"Um estudo sobre noção de desigualdade social na visão de Jean-Jacques Rousseau"

Abstract

This monograph is a study of the passage from natural inequality to moral or political inequality in the view of the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The main objectives are to analyze and understand the transformation and change from the natural, free and equal man, according to the author, to the social man enslaved with moral and political degeneration, examining the effects caused, and if Rousseau finds a solution to this problem. Based on the analysis of the book “Discourse on the origin and foundations of inequality between men”, published in 1755, we try to understand Rousseau's answer to a question from Dijon's Academy of Sciences, Arts and Fine Letters – “What is the origin of inequality among men and whether it is authorized by natural law?”. In our study, we follow the path taken by the author in the description, albeit hypothetically, of the moral ruin of human beings from the state of nature. The simplicity and goodness of the natural man, over time, was replaced by immorality and corruption. The work is divided into two chapters: the first presents man in the state of nature, with inequalities only in physiological and anatomical aspects, and the beginning of his transformation process; the second chapter talks about moral inequalities and their implications for the civil man, with possible solutions found in the Social Contract, as proposed by Rousseau.