Topic > John Locke and Rousseau's theory of freedom - 1201

At the beginning of the Social Contract, Rousseau states that "man is born free and everywhere he is in chains" (Rousseau, 1762). This sentence perhaps shows the perplexed state of Rousseau's argument under discussion: men are supposedly born with certain rights, but men cannot exit the natural state, and at the same time they find themselves in some particular social relations. At this point, Rousseau carries forward some of Locke's ideologies as Locke argued that natural law is an innate and inadvisable right of men. However, Rousseau does not stay at the same level of thinking, instead he tries to go beyond Locke's idea of ​​natural law. According to Rousseau, in order for men to have social relationships, they must give up some freedom, which logically means that, underlying Rousseau's ideas, there are possibilities that men's freedom can be strangled. Rousseau, establishing his reasoning on the social contract, tries to eliminate it