Graeme Garrard - Rousseau, Happiness and Human Nature
Duration: 59 mins 49 secs
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| Description: | There is now substantial evidence supporting Rousseau’s view that status matters much more to individuals than do absolute levels of wealth. But there is also mounting evidence that he failed to appreciate the extent to which our desire for status is natural. |
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| Created: | 2012-10-31 20:35 | ||
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| Collection: | Clare Hall Colloquium | ||
| Publisher: | Clare Hall | ||
| Copyright: | Graeme Garrard - Clare Hall | ||
| Language: | eng (English) | ||
| Distribution: |
World
(downloadable)
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| Keywords: | Rousseau; happiness; human nature; | ||
| Credits: |
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| Categories: |
iTunes - Psychology & Social Science |
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| Explicit content: | No | ||
| Abstract: | In the middle of the eighteenth century the Swiss writer Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who was born three centuries ago this year, argued that the principal source of human unhappiness was our tendency to make invidious comparisons when humans were forced to cooperate in the pre-social state of nature. He believed that this fuelled a desire for status and relative position which is the main source of the unhappiness in modern civilisation.
Was he right? There is now substantial evidence supporting Rousseau’s view that status matters much more to individuals than do absolute levels of wealth. But there is also mounting evidence that he failed to appreciate the extent to which our desire for status is natural. |
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