Came across this while watching Crash Course Big History, and now I’m interested. But most stuff on google requires a great deal of prior understanding of the subject. Could someone explain this for me like I’m five? Thanks
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Well, there’s a lot of ways that they differed in their philosophy, but probably the most clear distinction is where they both came down on the relationship between what they conceived of as the “natural state of man” and society. At the time, one of the big questions in sociology was what people would be like if society didn’t exist. What was the state of the “natural man” outside of civilization? (Modern sociologists basically reject this idea entirely, arguing instead that society is itself innate to human nature, but anyway.) Hobbes takes a rather pessimistic view of human nature and argues that without the laws, expectations, and morals of society, humans would live in a state of natural war and brutality, because people are naturally selfish. There’s a lot more to say here, but this is the most important way that he differs from Rousseau, who, by contrast, argues for a “noble savage” idea. Rousseau answers the same question by arguing that all the wants and desires that people have which make them selfish and violent are actually unnatural, and are imparted by society. In a natural state, without society telling us what to want, humans would want for nothing and thus live in natural harmony.
So to summarize – Hobbes = people bad, society good, because it restrains people; Rousseau = people good, society bad, because it corrupts people.
The other answer is somewhat correct but far from an ELI5, so here’s one.
The Hobbes/Rosseau debate isn’t really an ongoing debate in philosophy, but here’s the gist of it:
Hobbes believed that human beings were naturally selfish and calculating, something like, “ONLY I MATTER!” while Rousseau believed human beings to be naturally sociable and kind to each other.
For this reason, in the state of Nature, Hobbes believed human beings would live in a state of perpetual war, where the weak fear the strong for their strength, but the strong also fear the weak because they know the weak will organize to increase their strength against the strong. On the other hand, Rosseau believed everyone would help each other and live in community.
The State, i.e., Government, appears for Hobbes as a sort of truce. People give up their freedom to do as they please (i.e., attack others) so that others also lose this freedom (i.e., to gain safety). For Rosseau, the State appears as a reflection of greed — the State exists in order for people to lay claim to objects (i.e., property) in a way that others can’t contest it.
Short version:
Hobbes = human bad and selfish — Human + State = bad and Selfish but unable to act bad and selfish.
Rousseau = human kind and social — Human + State = rich human live better, poor human, well, that’s their problem.
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