Human Inequality

Paper Summary:

This paper examines how both the philosophers Loyseau and Diderot offer philosophies that posit the inherent inequality, rather than the inherent equality of all human beings. It analyzes how the instinctive reaction to both of these individuals' philosophies thus might be to conflate or equate their two different notions of the nature of humanity, blurring the distinction between these two contemporaries. However, although neither man posits a view of human nature that might be palatable to a modern, Western reader, both distinctly differ in the emphasis of the nature of human inequality and how this should translate into a philosophy of government. It looks at how Diderot is primarily concerned with the internal differences of the human spirit and sensibility, while Loyseau is concerned with advancing a particular philosophy of human government.

From the Paper:

"Diderot's disparagement of the common mass of humanity who are simply not made to either appreciate or promote the advancement of culture is itself a product of a society in which few individuals received a full education on the level of basic literacy. Literacy much less cultural literacy, was rare, much less a basic inculcation in what we might call high culture. Diderot observed individuals who were only interested in surviving, in a very brute physical sense on a day-to-day basis, and assumed that these individuals were somehow lacking in interest in the advancement of culture. He observed the symptoms of an unequal, class-bound society and judged its symptoms to be an exhibition of the inherent nature of the majority of humanity."

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