The Divine Instinct? Rousseau and Conscience

Datos Bibliográficos

ID6401784
AutoresJonathan Marks (0000-0002-2594-7191)
Año2006
Volumen68
Número4
Páginas564-585
Fecha de publicación2006-11-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaThe Review of Politics (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0034-6705 • E-ISSN: 1748-6858
EditorialCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s003467050600026x
OpenAlexW2066495743
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas7

Political theorists have long disagreed about what Rousseau's account of conscience means. While most approaches to that account focus on the “Profession of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar,” this essay focuses on another aspect of Emile, the development of conscience in Emile himself. First, I argue that conscience is transformed from problem to solution when self-love is transformed, first into gratitude, then, with the aid of religion, rhetoric, and imagination, into duty. Those who insist that conscience is rooted in passion are right, though that passion is not necessarily low. Second, those who argue that Rousseau's teaching on conscience, as set forth in the First Discourse and elsewhere, is a salutary untruth are right. Emile's conscience shouts “virtue!” not because conscience always does so in uncorrupted souls once they enter the moral world but because it has had voice lessons from Emile's governor, who makes liberal use of illusion and rhetoric

Conscience · Duty · Epistemology · Faith · Gratitude · Instinct · Passion · Perspectivism · Rhetoric · Sociology · Theology · Virtue · European Political History Analysis · Philosophy · Political Theory and Influence · Psychology · Rousseau and Enlightenment Thought · Social Psychology