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Frederick Neuhouser : Rousseau's Critique of Inequality: Reconstructing the Second Discourse . (Cambridge : Cambridge University Press , 2014. Pp. ix, 236.)
David Lay Williams : Rousseau's "Social Contract": An Introduction . (New York : Cambridge University Press , 2014. Pp. xv, 311.)
Book Reviews
In their recent books on Rousseau's key political writings, the Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality among Men (Second Discourse) and The Social Contract, Frederick Neuhouser and David Lay Williams contribute two meticulous interpretations and analyses that offer excellent up-to-date resources for students and scholars. In light of the ever-increasing socioeconomic inequality in today's globalized world, Neuhouser directs us to Rousseau's trenchant critique of inequality in the Second Discourse; whereas Williams's commentary guides readers through The Social Contract. Williams draws on Rousseau's less influential works and the Genevan political (republican), social (Calvinist), and intellectual contexts to give a nuanced and historical rather than purely analytical interpretation. Ultimately, Williams wants to give readers the tools to make informed judgments on contentious passages that have provoked divergent readings of Rousseau's Social Contract as either radically democratic or totalitarian (3).
Neuhouser composes his book to rearticulate Rousseau's answers to the question posed by the Dijon Academy on the "origins" and "foundations" of inequality and to help students understand the Second Discourse. More importantly, he presents his study of this discourse as a way of thinking about and addressing the problem of inequality not only in terms of its detrimental impact on freedom and well-being, but also to reconsider why inequality arises, takes root, and becomes insidious and difficult to eradicate. To Neuhouser, Rousseau is not a utopian who promotes sameness since not all types of inequality are pernicious. Rather Rousseau "offers a set of criteria for distinguishing acceptable from inacceptable forms of inequality" (2).
In addressing Rousseau's work on the "origin" and "foundations" of inequality, Neuhouser adopts a genealogical approach and further claims that Rousseau develops a genealogy of inequality that allows him to "explain the origin and evaluate the legitimacy of social inequality" (208 and 4-5). This genealogical approach enables Neuhouser to read Rousseau as distinguishing descriptive and explanatory functions from normative and evaluative functions of nature and human nature, alongside distinctions between natural and artificial aspects of...