activity akin to that activity in which the gods themselves
engage. The pagan hero's glory and honour, if less elevated perhaps, is
similarly an attempt to surpass ordinary human bounds and to strive for
immortality. Here human activity involves a commitment to political
matters. Heroic virtue is understood to produce beautiful deeds. Cato
reveals his character, Plutarch writes, in super-human deeds of courage
and fortitude; he seems "like a God among mortals," Rousseau
reiterates. Revealed religion, too, prescribes a virtuous life that aspires
to divine heights-proper conduct is that closest to an imitation of
Christ's life. The Christian preceptor is half-man and half-God, directing
men's attention towards their divine origin.
The acknowledged preceptors of each of these visions not only
exhort men to transcend their all-too-human condition but also are said
themselves to partake of the divine. The assumption was that in
presenting men an image of the heights to which they could aspire, they
would-by dint of longing-be drawn to emulate the supremely
virtuous. It is held that the given order of the cosmos confers
significance upon each of these models of the virtuous life-whether
philosopher, gentleman, hero, or saint. Men bring forth or dramatize
through their actions a pre-determined cosmic order. Heroic or supreme
virtue is thus sanctioned by nature and is manifest in the actions
conducted in political life.
Rousseau's initial depiction of virtue presents precisely such heroic
images. He appears to suggest that deeds rivalling or even surpassing the
strength of the gods, or God, and heroic sacrifices for honour are
required if men are to be considered truly virtuous. However, Rousseau
does not choose a preceptor who partakes of the divine. The Emile
offers the beast-man Chiron, rather than Socrates or Christ, or any of
Plutarch's heroes, as the most able preceptor of men. Following modern
counsel, Rousseau appears to be of the opinion that man must transcend
humanity in the direction of the subhuman. This signifies, I propose to
show, that Rousseau's teaching of virtue does not continue the tradition
of exhorting men to the heights of supreme virtue. Rather, his account
offers a much more accessible, if pedestrian, concern with decent
preservation, sensual joys, and engagement in a world of labour and
love.
This is not to deny that Rousseau often makes appeal to supreme
virtue. In the First Discourse and many of his subsequent works,
Abstract. Rousseau had usually been interpreted as desiring the re-emergence of
pre-modern virtue. His writings contain many appeals to this supreme virtue of courage
and honour. At the same time, however, Rousseau embraces many of the principles of
modem philosophical thought, thus rendering a return to classical virtue problematic. The
author proposes that his commitment to modern principles entails a substantial
reformulation of virtue such that it becomes expressed as those qualities displayed in the
social world of labour and love. This new account alters the character of human
association by fundamentally altering the ancient distinction between public and private.
The new social sphere which develops through this alteration is, however, subject to some
difficulties.
Resume. Rousseau, selon l'interpretation usuelle, aurait souhaite la reemergence de la
vertu pre-moderne. Ses ecrits font appel aux vertus supremes du courage et de l'honneur.
Au meme moment, cependant, Rousseau adopte plusieurs des principes de la pensee
philosophique moderne, rendant ainsi problematique le retour a la vertu classique.
L'auteur propose ici que l'attachement de Rousseau aux principes modernes entraine une
reformulation substantielle de la vertu qui s'exprime alors comme attribut du monde du
travail et de l'amour. Cette nouvelle interpretation change le caractere de l'association des
personnes en alterant fondamentalement l'ancienne distinction entre le public et le prive.
Le resultat de cette alteration, un nouveau milieu social, est toutefois sujet a quelques
problemes.

Rousseau writes about the rigour and vitality of the Spartan republic and
of the great heroes such as Cato. Their steadfastness and flair for heroic
style appear to have charmed Rousseau's imagination, and in his
Confessions he writes of his obsession with Plutarch's Lives. Rousseau
identifies his own self-appointed task as raising contemporary men "to
the pitch of the souls of the ancients."1 He claims that he, with Socrates
and the divine Plato, will walk in the steps of Cato. Although he ranks
Cato higher than Socrates because of the lustre of this politician's heroic
actions, Rousseau also praises the courageous life of the philosopher.
The zeal, enthusiasm, nobility, beauty, and commitments of supreme
virtue receive continuous attention in Rousseau's thought.
The most comprehensive classical depiction of pre-modern virtue,
and one which serves as an excellent contrast to what we will see is
Rousseau's own account, is Aristotle's depiction of the virtuous stance
taken by the magnanimous man. The principles that inform such a man's
life may be taken as the basis from which heroic and political virtue are
derived. The magnanimous man is one who possesses all the dominant
moral virtues, but particularly those of courage and a sense of honour.
He is thus preoccupied with political concerns and could be said to be
the political man par excellence. He is free from concern with the
necessities of the household and in his leisure time practises politics and
entertains the possibility of philosophy. Aristotle depicts this man as one
who recognizes his own superiority, realizes what he is owed, claims
much because he believes that he deserves it, and who exemplifies lofty
pride and self-esteem. Such a man's desire for recognition is reflected in
his love of honour. This love is brought forth, or made to appear, in
I Oe(iures Coinpletes de Jean-Jacquces Roussealu, III, 961. All references are to the four
volumes of the Pleiade Edition.
734 PETER EMBERLEY

courageous actions. This aristocratic virtue thus incorporates the key

principles of the heroic temperament-courage and love of honour-and
underlies the pre-modern account of virtue.
The consciousness of superiority and pride, and the subsequent
honours bestowed upon the magnanimous man, have politically
significant effects. The presence of honourable men generates a
hierarchical political association and the aristocratic concern with the
beautiful and useless. The imperatives of action which such men act
upon become a governing principle of political life. Politics is thus
construed as a project to encourage the honour and nobility in others of
which magnanimous men are apparently representative.
Rousseau's admiration for this virtuous bearing, as against what he
perceives to be the banality and superficiality of the contemporary
bourgeois who at best counterfeits these virtues, nonetheless disguises
his serious reservations concerning aristocratic or supreme virtue. It is
true that Rousseau distinguishes himself from his contemporaries,
particularly in his attempt to resurrect an emphasis on virtue as crucial to
social well-being. His implicit critique, however, suggests his closer
affinity to the thought of modern times. His doubt about supreme virtue
arises not only from his assumption of the inevitable vulgarization of
heroic virtue, nor even solely from his modern egalitarian
presuppositions. These are important features of his discussion but they
stem from Rousseau's deeper disagreement with the classical thinkers.
As I intend to show, his more substantive argument stems from a
different conception of the human soul, and particularly from his
revision with respect to the status of pride within it. This revision
simultaneously calls into question the character of the moral virtue of
courage and thus implies a critique of pre-modern virtue as such.
Although he may praise the classical account, he does not counsel that
modern men should imitate it. My suggestion is that the images of
supreme virtue he presents serve the useful function of charming the
corrupted hearts of his contemporary bourgeois compatriots. He uses
this device so that, by dint of reflecting on virtue, they may be drawn to
his teaching.
The first part of Rousseau's critique of supreme virtue concerns the
political consequences to which it gives rise. Here his particular
preoccupation is with the discrepancy between real and counterfeit
virtue and the effects this has on political order. I will examine the two
major consequences Rousseau fears and concomitantly present the
pedagogical proposals meant to forestall these effects. We shall then
turn to his psychological analysis of supreme virtue.

2
The first consequence of supreme virtue involves the political effect of
the implementation and vulgarization of supreme virtue. His
Rousseau and the Domestication of Virtue 735

reservations are indicated even by his choice of terms. He writes that the
projects were "singular" or "monstrous in their perfection." The sense
of justice that constitutes many a proud man's soul is often indicative,
Rousseau claims, of extreme vacillations of character: "this passion is a
violent hatred of vice, born from an ardent love of virtue, and soured by
the continual spectacle of men's viciousness."2 Courage and valour,
once animated, can become transformed into "a love of blood and
cruelty." They lead men from the healthy preoccupations of daily toil
and simple pleasures to a concern "at first to despise their own lives and
later to make sport of the lives of others."3
Rousseau offers many instances of the destructive character of
supreme virtue. A man aspiring to surpass humanity has a feeling of his
own superiority. When linked to martial valour, this can lead to cruelty,
animosity, and injustice. In his essay, "The Virtues of a Hero,"
Rousseau portrays the heroic man as the soul of immoderation, whose
concern is less the general happiness of mankind than his own personal
glory. Firm and unyielding, a man conscious of his superiority would
"devastate [the world] if he had found in it a single rival worthy of him."4
The man seeking glory will not acknowledge the superiority of others but
will demand their recognition of his own superiority. Moreover,
personal glory can corrupt and be the source of social disorder because it
relies as much on vice as it does on the appearance of virtue. Virtuous
deeds are judged by their consequences and by the opinions of others;
the appearance of virtue is usually all that is required for the heroic man
to reap the conventional rewards of courage. Rousseau suggests that
many "virtuous" deeds are performed without an actual disposition to
virtue. Common men are deceived by the simulacrum of virtue, and, in
striving to emulate the same actions, produce greater disorder. A people
of heroes, he writes, would inevitably become the ruin of the race. The
actions of heroes and their imitators are motivated less by virtue than by
the vain imaginings of power and the expectation of pleasurable
recompense. This creates a social existence of such harshness and
potential ferocity-similar even to that in Hobbes's state of nature-that
peace and order are disrupted. Concerned only with desire for
recognition, the hero inevitably clashes with others; controversy,
quarrel, and fierce competition mar men's relations. The passion for
glory issues in intense selfishness and partiality, and subsequent
disorder in men's lives. The man of glory is absorbed in a race for
recognition that feeds at the expense of others.
Moreover, the man who seeks supreme virtue tends to become
irascible, incapable of tolerating others because of their follies and
2 Letter to d'Alembert, in Politics and the Arts, trans. by Allan Bloom (Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 1960), 39.
3 Ibid.
4 II, 1262-74.
736 PETER EMBERLEY

holding them in contempt for their inability to be as virtuous as he. He

thus becomes hardened to their miseries and unwilling to act on their
behalf. This makes political life an experience of anxiety and
uncompromising moralizing while encouraging at the same time a
counterfeiting of virtue. Finally, supreme virtue overwhelms men's
minds and causes them to lose sight of those natural facts that reveal
their real limitations. Men's vanity obscures their vulnerability and
susceptibility to suffering, producing only temporary pleasures and
long-term pains.
From this first consequence of supreme virtue we can extrapolate
three major critiques of the classical account. First, he points to the
mercenary character of courage, suggesting that it may be used for either
virtuous or vicious purposes; there is no guarantee that it will issue in
goodness. Thus Rousseau calls into question the unity of the virtues
(maintained in the classical account) by implying that a virtue may be
separated from the moral good. This is particularly true of heroic
courage because its acclaim depends particularly on presentation in the
world rather than simply upon a disposition of the soul. It is a public
virtue and thus involves appearance. Rousseau provides no account of
the natural reward that the moral development of courage might bring to
the soul. His concern is only with the conventional garland that it reaps
and the social disorder it usually creates. For Rousseau there is a certain
inevitability to the corruption of those dispositions which depend upon
public appearance. Courage is, in his mind, an inherently political
virtue. Thus it is of dubious character.
Secondly, Rousseau's judgment of the value of a virtue is based on a
consideration of its utility to society. Supreme virtue is judged by its
consequences for the happiness of men in general rather than by the
moral pleasure it may bring to the souls of a few. Rousseau's account of
virtue involves introducing the principle of equality into the judgment of
the merits of any particular virtue. The more noble character of supreme
virtue is a chimera when it justifies actions that would be judged as
merely licentious if performed by common men, and that also bring
discontent, in terms of disorder and onerous burdens, to the majority.
Factionalism, "sanguinary intolerances," political turbulence and real
viciousness all stem, Rousseau maintains, from men's aspiring to an
elevated condition that surpasses humanity.
Thirdly, Rousseau dwells upon the discrepancy between real and
counterfeit virtue to the extent that he calls into question any possibility
of trusting in appearance. Instead of proposing a manner by which the
true intentions of heroes might be publicly revealed, or encouraging
greater public accountability, or admitting that courage has produced
consequences beyond the immediate happiness of men, Rousseau is
preoccupied with unmasking the appearance of human action and
analyzing men's real motivations. This culminates in his proposals for
Rousseau and the Domestication of Virtue 737

redirecting human aspiration. He advises, as we shall see, a redirection

of men's attention away from public acts, and condemns the public
display of the soul through courage.
The second consequence of the presence of supreme virtue is that it
undermines the overall performance of virtue in society. This Rousseau
explains in a continuation of the description of the stage of human life. In
his analysis of the theatre in the Letter to D'Alembert, Rousseau writes
that the sight of heroic men encourages only a facsimile or virtue in
ordinary men. He claims that admiring those of supreme virtue is like
shedding tears at a tragic play: it satisfies all the duties of humanity
without the necessity of giving anything more. Contemplation of noble
types is an inexpensive way of satisfying moral needs: "the sterile
interest taken in virtue serves only to satisfy our vanity without obliging
us to practice it."5 What men owe to virtue is not rendered because
noble emotion is spent in praising noble men. Men applaud their own
courage in praising that of others, without attempting to imitate them.
Heroes thus remove virtue further from common men: if virtue resides
only in heroes, a man will calculate, what does it have to do with me?
Men would be too glad to share the hero's pleasurable passions and his
remarks, but do not feel compelled to share his great renunciations.
Virtue is seen as unnecessary because it is the preserve of special kinds
of beings.
The problem with supreme virtue, then, is that it does not even
encourage men to be virtuous. Rather, it renders the relations between
men as heroic and thus sets them above humanity. Since nothing similar
is expected in the natural course of human events, virtue becomes
inaccessible and incomprehensible. Supreme virtue leads the mind to
reflect too intensely on man's mortality and the fragility of what men
love. It assures men that their fears and hopes have a cosmic signifi-
cance, and thus causes a sense of tragedy to pervade men's conscious-
ness when their concerns are not resolved. Men are led to believe that
the most elevated human experience is noble failure. They are consoled
and encouraged by the opinion that nature sanctions this aspiration. The
ultimate effect is to make life less confident and less independent and to
render men prey to fantastic fears and hopes.
The education to supreme virtue is thus a dangerous and misguided
pedagogy. Rousseau's education of Emile is meant to preempt any
aspirations that would seek to surpass common humanity.
To begin with, Rousseau engages in the transformation of the word
"noble." In classical thought, the "noble" was constituted by the
conjunction of courage and moderation in an attempt to bring forth and
articulate beauty and a sense of the honourable. Rousseau questions
whether the elevation of the soul and a sense of the beautiful in this way
5 Letter to d'Alembert, 57.
738 PETER EMBERLEY

is a proper criterion for judging human conduct. In a description of Cato,

he claims that his bloody suicide was "beautiful." One may wonder how
self-destructive passion could be seen as beautiful, given Rousseau's
assertion that self-preservation is a man's first care and duty. In Book III
of the Emile, Rousseau in fact redefines the "noble" as a conjunction of
the decent and the useful.6 The good is no longer defined by the beautiful
and the intrinsically honourable, but rather by the useful and the pleas-
ant. Rousseau here appears to echo Cicero's comment about Cato:
"Cato means excellently well, but he does hurt sometimes to the com-
monwealth; for he talks as if it were Plato's republic that we are living in,
and not the dung of Romulus."7
The early phase of Emile's training to virtue thus emphasizes utility
exclusively: "It is by their palpable relation to his utility, his security,
his preservation, and his well-being that he ought to appraise all the
bodies of nature and all the works of men."8 Throughout Emile' s lessons
the tutor forbears from demanding obedience through precept and in-
stead relies on a calculation of utility.9 Such a concern, Rousseau main-
tains, is more appropriate than "purely speculative studies" because
"this is nature's order."10 Considerations of utility ought to govern
Emile's "ideas of the relations of man to man and of the morality of
human actions.""1 A regard for utility produces a gentler and more
humane vision of human relations. By looking at human effort from the
point of view of its susceptibility to earthly suffering, a mildness of
humanity is cultivated.
In contrast to the heroic man, Emile is thus to see the world from the
perspective of his own limited, mortal condition. He is subject to man's
proper estate and observing the vainglory of men, "he will be afflicted at
seeing his brothers tear one another apart for the sake of dreams and turn
into ferocious animals because they do not know how to be satisfied with
being men." 12 The hero's desire for glory will be unmasked and seen to
be deficient as an authentic expression of the human condition. Rous-
seau proposes that supreme virtue is a product of another underlying
passion, namely amour-propre. Not the more elevated justification
usually given by heroes-the dignity of the moral order, the glory of
God, the need for honour, or political necessity-but a simple desire to
be foremost underlies supreme virtue. It is to forestall the harmful
consequences of this that Emile is to engage in a different kind of
comparison. He is taught to compare himself with others only after
6 IV, 470.
7 Quoted by Francis Bacon, The Advanceinent of Learning (London: Wiley, 1944), 1, 2,
5.
8 IV, 470.
9 IV, 357.
10 IV, 359.
11 IV, 329.
12 IV, 532.
Rousseau and the Domestication of Virtue 739

many years of looking within himself. This experience and the regulation
of his will is necessary before he examines the will of others. The social
order is presented to him not in a direct manner but through the readings
about social relations in Plutarch's Lives. However, the conclusion
Emile is to draw from this study is not the dissatisfaction with himself
which is produced by the desire to emulate nobility. Rather, he is taught
to perceive the vanity of the hero's aspirations and to be repelled by their
tragic failures.
His judgments are to be made, then, from the secure vantage-point
of one who is preoccupied with his own preservation and relies little on
others. He is to be satisfied with himself, resigned to nature's necessity,
freed from the desire to be a tyrant or a conqueror of natural limitations,
and hence clear-headed about the artificial activity of heroes. He is to
realize that the character of their strivings is based solely on appearance.
Supreme virtue, courage, and desire for glory are only appearance
masking vanity. Emile's preoccupation with his own particular
existence, rather than with transcending that life in hopes of an afterlife,
or in contemplation of eternity, or in a desire for immortality, ensures
that he is not divided nor torn between reality and appearance. The
heroic virtue, Rousseau proposes, creates a division within men's souls.
If Emile were to be desirous of emulating those of supreme virtue, it
would result in his "regretting being only himself." To seek to surpass
his earthly condition would lead to an atrophy of his powers and
self-sufficiency: "if in these parallels he just once prefers to be someone
other than himself-were this other Socrates, were it Cato-everything
has failed. He who begins to become alien to himself does not take long
to forget himself entirely."13 Emile is thus taught to see that supreme
virtue is only the appearance of vanity, and that honour and nobility are
specious words when applied to efforts to surpass the human condition.
From this analysis we can see that Rousseau's objection to supreme
virtue is that it is disruptive of political life and that it works against the
possibility of peaceful, contented human association. His pedagogical
solutions are aimed at preventing such disorder. But is it only the
vulgarization of supreme virtue that is responsible for these
consequences? And do these effects entail a serious repudiation of the
classical morality?

3
Underlying these two presentations of the consequences of supreme
virtue is Rousseau's more trenchant critique of the classical account of
the soul. This statement includes his prescription for the proper exercise
of the soul and entails, too, a reconsideration of the very ends of political
13 IV, 535.
740 PETER EMBERLEY

life. Thus his intent is more than simply to moralize about the
discrepancy between true and counterfeit virtue.
That his initial comments about the effects of supreme virtue are
only a preamble to a more probing analysis is apparent in his description
of the Spartans. Rousseau believes that the Spartans, who for him
exemplify the ethic of supreme virtue, have created a "denatured"
citizen. This phrase points to a key disagreement with such virtue. In the
Emile, Rousseau uses "denaturing" in the most pejorative sense and
links denaturing to a subsequent corruption of the child's disposition.
He suggests that denaturing sows the seeds of a tyrannical will which
causes a man to vacillate between rebelliousness and slavishness. The
prevention of this tyrannical will is one of the key features of Rousseau's
pedagogical proposals, for a society of tyrants and slaves will never
enjoy freedom. The tyrannical will, Rousseau implies, is the inevitable
consequence of an emphasis on supreme virtue. His account of what
nature does sanction is the real basis of his critique of pre-modern virtue.
For Rousseau, what is needed for distinguishing courage from what
he believes to be vainglory is some objective rationale which would
sanction its deeds. However, it is his view that the source of supreme
virtue is not, as the Greeks believed, man's nature developing according
to some scheme of perfection, but rather a culpable desire for
recognition. The virtuous man only seeks recognition of his superiority
over others and inhabits an imaginary world which he has created for
himself. This is as true of the hero as it is for the philosopher. Flattering
himself on his superiority, the "virtuous" man believes that the
cultivation of his soul accords with some divine or natural order.
Rousseau suggests that this pride is simply vanity.
Rousseau's account of the soul thus calls into question supreme
virtue as the natural perfection of man. Let us recall a classical account
in order to understand Rousseau's revision. For Plato, the desire for
honour, the passion of courage, and the virtues of magnanimity
generally, all stem from a natural part of the soul he calls
"spiritedness." The objects upon which spiritedness acts are peculiar to
its own activity. It is that part of the soul which can cause a man to
transcend his own particular biological existence, the realm of
necessity, and recognize the refined pleasures and obligations of loyalty
and commitment. These are natural expressions of spiritedness, as are
anger and shame, love and hatred, pity and revenge. Spiritedness
provides men with their first exposure to principles of justice and the
passions these principles inspire. Spiritedness can thus be a generous
passion, providing the bond which links men in a realm of freedom to
political life. It can also give rise to irascible passions causing faction and
enmity. Men will often mistake what is only the appearance of injustice
for a fact of injustice. Plato believes, however, that spiritedness can be
educated by reason, and its passions transformed into virtues such as
Rousseau and the Domestication of Virtue 741

honour, courage, and dignity. Spiritedness plays the significant and

natural function of moderating desire, serving to unite men in bonds of
loyalty. It is the source of noble deeds and speeches. Because the soul's
parts are ordered by nature, spiritedness has a natural relation to desire
and reason. As an independent element of the soul, its passions cannot
be reduced to another part of the soul and so too are natural.
Rousseau, on the other hand, denies that spiritedness is an
autonomous and natural part of the soul. Instead it is the passion which
he names amour-propre that is held to produce the many passions which
Plato had erroneously considered as natural. For Rousseau, these same
passions are by and large corrupt modifications of amour-propre, made
corrupt by particular corrupting circumstances. Not surprisingly,
Rousseau's discussion of honour, glory, pride and courage do not occur
in his treatise on education to virtue. Instead, he discusses them in his
analysis of the social passions. They are the historically contingent
rationalizations that serve as pretexts for selfish conduct. Honour, pride
and courage are not natural passions of the soul, and hence their
emergence does not correspond to an ordering of psychic development
pre-determined by nature. The consciousness of superiority is, for
Rousseau, a conventional sentiment produced by man's relative
existence in society. When the opinions of others are considered, the
imposition of will of another experienced, or the pleasures of others
envied, this causes divisiveness in the human soul. Pride and its passions
are not natural modifications of man's natural endowment. Rousseau
makes the same criticism of Plato as he had made against other
philosophers: they had mistaken the historically or socially contingent
as natural. Pride, expressed in the desire for honour, is for Rousseau as
artificial as are "natural slavery," "desire for recognition," and
"natural evil."
Accordingly, Rousseau does not derive the virtues from the sense
of pride. He denies that spiritedness or reason perfect human life. He
speaks instead of sensibility as the perfection of human development.14
His analysis of the human psyche entails that the virtues of heroes,
philosophers, or saints could no longer be the bases of political life
because they do not correspond to the longings or conditions of human
nature. Moreover, since they are based on a principle of the superiority
of some, such accounts erode the fundamental equality of men.
Rousseau appears to suggest that it is primarily the desire for
transcendence to a more elevated condition that has produced all of the
miseries of man throughout history, both politically and physically. In
the Letter to Beaumont, Rousseau indicates the cause of spiritual
disruption: "continual meditations on the Deity, or the enthusiasm for
virtue may have disturbed, in the sublime imaginations, the mean and
regular order of common ideas. A too great elevation of mind sometimes
14 IV, 481
742 PETER EMBERLEY

turns the brain and things are no longer seen in their ordinary light.'15
The emphasis on supreme virtue has been profoundly disruptive, then,
for it has caused distress not only directly in the political order but also,
and more significantly, in the human psyche. It takes a man's attention
away from the common lot he shares with all men, and thereby causes
misery.
What is a more salutary means of making men virtuous, and hence
sociable and happy? An education to supreme virtue plays little part in
the education Rousseau proposes. It is not only in its vulgarized form
that courage is considered inadequate. Even in the ELmile,under the
most ideal and incorruptible of circumstances in which courage could
have been most adequately educated, Rousseau does not employ its
principle. Nor does an effort to transcend his earthly existence towards
some encounter with the gods form any credible part of the young
student's education.16 Rousseau appears to propose that it is more
salutary not to look at humanity as godlike or aspiring towards divinity,
but rather to understand men as possessing mortal life and sensitivity: a
subhuman vulnerability to the vicissitudes of nature, which men share
with all animate life, is the sounder basis upon which to found human
order. A sound consideration of the human condition requires
recognition of man's susceptibility to human suffering rather than a
preoccupation with the noble heights a man might achieve.
Rousseau suggests in the passage cited above that men have
disrupted the regularity of their souls by failing to confine their existence
within themselves. His proposal is that men should remain confined by
considerations of their sensual nature. What is most powerful and
common to all men offers apparently a more solid basis to social life:
"All are born naked and poor; all are subjected to the miseries of life, to
sorrows, ills, needs, and pains of every kind.... This is what truly
belongs to man. Begin thereby by studying in human nature what is most
inseparable from it, what best characterizes humanity."'7 The more
effective basis for human accord is not the striving for superhuman
pleasures but exposure to the permanent and essential features of man's
existence. Emile is to judge the merits of action from the perception of
his own vulnerability and potential suffering. Not the lofty vision of
philosophy but the low and solid commitment to what is most powerful
in man-his fear of suffering-ensures sound judgment about social
relations. "It is man's weakness which makes him sociable; it is our
15 Letter to Beaumont, in The Social Compact and the Mandate of the Archbishop of
Paris (London, 1764), 6.
16 With, however, the exception of "The Profession of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar."
Nonetheless, there is some doubt about whether this was really intended for Emile's
enlightenment. The principal objection is that the problems and struggles the vicar's
profession is meant to assuage are not applicable to Emile's condition. Nor does the
rest of the education rely upon the counsels offered by the vicar.
17 IV, 504.
Rousseau and the Domestication of Virtue 743

common miseries which turn our hearts to humanity... we are attached

to our fellows less by the sentiment of their pleasures than by the
sentiment of their pains, for we see far better in the latter the identity of
our natures with theirs and the guarantees of their attachment to us." 18
The desires of men vary greatly, but all men agree that suffering is a
terrible thing. Emile is not to act in such a way that the imperatives of his
action stem from an admiration of other men's excellence; rather he is to
be moved by pity for their sufferings. For Rousseau, it is only the
cheerless imagining of a man's own lot and mankind's common
vulnerability to pain that leads to sound reasoning about social life. Not
the summum bonum but the summum malum serves to establish human
accord. Supreme virtue overwhelms men's minds and makes them lose
sight of those facts that reveal the limitations of the human condition.
Rather than relying on courage (revealed as merely vanity),
Rousseau thus turns to a passion that counsels more adequately: fear.
Vanity causes men to stray from sound deliberation, whereas fear
ensures that men engage and develop their prudence. The former is a
desire to be foremost, to take pleasure in a consideration of one's own
power. Once aroused and subsequently inflamed by imagination, this
passion seeks infinite dominion. Fear, on the other hand, is the more
stable and certain passion on which to ground effective sociability. Fear
of suffering produces a shared sentiment. Suffering men do not remain in
solitude but seek each other out. Fearfulness is to be channelled in order
to provide the social virtue of compassion. Out of fearfulness a man will
extend his care for himself to others.
This will require that he be exposed in his youth to the
precariousness, vulnerability, and harshness of the human condition.
Since man's lot is suffering and exposure to pain, he must be familiarized
with suffering and made resilient if he is to avoid the excessive
sensitivity which incapacitates men. A man's imagination must be
unsettled and frightened by the perils with which every man is
surrounded so that he not think himself immune to them. He will often
disguise from himself these elementary and ineradicable conditions of
his life because he believes there is another life, or because his vanity
causes him to seek to surpass the ordinary bounds of human life. He will
believe that suffering is the price for spiritual reward, instead of
recognizing human vulnerability as the lot of human life. The "sting of
strangeness" must be taken from suffering so that men do not in
desperation mythologize the world-through religion or through
heroically elevating that suffering to cosmic significance-or restlessly
prolong that life with science.
Either of these responses is an adequate response to the human
condition, for each denies the ultimate bounds nature has imposed on
man. If men accept with honesty their susceptibility to earthly suffering,
18 IV, 503.
744 PETER EMBERLEY

Rousseau believes, a mildness of humanity will be cultivated. Subject to

all the "vicissitudes of fortune," men, fearing much, will reach out to
others and extend assistance to them. This is only possible, however, if
men are not inclined, through vanity, to think themselves immune to the
misfortunes others endure. Men pity in others the ills from which they do
not feel exempt. The representation of suffering in public binds together
a society of isolated men.
This process of forming the social bonds of men where nature has
provided none involves a distinctive break with the classical account.
For the classics, men's virtues required the transcendence of their own
particular existence into a universal realm of human conduct-either in
politics or philosophy. Thus when men presented themselves in public
life, they participated in political forms in which they did not necessarily
disclose their own feelings and wants. Rather, they invested their
passion impersonally: the expression appropriate to public relations
differed from that in the household. Political life did not involve a
revelation of the self, nor did political concerns involve a preoccupation
with matters of personal relevance. Private life, on the other hand, was
constituted by boundaries around the self which guaranteed genuine
personal intimacy and the satisfaction of biological needs. Subjective
states of feeling had their appropriate disclosure only in private.
Rousseau was the first philosopher to dissolve this rigid separation
of public and private. The bourgeois philosophers had already made of
public life a huge machinery for account keeping, thus usurping the role
of the household. Rousseau, however, completed this usurpation by
imbuing psychological states with public relevance. Private passions, in
the form of feelings of sensibility, are extended to become the strands of
social life. Social life, formed by the extension of the fear of suffering, is
henceforth constituted by expressive states of fear and compassion
rather than by impersonal political acts. Self-concern, in the most
creative sense of intimacy with others, produces a distinct realm in
human association: the social sphere. Not a political existence founded
on a reality that transcends man's particularity, but rather a social
existence of extended privacy becomes the new form of man's
co-existence. Here public existence becomes one of the personal
representation of feelings; political association is constituted by the
search for a like-minded sensibility in others. Thus Rousseau's account
of the proper exercise of the human psyche entails also a fundamental
reformulation of the ends of political life. We shall examine the character
of this reformulation shortly.
At this point, however, we must take account of another strand of
Rousseau's thought. In other explicitly political writings, Rousseau
appears to suggest that man can nonetheless satisfy his nature in political
life. Civic virtue is portrayed in the Social Contract as the solution to the
problem of man's social existence. Everywhere in society man is in
Rousseau and the Domestication of Virtue 745

chains, and Rousseau's political writings are attempts to legitimize those

chains. However, in these writings, he is quiet about the natural
goodness of life outside of the constraints of political life and the
preferability of withdrawal from the hectic, unpredictable turns of
political participation. For political life, man must be "denatured"; his
particular existence must be transcended and his private will forced into
compliance with the general will. This is in the interests of justice. Yet
one may wonder, as many of Rousseau's commentators have done,
whether the measures required to achieve this submission are
compatible with the freedom he also prescribes, and whether this
arrangement even does justice to man in a comprehensive manner. The
moral autonomy created by denaturing requires a fundamental
alteration of human nature. In the state of man's existing inclinations
and sentiments to which his nature has evolved historically, the solution
Rousseau provides in the Emile to the problem of human happiness
appears more realistic and persuasive. Historically, it has been the more
benign political expression of Rousseau's teaching. The human vision
expressed in that work offers an account of virtue more directly
accessible to the majority of men.
Moreover, in the tmile, Rousseau is quite explicit about the
restrictive features of political life that make the public realm
inhospitable to men. He appears to suggest that the attempt to fulfill
human life by public existence leads to an enfeeblement of the human
soul. Civic life is more regular and constant than the life of the
individual, but this means that it exercises the stifling tendency of
conformism. Moreover, its very stability makes it more subject to major
upheavals and alterations. Freedom, justice, and the regularity of
political administration are large networks constituted by the
interdependency of men. A single shock can disrupt the tenuous balance
of interests and powers. The soul of a man who is dependent upon this
network lacks resilience and so is incapable of adjusting to the changes
brought about by fortune or nature. An education to political life leads to
inflexibility and a vulnerability to fortune. Public life necessarily entails
social stations whose order is subject to inevitable revolutions and
alterations. The political man is exposed to the uncertainty and
unpredictability of his own actions and other's reactions. Such a
network cannot sustain the virtues Rousseau believes necessary for the
human heart. He turns elsewhere to discover new social bonds.

4
Rousseau's solution to the proper character of human association
consists of two proposals, each necessitating a withdrawal from active
involvement in politics. The first involves encouraging in Emile a
singular adaptability to all circumstances and produces a life distanced
746 PETER EMBERLEY

from the single-minded commitment to political life. The second is that

the social contract is to be realized in the love partnership. Both of these
require the erosion of the distinctively political realm and the expansion
of the private realm into a unique social sphere of human intercourse.
The education to adaptability and a posture of disinterestedness
with respect to politics is achieved in three ways. First, Emile is
encouraged to develop adaptability in labour. He will relate to other men
not through the impersonal network of political acts, but in the
cultivation of the world around him by manual labour. The mutual
dependence of men is shown not in the efforts of achieving great political
projects but in labour "which makes men useful to one another."19 Here
men will acknowledge their plurality out of recognition of their common
vulnerability. Not courage and honour, but the utility of a trade binds
men's interests together. Men are needy creatures and labour will be
valued by its relation to need. Utility is the source of value in the ap-
praisal of men. Their works and manual labour, close to the state of
nature, remind Emile that he shares in the common lot of men. The
regard for utility and concern for manual labour, Rousseau maintains, is
a more salutary means of preserving peace and unity in men's hearts
than the obligations of political life. Not compelled to transcend their
sensual nature, they are torn neither between duty and inclination, nor
between reality and appearance.
Another element of Rousseau's emphasis on labour as a
replacement for political participation is his insistence that Emile
become adaptable in his labouring tasks, thus making himself
impervious to changes in society or nature. Labour, as the highest
expression of practice for Rousseau, replaces contemplation as the
humanizing activity par excellence. Not habituation to the activity of
transcendent reflection on eternal forms so as to be free of the variable
character of human life, nor the desire for immortality through heroic
acts, nor engagement in sustaining permanent forms of political life, can
any longer exemplify those activities which constitute the excellence of
human life. Rather, the extension of man's particular existence by
adaptability in labour becomes the means of his fulfillment. The private
economic activities of men form one of the key bases of social existence.
Here in the labouring world, conscious of the needs and sufferings of
others, a man will have his vanity dampened by his observations of the
pains of others and thus his social virtue of compassion will flourish.
The second way in which Emile is withdrawn from participation in
political life is through the disinterested posture he is taught to display
with regard to his fellows. He seeks neither to shine nor to proselytize
others: "His route is well marked and narrow. He is not tempted to leave
it and so remains indistinguishable from those who follow it. He wants
19 IV, 456.
Rousseau and the Domestication of Virtue 747

neither to stray from his path nor shine. Emile is a man of good sense and
he does not want to be anything else."20 Emile's education was not
meant to make of him a man of excellence. Active goodness gives way to
unobtrusive self-regard. The Biblical injunction "Do good unto others"
gives way to "Do what is good for yourself with the least possible harm
to others."21 His goodness is really a goodheartedness, a minimal
principle which withdraws him from a sustained engagement with
others: "The precept of never hurting another carries with it that of
being attached to human society as little as possible, for in the social
state the good of one necessarily constitutes the harm of another. This
relation is in the essence of things and nothing can change it."22 The
Christian maxim, Rousseau states, is dangerous and false if it is not
subordinated to the unostentatious maxim. The attempt to follow the
Christian maxim makes souls that are "intractable, wicked, lying, and
greedy."23 Man is encouraged to mind his own well-being, stay "within
himself' and restrain from the public display of virtue. It is for this
reason that Emile's bearing to others is one of disinterestedness. He will
be "a likable foreigner" because he does not depend upon others for his
fulfillment as a man. His education was a preparation for a life in which
he would have the fewest desires that he could fulfill unaided. Moreover,
he will not covet others' goods, or desire their recognition, because he
does not have the desires of most men and so will be just through
disinterest. Having read Plutarch, and hence suspicious of the motives
of political actors and public men, Emile will withdraw from their
company: "It is by means of history that he will see them as a simple
spectator, disinterested and without passion, as their judge and not as
their accomplice or as their accuser."24 He remains aloof and distant,
"for fear of being singled out, in order to avoid being noticed. And he is
never more at ease when no attention is paid to him."25 The virtuous
man does not live in the limelight of politics.
Finally, the disinterested posture is nourished by the third of
Rousseau's proposals, cosmopolitanism. Emile's travels are meant to
expose him to new customs, habits, and prejudices. They are an
introduction to politics for him so that he may experience many different
regimes and "find out whether it suits him to live [here or] there."26 "It
is useful," Rousseau writes, "for man to know all the places where he
can live so that he then may choose where he can live most
comfortably."27 Emile lives as a cosmopolitan; his opinions and wants
20 IV, 670.
21 III, 156.
22 IV, 340.
23 Ibid.
24 IV, 526.
25 IV, 667.
26 IV, 833.
27 IV, 831.
748 PETER EMBERLEY

have their source in natural needs rather than the partisan habits and
prejudices of a political society: "I shall not be free in this or that land, in
this or that region; I shall be free everywhere on earth."28 Emile will live
in a society, but will not be of society; there is no active, spirited love of
the political realm encouraged in him. His lack of political spiritedness is
meant to prevent his dependency on the works of men. By remaining
free from habituation and living only for himself, Emile will remain
adaptable and thus free from the caprice of fortune. Man, Rousseau
reiterates, is not sociable by nature: "cities are the abyss of the human
species."29 Emile will respect the particular habits of the city he inhabits
only because he profits from them. Utility is the basis of his very
apolitical attachment to his fellow citizens.
The culmination of Rousseau's project for the revival of virtue is in
the love partnership. Here the social contract is realized and man fulfills
his nature most fully; domesticity replaces political spiritedness. "Emile
is a man and Sophie is a woman," Rousseau advises, and "therein
consists all their glory."30 Through love, man is moralized: "We have
made an active and thinking being. It remains for us, in order to complete
the man, only to make him a loving and feeling being-that is to say, to
perfect reason by sentiment."31 Love, and not contemplation or glory, is
"the supreme happiness of life."32 It is in private intimacies that man's
nature comes to light; "the public things are either too uniform or too
artificial," he writes.33
The love partnership provides Rousseau's solution to the
moderation of men in the social sphere. The turbulence of political life
was a problem both because of the ethic of courage, as we have seen, but
also because of the lack of solidarity in the societies fostered by the
modern natural right teaching of Hobbes and Locke. This teaching had
dissolved traditional restraints and ties by promoting a ruthless
individualism. Men confronted one another as equals, each
independent, but now also impotent because the performance of social
duties could no longer be relied upon. Each being the equal of the other,
no man was obliged to do another's bidding. Rousseau's major task was
to construct bonds where nature had provided none. The diffusion of
individualism had made each the centre of a tiny private universe, while
sight of a greater universe had been lost. This made social order
impossible unless a binding force could be found. The usual cause of
injustice in such a regime based on modern natural right was the
predatory character of the man who had calculated his selfish interest
28 IV, 856.
29 IV. 277.
30 IV, 746.
31 IV, 481.
32 IV, 654.
33 IV, 531.
Rousseau and the Domestication of Virtue 749

and was willing to deceive others so as to indulge his whims. Rousseau

believed that the Hobbesian basis of morality-the selfish calculation of
interests-was not sufficient or binding upon a man who could escape
detection in his injustices. We have previously examined one of the
passions Rousseau employs to form social bonds, that of compassion.
This, however, is a weak basis for morality because it depends upon a
radically egalitarian society and the elimination of vanity. Rousseau thus
seeks another, more reliable, foundation upon which to base moral
practice. The search is crucial for his teaching because in the absence of
an autonomous reason that can order men's moral relations, Rousseau
has to find in the management of the passions, and in the exploitation of
their conflict, a resolution to the problem of producing an effective
morality.
The love partnership is Rousseau's attempt to overcome the radical
atomism generated by modern materialism. With it, Rousseau seeks to
form a whole social being composed of a man and a woman, a being
which can sustain moral practice without the classical commitment to
reason and the division of the soul it introduced. The basis of
community, then, is found in the domestic partnership. The problem
Rousseau seeks to solve is how to induce men to devote their energies to
an interest which can produce commitment to something other than the
satisfaction of their selfish desire. The family is the solution because
private intimacies bind together desire and duty without causing
turbulent resistance in men. This partnership becomes the foundation of
the social realm of men's co-existence. Rousseau seeks to find in the
attachment of one sex to another the basis of moral duties. The artificial
contrivance of the ideal partnership is achieved when the woman
participates in an ideal imposed upon her by the man. His physical
desires are domesticated by her spiritual qualities. Women's role is thus
the moderation of men. Reflection on the ideal he imposes upon her
forms in him a moral sensibility which ensures that he always acts to
make himself worthy of her love. The woman, Rousseau explains, seeks
to make herself worthy of his esteem by realizing the ideal he plants in
her. This little society constituted by a complex network of moral and
psychological forces regulates the moral life of men and women. Out of
this coordination the social sphere is created.34
Emile will learn to act decently in society by makingjudgments that
are based on his partnership with Sophie. His moral obligations stem
from his attachment to her. His judgments of relations in society are
made by appealing to the imagined ideal he has imposed upon her. His
moral standards are thus constructions of imagination:

34 The character of this partnership is too complex to detail in this article. I have done so
elsewhere; see "Rousseau and the Baroque: Love and Virtue,' in the Proceedings of
the American Political Science Association, September 3. 1983.
750 PETEREMBERLEY

It is unimportantwhetherthe object I depictfor himis imaginary;it sufficesthat

it make him disgusted with those that could tempt him; it suffices that he
everywhere find comparisonswhich make him prefer his chimerato the real
objectsthat strikehis eye.... By providingthe imaginaryobject, I am the master
of comparisons,and I easily preventmy young manfromhavingillusionsabout
real objects.35
Emile will flatter himself on his beloved's virtues, thus satisfying his
desire to be foremost and simultaneously acting morally. Imagination in
the service of an uncorrupted amour-propre provides the basis for
morality. Not reasoned judgment about the relations of men, but the
imagined ideal becomes the basis of Emile's wisdom. The ideal becomes
a shield against the corrupt temptations of society and so moderates his
desires: "He can be exposed to society almost without risk."
Emile's imagined ideal is a replacement for the Platonic noble lie.
What had kept Plato's citizens bound-to their community by the myth of
the metals and the mother earth is in Rousseau devotion and loyalty to
the beloved through the imaginary ideals of love. This posture of
resistance to the corrupting influences of society does not constitute the
natural development of the soul; it is wholly a product of imagination. If
men are to be moral, they need to imagine beautiful things. As illusory as
beautiful ideals might be, the moral deeds they produce are real. Acts of
self-restraint, of fidelity, of respect, and of honesty can be produced
only in this way. Rousseau's theory of virtue is founded on love because
only love can support human longing, if men are to live decently. Love
and the intimacy of the domestic partnership produce all the virtues a
man will need: decency, fidelity, love of family, humanity, a sense of
hygiene, modesty, and sensitivity. A man's virtue is formed on the lowly
but solid foundation of domestic bliss. "I know of no other happiness
than living in independence with the one I love, earning my appetite and
my health every day by work."36
The classical register of virtues-moderation, courage, wisdom,
and justice-represents the regulation of distinct and ordered parts of
the soul. For Rousseau this account is no longer relevant. Man's
passionate and corporeal existence exhausts his moral possibilities. His
energies can be sublimated, but they take on form in the homely virtues
of human partnership.
The intimate "self' thus created-fulfilled in labour and
love-finds happiness in expressing itself in feelings at once pedestrian
but solid. The order by which it lives is a product of its own volition. The
meaningful life is not related to things or even to experiences arising
from things. It lies rather in the cultivation of the self in an exploration of
inner sensibilities with a like-minded partner. Thus the search in private
becomes the new focus for emotional energies, commitment, and
35 IV, 657.
36 IV, 834.
Rousseau and the Domestication of Virtue 751

beliefs. The public no longer suffices. The engaging issues of life also
become more psychological in character. The preoccupation with
psychic impressions reinforces the inhospitability of the public realm
because these impressions appear inexpressible in public terms. Thus
Rousseau's protest against the barbarisms of the public realm, and his
appeals to virtue, produce a turning inward in search of psychologically
authentic relationships. The virtue of a man becomes measureable not
by his actions-his appearance in the world that can be judged through
speeches and public accountability-but by his honesty, sincerity,
transparency, and authenticity.
In a prophetic manner, Rousseau foresaw the agenda of modern
social life, namely the ambiguous need for the representation of self
through self-disclosure, self-analysis, and the development of
personality. Instead of participation in or understanding of politics,
Rousseau prescribes a radical absorption with the inward state of the
soul. So as not to distort what Rousseau attempts, however, it is
important to remember that this preoccupation with the inward state of
the soul is similar to what Aristotle-not to say Augustine and the
tradition of Christian thought after him-thought was necessary. After
all, Aristotle too draws a distinction between virtuous deeds and acting
out of virtue, and stresses the need for psychic order as a precondition of
virtue. But for Aristotle this introspection and cultivation of a
disposition to virtue is simply a means to virtuous public action. For
Rousseau it becomes more than a means. Honesty, authenticity,
transparency, sincerity, and the self-absorption needed to scrutinize the
heart for these qualities, become the preponderant features of a truly
virtuous life. Rousseau's critique of virtue thus involves a substantive
reorientation of the character of political life, the precise nature of which
we shall examine shortly. The point to be drawn here is that the virtue
which is public inevitably corrupts the heart.37

5
Rousseau's account of domesticated virtue, and his proposal of
withdrawal into the privacy of the social sphere, raises important
questions concerning the continued existence of a distinctively political
realm. The social sphere is undoubtedly more "personal" and permits a
greater disclosure of "individuality," but it also erodes a human
association where there is something more than the obsessive search for
an elusive reality (the "real" experience, the "real" self, "real"
happiness). What has been lost is a sphere in which men participate
37 My understanding of the erosion of the public realm is informed by Hannah Arendt's
The Hu,1maniCondition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958), 22-73; Richard
Sennett's The Fall of Public Mean(New York: Knopf, 1976);and William Schur's The
A lareness Trap (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1976).
752 PETER EMBERLEY

impersonally in common projects which transcend personal concerns.

This public space, and the civility by which it operates, offers a
dimension of life that cannot be experienced in the household or society
of intimates. Its greatest advantage is that it allows a man to be exposed,
in his interactions with strangers, to the diversity of opinions,
suggestions, and criticisms regarding the aims of human life. The closed
world of self-absorption and public revelation of sensibilities, by
contrast, does not allow the growth and enrichment of a man's
perceptions and experience; it requires withdrawal from an encounter
with unknown and unfamiliar experiences. However, it thereby also
deprives a man of perhaps the most valuable experience: the ability to
scrutinize critically the established conditions of his life.
Moreover, there is no pre-established harmony between the social
sphere and the exigencies of political existence. The social sphere
erodes a homogeneous community into many communities, each with
its own interests. There is, however, too great a gap between social
partnership and political obligation. This Rousseau does not close
without destroying one or the other. The first is eliminated in the Social
Contract, the other is called into serious doubt in the tmile. The student
of politics is left with the two polarities of life, human being and citizen,
with little direction for choosing one over the other. Rousseau leaves
men with the choice of being either an apolitical, whole social being, or a
denatured, intensely political citizen. The political problem arises when
the two must co-habit the same land that gives freedoms to preserve the
former and demands sacrifices from the latter.
The social realm of sensibility and intimacy is fraught, however,
with a more serious problem. Rousseau's depoliticization of the human
association, which we appear to experience in reality today, leads first to
a confusion of the public and private sphere which has the potential of
producing greater personal discontent, and secondly, causes an erosion
of the active scrutiny of political power.
First, the search for the psychologically authentic relationship, and
the process of inviting the recognition of others by the disclosure of the
self's emotional states, has the tendency to immobilize action because
such disclosure becomes an end in itself. But it is also an end which is
always frustrated. The self is caught in a continuous doubt about its own
sincerity and that of others. This is apparent in the zeal with which men
decode the behaviour of others, which has the unfortunate effect of
calling into doubt, in such a man's mind, the value of intimate
involvement with anyone.
Secondly, the inflated importance given to psychological states
draws attention away from substantive actions and programmes.
Political men are scrutinized for the purity of their emotions and the
honesty of their self-disclosures. Yet, authentic men can also perform
vicious acts; the language of authenticity and transparency makes it
Rousseau and the Domestication of Virtue 753

difficult to remember this. The domestication of virtue withdraws a man

from political acts of questioning public men, and brings about a
misleading activity of judgment about personality rather than action. It
could be argued, however, that the dangers of abuse of political power,
especially in a society where therapeutic solutions to social ills become
more common, requires greater political scrutiny.
The accountability of political power and the public discourse
required to ensure that the public good is pursued rely upon a citizenry
capable of sound and resolute judgment. Rousseau's depiction of the
moral experience, however, lacks the rigour and decisiveness which can
sustain this sort of principled action. Emile's adaptability appears as
lack of steadfastness and shallowness, his detachment and
disinterestedness as heartlessness, and his cosmopolitanism as
rootlessness. Rather than expressing his reasons for the need to defend
or reform political practices, he will be found in a state of self-absorption
with his feelings. He will translate political facts into symbols of
personality and be more concerned with the "credibility" or
"authenticity" of a political man's presentation than with substantive
issues. Social engagements will recede in the face of inquiries like
"What am I feeling?", and "Am I expressing myself sincerely?"
because it is assumed that there can be no social bond without
psychological openness. As one social critic has suggested, in discussing
the narcissism of modern times, the baring of the self has become the
hidden agenda of political life.38
However, it is doubtful whether this preoccupation will dissolve the
alienation and impersonality which Rousseau believed to be the
condition of all hitherto existing society. Rather, the intrusion of private
intimacy into the public domain introduces a greater self-doubt in
individuals, while at the same time producing a certain contempt in those
with whom a man has burdened himself. One is left to speculate whether
this does not replicate in another form the intolerance and harshness
Rousseau believed to belong to the ethic of courage. The new social
reality distinguishes itself from that ethic, however, in the trivializing of
human relations. Hearts and minds are meant henceforth to exercise
themselves upon the fleeting and the trivial with a sense of urgency and a
feeling of great purpose. One may wonder if such "voluptuaries without
heart" can maintain those conditions in which political justice
flourishes.
38 Sennett (The Fall of Puhblic Man) deals with this erosion of public life in a
comprehensive and provocative manner. I am indebted to certain features of his
analysis.