Rousseau and the Development of Identity

Scholars from very different interpretive traditions agree that Rousseau’s conception of human nature and the self constitutes a pivotal point in the history of philosophy. I focus on one important aspect of his investigation into human nature and the self: the development of identity. I reconstruct his understanding of the development of identity as articulated in the Discourse on Inequality and Emile, focusing on the psychological interplay of identity and identification involved in the formation of the self. Finally, I turn to a discussion of how his theory of the development of identity informs his specifically political theory, and especially the extralegal institutions and practices he suggests for forming a strong political identity.

Scholars from very different interpretive traditions agree that Rousseau's conception of human nature and the self constitutes a pivotal point in the history of philosophy.Leo Strauss sees Rousseau as the central figure in the "first crisis of modernity" (1953,252), radicalizing the view of human nature advanced by Hobbes, Locke, and others and arguing that humans were characterized by almost limitless perfectibility and freedom, a being whose nature is not to have a nature.In turn, in his monumental study of "The Making of the Modern Identity," to quote its subtitle, Charles Taylor makes Rousseau a pivotal figure in "a shift in self-interpretation" with our search for the authentic self and states: "Rousseau is actually pushing the subjectivism of modern moral understanding a stage further.This is what made him so tremendously influential….He is the starting point of a transformation in modern culture towards a deeper inwardness and a radical autonomy" (1989,.Axel Honneth likewise identifies Rousseau as a pivotal theorist of the formation of the self through intersubjectivity and mutual recognition and surveys the "enormous influence" he had on "modern philosophical discourse" (2016,191).Finally, Michael Sonenscher argues that Rousseau's concept of "perfectibility" and his rethinking of human nature, "was the catalyst for the transformation of the various ways of thinking about sociability into the cluster of claims about freedom and history, or the subordination of the real to the ideal, that came to be associated with the idea of historicism" (2015,684).Even if they agree on little else, this diverse set of scholars concurs in regarding the importance of Rousseau's conception of the self for his own thought and beyond.
In this article, I focus on one important aspect of Rousseau's investigation into human nature and the self: the development of identity.Since according to Rousseau human beings do not initially possess self-consciousness, the formation of a "self" or personal identity is part of a developmental process.Rousseau's understanding of this process is seen most fully in the Discourse on Inequality and Emile, but since his account of this process is in both works is imbedded within much broader investigations of human nature and development, among other subjects, his theory of the development of identity must be reconstructed.Indeed, in using the term "identity" I am already involved in reconstruction since Rousseau generally speaks of the "self" (moi/soi) and only rarely uses the term "identity" (identité) in this manner, although, importantly for my analysis, he does write of "identification" and "identifying" with another person in an innovative and influential manner.Without claiming to offer rigorous definitions, I refer to the "self" as the object perceived by an individual through self-reflection (moi) or by others through observation (soi) and "identity" as the content of the "self" as it develops through a process of emerging self-consciousness and identification with others.Many scholars have of course examined various aspects of Rousseau's understanding of human nature and development (e.g., amour-propre, pity, imagination, and perfectibility), and several have attended to Rousseau's conception of the "self," although not always in those terms (see esp.Lenne-Cornuez 2021, esp. 103-16;Cooper 1999;Neuhouser 2008).Nonetheless, there is no sustained consideration of Rousseau's understanding of the development of identity and its implications for his political theory.Such an inquiry is this article's principal contribution.
I begin with a brief discussion of the problem of knowing the self as Rousseau articulates it and how the very difficulties regarding self-knowledge point to the nature of the human self and then present my reconstruction of his theory of the development of identity, focusing on the Discourse on Inequality and Emile.Rousseau's autobiographical writings or his novel might also be fruitful texts for understanding the development of identity, and I draw upon them occasionally, but a thorough treatment of these writings is beyond the scope of the present inquiry and would also, I suggest, first require the examination of his more strictly philosophical writings I am undertaking here.Finally, I turn to a discussion of how his theory of the development of identity informs his specifically political theory, and especially the extralegal institutions and practices he suggests for forming a strong political identity.

The Development of Identity
The problem of knowing who we are confronts Rousseau throughout his works (see Storey 2009), and yet the very difficulties of acquiring such knowledge point to the nature of the self.Rousseau begins the Discourse on Inequality with a statement of the problem."The most useful and the least advanced of all human knowledge appears to me to be that of man; and I dare say that the inscription on the Temple of Delphi alone contained a precept more important and more difficult precept than all the hefty volumes of the moralists."To "know thyself" is the key to knowing "man."And human nature must be known before we can ask about our moral duties.Rousseau therefore transforms the question posed by the Academy of Dijon concerning the origin of inequality into an inquiry into human nature.This inquiry, however, proves a difficult one: "for how will the source of inequality among men be known unless one begins by knowing men themselves?" (Discourse, Rousseau 2012, 51). 1   Rousseau's analysis of identity is a hall of mirrorsman and men, thyself, and men themselves-filled with reflection and distortion because of the very nature of the self. 2 Maurizio Viroli (1988, 72) explains: "Without society there is no such thing as the individual.The individual makes his appearance with the coming of society and it is only through society that the collectivity 'men' becomes different individuals, conscious of being different and capable of realizing themselves as such."Both the individual and species levels are involved in knowing "man" because the "self" is formed in society."Like the statue of Glaucus, which time, sea, and storms had so disfigured that it resembled less a god than a ferocious beast, the human soul, altered in the bosom of society … has, so to speak, changed its appearance to the point of being almost unrecognizable" (Discourse, 51).When Socrates strips the sea god Glaucus of the deforming appearances that make it look less like a god than a wild beast, he finds divine reason beneath (Plato, Republic, 10.611d).Borrowing the Socratic image, Rousseau removes the encrustations of time and society and finds an animal devoid of reason (see Velkley 2002, 36-40;Masters 1968, 114).Indeed, the being beneath is devoid of a self.In short, the development of a distinct self and selfconsciousness, or identity, is the result of a process of the individual interacting with the environment and especially with one's fellow human beings.
Rousseau explains the process of development of identity in the Discourse and Emile.His accounts in the two works differ somewhat, but I suggest that the differences are almost entirely explicable by the different argumentative strategies in the works.Namely, in the Discourse, Rousseau must argue persuasively that humans need not develop by nature, so he adapts the strategy of isolating the elements whose interaction is central to psychological development, especially in the First Part of the work where he thematically discusses self-love, pity, reason, imagination, and the other aspects of human nature central to the psychological development he only sketches in the Second Part.In Emile, by contrast, from the outset he presents a genetic account of the psychological development.I will draw on both works in my analysis, noting any significant differences in emphasis or substance.

The Sole Sentiment of Existence
In the Discourse, Rousseau claims that natural man lacks self-consciousness beyond a mere sentiment of existence: "His soul, which nothing agitates, gives itself over to the sole sentiment of its present existence without any idea of the future, however near it may be" (Discourse,117).The sentiment of existence is therefore a non-temporal sentiment which precedes self-consciousness and reflection.
In the Reveries, he relates having recaptured something like the pre-conscious primitive mind when he describes the condition of his soul after being lulled into reverie while floating in a boat: "without needing to recall the past or encroach upon the future; in which time is nothing for it; in which the present lasts forever without, however, making its duration noticed and without any trace of time's passage; without any other sentiment … except that of our existence, and having this sentiment alone fill it completely " (1990-2010, 8: 68-9; see also 16).Without a distinction between self and other, everything is "self" and therefore nothing is specifically "self."Immersed in the present and given over to the sole sentiment of existence, natural man has no distinct identity.Paradoxically, then, the natural self-love (amour de soi-même) which Rousseau characterizes as "a natural sentiment that inclines every animal to look after its own preservation" (Discourse, note XV, 147) does not require consciousness of a self-a soi, a moi.Like the other animals, we initially feel the impulse of self-love without being conscious of being the "same" (même) self through space and time.
Rousseau's argument about natural man lacking selfconsciousness and being limited to the sole sentiment of his present existence is an important aspect of his criticism of his predecessors.He famously claims that previous philosophers who have "felt the necessity of going back to the state of nature" have not "reached it."His predecessors did not correctly understand human nature, and did not appreciate the difficulties of investigating it, because they erred in assuming a universal human nature their own theory should have led them to question: they spoke of savage man and they were depicting "civil man" (Discourse, 62).Rousseau's general strategy in combatting Hobbes, Locke, and others is to argue that the needs, passions, and faculties they attribute to humans require a degree of reflection, memory, and other faculties which he argues they do not naturally possess because they do not even have self-consciousness.As for Hobbes, he does not explicitly discuss self-consciousness, but his entire theory seems to assume it is innate, underlying the capacities for memory, foresight, and the "reckoning" of experience through speech and reason (see Leviathan, chaps. 3-4 [1994, 12-22]).Consciousness of the temporal-and mortal-self is implicit in Hobbes' description of the life of man as a "restless" desire for power after power until death (ibid., chap. 11 [1994, 58]).By contrast, Rousseau argues that, without the consciousness of a self existing through time, humans cannot be conscious of death: knowledge of death "is one of the first acquisitions that man has made in moving away from the animal condition" (Discourse, 73).As for Locke, "consciousness" of the "self," both in the moment of thinking or perceiving and through memory, is of course central to his account of personal identity (Essay Concerning Human Understanding II.xxvii.9-10 [1975, 335-6]).Locke appears to view "consciousness" as an innate capacity which naturally develops.Consciousness is requisite for willing, and the Lockean self is moved by desire or "uneasiness" (ibid., esp. 31-47 [1974, 252-72]).The contrast to Rousseau's natural man is dramatic: nothing "agitates" his soul and he experiences "the sole sentiment of its present existence" without any idea of the future.In short, Rousseau's natural man lacks all of the requisites for being a Lockean "self" constituted by personal identity (see Lenne-Cornuez 2021, 113-16). 3 The sole occasion on which Rousseau uses the term "consciousness" (conscience) in the Discourse is revealing for his understanding of the nature of the self in contrast to Locke and his other forebears.In the same part of the text, he describes natural man as limited to the sole sentiment of his present existence.In a discussion of what distinguishes humans from the other animals, Rousseau initially claims that the distinctive "spirituality" of the human soul is seen above all in the "consciousness" (conscience) of our freedom and that the "feeling" (sentiment) of this power (Discourse, 72).Rousseau is here employing Locke's conceptual language as transmitted through the translator of the Essay, Pierre Coste, who renders Locke's "self" by soi-même and "consciousness" by conscience, translation choices he explains in notes to the relevant passages.In the case of conscience, he discusses at length why the French does not adequately render Locke's meaning and states that he settled on conscience after entertaining the possibility of using sentiment (nn. 1 and 2 to II.xxvii.9[Locke 1742, 264-5]). 4 Rousseau employs both terms in the passage cited: of the conscience and the sentiment of our freedom.However, according to his account, natural man clearly does not yet possess consciousness of such freedom, or even consciousness of a self.Whatever the much-debated metaphysical status of freedom in Rousseau's thought, in this passage and elsewhere, he puts aside his initial argument that the distinctive attribute of humans is freedom, due to the "difficulties" involved in the claim, and instead argues that man is distinguished by the "faculty of self-perfection" or "perfectibility" (Discourse, 72).The term is Rousseau's own coinage and names the unique malleability of human nature, a capacity for acquiring the needs, passions, and faculties possessed only in potentiality by natural man, including the consciousness of freedom and self-consciousness itself.
Whereas Rousseau begins the Discourse by hypothesis with a fully formed human being (see Discourse, 66), his analysis in Emile reveals that even the bare sentiment of existence is acquired."We are born capable of learning but able to do nothing, knowing nothing.The soul, enchained in imperfect and half-formed organs, does not even have the sentiment of its own existence" (Emile, 61).In the original version of the work, he wrote that the child does not even have the "consciousness [conscience] of his own existence," once again echoing the French translator of Locke ("Manuscrit Favre," 1959-95, 61).He illustrates his point with an image whose importance is suggested by the fact that he originally intended to begin the work with it.The image is of a "man-child" whose mental condition he likens to "the primitive state of ignorance and stupidity natural to man before he learned anything from experience or his fellows" (Emile, 62).
Let us suppose that a child had at his birth the stature and the strength of a grown man....This man-child would be a perfect imbecile, an automaton, an immobile and almost insensible statue.…Not only would he perceive no object outside of himself, he would not even relate any object to the sense organ which made him perceive it.…he would have only a single idea, that is, of the I [moi] to which he would relate all his sensations; and this idea or, rather, this sentiment would be the only thing that he would have beyond what an ordinary baby has (Emile,61).
This image recalls the device of the homme-statue employed by Condillac, a friend whom Rousseau considered "one of the most profound metaphysicians of his age" (Emile, 107).In the Discourse Rousseau complains that Condillac's investigation of the origin of language assumes what is in question, namely, the social relations necessary for the development of a language and the other faculties (Discourse, 75-6).Likewise, in the passage from Emile quoted above he implies that Condillac incorrectly assumes that self-consciousness is innate.In broadly Lockean fashion, Condillac treats consciousness as a sentiment of awareness of perceptions that produces knowledge."When objects attract our attention, the perception they occasion in us become linked with our sentiment of our being," he argues in his Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge: "It follows that consciousness not only gives us knowledge of our perceptions, but furthermore … it makes us recognize them as belonging to us or as affecting a being that is constantly the same 'self '" (2001 [1746], 20).This capacity he has discovered seems to be innate: consciousness "is at our service every instant and is the foundation of experience" (ibid., 25).In his later Treatise on Systems Condillac illustrates his theory through the heuristic device of the homme-statue, once again on the assumption that consciousness is innate, or at least that it is aroused instantaneously with sense experience (see 1982 [1755], 225).In response in part to Condillac, Rousseau offers a more thoroughly developmental account.In the case of the imagined "man-child," the maturity of his physical organs allows him to experience sensations as having a common locus, and he thereby has an "idea" or "sentiment" of his existence that goes beyond that of an infant.Yet his sentiment of existence is non-temporal and non-spatial, and he therefore has no consciousness of a distinct self.For Rousseau, the emergency of the conscious self or identity is part of a developmental process.
The first step in Rousseau's account of this developmental process is the sense of spatial differentiation that comes through interaction with the physical environment."To live is not to breathe; it is to act; it is to make use of our organs, our senses, our faculties, of all the parts of ourselves which give us the sentiment of our existence" (Emile, 42).Bodily activity produces sensations that are progressively experienced as interior, and from consciousness of these sensations develops selfconsciousness."It is only by movement that we learn that there are things which are not us, and it is only by our own movement that we acquire the idea of extension" (Emile, 64; see 143).Along with the idea of extension comes the elemental distinction between self and other.Rousseau locates this point at the transition from infancy to childhood.Self-consciousness is constituted by the sentiment of existing through time and space, of being the same self, of undivided experience: individuality.
Rousseau's account of the development of selfconsciousness, especially in Emile, suggests that the first "general idea" of something that is "common" or "same" is the idea of oneself as a distinct individual.The child, the "man-child," and natural man are alike in that their experience in general is like their experience of themselves: they are limited to the particular sensations of the present.As Rousseau says of an infant: "He has no sentiment, no idea; hardly does he have sensations.He does not even sense his own [propre] existence" (Emile, 74).The same is true of the fully formed "man-child," who he states would have the single "idea, or rather … sentiment" of an "I." Rousseau's equivocation on whether this is a "sentiment" or an "idea" suggests that ideas formed through sense experience are grounded on the sentiment of one's own existence.Rousseau's discussion in the Discourse of the obstacles to the formation of general ideas is helpful for understanding the development of self-consciousness.He describes natural man's mental state: "all individual things were presented to their minds in isolation, just as they are in the tableau of nature.If one oak was called 'A', another was called 'B', for the first idea derived from two things is that they are not the same, and much time is often needed to observe what they have in common" (Discourse, 78).Limited to the sentiment of his present existence, natural man lacks the ability to compare his sensations and thereby form an "idea," which Rousseau defines in Emile as "the comparison of several successive or simultaneous sensations and the judgment made of them" which produces "a sort of mixed or complex sensation" (Emile, 203).If the idea of a "self" is a general idea, then natural man lacks the "several successive or simultaneous sensations" which allow him to form true ideas, whether of himself or any other being.Once he can form this first general idea, the foundation is laid for the development of capacities that come to distinguish humans from the other animals, especially speech and reason, all of which depend on general ideas (Discourse, 75-80; see Velkley 2002, 46-8).This process of forming the idea of an "I" develops as the individual identifies with those he perceives as like himself.

Identity and Identification
Personal identity and identification with one's fellows arise through the interactions among human beings which put into play the primary passions of self-love and pity.Self-love is manifestly related to the self or identity, and pity also has a central role in the development of identity as we expand the self to others through identifying with them and that process of identification in turn shapes the self.It is useful to note at the outset the novelty of Rousseau's account of identity (identité) and identification (identification, identifier, and s'identifier).As Jean-François Perrin (2014, 61-86) demonstrates, Rousseau was the first author to use these terms in the psychological sense, having adapted them from their original theological meaning (namely, regarding the consubstantiality or "identity" of the three persons of the Trinity).Indeed, so familiar has the psychological meaning of these terms become that we no longer appreciate Rousseau's innovation and its subsequent influence.Extending Perrin's important observation through reconstructing Rousseau' understanding of the development of identity is a principal contribution of this article.
The interplay of identity and identification is founded on the interplay between the primary passions of self-love and pity.In the Preface to the Discourse, Rousseau identifies two "principles" upon meditating on "the first and simplest operations of the human soul": I perceive in it two principles preceding reason, one of which interests us ardently in our well-being and our selfpreservation, and the other of which inspires in us a natural repugnance to see any sensitive being, and principally our fellow humans [semblables], perish or suffer.It is from the concurrence and combination that our mind is capable of making of these two principles, without it being necessary to introduce that of sociability, that all the rules of natural right appear me to flow (Discourse, 54-5).
By calling these "principles," Rousseau considers them as or primary motive forces, forces which explain the "operations" of the human soul or mind.The potentially constructive interplay between them is suggested by his remark that they work in "conjunction and combination."The term "conjunction" (concours) can suggest either an alliance or a competition, as in "running together" (concours) in a race, while "combination" (combinaison) suggests bringing two or more things together, usually in the sense of a harmonious relationship.The two principles can come into competition, in which case self-love wins out.Or they may work in "combination."Given the dynamic relationship among needs, passions, and reason that Rousseau articulates within his discussion of the distinctive malleability of human nature, or "perfectibility" (Discourse, 72-3), these primary motive principles underlie the diverse forms which human passions can take, notably self-love.
Rousseau turns to a substantive discussion of these two principles within the main body of the Discourse as part of a polemical exchange with Hobbes over the character and extent of our natural passions and faculties, and this polemical presentation shapes how he presents the principles.Rousseau argues that Hobbes "saw very clearly the defect of all modern definitions of natural right," but claims that he did not go far enough in his reasoning concerning the extent of natural man's passions and faculties.To put this in terms of the present analysis, Hobbes assumed the self-consciousness, memory, and foresight Rousseau denies to natural man.Within this context, then, Rousseau claims that Hobbes did not notice another "principle" which has been "given to man in order to soften, under certain circumstances, the ferocity of his pride [amour-propre], or the desire to preserve himself before the birth of this pride (XV)," and which "tempers the ardor he has for his own well-being by an innate repugnance to see his fellow human being suffer.And he then names that 'principle'": "I speak of pity" (Discourse, 82-3).
Rousseau introduces self-love and pity together, but he immediately puts them into "competition," to use the language from the Preface, since pity is said to "soften" or "temper" self-love.Stressing the competitive relationship between self-love and pity obscures how the two principles can work in "combination" to develop selfconsciousness and consciousness of one's fellows, which at this stage Rousseau is careful not to emphasize since he is arguing precisely that natural man does not experience such development.Indeed, Rousseau even separates the two principles textually, relegating his substantive discussion of self-love to the note (XV) attached to the passage.
As for self-love, when introducing the other principle Hobbes allegedly did not perceive, Rousseau almost parenthetically asserts a distinction between two forms of self-love: pity softens "the ferocity of his pride [amourpropre], or the desire to preserve himself before the birth of this pride (XV)."He explains the distinction between the two passions in the note."Pride" (amour-propre) and "self-love" (amour de soi-même) are "two passions very different in their nature and the effects."Although they can be considered as distinct "passions," they are both expressions of the same underlying "principle" of the natural desire for self-preservation and well-being.Selflove is a "natural sentiment" which humans share with the other animals, whereas amour-propre is a "relative sentiment" which is "fabricated and born in society" and which requires the capacity to consider oneself in relation to others.The distinction is motivated in part by Rousseau's confrontation with Hobbes.Given the fact that a concern with "glory" is for Hobbes one of the principal reasons why the state of nature is a state of war of all against all, he clearly assumes that pride is natural.Rousseau counters by arguing that once we distinguish the two forms of self-love we see that "in our primitive state, in the genuine state of nature, pride does not exist."Natural man lacks the awareness of others, not to mention the self-awareness, requisite for seeing himself in the eyes of others (Discourse, note XV, 147).In short, by arguing that natural man is limited to a form of self-love which does not involve self-consciousness, Rousseau is able to "go back" further than Hobbes and others by showing that the attributes they assumed to be natural to humans are in fact the result of subsequent development.
As for pity, as noted, Rousseau stresses its regulative role.On the one hand, pity "tempers," "checks," or "moderates" "the activity of love of oneself" and thereby impedes the person acting out of self-love from needlessly harming another sensitive being, and thereby "contributes to the mutual preservation of the entire species."Further, the rhetorical demands of his polemic with Hobbes in this context lead him to emphasize pity's regulative function and even to exaggerate its role, for example, by terming it "the sole natural virtue" even though just a couple of pages earlier he states that natural man "had neither vices nor virtues."On the other hand, when they come into conflict, self-love trumps pity.In either case, in the case of natural man pity does not lead to any positive action such as relieving the suffering of another.Rather, natural man pre-reflectively obeys the "maxim of natural goodness": "Do what is good for you with the least possible harm to others" (Discourse, 82-5).The operation of the two principles in natural man might be characterized as solipsistic, if natural man had a self.
Despite his emphasis in the Discourse on pity's regulative role, Rousseau does provide materials for understanding its more constructive role in the development of identity.Pity involves both a general reaction to other sensitive beings and a more forceful reaction to one's fellow humans: it "inspires in us a natural repugnance to see any sensitive being, and principally our fellow-men, perish or suffer" (Discourse, 54).This natural reaction is largely negative at this point ("repugnance"), but Rousseau also speaks of "commiseration," or fellow suffering: co-(m)miseration.Rousseau frames such commiseration in terms of identification.Commiseration is "a sentiment that puts us in the place of the one who suffers-an obscure and lively sentiment in savage man, developed but weak in civil man," he explains: "Indeed, commiseration will be all the more energetic to the extent that the onlooking animal identifies [s'identifiera] more intimately with the suffering animal.Now, it is obvious that this identification must have been infinitely closer in the state of nature than in the state of reasoning" (Discourse, 84).Rousseau's employment of "identifying" and "identification" as psychological phenomena in this passage is the terminological and conceptual innovation to which I referred above.
The connection between personal identity and identification with others can be glimpsed when Rousseau turns in the Second Part of the Discourse to a sketch of human development."Man's first sentiment was that of his existence, his first care that of his preservation," and he is therefore initially limited to a "selfless" form of selflove.Yet his mind and heart of savage man are awakened by chance occurrences that change his interactions with his environment, and especially with his fellow humans.Further, he becomes aware of his superiority over the other animals: "This is how the first glance he directed upon himself produced in him the first movements of pride.This is how, as yet scarcely knowing how to distinguish ranks and looking upon himself as in the first rank as a species, he prepared himself from afar to claim the first rank as an individual."Along with his nascent species identification comes a more complete identification with his fellows-semblables, those he perceives as similar to himself."The conformities that time may have enabled him to perceive among them, his female, and himself led him to judge of those he did not perceive; and … he concluded that their way of thinking and feeling were entirely in conformity with his own" (Discourse, 92-3).As Asher Horowitz notes, "self-consciousness, along with the concept of self, is ... a comparative relation" (1987, 93; see 72, 222).Self-love and pity seem to work in "combination" here.Humans gain the self-consciousness necessary to have a true self or identity through a process involving identification with others.
If the synthetic account of psychological development is masked in the Discourse in part because of his argumentative strategy in the work, such an account is the conspicuous core of Emile.The first glimmerings of individuality occur in childhood when the child becomes capable of directing his bodily forces: "It is at this second stage that, strictly speaking, the life of the individual begins: it is then that he gains consciousness of himself.Memory extends the sentiment of identity to all the moments of his existence, he becomes truly one, the same [le même]" (Emile, 78).This passage is one of the rare occasions on which Rousseau uses the term "identity" (identité), and indeed uses it in Lockean fashion.The original draft of the passage is even more revealing in this respect: "It appears that children think and feel from their birth, but their feelings and their ideas relate only to the present moment; the connection, successive identity is still lacking; they are, so to speak, different beings at every instant" ("Favre Manuscript," 1990-2010, 13: 20).Given the role of memory here, one might call this an incipient Lockean identity, but the difference is that for Rousseau this "sentiment of identity" must develop.The next stage is in prepubescence."Now our child, ready to stop being a child, has become aware of himself as an individual."Interestingly, it is precisely at this juncture that Rousseau states that, having previously had only sensations, "now he has ideas" (Emile,203).Recall in this light that I conjectured that the idea of the self is the first general idea and the basis for others.Finally, it is only with adolescence and the dawning of the passions and imagination that the imaginary pupil becomes fully a self for himself and for others."So long as his sensibility remains limited to his own individuality, there is nothing moral in his actions.It is only when it begins to extend outside of himself that it takes on, first, the sentiments and, then, the notions of good and evil which truly constitute him as a man and an integral part of his species" (Emile,. The full flourishing of identity-formation occurs only with the advent of pity, which connects one's own identity to others through identification.Rousseau's remarks concerning the child "has become aware of himself as an individual" and then when he "begins to extend outside of himself," just quoted, therefore fittingly occur in the context of his thematic discussion of self-love and pity.As for self-love, whereas in the Discourse he identifies two principles prior to reason, in Emile he argues that the passions all stem from a single "principle": "The source of our passions, the origin and principle of all the others … is amour de soi-a primitive, innate passion, which is anterior to every other, and of which all others are, in a sense, only modifications" (Emile, 212-13).Similarly, earlier in the work he explains: "The sole passion natural to man is amour de soi, or amour-propre taken in an extended sense" (Emile, 92).As for pity, he states that up to this point Emile's reactions to the sufferings of other "sensitive beings" have been limited to "gut reactions" (d'agiter ses entrailles).But now the development of his passions and especially imagination allow him to feel "new movements" of commiseration."Thus is born pity, the first relative sentiment which touches the human heart according to the order of nature….In fact, how do we let ourselves by moved by pity if not by transporting ourselves outside of ourselves and identifying [identifiant] with the suffering animal, by leaving, as it were, our own being to take on its being?… Thus, no one becomes sensitive until his imagination is animated and begins to transport himself out of himself" (Emile, 222-3).Rousseau is even more emphatic about the role of the imagination in the Essay on the Origin of Languages: "Pity, although natural to the heart of man, would remain eternally inactive without the imagination that puts it into play.How do we let ourselves be moved to pity?By transporting ourselves outside of ourselves; by identifying ourselves [en nous identifiant] with the suffering being" (1990-2010, 7: 306).At least in its full-fledged form, then, pity is the product of a developmental process rooted in self-love as the "source" of all the passions.
Rousseau's treatment in Emile of self-love and pity raise two interpretive issues: first, what is the relationship between amour de soi and amour-propre, which he seems to treat as two distinct passions in the Discourse; second, what is the relationship between self-love and pity, which in the Discourse seem to be presented as two distinct "principles" and passions.As for self-love, in the Discourse he exhorts the reader not to confound amourpropre and amour de soi, "two passions very different in their nature and their effects" (Discourse, note XV, 147).However, I argued above that while the natural and developed "passions" of self-love can be distinguished, they are both forms of the same underlying "principle."The main point of his insisting on this distinction is to argue that natural man lacks the self-consciousness and consciousness of others required to feel the "relative" passion of amour-propre.In turn, in Emile he is describing the process of this very transformation of self-love as his pupil gains full self-awareness."Extend these ideas, and you will see where our amour-propre gets the form we believe natural to it, and how self-love, ceasing to be an absolute sentiment, becomes pride in great souls, vanity in small ones" (Emile, 215).Natural self-love is "absolute," relating to the individual being alone, whereas amourpropre is "relative," considering the self in relation to others.In short, amour-propre is the developed form of amour de soi, and it can take different forms depending on how it develops (see Neuhouser 2008;Cooper 1999;Dent 1988, chap. 2).The structure of the self or identity depends on the path of this development.
As for the relationship between self-love and pity, let us begin with the differences between Rousseau's accounts in the Discourse and Emile (and the Essay on the Origin of Languages), the subject of considerable scholarly debate.Some interpreters argue that these two accounts are inconsistent (e.g., Spector 2019, 27-8, 106-10;Starobinski in Rousseau 1959-1995, 3: 1330-31), while others find them largely reconcilable or complementary (e.g., O'Hagan 1999, 41-2; Morgenstern 1996, 56-63;Goldschmidt 1974, 137-41;Masters 1968, 41-53).In my view, there are several reasons for viewing them as largely consistent.First, if I am correct that Rousseau's account in the Discourse has a polemical character that leads him to exaggerate the role of pity in natural man, then the distance with Emile closes considerably.Second, in this light, his remark in the Essay on the Origin of Languages that pity is "natural to the heart of man" but initially "inactive" would suggest that, despite Rousseau's rhetoric, the natural man of the Discourse is limited to the prereflective "gut reactions" he describes Emile as experiencing before the birth of the imagination.Third, in the Discourse he states only that he perceives "two principles preceding reason"; he does not claim that they are equally innate or primitive.This reading would be consistent both with his argument in Emile that amour de soi is the source of all the passions and also with his claim that pity is "the first relative sentiment which touches the human heart according to the order of nature" (Emile, 222; italics supplied).In any case, I do not believe that any remaining tensions between the two accounts substantially affect our understanding of Rousseau's account of the development of identity.
Rousseau's treatment in Emile of pity follows directly on his discussion of amour de soi, and the dynamic interplay between the two passions is central to his account of the development of identity.The bridge between the passions is the imagination."The source of all the passions is sensibility [sensibilité]; imagination determines their bent," he explains, and the imagination enables his pupil, whose sensibility has thus far been "limited to his own individuality," to "extend outside of himself."His "nascent imagination" teaches him that he "fellows," namely, fellow members of his species.Here we see the capacity of species identification rooted in pity as the individual recognizes others as similar to himself, as semblables, we saw in the Discourse.We especially identify with "our common miseries," he explains, hence commiseration."It follows from this that we are attached to our fellows less by the sentiment of their pleasures than by that of their pains, for we see far better in the latter the identity [identité] of our nature."The connection between personal identity and identification with others is suggested here by Rousseau's use of the term "identity."Finally, Rousseau frames this extended sensibility in terms of pity."Pity is sweet because, in putting ourselves in the place of the one who suffers, we nevertheless feel the pleasure of not suffering as he does" (Emile, 219-21).
If amour de soi is the "source" and "origin and principle" of all the other passions and if all the other passions are "are, in a sense, only modifications" of self-love, as Rousseau claims, then presumably pity can be considered as a form or modification of the "principle" of self-love.He characterizes the first movements of pity in Emile as a "nascent sensibility" founded on "the expansive force of his heart" (Emile, 223).Rousseau connects this expansive character of the soul to identification, here in relation to a discussion of self-love: "when the strength of an expansive soul has me identify myself [m'identifie] with my fellow, and I feel that I am, so to speak, in him, it is in order not to suffer that I do not want him to suffer.I am interested in him for love of myself" (Emile, 235 n.).The ways in which this sensibility is shaped by interactions with others can either make it "extend it to other beings, which make it feel itself everywhere outside itself" or "contract and concentrate the heart and tighten the spring of the human I [moi]" (Emile, 223).The expansive character of the soul or self has received attention from interpreters (see Neidleman 2013;Cooper 2004;1999;Grace 2001), 5 and I am building on their work through my focus on the development of identity and identification.Rousseau's theory of the "sensibility" is perhaps clearest in a passage in the Dialogues."There is a purely passive physical and organic sensitivity [sensibilité] which seems to have as its end only the preservation of our bodies and of our species through the direction of pleasure and pain."This natural and physical sensitivity develops into an "active and moral" form that is like a magnet, taking on either attractive or repulsive forms in relation to other beings: "The positive or attracting action is the simple work of nature, which seeks to extend and reinforce the sentiment of our being; the negative or repelling action, which compresses and diminishes the being of another, is a combination produced by reflection.From the former arise all the loving and gentle passions, and from the latter all the hateful and cruel passions " (1990-2010, 1: 112).The desire to "extend and reinforce the sentiment of our being" is the expansive character of self-love, from which arise "all the loving and gentle passions," foremost pity.The initial "self-less" character of self-love allows natural self-love to expand to other beings, and pity might be considered as another way of naming the expansive force of amour de soi.The principles or passions of self-love and pity can therefore be treated either as analytically separate or as modifications of a single principle of selflove.If identity entails identification, then both approaches make sense each in their own way.
In sum, then, developing an identity or "self" is a process based on the interplay of self-love and pity whereby a full-fledged identity is formed in part through identification with others.The fact that this development is not inevitable, if we take Rousseau at his word that natural man need never have developed, or that the course of development is variable, due to the plasticity of human nature and the contingencies in the process of development, means that there exist different possible types of self or identity.Rousseau himself emphasizes the differences between "man" and "citizen," and does so in contrast to the "bourgeois" (Emile, 40), various scholars have focused on these two types (e.g., Shklar 1968).Others have identified more "human types" in his thought (e.g., Cooper 1999, 51-9;Dent 1988).For the present purposes, I limit myself to showing how the theory of the development of identity in Rousseau's thought which I have reconstructed informs his specifically political theory.

Political Identity
The specter of the purportedly illiberal aspects of Rousseau's political theory, with his language of "forcing to be free" and "the general will is always right," and with its extralegal features such as the lawgiver and civil religion, needs no rehearsal.His thought has been associated with totalitarianism (e.g., Talmon 1952) and nationalism (e.g., Engel 2005;Cohler 1970;Hoffmann 1963).Or, more recently and I think more measuredly, scholars seeking to formulate theories of citizenship which preserve individual autonomy while instilling loyalty in citizens have drawn on Rousseau's theory of political legitimacy while remaining uneasy with the "extramotivational resources" Rousseau counsels (Stilz 2009, esp. 136) or eschewing his "political sociology" (Cohen 2010, 21-2, 57-8).Whether or to what extent Rousseau's political theory is illiberal or tends toward undesirable political movements or consequences is a matter beyond the present analysis.My aim here is limited to exploring how these extralegal institutions and practices are related to Rousseau's understanding of the development of identity.What can be said is that since for Rousseau the self or identity are not given or fixed, as might be said of Hobbes or even Locke, at least not to the same degree, there are considerable resources in Rousseau's theory for shaping a strong political identity to reconcile right and interest, justice, and utility, as he proposes to do at the outset of his political treatise (Social Contract I.Proemium [2012, 163]).
Perhaps the most obvious place to begin is the great lawgiver of the Social Contract.Rousseau's turn to the lawgiver follows a discussion of the nature of sovereignty and the general will culminating in the question of how the people will legislate for themselves.Let me draw attention to one passage in this discussion which relates to identity and identification, the celebrated passage in which Rousseau proclaims that the general will is "always right.""Why is the general will always right [droite], and why do all constantly will the happiness of each one of them, if not because there is no one who does not appropriate the word each to himself, and who does not consider himself when voting for all?" (Social Contract II.4 [2012, 184]).First, on the matter of the general will always being "right," the word being translated here, droit, does not mean "correct" in the sense that the general will is always correct about the common good in an epistemic sense, but rather signifies that it is "upright" or "correctly oriented" in the sense that the will tautologically always wills the good of the being willing.Second, and more importantly, the congruence among the citizens of which Rousseau speaks is based on identification: "each" considers himself (selflove) in thinking of "all" through identifying with others.But how to make "each" think in terms of "all"?
The epistemic and voluntarist challenges of selflegislation come to a head at the end of the chapter "On Law" (II.6).The issue is stated as a chicken-and-egg problem in which the people who make the laws must themselves be formed by the laws."How will a blind multitude, which often does not know what it wants because it rarely knows what is good for it, carry out by itself an undertaking as vast, as difficult as a system of legislation?"Rousseau answers: "From this arises the need for a lawgiver" ).Part of the problem is epistemic: knowing what is good.But the principal issue is how the citizens conceive of themselves in willing the good: their identity as citizens willing the good qua citizens.In the following chapter, "On the Lawgiver" (II.7), therefore, Rousseau reveals the principal task facing his deus ex machina: "He who dares to undertake to establish a people's institutions must feel that he is capable of changing, so to speak, human nature; of transforming each individual, who by himself is a complete and solitary whole, into a part of a greater whole from which that individual receives as it were his life and his being" (ibid., 191).Several things about this passage are noteworthy in light of the development of identity.First, the lawgiver must transform a natural individual, whose self-love (and thus will) is directed toward his individual good, into a citizen, who wills the collective good.The citizen receives "as it were" his life and being from the political whole.That is, he identifies with the political community of which he and his fellow citizens are a part.The concessive language of "as it were" indicates, I suggest, that this reorientation entails a redirection of the primary passions rather than a wholesale transformation.This reading is indicated by Rousseau's language at the outset of the passage of changing human nature "so to speak."On the one hand, human nature does not change because citizens are still actuated by self-love.Yet, on the other hand, their self-love is transformed through their identification with their fellow citizens, thus redirecting the primary passions in such a way that human nature does change in a certain respect.
Later in the Social Contract, Rousseau explains that the lawgiver achieves his task through establishing "morals, customs, and especially opinion-a part of the laws unknown to our politicians, but upon which the success of all the others depends," providing the "unshakeable keystone" of the arch of legislation (Social Contract, II.12 [2012, 202-3]).He does not elaborate on these extralegal institutions in his political treatise, with the exception of his lengthy discussion of civil religion, but he does so in other writings, notably "Political Economy" and the Considerations on the Government of Poland.
The way in which these extralegal institutions and public education relate to the process of the development of identity can be seen in "Political Economy."Discussing how the "feeling of humanity" weakens as it is extended beyond one's community, an expansive tendency of selflove and pity we have seen in the development of identity, he explains how these principles can work when confined to a particular community to produce a strong political identity."Interest and commiseration must in some way be confined and compressed to be activated.Now since this inclination can only be useful to those with whom we have to live, it is good that the feeling of humanity, concentrated among fellow citizens, gains fresh force through the habit of seeing one another and through the common interest that unites them."This combination of self-love ("common interest") and pity ("seeing one another," that is, as "fellows"-semblables) produces love of fatherland."By combining the force of amour-propre with all the beauty of virtue, this sweet and ardent feeling gains an energy which, without disfiguring it, makes it the most heroic of all the passions" (Rousseau 1990(Rousseau -2010, 3: 151), 3: 151).Later in the same essay, he frames this process in terms of identification produced by public education: "If, for example, they are trained early enough never to consider their persons except as related to the body of the state, and not to perceived their own existence, so to speak, except as part of the state's, they will eventually come to identify themselves in some way with this larger whole; to feel themselves to be members of the fatherland."Note Rousseau's qualifying language again: they will perceive their own existence "so to speak" wholly as part of the state.Once again, we have a redirection of self-love and pity rather than a wholesale transformation, directing the "dangerous disposition from which all our vices arise," namely, amour-propre, into "a sublime virtue" (ibid., 155).
Rousseau expands on the means for inculcating civic virtue through extralegal institutions in his writing on Poland.At the outset he explains that effective laws rule "over the hearts of the citizens," and he then launches into a discussion of the "Spirit of Ancient Institutions" in order to illustrate how this was achieved among the ancients, and how it is no longer even attempted among the moderns.Lawgivers such as Moses, Lycurgus, and Numa understood that they had to form their people into a distinct people.As for Numa, he took the work begun by Romulus and made it solid "by uniting those brigands into an indissoluble body, by transforming them into citizens, less by means of laws … than by means of mild institutions that attached them to each other and all to their land by making their city sacred."Such attachment to one's fellow citizens, or we might say identification with them, is achieved through "distinctive practices" such as religious ceremonies, public spectacles, and customs (1990-2010, 11: 171-3).Speaking of public education, Rousseau explains: "It is education that must give the national form to souls, and direct their opinions and tastes so that they will be patriots by inclination, by passion, by necessity."Love of the fatherland "makes up [the] whole existence" of the citizen, and he is "nothing" without it (ibid., 179).In other words, the citizens come to have a distinctive identity.
This passage and others like it suggest a totalistic identification as a citizen of a fatherland that understandably raises alarm or at least eyebrows among those who associate Rousseau with totalitarianism and nationalism (cf.Smith 2003).Without denying this, Rousseau perhaps employs hyperbolic rhetoric here because his recommendations to the Poles are as much part of his jeremiad against modern states and statesmen as they are practicable advice."Today there are no longer any French, German, Spanish, even English, whatever might be said about it; there are only Europeans.All have the same tastes, the same passions, the same morals [moeurs], because none of them has received any national form by means of a distinctive foundation."All of them "will speak about the public good and think only about themselves " (1990-2010, 11: 174-5).Such language is reminiscent of the beginning of Emile where Rousseau says that the product of modern education is the "bourgeois," one of those "double men, always appearing to relate everything to others and never relating anything except to themselves alone" (Emile,(40)(41).Whatever Rousseau's intentions, what distinguished the ancient institutions was that their education and institutions formed citizens with a distinctive and unified identity, whereas the moderns produce individuals with divided identities through a mismanagement of the interplay between self-love and pity.

Conclusion
The question of knowing who we are is central to almost every writing in Jean-Jacques Rousseau's wide-ranging corpus I have reconstructed Rousseau's understanding of the development of identity as a central feature of his investigation of human nature.The developmental process I have traced results in what might be characterized as resulting in healthy forms of identity, with the "self" formed in positive ways with others through identification, including as citizens of a legitimate political association.The positive possibilities of the development of identity in Rousseau have recently been the subject of interest by scholars, notably Neuhouser (2008), for whom the disease of amour-propre is simultaneously the remedy for a politics of recognition.Yet it must be acknowledged that the outcome of the story told by the Discourse, as well as his other works, suggests that for Rousseau the process does not always-or even often-produce stable and healthy identities.Whether the remedies Rousseau puts forward in his political writings or elsewhere can cure our malady, if they are even advanced by him as realistic solutions, in my view much of the enduring power and interest of his thought lies more in his diagnosis of our psychic and social ills.