The “state of nature” is the (hypothetical) set of conditions in which human beings lived before organizing into societies. Because it allows us to understand why people would choose to live in society, the concept of a state of nature is essential to virtually all theories of the social contract, including Rousseau’s (as well as Thomas Hobbes’s and John Locke’s). However, Rousseau mostly elaborated his theory of the state of nature in an earlier work, the Discourse on Inequality, in which he argues that solitary humans living in the state of nature would be absolutely free and primarily concerned with their self-preservation, but they would lack tools (like reason, language, and complex emotions) that are necessary for them to truly realize their freedom, which is only possible through society. This is how he explains why people would freely choose to form society and agree to put the common good (or general will) over their own individual desires. While some philosophers continue to ask about the state of nature, others now emphasize the impossibility of fully imagining it and stress that humans have always been social beings, freely participating in some form of community based on a social contract-like pact of mutual protection.
State of Nature Quotes in The Social Contract
The The Social Contract quotes below are all either spoken by State of Nature or refer to State of Nature. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Book 1, Introduction
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My purpose is to consider if, in political society, there can be any legitimate and sure principle of government, taking men as they are and laws as they might be.
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Book 1, Chapter 1
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Man was born free, and he is everywhere in chains.
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Book 1, Chapter 4
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Since no man has any natural authority over his fellows, and since force alone bestows no right, all legitimate authority among men must be based on covenants.
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Book 1, Chapter 6
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“How to find a form of association which will defend the person and goods of each member with the collective force of all, and under which each individual, while uniting himself with the others, obeys no one but himself, and remains as free as before.” This is the fundamental problem to which the social contract holds the solution.
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State of Nature Term Timeline in The Social Contract
The timeline below shows where the term State of Nature appears in The Social Contract. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Book 1, Chapter 4: Slavery
...over things,” not “mere personal relations.” But there can be no property in the “ state of nature ,” before societies exist, so there also cannot be war. In fact, war is ultimately...
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Book 1, Chapter 6: The Social Pact
Rousseau declares that, at a certain point in human development, the “ state of nature ” becomes harder to maintain than to transform, and humans decide to work together “by...
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Book 1, Chapter 8: Civil Society
When they stop living in “the state of nature ” and start living in society, people change: they become moral beings and have to...
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Book 2, Chapter 4: The Limits of Sovereign Power
...inviolable rights, which are preferable to living under a kind of eternal war in the state of nature .
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Book 2, Chapter 6: On Law
...true justice and goodness come from God through the medium of human reason, in a state of nature , some people follow these natural laws and others ignore and break them without consequences....
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