"Rousseau on the Conflict between 'Human' and 'Civic' Education"

My aim in this paper is to give a brief account of the principles underlying the educational regimen that Rousseau sets out in the most unwieldy and most neglected of his philosophical texts, Emile. In doing so, I am interested less in issues in the philosophy of education than in the implications Emile's education has for Rousseau's political philosophy, and especially for his understanding of how the good of citizenship fits into human flourishing more generally. The argument I construct develops out of a critique of the widely held view that Rousseau's two positive philosophical works, Emile and the Social Contract, are informed by conflicting and irreconcilable conceptions of human flourishing, ideals that (in Emile) are denoted by the terms homme and citoyen. Implicit in the view I am arguing against is the idea that both 'man'1 and 'citizen' represent genuinely worthy, perhaps even equally worthy, ideals and that--since the two ideals are fundamentally incompatible--realizing one is possible only at the expense of the other. On this view, the human condition is such that it is possible to achieve either the goods of citizenship or those associated with being a man but not both; or, what is more likely, the human condition is marked by a radical Entzweiung, or bifurcation, in which individuals are continually torn between two opposing identities--man and citizen--that defy reconciliation. My principal claim in this paper is that for Rousseau these two ideals are not inherently incompatible and that demonstrating this is a central concern of the philosophical project carried out in Emile and the Social Contract. In fact, I shall argue, Rousseau's position is stronger than this. For a careful reading of these texts reveals that the ideals of man and citizen are not just compatible but (in a certain sense) mutually dependent: under the conditions of

In the various drafts of this paper I have gone back and forth between 'man' and 'human being' as the translation of homme. Although I have finally opted for the former, I remain conscious of two main advantages of the latter. First, as we use the terms today, 'human being' comes closer than 'man' to capturing what Rousseau intends by homme (at least here, when he is distinguishing man from citizen). Second, the philosophical tension I examine here does not depend--or so I would argue--on homme being a gendered concept. I'm happy to talk more about this issue in discussion.

modern civilization [just dependence?], "men" can exist only if they are also citizens, and, conversely, citizens (of a legitimate republic) must at the same time be constituted as "men."

Distinguishing men from citizens First, it is necessary to say a few words about the concepts 'man' and 'citizen' and to explain why it might seem that they represent irreconcilable ideals. The main piece of evidence in support of the interpretation I am arguing against2 is Rousseau's apparently unambiguous declaration at the beginning of Emile that educators must choose between "two contrary forms of instruction:" domestic (or private) education, which forms children into men, and civic (or public) education, which makes them into citizens (E, 39-42/OC 4, 248-52).3 After distinguishing three possible sources of education--nature, things, and men--Rousseau goes on to ask: what is to be done when our [different educations] are opposed? When, instead of raising a man for himself, one wants to raise him for others? Then their harmony is impossible. Forced to combat nature or the social institutions, one must choose between making a man or a citizen, for one cannot make both at the same time (E, 39/OC 4, 248; emphasis added). This passage makes clear that the distinction between domestic and civic education turns on their having not different sources but different goals. (With respect to their source--to who or what does the teaching--both count as education by men.) In specifying the goals of these educations, Rousseau characterizes the ideal of the man in a variety of ways, but the most important of these--the one I'll focus on here--finds expression in his talk of a man's existing "for

The locus classicus of this interpretation is Judith N. Shklar's Men and Citizens (London: Cambridge University Press, 1969). 3 'E' refers to Emile, or on Education, trans. Allan Bloom (New York: Basic Books, 1979); 'OC 4' refers to vol. 4 of Oeuvres Compltes, ed. Bernard Gagnebin and Marcel Raymond (Paris: Gallimard, Bibliothque de la Pliade, 1959-69). Other abbreviations I use are: DI, for Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality among Men, in The Discourses and Other Early Political Writings, trans. Victor Gourevitch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 111-222; LWM, for Letters Written from the Mountain, in The Collected Writings of Rousseau, trans. Judith R. Bush and Christopher Kelly (Hanover, N. H.: University Press of New England, 2001), vol. 9, 131-306; PE, for Discourse on Political Economy, in The Social Contract and Other Later Political Writings, trans. Victor Gourevitch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 3-38; and SC for The Social Contract, ibid, 39-152 (with 'SC, I.4.vi' referring to book 1, chapter 4, paragraph 6).

himself," in contrast to the citizen, who exists "for others." Since it is not immediately obvious what this distinction amounts to, I cite Rousseau's elaboration of it in full: Natural man exists entirely for himself. He is a numerical unity, the absolute whole that exists in relation only to itself . . . . Civil man is merely a fractional unity dependent on the denominator; his value is found in his relation to the whole, which is the social body. Good social institutions are those that best know how to denature man, to take his absolute existence from him in order to give him a relative one and transport the I into the common unity, with the result that each individual believes himself no longer one but a part of the unity and no longer perceptible (sensible) except within the whole (E39-40/OC 4, 249). This passage is followed by examples of citizens--of ancient Rome and Sparta--whose common characteristic, according to Rousseau, is that they thought of themselves first as Romans or Spartans and only secondarily (or maybe not at all) as individuals: "A citizen of Rome was neither Caius nor Lucius; he was a Roman; he even loved the country exclusive of himself" (E, 40/OC 4, 249). The difference between man and citizen, on this formulation, comes down to two related points. First, men and citizens differ with respect to the kind of self-conception they hold: citizens think of themselves first and foremost as members of their respective states and therefore conceive of their own good (or their highest interests) as inseparable from the good of their state. Men, in contrast, think of themselves first as individuals and, like the inhabitants of Rousseau's state of nature, conceive of their own good (or highest interest) independently of their membership in a political association. The second dimension along which the two differ concerns the source of their sense of value as a self. The citizen "believes himself . . . no longer perceptible (sensible) except within the whole," which is to say that a citizen of Rome "counts," or has a sense of himself as valuable, only insofar as he is a Roman, only insofar as he is part of a whole that he (together with his compatriots) regards as valuable and from which his own value (as well as that of his compatriots) derives. Both of these points could be summed up by saying that what characterizes the citizen is a certain kind of dependence on others, whereas the hallmark of the man is self-sufficiency. Rousseau makes the same claim when he says that the citizen's existence is "relative" (he

conceives of himself and senses his own value only in relation to a larger whole), whereas the man's existence is "absolute." It is striking, and no coincidence, that these are the same terms Rousseau uses in the Second Discourse when distinguishing the two forms of self-love--amour propre and amour de soi-mme--that motivate humans and account for the greatest part of their behavior. (The other human motivator is pity, which, in the Second Discourse at least, is said to operate independently of both forms of self-love (DI, 127/OC 3, 125-6).) As this repetition of the two terms suggests, it is impossible to grasp Rousseau's distinction between man and citizen without first defining the "relative" and "absolute" forms of self-love and understanding how they figure in each of the two ideals. I shall argue that the most important difference between man and citizen is a difference in how self-love (in the broadest sense) is configured in each and that the principal distinction between domestic and civic education comes down to differences in the formation, or cultivation, of one or both species of self-love. Rousseau gives his most explicit definition of the two forms of self-love in a crucial note appended to the Second Discourse: It's important not to confuse amour propre and amour de soi-mme, two passions very different in their nature and their effects. Amour de soi-mme is a natural sentiment that inclines every animal to attend to its selfpreservation and that, guided by reason and modified by pity, produces humanity and virtue. Amour propre is but a relative sentiment, artificial and born in society, that inclines each individual to think more highly of himself than of anyone else [and] inspires in men all the evils they do to one another . . . (DI, 218/OC 3, 219). There are many claims packed into this brief statement, but three are especially relevant here. First, the two forms of self-love are distinguished in terms of the object, or good, that each inclines us to seek: amour de soi-mme is directed at self-preservation, whereas amour propre is concerned with judgments of merit and honor, with how highly one is "regarded." A being that possesses amour propre, then, is moved by the desire "to have a position, to be a part, to count for something" (E, 160/OC 4, 421); such a being, in other words, feels a need to be esteemed, admired, or thought valuable (in some respect).

Second, amour propre is an inherently social sentiment--it is "born in society"--whereas amour de soi-mme is a sentiment that affects even the (hypothetical) isolated, unsocialized beings of the original state of nature. Third, and most important, amour propre is relative, in contrast to the absolute character of amour de soi-mme (E IV, 215/OC 4, 494). 'Relative' here means relative to other subjects, and amour propre is relative to others in two respects, each of which distinguishes it from amour de soi-mme. First, the good that amour propre seeks is relative, or comparative, in nature; to desire esteem is to desire to have a certain standing in relation to the standing of others.4 In other words, the esteem that amour propre strives for is what is sometimes called a positional good, which implies that doing well for myself--finding the esteem I seek--consists in doing well in relation to (in comparison with) others. This feature of amour propre contrasts with the absolute (non-relative) character of amour de soi-mme in that the value of the goods sought by the latter is independent of how much or how little of the same is possessed by others. If we think of amour de soi-mme as directed at self-preservation, the point becomes clear: the extent to which my food, my shelter, and my sleep satisfy my bodily needs is independent of how well those around me fare with respect to theirs. In the case of amour propre, in contrast, my satisfaction depends on how the quantity and quality of the esteem I receive from others compares with the quantity and quality of the esteem they enjoy. The other respect in which amour propre is relative and amour de soi-mme is not is more important for my project here: amour propre is relative to other subjects in the further sense that, since the good it seeks is esteem from others, its satisfaction requires--even consists in--the opinions of other subjects.5 Amour propre is relative in this second sense, then, because its aim-recognition from others--is inherently social in character. Here, too, amour propre contrasts with
4

In distinguishing amour propre from amour de soi-mme, Rousseau emphasizes that the former "makes comparisons" (E, 213/OC 4, 493). Also: "as soon as amour propre has developed, the relative I is constantly in play, and the young man never observes others without returning to himself and comparing himself with them. The issue, then, is to know what rank among his fellows he will put himself after having examined them" (E, 243/OC 4, 534). 5 Rousseau uses this sense of 'relative' at E, 39-40/OC 4, 248-9. It is also implicit at E, 213/OC 4, 493, in the claim that amour propre demands that others confirm one's comparative judgments regarding oneself.

amour de soi-mme: since the opinion of one's fellow beings is not constitutive of the goods sought by amour de soi-mme, it does not directly and necessarily tie us to other subjects, as does amour propre. Of course, in most circumstances, satisfying the needs of self-preservation will also require, as a means to achieving one's ends, cooperation with others. Even so, the good one hopes to achieve through such cooperation--if it is truly an end of amour de soi-mme--remains external and hence only contingently related to one's relations to others. This latter point is important because it illuminates the close connection Rousseau asserts between "relativity" (or amour propre) and dependence, on the one hand, and between "absoluteness" (or amour de soi-mme) and self-sufficiency, on the other. Amour propre is a fundamental source of human dependence--for Rousseau it is by far its primary source--because it furnishes us with desires and needs that in principle cannot be satisfied except with the cooperation--the affirming, evaluative gaze--of other subjects. In contrast, creatures that lacked amour propre but were otherwise like us could in principle be self-sufficient since the goods sought by amour de soi-mme are not defined by or necessarily related to the judgments (or other activities) of others. (This is the main point of Rousseau's sketch of the original state of nature in Part I of the Second Discourse.) That Rousseau means to draw some connection between citizenship and amour propre is plain enough; what is less clear is what this connection is and why he asserts it. Recall that the main difference between the two forms of education distinguished by Rousseau is a difference in their endpoints, or goals--specifically, whether their aim is to produce citizens or men. But what is it to produce a citizen or a man, and how does the formation of amour propre figure in each? It is reasonable to suppose that, of these two ideals, the former has its source in political philosophy, which is to say, in speculation about the nature of political association and the conditions of its existence. This suggests that, for Rousseau, the guiding aim in forming a child into a citizen is to instill in him the character traits he will need in order for political association to be possible. Civic education, then, would aim at cultivating the desires, beliefs, and selfconceptions of individuals in a way that would enable them, once educated, to endorse or

affirm their polity's general will, or what is the same, to embrace the good of their political community--the good of Rome, the good of Sparta--as their own. Domestic education, in contrast, would receive its goal from a source outside political philosophy,6 or independently of concerns about what political association requires of its members. The first aim of domestic education would be not to make its charges into bearers of the general will but to form them into men, the defining characteristic of which is self-sufficiency: a man is exists "for himself" rather than merely "for others;" his being as a self has a source independent of his membership in a political body. (Beyond this, being a man includes "being oneself," "acting as one speaks," "decisiveness in one's choices," and "sticking to" the choices one makes (E, 40/OC 4, 250); in addition, 'man' is a universal, cosmopolitan identity, whereas the citizen always identifies with a particular state.) Thinking of the aim of civic education in this way helps us to see how citizenship might be related to amour propre: the latter--or, more precisely, a certain configuration of it--is what makes citizenship possible for beings (like us) who are first and foremost creatures of self-love. Being a citizen involves caring deeply enough about one's political community to be able freely-and without resentment or regret--to subordinate one's own particular (or "private") good to the good of the community as a whole. The problem this poses for Rousseau is that human nature as such--prior to any "artificial" intervention such as education--provides no basis for the allegiance to a collective good that citizenship requires. Creatures like us, for whom one's private good is one's "natural" first concern7 must be fundamentally re-formed ("denatured," according to the passage cited above) if they are to regard themselves first as Romans or Spartans and to will in accordance with that identity. (Pity, too, belongs to our original nature, but Rousseau makes clear that it speaks only with a "gentle voice" (DI, 154/OC 3, 156) and that its power to move us is weak in comparison with self-love in either of its forms.)
6

For now let's call this source moral philosophy, understood as governed by the ideal of individual autonomy. On this construal, Rousseau's distinction is a forerunner of Hegel's contrast between Sittlichkeit and Moralitt.

The idea underlying Rousseau's linking of amour propre with citizenship is that it, not amour de soi-mme, is the form of self-love that renders the basic self-interestedness of humans compatible with the attitude characteristic of citizens: according greater weight to "our" good than to my own. A being that is moved by amour propre--by the need to achieve standing in the eyes of others--can be brought to care about the collective good in a manner consistent with his own self-love if belonging to the polity and contributing to its good are publicly visible aspects of a shared form of life through which he establishes, in his own eyes as well as in his compatriots', his identity and value as (for example) a Roman or a Spartan. That we are on the right track in understanding Rousseau's point is confirmed by a series of passages in the Discourse on Political Economy that emphasize the role played by love of the fatherland (l'amour de la patrie) in motivating citizens to embrace the general will and to identify the good of the republic with their own. According to these passages, the love of the fatherland appropriate to citizenship is one in which "this sweet and lively sentiment combines the force of amour propre with all the beauty of virtue" and thereby "endows virtue with an energy that . . . makes [love of the fatherland] into the most heroic of all passions" (PE, 16/OC 3, 255). Later, in expanding on the claim that love of the fatherland depends on harnessing the "force" of amour propre, Rousseau adds that amour propre, when properly habituated, is able to "draw us out of ourselves," expand the human self (le moi humain), and bring us to care about the larger good (PE, 21/OC 3, 260). And, in an intervening passage, Rousseau says more about how, in classical Rome, individuals' amour propre was extended to the republic: for the citizens of Rome, "respect for the name Roman . . . roused the courage and animated the virtue of anyone who had the honor to bear it" (PE, 18/OC 3, 257). The talk of respect and honor that accrue both to citizens and to the republic with which they identify suggests a picture of how amour propre animates the souls of citizens. On this picture, citizens win honor not only by distinguishing themselves in their compatriots' eyes

This is what it means to say that self-love is the first principle of human nature (DI, 127/OC 3, 125-6. That self-love (here, amour de soi-mme) is first in this sense is made clear at DI, 197/OC 3, 126.

through extraordinary acts of public service but also (and primarily) simply by belonging to the Roman people and participating in its civic life. As described here, citizens of Rome found their honor in civic life by identifying themselves as members of a social group that itself commanded their highest respect. To bear the name 'Roman' was an honor for them because of the respect they had for Rome, and the honor of being called Roman was something they won by demonstrating, in their deeds, their faithfulness to the civic norms they jointly recognized as their highest values. Through such conduct they proved themselves to be Romans, and in establishing their identities as such in reality, they experienced Rome's greatness as their own. Individuals of this sort are "drawn out of themselves" in that they satisfy their need to have a standing for others (they win their honor) by embracing and expressing practical identities as members of a larger political group--identities that consist, in part, in an allegiance to certain shared ideals.8 This civic virtue is at root a phenomenon of amour propre because even though there is a sense in which the Roman citizen wins honor in his own eyes--he acts on values he himself endorses, and he achieves, for himself, a kind of satisfaction in doing so--he also expresses his identity as a Roman publicly, in full view of his like-minded fellow citizens, who approve of his actions and respect him because of them. (Rousseau's implicit claim is that under normal human conditions,9 winning respect from others--for civic virtue, for example--is developmentally prior to, and a necessary condition of, winning it in one's own eyes.)

Normative problems posed by the two ideals That Rousseau acknowledges a moral ideal for humans beyond the one supplied by political philosophy indicates his appreciation of the serious dangers to human flourishing intrinsic to the ideal of the citizen. Not surprisingly, these are the same dangers he associates
8

In linking Roman patriotism with amour propre and virtue, Rousseau makes clear that 'Roman' was not primarily a descriptive title but a normative one: to be a Roman was to have a specific practical identity that animated one to perform acts of courage and virtue. This type of identification is grounded not in affection--where citizens desire the collective good because they love their compatriots--but in a normative stance, an allegiance to the civic values that informed Roman life.

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with amour propre, or more precisely, with the thoroughgoing dependence on others that amour propre necessarily engenders.10 (Dependence in this context is opposed to self-sufficiency: an individual is dependent when he has to rely on the cooperation of others in order to satisfy his needs.) A central insight of Rousseau's moral and political thought is that any form of dependence carries with it the danger that individuals will be compelled to compromise their freedom in order to satisfy the needs that impel them to seek the cooperation of others. If freedom consists in "not being subject to someone else's will" (LWM, 260/OC 3, 841)--or, equivalently, in obeying only one's own will11--then dependence poses a standing threat to freedom since it opens up the possibility that in order to get what I need I may have no choice but to tailor my actions and beliefs to conform to the often arbitrary wills of those on whose cooperation I rely. When constantly faced with a choice between getting what I need or following my own will, it will be no surprise if satisfaction frequently wins out over freedom. The fundamental dependence on the opinions of others that amour propre engenders poses the same threat to freedom: Even domination is servile when it is connected with opinion, for you depend on the prejudices of those you govern by prejudices. To conduct them as you please, you must conduct yourself as they please. They have only to change their way of thinking, and you must perforce change your way of acting (E, 83/OC 4, 308). Rousseau's thought is that someone who needs recognition from others will regularly be subject to the temptation to let his actions be dictated by the values and preferences of those whose recognition he seeks and, so, to determine his will in accordance with their wishes or values rather than his own. Moreover, the danger to freedom posed by the dependence created by amour propre is especially acute, for something of great importance is at stake in this passion's strivings, something one could call the very being of the self (as a moral or spiritual entity). This

As opposed to the unrealistic conditions Emile is subjected to, which make it possible for him to avoid the entanglements of amour propre until puberty (e.g., by being removed from family life).
9

10

For more on the moral threat posed by dependence, see my Foundations of Hegel's Social Theory (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000), chapter 2. 11 This formulation is implicit in Rousseau's statement of the fundamental problem of political philosophy, which glosses freedom as "obeying only oneself" (SC, I.6.iv).

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is the idea Rousseau means to communicate when he says, repeatedly, that in being recognized by others, an individual acquires a "sentiment of his own existence" (DI, 187/OC 3, 193; my emphasis). Although a failure to find recognition from one's fellows does not pose a threat to one's physical being, someone who lacks standing in the eyes of others is, as ordinary language acknowledges, a "nobody." Recognition from others, especially when externally displayed, confers on the self a reality of a certain distinctively human kind: a "being-for-others" that consists in a public (and hence not merely subjective) confirmation of one's value and "substance." This, along with my account of the link between amour propre and citizenship, makes clear that a central feature of the man is self-sufficiency with respect to his being as a self (with respect to his self-conception and his sense of self, or value). The man, unlike the citizen, is selfdefining and self-affirming--he is the source of his "sentiment of his own existence"--and because of this independence he is much more likely than his counterpart to escape the need to conduct himself as others please and, so, to enjoy the paramount human good, freedom.12 It has also become clear why the ideals of citizen and man, together with their corresponding educations, can appear to be mutually exclusive: it is difficult to see how a single person could be both a political being--"a fractional unity dependent on the . . . whole"--as well as an individual (in the original sense of the term): an "absolute" being that is self-defining, selfaffirming, and (for those reasons) able to avoid the servitude to others' opinions that a more social self-conception seems to imply. But is this indeed Emile's message? As I have already indicated, many interpreters believe that it is.13 It is commonly thought, for example, that the aim of Emile's education is to

12

"To renounce one's freedom is to renounce one's quality as a man . . . . There is no possible compensation for someone who renounces everything. Such a renunciation is incompatible with the nature of man" (SC, I.4.vi). In the present context one might argue that 'integrity' is a more apt name than 'freedom' for what is endangered when individuals need the positive judgments of others. 13 Two otherwise insightful interpreters who take this view are Susan Neiman, who describes the "ultimate goal" of Emile's education as independence from others' "reflection as constitutive of his sense of self-worth" ("Metaphysics, Philosophy: Rousseau on the Problem of Evil," in Reclaiming the History of Ethics, ed. Andrews Reath, Barbara Herman, and Christine M. Korsgaard (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 156); and Allan Bloom, who claims that "the primary intention of [Emile's]

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produce a man rather than a citizen and that its principal strategy for doing so is to ensure the complete absence of amour propre from Emile's character, whether by extirpating or suppressing the drive for recognition or by preventing its emergence. Although I want to reject both of these claims, it is important to appreciate why such a reading is tempting. The most important reason is that self-sufficiency of some sort plainly is a prominent goal of Emile's education. At the end of Book III--as I explain below, the location of these quotations is crucial--Emile is said to have learned to "use his reason, not someone else's" (and to be able to do so precisely because "he takes no account of opinion"); in the same place he is described as "considering himself without regard to others and finding it good that others do not think of him. . . . He is alone in human society; he counts on himself alone" (E, 207-8/OC 4, 486-8). Yet in order to grasp the role that the ideal of man plays in Emile's education, it is important to note that, apart from the passage first cited above, choosing between the ideals of man and citizen is not how Rousseau normally formulates the problem of Emile. The issue he is most concerned with, rather, is a kind of disunity or conflict internal to the self that tends to result from the attempt to make a single individual into both a man and a citizen: He who in the civil order wants to preserve the primacy of the sentiments of nature does not know what he wants. Always in contradiction with himself, always floating between his inclinations and his duties, he will never be either man or citizen (E, 40/OC 4, 249-50; my emphasis). The real problem of Emile's education, I suggest, is not how to make a man in place of a citizen-it is not about choosing between the two ideals--but rather, as Rousseau says very plainly here, to find a way of educating children to become both without generating in them the internal "contradiction" described above. In other words, in Emile no less than in the Social Contract and the Second Discourse,14 Rousseau recognizes the necessity, even the desirability, of living in society as a citizen. Initial appearances to the contrary, the aim of Emile's education is to make it possible for him to be a man and a citizen, and to live out both identities wholeheartedly,
education is to prevent amour de soi from turning into amour propre" (E, 10) and that the tutor's aim is to make Emile "intellectually and morally self-sufficient" (E, 27).

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without inner conflict; its aim, in other words, is to devise an education that renders the two ideals psychologically compatible. It is not difficult to understand why Rousseau rejects the strategy of making Emile selfsufficient and free at the expense of making him a citizen: if Emile were only a man, he would be self-defining and self-determining, but he would also be isolated and undeveloped; he would miss out on much of the best that human life can offer, including a wealth of goods that depend on having substantive ties to others.15 This is confirmed by the fact that the crowning point of Emile's education, in Book V, is his marriage to Sophie and his entry into the state. It could hardly be clearer by this point in the text that Emile is being educated to assume his place in society, including as a citizen. But Rousseau also says this explicitly in Emile's opening pages: Swept along in contrary routes by nature and by men, forced to divide ourselves between these diverse forces, we follow a composite force that leads us to neither one goal nor the other. Thus in conflict and floating during the whole course of our life, we end it without having been able to put ourselves in harmony with ourselves . . . . If perhaps the double object we set for ourselves could be joined in a single one, then by removing the contradictions of man a great obstacle to his happiness would be removed . . . . I believe one will have made a few steps in this quest when one has read this book (E, 41/OC 4, 251). And, as if to dispel any doubt that might remain, Rousseau makes explicit towards the end of Book IV the need for Emile finally to enter society, including the state:16 Emile is not made to remain always solitary. . . . If I keep him away from society to the end, what will he have learned from me? Everything perhaps, except the most necessary art for a man and a citizen, which is knowing how to live with his fellow beings (E, 327, 328/OC 4, 654, 655; emphasis added). But if Rousseau says clearly, and more than once, that Emile is to be both man and citizen, what is to be made of his earlier claim that "one must choose between making a man or a citizen, for one cannot make both at the same time"? In considering this question, it is
14

In the latter Rousseau makes clear that even if we could return to the original state of nature, doing so would be morally undesirable and represent a "debasing of the species" (DI, 203/OC 3, 207). 15 See, e.g., the Second Discourse, where at the same moment that the birth of amour propre opens the door to jealousy, fury, and conflict, it also makes possible "the sweetest sentiments known to men: conjugal and . . . paternal love" (DI, 164/OC 3, 168). 16 Other evidence that Emile is being prepared for citizenship is his tutor's recital in Book V of a condensed version of the Social Contract (E, 458-67/OC 4, 836-49).

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important to give weight to the quotation's final four words, for if one fails to see that what Rousseau denies is only the possibility of simultaneously forming children as men and citizens, it is impossible to account for the obvious fact that the final stage of Emile's education (E V, 44875/OC 4, 823-60) is devoted to preparing him to assume his place as a member of the state. This instruction for citizenship can be reconciled with the view that Emile's education aims at making him into a man, once one realizes that his formation as a citizen (in Book V) takes place only after his formation as a man (in Books I-IV). The end result of Emile is not a man instead of a citizen but a man-citizen whose education has proceeded in two stages: the first is governed exclusively by the "manly" ideal of self-sufficiency, while the second provides the product of the first stage with what he needs in order also to be a citizen (and husband), thereby unifying the two educations and accomplishing Emile's goal of "removing the contradictions" between them (E, 41/OC 4, 251). Before outlining the course of Emile's education in more detail, I want to consider briefly the philosophical implications of its two-stage structure. The presence of the second stage-Emile's formation as a citizen--suggests, not that Emile and political philosophy represent independent, possibly conflicting projects, as many interpreters believe, but, instead, that the former is subject to constraints imposed on it by latter in the following (already familiar) sense: one condition of a successful education is that it form its charges into beings who are able to assume their place in the state as citizens (as persons who are able to affirm the general will of their polity since they regard its good as their own.) The claim implicit in Emile is that more than one kind of education can meet this political condition: a "public" education (such as Sparta's), which leaves, however, no space for individual autonomy; and Emile's "domestic" education, in which formation as a citizen takes place only after a lengthy instructorship in being a man. The essential difference between the two forms of education is not that one produces only men and the other only citizens but rather that Emile's domestic education produces individuals who, in the end, can assume the role of citizen in a specific manner, a manner consistent with achieving the goods essential to being a man. Of course, the goods in

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question cannot include self-sufficiency17 in the strict sense. This is because Emile cannot be a citizen (or husband) unless he possesses amour propre (since it is essential to the frame of mind that enables self-interested beings to care deeply and non-instrumentally about the good of others) and because no one who feels the needs of amour propre can be truly self-sufficient.18 Instead, the good that Emile's domestic education is to secure for him, even as he participates in civic life, is the good that, in the wholly "natural" (asocial) man, is assured by his absolute selfsufficiency: the good of freedom (or integrity). Here, too, Rousseau is explicit about his aim (even though, again, many interpreters have failed to pay notice): ...although I want to form the man of nature, the object is not . . . to make him a savage . . . . It suffices that, enclosed in a social whirlpool, he not let himself get carried away by either the passions or the opinions of men, that he see with his eyes, that he feel with his heart, that no authority govern him beyond that of his own reason (E, 255/OC 4, 551; emphasis added). The aim of domestic education, then, is to form citizens who also incorporate the most important virtue of "men": the freedom that consists in seeing with one's own eyes, feeling with one's own heart, and being governed only by one's own reason (rather than being compelled to conduct oneself "as others please"). Moreover, this aspect of Emile's project can be understood as a respect which moral philosophy--via its ideal of 'man'--imposes its own constraints on Rousseau's political philosophy. For the Social Contract can be seen as an attempt to figure out not just how the ideal of the good of all can come to rule the life of a polity but also how the individuals who participate in that life can remain free, or autonomous (governed only by their own reason), in their allegiance to such an ideal. In other words, the Social Contract implicitly rejects certain possible solutions to the problem of political life (how citizens can be brought to care about the good of their polity) because they are incompatible with citizens remaining, in some sense, sovereign individuals.

17

I would argue that self-sufficiency is not good in itself for Rousseau but only instrumentally, insofar as it is a means to achieving freedom. 18 Rousseau is completely clear about this even if his interpreters are often not: "I would find someone who wanted to prevent the birth of the passions almost as mad as someone who wanted to annihilate them; and those who believed that this was my project . . . would surely have understood me very badly" (E, 212/OC 4, 491). The context makes clear that 'the passions' refers to amour propre.

16

The stages of Emile's education In this section I outline the principal stages of Emile's education in order to show how its trajectory is determined by the goals of Rousseau's project as I have presented them here. I claimed above that Emile's education falls into two parts: his formation in accordance with the ideal of 'man' in Books I-IV and his subsequent formation as a citizen in Book V. Since the first of these itself has two parts--namely, before and after the awakening of amour propre in adolescence--his education as a whole divides into three stages. First, in Books I-III, Emile is raised exclusively "for himself," or "in his relations with things" (E, 214/OC 4, 493). In this stage his education takes place outside society and is devoted to the proper formation of amour de soimme and to preserving for as long as possible the dormancy of amour propre, all of which is aimed at fostering in the young child the psychological self-sufficiency on which the ideal of man depends. In the second stage--in Book IV--Emile's education in self-sufficiency is continued, but with a crucial difference: the onset of puberty, with its awakening of sexual passion,19 makes it impossible to prolong amour propre's dormancy. With the latter stirred, Emile can no longer be content with existing only for himself, and his education--still carried out in isolation from social relations--must concentrate on forming his amour propre (and pity) so that once he finally enters the institutions of marriage and the state, he will possess the psychological resources he needs in order to exist "for others" while also preserving, as far as possible, the freedom and self-sufficiency he learned as a child. In the final phase, in Book V, the exclusive bond between pupil and tutor is loosened, Emile is instructed in the roles of husband and citizen, and he steps into the social world at last, equipped as well as one ever can be to negotiate the tension between being-for-self and being-for-others that for Rousseau defines the human condition.

19

The close connection between sexuality and amour propre is a prominent theme in Rousseau's thought that I can't go into here.

17

The task of the first stage of Emile's education is to "prepare from afar the reign of his freedom and the use of his forces . . . by putting him in the condition always to be master of himself and in all things to do his will, as soon as he has one" (E, 63/OC 4, 282). Its main principle could be summed up as follows: "until the guide of amour propre, which is reason, can be born, it is important that a child to do nothing because he is seen or heard--nothing, in a word, in relation to others--but only what nature asks of him" (E, 92/OC 4, 322). In accordance with this maxim, Emile is encouraged throughout Books 1-III to develop his natural capacities, to explore the world, and even to learn a trade (carpentry), all in the absence of the evaluating gaze of other subjects. In learning, playing, and working in isolation from others, Emile learns to affirm himself in his newfound strengths and abilities without needing the approval of others and, so, in accordance with ("true" or "natural") values that have not been distorted by fashion or arbitrary opinion. This means, for example, that Emile is given free rein to indulge and enjoy his native drive to know--the "curiosity natural to man concerning all that pertains to his interests"--while remaining free of the socially perverted variant of this drive, an "ardor to know founded only on the desire to be esteemed as learned" (E, 167/OC 4, 429). It also means that in judging the results of his carpentry, say, Emile learns to consult "natural" (object-relative) standards, such as simplicity, harmony, and utility, rather than other subjects' opinions of what is good or pleasing, which are perpetually liable to distortion by an undue concern for what fashion dictates and what social approval requires. The most important result of this "education from things" (E, 38/OC 4, 247) is that before the passions of adolescence force him to give weight to the opinions of others, Emile will have developed a substantial reservoir of selfesteem as well as the capacity to evaluate himself according to transparent, non-fluctuating standards and independently of others' judgments. By the end of this phase Emile will have learned, as Rousseau puts it, to "make use of his reason, not someone else's;" to "give nothing to opinion . . . [or] authority;" and, most important, to "think well of himself without regard to others" (E, 207-8/OC 4, 486-8). These are precisely the resources Emile will need if his loss of

18

self-sufficiency in adolescence, once his amour propre is fully awakened, is not to result in enslavement to the opinions of others. In addition to fostering in Emile the types of self-sufficiency just described, the first phase of his education aims to prevent the premature stirring of amour propre 20 and, especially, its "inflammation" into a drive that seeks to achieve superior standing in relation to others or, even worse, to dominate or command them. Each of the three books devoted to this phase of Emile's education contains a prominent example of this pedagogical strategy: in Book I caregivers are instructed in how to respond to the cries of infants so as to avoid arousing in them "ideas of domination and servitude" (E, 48, 64-8/OC 4, 261, 285-90); in Book II Emile is made to experience the painful consequences of failing to respect the property rights of another-his own beans, planted on another's soil, are uprooted--for the pedagogical purpose of "preventing him from believing himself master of everything" (E, 97/OC 4, 329); and in Book III Emile is allowed to be publicly humiliated--by the magician at the fair--at the moment he first experiences the heady thrill of the crowd's admiration and an overheated amour propre threatens to seize hold of his character (E, 172-5/OC 4, 437-40). More important than these examples, though, is the rationale Rousseau gives for maintaining the dormancy of amour propre in this early phase: as the quote cited above makes clear, the child's desire for recognition is to be kept in check "until the guide of amour propre, which is reason, can be born." The problem Rousseau points to here is not merely a cognitive deficiency, such as an inability to universalize or abstract, either of which would make it impossible for the child to formulate or comprehend the general principles on which reasoning depends. The more important deficiency, I would suggest, is the absence in the young child of the cognitive (but also conative) capacity to view the world from the perspective of other subjects and to be moved by what one sees when one adopts that point of view. Rousseau hints
20

Despite some of his own statements to the contrary, Rousseau should not be understood as maintaining that amour propre can be completely absent from the child's character. His example of the crying infant who experiences humiliation at the hands of his nurse (E, 65-6/OC 4, 286-7) indicates its very early

19

at this idea when he says in Book II: "the child will treat as a caprice every will opposed to his own when he does not perceive (sentir) the reason for it. And a child does not perceive the reason for anything that clashes with his whims" (E, 91n/OC 4, 320n). The philosophical point here seems to be this: the substantive relations to others that amour propre makes necessary are dangerous for the young child because, lacking the adult's capacity for reason, he can understand the "negotiation" among divergent wills intrinsic to such relationships only as a contest among wills in which domination or servitude--rather than rational agreement--are the only options. The explanation for this, as Rousseau tells us here, is that the child is unable to perceive (or "sense") the reasons that lie behind others' desires and ends, which is crucial for assessing the validity of the competing claims of other subjects and arriving at principles for resolving them that can be endorsed by all. (This helps to illuminate both what Rousseau has in mind by 'reason' and why it is a central principle of this phase of education that Emile "not be commanded," that he find resistance to his will only in "physical obstacles" rather than in other wills (E, 91, 85/OC 4, 320, 311).) It this precisely this capacity for (moral) reason that as an adult Emile will need to rely on to keep his own self-love (especially his amour propre) in check. And, not coincidentally, it is the same kind of reasoning involved in a citizen's adopting the perspective of the general will, where legislation must be judged from the perspective of how it will affect the fundamental human interests of each citizen. One of the innovative theses of Emile (though it remains largely implicit) is that the very capacity that is called on to solve the problems imposed on human existence by amour propre itself depends on--consists, in part, in a certain reconfiguration of--the same passion whose ill effects it is to combat. For the capacity to take an external evaluative stance towards oneself and one's actions--the capacity at the heart of moral reason--depends on the ability to see oneself and the world through the eyes of other subjects and to be moved by their judgments of the good. Since it is precisely this capacity that is exercised whenever one is concerned with how

presence in human beings. Rousseau's concern, instead, is to prevent the "inflammation" of amour propre and to minimize the role it plays in the child's experience.

20

one measures up in the eyes of others, amour propre, despite its many dangers, is at the time the element of human psychology that supplies human beings with their most powerful incentive to develop their innate but latent capacity to adopt and accord value to the evaluative perspective of others. It is for this reason that the proper formation of amour propre, rather than its extirpation, is so crucial to Emile's education and the central focus of its second phase (in Book IV). The awakening of amour propre in adolescence requires a fundamental shift in pedagogical strategy. Now that it is no longer possible to keep the drive for social esteem dormant, focus must be shifted to molding Emile's emergent amour propre with the aim of rendering his social attachments, including citizenship, consistent with his being a man. This shift in strategy is announced in the following way at the beginning of Book IV: "So long as [man] knows himself only in his physical being, he ought to study himself in his relations with things. This is the job of his childhood [Books I-III]. When he begins to sense his moral being, he ought to study himself in his relations with men [Book IV]" (E, 214/OC 4, 493; emphasis and bracketed material added). Educating Emile with regard to his proper relations to others consists in two main tasks:21 expanding the scope of his pity so as to encompass the human species as a whole and shaping his amour propre by instilling in him a sense for what "rank among his fellows" he is entitled to occupy (E, 243/OC 4, 534). The first task is accomplished by furnishing the adolescent's imagination with an abundance of "objects on which the expansive force of his heart can act--objects that swell the heart, that extend it to other beings" (E, 223/OC 4, 506). In addition to learning of, and being moved by, the pervasiveness of human suffering, Emile is to be brought to see that all men, regardless of social position, experience their pains as acutely as he does his own (E, 225/OC 4, 509), the result of which is that he learns to accord importance to human suffering as such, wherever it is found. The second task is to form Emile's sense of his own worth in relation to

21

Obviously, I am abstracting from many complicated details here in an attempt to grasp the essential tasks of this educational phase.

21

others such that the "rank" he claims for himself is equality with all human beings. (The type of equality at issue here could be called moral equality, the condition that each person's fundamental interests count for as much as anyone else's in formulating the principles that govern our actions.) To some extent, this task begins already in the formation of Emile's pity described above, insofar as extending pity to humanity in general rests on understanding all human beings as sharing a basic condition--the certainty of death and vulnerability to pain, sickness, and need--and implies that no one's pain matters less than anyone else's. A further measure aimed at infusing Emile's amour propre with an egalitarian spirit includes getting him to attach the proper significance to the various forms of inequalities through which individuals, under the sway of badly educated amour propre, attempt to raise their own position in relation to others'. One part of this involves impressing on Emile that inequalities in wealth, power, and social position seldom bring genuine satisfaction to those who have them. (Letting him read history, it turns out, is the best way of accomplishing this (E, 237-40/OC 4, 526-30).) Another involves bringing him to see that such inequalities rarely correspond to differences in genuine merit and that therefore wealth, power, and class advantages are mostly undeserved. Finally, Emile is to learn that even those who have more than others of the genuine human goods-happiness, wisdom, esteem from oneself and others--do not, in any robust sense, merit their advantages. This lesson is especially important for Emile, who, having had the good fortune to receive an exemplary education, will most likely occupy a favored position of precisely this sort and, so, be especially vulnerable to "attributing his happiness to his own merit" and therefore believing himself worthy of what is mostly his good luck (E IV, 245/OC 4, 536-7).) My main concern here is not the pedagogical effectiveness of the measures Rousseau prescribes but the philosophical principles that underlie them. With a little reflection it is not difficult to see that, in having his pity and amour propre fashioned as prescribed in Book IV, Emile is being equipped with precisely the psychological resources he will need--sensitivity to the needs of others and a sense of himself as a human being (a "man"), equal in rank to all others--in order to be able, as the citizen of a republic, to embrace the general will as his own.

22

For, as we know from Rousseau's political philosophy, the general will of a (modern) legitimate republic strives to realize the common good defined in a specific way, namely, as the protection of "the goods, life, and freedom of each member" (PE, 9/OC 3, 248)--or, as I would put it, the satisfaction of the essential "human" interests of all citizens.22 Legislating in accordance with the general will, then, requires of citizens that they be able to imagine and empathize with the situation of 'each' (SC, II.4.v) and to accord equal moral importance to the fundamental interests of all citizens. [I omit a description of the final phase of Emile's education in Book V.]

In concluding this paper, I want to return to the issue of how the projects of moral and political philosophy, broadly construed, together with the ideals of man and citizen that govern them, intersect in Emile and determine its content. I have already suggested that in Rousseau's positive philosophical works each of the two projects imposes constraints on the other: Emile's status as a man may not be purchased as the expense of his substantive ties to others (including those of citizenship), and the Social Contract's solution to the problems of political life must preserve for individual citizens the freedoms associated with being a man, including their sovereign moral authority. Moreover, this mutual constraint finds its rationale in the thought that if individuals were to realize one of these ideals but not the other, they would miss out on some of the fundamental goods that human existence offers, all of which ought to be pursued insofar as achieving them jointly is possible. Rousseau's insistence that Emile's education be domestic rather than public, then, is in effect a declaration that there are ideals that ought to govern human lives beyond those implicit in the concerns of political philosophy alone. The full measure of human excellence, in other words, is not exhausted by what political philosophy has to say about how individuals must be formed if its goal--bringing citizens to will the good of the polity as their own--is to be achieved. This is because attending only to the latter is

22

This characterization of the general will's ends is consistent with Rousseau's formulation of the "fundamental problem" of political philosophy (SC, I.6.iv).

23

compatible with a form of education--Sparta's, for example--that makes citizens vehicles of the general will at the expense of their individual sovereignty, their being governed only by their own reason. Modern citizens, in other words, must submit to the general out of their own rational insight into the goodness of the norms they are obligated to follow. As I have attempted to show, a central aim of Emile's education is to make this possible. In fact, however, the two projects as Rousseau carries them out are even more intimately entwined than this characterization suggests. For, as I suggested at the beginning of this paper, Rousseau's philosophy as a whole implies that the ideals of man and citizen are not just compatible but (in a certain sense) mutually dependent: under the conditions of modernity, "men" can exist only if they are also citizens, and conversely, citizens (of a legitimate republic) must at the same time be constituted as "men." Under the conditions of modernity, then, neither ideal can be realized unless the two are integrated. Grasping this point requires bearing in mind that 'citizen' in the abstract can stand for a variety of ways of belonging to a state and that citizenship in ancients forms of the republic, such as Sparta and Plato's model in the Republic, are not equivalent to the (modern, democratic) version of that ideal endorsed in the Social Contract. In the latter Rousseau paints a picture of the legitimate state that is constrained by his (implicit) understanding of the conditions modernity imposes on that project. Among these conditions is the commitment to the moral sovereignty of individuals discussed above,23 as well as the recognition that, for us, the laws of a just state cannot be handed down by God nor given by a philosopher-king who enjoys privileged access to the Idea of justice.24 Since neither of these resources is available to us, we moderns are forced to rely on a "second best" solution: just laws must come from--be decided on by--the same finite individuals they are designed to rule. Moreover, since no individual can claim more authority in matters of morality than any other--

23

There is more to be said here, for the content of the general will in modern republics gives expression to the idea of the inviolable moral status of individuals in a further sense: no legitimate law may compromise the fundamental human interests of any individual citizen. 24 Admittedly, Rousseau's legislator bears similarities to the philosopher-king, but his job is to set up the basic institutions of a just state, not to run them or to participate in the ongoing business of legislating in accordance with the general will.

24

this counts as a further assumption of modernity--those laws must issue from a collective will that is constituted through the participation of all individuals and in accordance with the equal moral authority of each. But if ultimate political authority (on earth) is to reside in the decisions of a human collective, the best guarantee of the soundness of those decisions is to ensure that the citizens who make them are constituted as "men." Achieving justice under modern conditions requires a citizenry that, as a whole, is motivated by the values central to the general will--a commitment to the fundamental equality and dignity of all individuals--and who can deliberate steadfastly and reliably about which political measures that commitment entails. In other words, the modern republic requires citizens who have been formed like Emile, who both finds his own sentiment of self in being a "man" (or human being) and extends that honorific to everyone, and who relies on his own reason, rather than fashion and the whim of the crowd, to determine what the fact of others' humanity implies for what we are obligated to do.

Frederick Neuhouser Barnard College, Columbia University