Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the Critique of Inequality

Both Locke and Rousseau were responding to the
demise of an older aristocratic and feudal world, one which had been marked by differences in economic class,
rank, and privilege. This is to say, both saw that the order that was fading away had been grounded in profound
inequality, and both sought to justify new orders that denied the inequality of feudalism as a legitimate basis of
government. Write a five-page essay in which you explore the theme of inequality as it appears in their
respective works. How do they differ in defining inequality – its origins, its moral status, its relationship to a
well-formed political order? Capaldi, Nicholas and Gordon Lloyd, eds. The Two Narratives of Political Economy.
Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2011. Strauss, Leo and Joseph Cropsey, eds. History of Political Philosophy.
3rd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987.