Between Edmund Burke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, there is a massive political-philosophical difference. Burke, the champion of tradition, nobility, natural law ethics, and customs, was absolutely opposed to Rousseau, the liberal social contract theorist whose prophecy of liberty, equality, and fraternity inspired the revolutionaries who seized control of France (and perhaps the world) after his death.
In his Letter to a Member of the National Assembly, Edmund Burke criticized the political philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau with great vigor. Of Rousseau’s disciples, he wrote, “They find dispositions in the mind of such force and quality as may fit men, far better than the old morality, for the purposes of such a state as theirs, and may go much further in supporting their power, and destroying their enemies. They have therefore chosen a selfish, flattering, seductive, ostentatious vice, in the place of plain duty. True humility, the basis of the Christian system, is the low, but deep and firm, foundation of all real virtue. But this, … they have totally discarded.” The accusation of arrogance here on the part of Rousseau and company is based on the idea that current generations should have less inductive grounds for thinking that their novel views are correct when they contradict what the vast majority of the most brilliant minds of the past have had to say; therefore, Burke was an advocate of the view that the old morality is ideal, and that the immense treasury of wisdom current generations have received from their venerable ancestors should have pride of place: “I am bold enough to confess, that we are generally men of untaught feelings; that instead of casting away our old prejudices, we cherish them to a very considerable degree, and, to take more shame to ourselves, we cherish them because they are prejudices; and the longer they have lasted, and the more generally they have prevailed, the more we cherish them. We are afraid to put men to live and trade each on his own private stock of reason; because we suspect that this stock in each man is small, and that the individuals would do better to avail themselves of the general bank and capital of nations, and of ages.” As one of the most eloquent apologies for inductive reasoning ever given, Burke here stood up for the common sense views that people hold and inspired future writers like Chesterton to defend similar ideas.
After Burke accused Rousseau of having deteriorated the morals of the youth through his encouragement of a spirit of rebellion and licentiousness, he said that “Rousseau, a writer of great force and vivacity, is totally destitute of taste in any sense of the word.” This is because he says that taste and elegance are lost with the corruption of morals too. Then, after further describing the mischievous character of Rousseau’s writings, Burke wrote of the revolutionaries, who “propagate principles by which every servant may think it, if not his duty, at least his privilege, to betray his master. By these principles, every considerable father of a family loses the sanctuary of his house.” This is best understood as Burke condemning violence and treachery shown to benefactors, by employees toward their employers, or wives toward their husbands. Moreover, Burke says this of Rousseau’s friends: “It is thus, and for the same end, that they endeavor to destroy that tribunal of conscience which exists independently of edicts and decrees. Your despots govern by terror. They know that he who fears God fears nothing else: and therefore they eradicate from the mind, through their Voltaire, their Helvetius, and the rest of that infamous gang, that only sort of fear which generates true courage. Their object is, that their fellow citizens may be under the dominion of no awe, but that of their committee of research, and of their lanterne.” Here, Burke highlights the point that believers in God have a supernatural hope which transcends the world and has historically allowed for great perseverance.
Another one of Rousseau’s ideas is the thought that a society should have a government in order to get people out of the state of nature. He held that governments derive their authority from the consent of the governed. Since the growth of private property and human reason, Rousseau saw more hierarchies start to take place in society, which he regarded as undesirable. So, one of his ideas was to have the state take on the role of distributive justice. If people could agree to give up some of their freedom, thought Rousseau, then we would have a more equal and just society. This is Rousseau’s idea of the “general will.”
On the other hand, Burke regarded hierarchies as not intrinsically evil, but rather, as things to be joyfully lauded: “We fear God; we look up with awe to kings; with affection to parliaments; with duty to magistrates; with reverence to priests; and with respect to nobility. Why? Because when such ideas are brought before our minds, it is natural to be so affected; because all other feelings are false and spurious, and tend to corrupt our minds, to vitiate our primary morals, to render us unfit for rational liberty; and by teaching us a servile, licentious, and abandoned insolence, to be our low sport for a few holidays, to make us perfectly fit for, and justly deserving of, slavery, through the whole course of our lives.” Here, Burke is referring to a profound freedom: the freedom to have the ability to do what is right, not the capacity to do whatever maximizes pleasure and minimizes pain. He is also saying that a commonsense view of the world is likely to lead to virtue because God created human nature good, and strained deviations from nature tend towards corruption.
With respect to civil religion, Rousseau opined, “The god of a people has no rights over other peoples.” In addition, he said that “whoever dares say: Outside the church there is no salvation, should be driven from the state.” Since it is a Catholic dogma that there is no salvation outside the Church with the exception of inculpable ignorance, Rousseau is effectively not tolerating Catholics. Conversely, Burke was a staunch defender of the establishment of religion, arguing that “religion is the basis of civil society, and the source of all good and of all comfort.” Also, since Burke had a Catholic mother, he was tolerant of Catholics and supported Catholic Emancipation, a process which involved removing many of the anti-Catholic laws in England at the time, such as having to renounce the Holy Father and the dogma of transubstantiation.
In conclusion, Burke and Rousseau, political-philosophical giants of the 18th century, had numerous profound disagreements which undergird many of the political questions faced by people living today.
Works Cited:
Burke, Edmund, and Henry Rogers. The Works of Edmund Burke: With a Biographical and Critical Introduction by Henry Rogers. Vol. 1. 2 vols. London: Holdsworth, 1837.
“Catholic Emancipation.” Wikipedia. October 21, 2021. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_emancipation.
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. The Social Contract: Or, The Principles of Political Rights. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1906.