Australasian Political Studies Association Conference 2003
Hosted by the School of Government
University of Tasmania

Political Theory Stream

Silencing Passions with Sentiments and Reason

SooJin Yoon
University of Sydney

Abstract:

The relationship between sentiments and reason does not receive much attention in political theory. It is not one of those perennial questions that continue to be asked, examined and debated year after year. As it is widely assumed that reason is a higher order human faculty, whilst sentiments remain its lower order counterpart, few feel the need to revisit this antithetical relationship. Indeed, much of political philosophy can be seen as a call to abandon the lower bestial self of sentiments to embrace the higher rational self of reason.

No other period in history enthusiastically and widely accepted the importance of reason as the eighteenth century. Yet amongst his intellectual contemporaries who were heralding the reign of reason, Jean-Jacques Rousseau is best remembered for his unrelenting attacks on society, the arts and sciences and reason. His objections to society reveal an important shortcoming of reason that is often overlooked: reason, by itself, cannot overcome passions.

I examine Rousseau’s objections to society and his understanding of the main source of social ills, amour-propre, in order to evaluate how he reconceptualised the relationship between sentiments and reason. Rousseau argues reason should be supplemented by sentiments to be potent in directing people to be virtuous. In elevating sentiments as a subject worthy of study, Rousseau does not just challenge the accepted wisdom of his day. In doing so, he is better able to analyse society composed of individuals who are governed by sentiments just as much as, or even more so than, reason. Rousseau’s reformulation of this age old relationship between sentiments and reason was a timely warning against the unabashed praise of reason in his days- a warning that is still valid after three hundred years in our world that is no less dedicated to reason.