Homework on comparing on equity

Write a five-six page essay (substantiated by key textual analysis and references) on one of the following

three topics or on a topic of your own making. In choosing to do any of the three topics below, you

should also consider whether or not Rousseau and Wollstonecraft’s analyses still have relevance to

contemporary society and social relationships? Or have we transcended the concerns they had in the

18 th century in regards to the pernicious effects of radical economic and political inequality (Rousseau)

and of gender inequality (Wollstonecraft).

Again, please refer to the handouts on how to write an analytic essay that I gave out before the first

short essay and that are up on Blackboard.

1. On Gender Inequality and Economic and Political Inequality

Both Rousseau and Wollstonecraft claim to be theorists of equality. What types of inequality

are they, respectively, critical of? And what are their respective solutions to the particular type

of inequality they attack? Could using the intellectual framework of one theorist help provide

an antidote for some of the limits of the other theorist’s analysis?

2. On Reason, Property and Inequality

Wollstonecraft and Locke are much less ambivalent towards the use of reason than is Rousseau.

Why do both have a more positive view of reason and rationality than does Rousseau? And why

do both seem to think that inequalities of property based on rational and industrious use of

one’s labor are justified? Could this Lockeian viewpoint make Wollstonecraft somewhat

insensitive to the pernicious effects of class distinction among women?

In contrast, Rousseau’s Second Discourse offers a Janus-like vision of both civilization and

reason. How does the rise of civilization, private property, and the use of human reason (and the

development of an advanced division of labor) promote inequality? But in what way does

Rousseau believe that reason (and his own rational political analysis) could reform society in a

way that would create greater social equality and justice?

3. On Sentiment and Reason

Contrast Wollstonecraft’s critique of sentiment and emotionally-driven behavior with

Rousseau’s view that the pre-rational sentiments of “pity” and “self-preservation” can be a basis

upon which we could found a more rational, democratic and egalitarian society? Why is

Wollstonecraft so hostile to the role of sentiment and emotions in women’s subjugation? Why

does Rousseau both “go back” to the pre-rational emotional independence of humans in his

fictive state of nature (as autonomous beings), but also want to use reason to create a new form

of modern society that would recover (in a new, more rational form) some of humanity’s pre-

rational sentiments?