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"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

1 In the various drafts of this paper I have gone back and forth between 'man' and 'human being' as thetranslation ofhomme. Although I have finally opted for the former, I remain conscious of two mainadvantages of the latter. First, as we use the terms today, 'human being' comes closer than 'man' tocapturing 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 beinga gendered concept. I'm happy to talk more about this issue in discussion.


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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 ofEmile 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 manfor himself, one wants to raise himfor others?Then their harmony is impossible. Forced to combat nature or the socialinstitutions, one must choose between making a man or a citizen, for onecannot 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 differentgoals. (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

2 The locus classicus of this interpretation is Judith N. Shklar's Men and Citizens (London: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1969).3 'E' refers to Emile, or on Education, trans. Allan Bloom (New York: Basic Books, 1979); 'OC 4' refers to vol.4 ofOeuvres Compltes, ed. Bernard Gagnebin and Marcel Raymond (Paris: Gallimard, Bibliothque de laPliade, 1959-69). Other abbreviations I use are: DI, for Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequalityamong 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 CollectedWritings ofRousseau, trans. Judith R. Bush and Christopher Kelly (Hanover, N. H.: University Press ofNew England, 2001), vol. 9, 131-306; PE, for Discourse on Political Economy, in The Social Contract and OtherLaterPolitical 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).


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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, theabsolute whole that exists in relation only to itself . . . . Civil man is

merely a fractional unity dependent on the denominator; his value isfound in his relation to the whole, which is the social body. Good socialinstitutions are those that best know how to denature man, to take hisabsolute existence from him in order to give him a relative one andtransport the Iinto the common unity, with the result that eachindividual believes himself no longer one but a part of the unity and nolonger 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 ofself-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


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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, twopassions very different in their nature and their effects. Amour de soi-mmeis a natural sentiment that inclines every animal to attend to its self-

preservation and that, guided by reason and modified by pity, produceshumanity and virtue. Amour propre is but a relative sentiment, artificial andborn in society, that inclines each individual to think more highly ofhimself than of anyone else [and] inspires in men all the evils they do toone 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).


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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

ofamour 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 ofamour propre contrasts with the absolute

(non-relative) character ofamour 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 ofamour

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 ofamour 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 esteemfrom 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 "makescomparisons" (E, 213/OC 4, 493). Also: "as soon as amour propre has developed, the relative Iis constantlyin play, and the young man never observes others without returning to himself and comparing himselfwith them. The issue, then, is to know what rank among his fellows he will put himself after havingexamined 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, inthe claim that amour propre demands that others confirm one's comparative judgments regarding oneself.


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amour de soi-mme: since the opinion of one's fellow beings is not constitutive ofthe 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 ofamour 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 proprebut 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 ofamour 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 self-

conceptions of individuals in a way that would enable them, once educated, to endorse or


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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 individualautonomy. On this construal, Rousseau's distinction is a forerunner of Hegel's contrast betweenSittlichkeit andMoralitt.


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The idea underlying Rousseau's linking ofamour 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 ofamour 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" ofamour 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

7 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.


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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 ofamour 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 respectfrom 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 notprimarily a descriptive title but a normative one: to be a Roman was to have a specific practical identitythat animated one to perform acts of courage and virtue. This type of identification is grounded not inaffection--where citizens desire the collective good because they love their compatriots--but in a normativestance, 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 youdepend on the prejudices of those you govern by prejudices. To conductthem as you please, you must conduct yourself as they please. They have

only to change their way of thinking, and you must perforce change yourway 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

9 As opposed to the unrealistic conditions Emile is subjected to, which make it possible for him to

avoid the entanglements ofamour propreuntil puberty (e.g., by being removed from family life).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 politicalphilosophy, 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 self-

defining 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, self-

affirming, 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 possiblecompensation for someone who renounces everything. Such a renunciation is incompatible with thenature 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 senseof self-worth" ("Metaphysics, Philosophy: Rousseau on the Problem of Evil," in Reclaiming the History ofEthics, ed. Andrews Reath, Barbara Herman, and Christine M. Korsgaard (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity 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 ofamour 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 ofEmile. 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 withhimself, always floating between his inclinations and his duties, he will neverbe 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 ofa 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 tomake 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 self-

sufficient 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 divideourselves between these diverse forces, we follow a composite force thatleads us to neither one goal nor the other. Thus in conflict and floatingduring the whole course of our life, we end it without having been able toput ourselves in harmony with ourselves . . . . If perhaps the doubleobject we set for ourselves could be joined in a single one, then byremoving the contradictions of man a great obstacle to his happinesswould be removed . . . . I believe one will have made a few steps in thisquest 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 fromsociety to the end, what will he have learned from me? Everythingperhaps, except the most necessary art for a man and a citizen, which isknowing 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 sowould 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 ofamourpropre opens the doorto jealousy, fury, and conflict, it also makes possible "the sweetest sentiments known to men: conjugaland . . . 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 acondensed 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 ofsimultaneously 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, 448-

75/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 ofEmile is not a man instead ofa

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 philosophyrepresent

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 ofamour 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 self-

sufficiency: 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 makehim a savage . . . . It suffices that, enclosed in a social whirlpool, he not lethimself 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 himbeyond 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 ofEmile'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 asit is a means to achieving freedom.18 Rousseau is completely clear about this even if his interpreters are often not: "I would find someonewho wanted to prevent the birth of the passions almost as mad as someone who wanted to annihilatethem; 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.


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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 ofamour 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 ofamour de soi-

mme and to preserving for as long as possible the dormancy ofamour 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 thoughtthat I can't go into here.


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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 ofamour 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 self-

esteem 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


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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 ofamour propre20

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 ofamour 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 ofamour 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 maintainingthat amour propre can be completely absent from the child's character. His example of the crying infantwho experiences humiliation at the hands of his nurse (E, 65-6/OC 4, 286-7) indicates its very early


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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 ofEmile (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" ofamour propreand tominimize the role it plays in the child's experience.


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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 properformation ofamour 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 ofamour 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 hispity 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 essentialtasks of this educational phase.


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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 himselfworthy 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.


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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 ifits 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).


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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 oftheir 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 tothe idea of the inviolable moral status of individuals in a further sense: no legitimate law maycompromise 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 thebasic institutions of a just state, not to run them or to participate in the ongoing business of legislating inaccordance with the general will.


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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

neuhouser 08

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