Rousseau and Animals

For the past three weeks, for homework, I have been reading works by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who is regarded as one of the three great political philosophers. In my opinion this clown is worse than Hobbes, meaning he is far inferior to that of Locke. The three works of Rousseau's I have had to read are On the Social Contract, The Government of Poland, and Politics and the Arts. These three works actually only represent two problems I have with Rousseau: his theory of government, and his theory of individuality.
Rousseau's basic theory of government is that the majority, or what he calls the general will, decides all the policies of the government. That is all fine and dandy except for the fact that he also states anyone who agrees with the social contract must always adhere to the majority. Of course, that would be fine if the general will decides to create a constitution to limit its own actions, a constitution that would outlaw violating individuals natural rights. However, Rousseau does not speak of this, which I have a huge problem with. Without demanding that this general will have limitation on its power so as to preserve individuals' natural rights, the general will can decide whatever the hell it wants to decide. The general will becomes nothing more than a tyrant. Basically, what Rousseau creates is democratic despotism. However, I have an ever bigger problem with this joker. He argues that once an individual agrees to enter this social contract he cannot leave, he cannot act as an innocent minority, the majority must force him to assimilate. This is absolutely ridiculous. This is not the purpose of government. Rousseau even acknowledges that this general will is tyrannical, but he admits that he believes the purpose of government is not to protect natural rights but to make people virtuous. Obviously, liberty does not ultimately yield virtue, for individuals, whose liberty has not been stripped from them, have the freedom to make some vicious decisions. However, there are two conflicts Rousseau creates with this little theory of his. Firstly, he is putting a lot of faith in man. Now personally, I do have great faith in man. Man has reason; therefore, he has the ability to achieve and accomplish greatness. However, I also acknowledge that the majority of people for some reason choose to be lazy; thus, they choose to be ignorant. Using one's reason requires work, and apparently people would rather just not work. This, of course, is a much larger topic for another post. The point I am making is that since people do not utilize their reason they cannot determine what is virtuous. This is the problem with Rousseau's general will that is more concerned with creating virtuous citizens than protecting natural rights. In the end Rousseau's general will yields a horde of vicious fools. The second problem with this position is that Rousseau contradicts himself. Rousseau is concerned with virtue; therefore, he creates a government that does not protect natural rights, so that it can create virtuous citizens. This, itself, is vicious. Rousseau creates a vicious system to create virtue. Contradictions like this do not work. A government that viciously violates natural rights in order to create virtuous citizens is not a virtuous system. A system like this will inevitably initiate force, and the initiation of force is always a vice. Also, Rousseau's theory is somewhat communistic, which might explain this warped general will concept. Apparently, in his book before On the Social Contract Rousseau argued that people desire to be loved by others and that power is attractive and power becomes equated with wealth, and therefore the wealthy are raised up while the poor fall. Eventually, these poor people become pissed because the wealthy own the land and the tools the poor need in order to labor; therefore, the poor steal the wealthy individuals' property. Consequently, the wealthy strike a bargain that says the wealthy and poor will get together to create a system to protect property rights. Sounds like a damn good idea to me. Unfortunately, Rousseau does not think so because the poor have no property to be secured; therefore, the wealthy just enforce the system that is already in place. Apparently, Rousseau's system of government, the general will, is supposed to correct that problem. Personally, I see no problem with the previous system. It is rational, it is virtuous, while Rousseau's is obviously irrational and vicious.
The second major problem I have with Rousseau is captured in his works The Government of Poland and Politics and the Arts. The problem here is the way Rousseau warps the definition of liberty and in turn enslaves the individual. As one can see from the previous summary I gave Rousseau loves the state. Rousseau sees the state as a great savior. Personally, I see the state as a good idea that is constantly raped by harlequins like Rousseau. Anyway, according to Rousseau, the state is the true path to liberty. As Rousseau sees, it the previous government established by the wealthy is completely determined by man's passion to be selfish. Also, not much of a bad idea, of course, Rousseau does not distinguish between absolute selfishness and rational selfishness, so maybe it is a bad idea, but from his description it does not sound so bad. In any event, Rousseau finds passions to be bad. In his eyes passions produced a bad state. His state, however, is devoid of all passions; therefore, it is good. I would argue otherwise, not only is it bad but it is filled with passions, and I am not a man against passions and emotions, but I just call contradictions as I see them. Any way if his state devoid of all passions is good, and the previous state possessed by passions is bad, then the way to virtue is to follow Rousseau's state. Basically, Rousseau changes the definition of liberty from freedom to do what one wants without violating the natural rights of others, to freedom from one's passions. However, here is another Rousseaun contradiction. In order to be free from one's passions the individual must become a citizen, the individual must devote his life to the state. Of course, he changes the definition of liberty for this to work, but Rousseau's path for freedom from passions, from vice, the path to virtue, is inherently tyrannical. The individual never exercises his liberty he only does what the state wants him to do. For example, in Politics and the Arts Rousseau argues that it is a bad idea to have a theater in Geneva because people will be wasting their time entertaining themselves when they should be educating themselves about government and participating in government. Rousseau argues that the theater only reinforces passions, vices, thus enslaving men again. As I understand it liberty is the right to choose whether one wants to go to the theater, educate himself about government, or participate in government. Of course, Rousseau only sees liberty in the state. Bringing it to its simplest form, Rousseau believes that the individual is born for the state, that a good individual is not an individual at all but a citizen.
Now I am going to briefly speak about animals because there was an extensive debate in my Political Literature class as to whether or not man was an animal. The debate was basically between the professor and one student. The professor took up the side that man is distinctly different from animals, while the student's argument was man is largely an animal, the only distinguishing characteristic was that man understood evolution and other animals did not. In order to make his argument the student showed the class a video of a crow trying to pull something out of a tube. In the video the crow has a metal wire and attempts to stab the object at the bottom of the tube. Eventually, the crow gives up on this method, but then takes the wire, applies leverage, which bend the wire and creates a hook. The crow the uses the hook to pull the object out of the tube. I admit this is fascinating. The student also brought up lots of other amazing information. I believe he is a philosophy major, but he talks a lot about recent finds in genetics and biology. Another example he used to equate man to animals, or nature in general, was that scientists have found that corn has evolved over the years. Apparently, corn has become more palatable to humans. Now, I am not sure if I will give corn the credit and not man. I mean man is only selecting the best tasting corn. The one's that were gross may have been left to die, so once those less tasty genes of corn are dead the better tasting ones take over. However, I see the point this student was making. Genes have a large impact on what kind of human beings are produced. Even human personalities are somewhat determined by genes. So not only did he argue that humans are almost completely created by genes like animals, but also that animals posses some limited forms of intelligence previously assumed to be a human monopoly. Once again I will point out that genetics and animal behavior is all very fascinating, and I do not doubt most of what this student argued, but I do not see these similarities as enough evidence to equate man to animals. I agree much of a human is determined by his genes, but man is not enslaved by his genes. The main distinction between man and animal is reason. Man has the ability to reason, to determine what is right and wrong. Animals have no reason. Animals are completely enslaved by instinct. Animals are completely unaware that there is even a concept called morality and truth. They know nothing beyond their lives. Of course, some individuals will have difficulty accepting this argument because they may be moral relativists, they may be completely amoral. However, amorality is a falsehood, so therefore these people are wrong. I will not get into explaining an objective morality here. I need a separate post to discuss that. Returning to the point, since man has reason, can determine right and wrong, man can also choose to be virtuous or vicious. Animals have very little choice. They have almost no free will, no liberty. They are completely commanded by instinct. This in turn points out a larger distinction between man and animals. Since man has reason, and consequently liberty, in turn all other natural rights will follow. Animals do not have natural rights. Since they have no reason, and consequently no liberty, they have no natural rights. That is why it is perfectly fine for a man to cage an animal, but it is vicious for a man to cage another man without consent. In order to illustrate the difference between man and animals more clearly I will use the crow video as an example; however, I am changing some of the facts of the video to get my point across. The fact that the crow can make a hook is of no importance as to whether he is closer to animal or man. Let us say the crow is trying to get a worm with this hook. The crow is being commanded by his instinct to get the worm so he can eat it, so he will not die, and so he can spread more offspring. A man trying to get food may very well be eating so as not to die, but is he really concerned about creating offspring. No. If the man is in a situation where he is starving he probably wants to eat so he can continue living his life an be happy. The man wants to continue to live to continue being happy. Happiness is not even a part of the crow's consciousness. However, I admit this is a weak argument, and the second half is more convincing. Let us say the crow does eventually get the worm out with his hook; however, another crow comes along, grabs the worm, and flies away. At this point the crow, who had his worm stolen from him, is commanded by instinct to find another worm so he can eat, not die, and spread off spring. If a man is trying to get food on a deserted island let us say. He climbs to the top of a tree and grabs a fruit. He brings the fruit back to the ground and just as he is about to eat it, another man, also abandoned on this island, runs past the man with the fruit, grabs the fruit, and runs away. At this point the man thinks, "Hey! What the hell! That is my fruit." Since the man has reason, he has natural rights; therefore, he has property, and he recognizes he has property. The crow has no understanding of this concept of property; furthermore, the crow has no right to property. Additionally, the man, whose fruit was stolen, is able to recognize the taking of his fruit as a vice because his natural right to property was violated. There is no virtue or vice in the crows world, and the crow does not even acknowledge so. Remember the crow is just commanded to get another worm, eat it, not die, spread offspring. The crow does not believe the stealing crow is bad. The crow also does not believe the stealing crow is bad. This captures the separation between man and animal. I am not denying that man is completely different from animal. There are similarities, man after all did evolve from animal; however, there was a point where man broke the barrier, discovered reason, and exited the animal life. Man now exists on a tier superior to that of animal.