DOMINATION AND THE NEED FOR MORAL EDUCATION

While domination is widely acknowledged as a critical challenge for normative theory, many political theorists have concentrated on procedural solutions to the problem that emphasize formal accountability. Although accountability mechanisms are often necessary for preventing domination, I maintain that an accountability-focused approach to non-domination is insufficient and that a caring moral education of the type Rousseau envisions is indispensable for creating a non-dominative society. In this section, I defend these claims by critically examining one of the most prominent treatments of non-domination to emerge in recent years: the neo-republican theory of Philip Pettit. I argue that weaknesses in Pettit's account expose two key limitations of formal accountability: There are certain areas of life that accountability mechanisms cannot effectively police, and even the best-designed institutions require citizens disposed to use them in non-dominative ways. In this discussion, I show that a moral education in non-domination is critical to addressing these issues and that Rousseau's Emile illuminates what such an education ought to entail.

In Pettit's Republicanism, he defines domination as being potentially subject to the arbitrary interference of another (Reference Pettit1999, 22–23). Pettit maintains that interference is arbitrary when it is not “forced to track the interests and ideas of the person suffering the interference” (55). As Pettit explains, this is a formal or procedural rather than substantive definition of arbitrariness: An act is arbitrary “by virtue of the controls—specifically, the lack of controls—under which it materializes, not by virtue of the particular consequences to which it gives rise” (55). Your power over me is arbitrary if you can treat me however you please; the actual substance of what it pleases you to do—whether you decide to harm me or help me—is irrelevant. Indeed, on Pettit's view, I would still be dominated even if you could interfere with me at your pleasure, but reliably chose not to. Conversely, forms of interference that are not arbitrary—such as laws passed or measures enacted by a suitably constructed democratic state—are perfectly compatible with freedom as non-domination. In sum, it is necessary and sufficient for domination that one person has the capacity to interfere with another at his or her pleasure and could do so with impunity. And because Pettit conceives of domination in procedural terms, he advocates a procedural solution. His theory focuses on establishing adequate institutional controls; he argues that democratic governments, structured so as to provide space for deliberation and contestation, are the best way to check individuals and prevent them from dominating one another (92 and passim).

Because of his theory's formal character, Pettit's account has significant flaws. If the substance of what interferers do is irrelevant, it would seem that all interferees who lack control are subject to domination. Feminist critics have argued that this applies poorly to children: Loving parents interfere with their children in ways that do not accord with their thoughts and opinions; these children do not appear to be dominated despite their relative lack of control (Costa Reference Costa2013, 928–29; Friedman Reference Friedman, Laborde and Maynor2008, 252–57). Others have objected to the idea that accountability could be sufficient to prevent domination. Just as Pettit's conception of arbitrary interference ignores the substance of what the interferer does, it also ignores the substance of what the interferee believes. For Pettit, interference is arbitrary when it fails to track the interests of the persons interfered with as those persons understand them; it is unnecessary to inquire whether interferees’ beliefs about their interests “are true or real or valid, by some independent moral criterion” (Reference Pettit, Laborde and Maynor2008, 117; see also Reference Pettit2012, 49). But if persons have internalized dominative norms, they may misjudge their own interests. David Michael Harbour raises the example of a contented slave, who believes that his master's authority over him ultimately serves his interests, perhaps because “he has been conditioned by his unjust treatment” (Reference Harbour2012, 194). Even if procedures were instituted forcing the master to track the slave's interests as the slave understands them, this would not address the problem, given the slave's conviction that his interests are served by a relationship in which he is brutally abused.

Furthermore, Nancy Hirschmann points out that social ideologies lead people not only to misjudge their interests but also to overlook interference where interference exists: The more effectively a given sociopolitical order succeeds in “creating subjects who conform to restrictive norms—for instance, women who stay with their abusive partners because they believe that women are responsible for making relationships work—the less aware of interference individuals, both the dominated and the dominator, will likely be” (Reference Hirschmann2003, 27). The women in Hirschmann's example believe that they remain with their partners of their own volition—they do not perceive that patriarchy has shaped their sense of responsibility and self-worth in ways that constrain their decision making.

In fairness to Pettit, he acknowledges that institutions must be buttressed by norms of civic virtue or “civility” that dispose citizens to show regard for one another's interests and for the good of society as a whole (Reference Pettit1999, ch. 8). He readily admits that, in the absence of such norms, citizens might fail to identify acts of arbitrary interference as interference, causing them to overlook the oppressive treatment of groups such as women and ethnic minorities (246–47). But I do not believe this claim fully addresses the concerns of his critics. For one, Pettit's concession contradicts his procedural definition of domination by implicitly appealing to substantive criteria, such as harm or abuse, to judge whether accountability mechanisms are stopping the right behaviors. Furthermore, it is difficult to square the concession with his statement that domination is “generally an object of common knowledge” (60), which minimizes the identification problem. As Hirschmann and others have argued, the identification issue crops up not only in marginal cases but also in some of the most persistent and pernicious forms of domination in Western political history, including patriarchal and racial oppression. It might be the case that power and status disparities are generally the objects of common knowledge, but failures to identify dominative power and status disparities as dominative are frequent and often essential for domination to continue (here I include not only “false consciousness” on the part of persons dominated but also self-deceit and rationalization engaged in by dominators themselves).

Most importantly for the present argument, Pettit's theory of civic virtue or “civility” is insufficiently robust to equip citizens to recognize domination when they see it and to refrain from abusive behavior even when they could get away with it. Given Pettit's premise that all acts of unaccountable interference are equally objectionable, it is hard to see how his theory could enable citizens to make sound normative judgments about the relative seriousness and priority of different interests. Rather than encouraging vigilance against forms of oppression that pass unnoticed by public institutions or are rendered invisible by prevailing ideologies, Pettit's theory seems more likely to foster the belief that no domination can occur in a society with the right formal procedures in place. In addition, although Pettit recognizes that civil norms are important, he believes there is little we can do to encourage their development beyond setting up institutions that people believe are legitimate (Reference Pettit1999, 251) and ensuring that the state does nothing to disturb the regard that citizens will develop for them (254).

I am less sanguine than Pettit that the normal operations of formal accountability mechanisms will foster civic norms that support them and that these norms will be self-sustaining once they are in place. It is certainly true that individuals can develop impartial moral regard for institutions that serve their interests and treat them fairly. But people regularly exhibit countervailing psychological tendencies that lead them to support dominative practices, such as love of power, admiration for “strength” (see Sennet Reference Sennet1993), fear of others, and sheer cupidity. These tendencies can create bonds of identification and solidarity between individuals with a common interest in dominating some third party or even between dominators and those they dominate. They can legitimize domineering governments and even cause political institutions to lose support if they make serious efforts to reduce domination (e.g., the reaction of many white Southerners to attempts by the federal government to restrict slavery or secure the civil rights of African Americans). For these reasons, I believe that Stephen Marshall (Reference Marshall2012) is correct when he argues that Pettit and other neo-republican scholars have not sufficiently dealt with the phenomenon of mastery and the impulses that give rise to it: It is not possible to create a non-dominative society without addressing the underlying psychological causes of dominative behavior.

It follows from these considerations that domination cannot be defined solely in terms of whether interferers are forced to track the interests and opinions of interferees as the interferees understand them. Nor is a purely procedural solution, which focuses on eliminating domination through mechanisms of formal accountability, sufficient. A non-dominative society requires citizens who are sensitive to one another's needs, able to make sensible normative judgments about others’ interests, and willing to refrain from dominative behavior even when they could get away with it unpunished. It is unreasonable to expect that individuals will simply imbibe these norms from the institutions Pettit envisions, because they require complex capacities of judgment that can be readily subverted by competing psychological propensities. I maintain that moral education is needed to cultivate the requisite capacities and address some of these challenges; I now turn to Rousseau's Emile to explore what this education in non-domination might look like.

At first glance, Rousseau's understanding of domination might seem just as procedural or formal as Pettit's. Rousseau claims that domination emerges when human beings begin to depend on one another, thereby empowering some individuals to exercise pernicious and unaccountable control over those who have need of them. In the Social Contract, freedom from domination is secured by subjecting citizens to the “general will” of the citizen body as whole, which liberates them from depending on the will of anyone in particular (Social Contract, I.7, 53). Pettit claims an affinity with Rousseau on these points, believing that they share the same definition of domination and the same desire to eliminate it by means of democratic oversight (Pettit Reference Pettit2012, 12, 32; Pettit and Martí Reference Pettit and Martí2010, 32, 42, 60).

Pettit is correct that Rousseau's understanding of domination has some affinities with the neo-republican view. Like Pettit, Rousseau considers domination to be a central evil, and rooting it out is one of the core aims of his political and educational works. Hence Emile is replete with condemnations of “domination [domination],” “dominion [empire],” and “tyranny [tyrannie].”Footnote ² Furthermore, like Pettit, Rousseau links domination to the possession of arbitrary or capricious power. For example, he claims that farmers are “slaves” because the farmer “is dependent on his field, whose harvest is at another's discretion. The enemy, a prince, a powerful neighbor, or a lawsuit can take this field away from him” (Emile, bk. III, 344–45).Footnote ³

For present purposes, however, the differences between Rousseau's and Petit's conceptions are more significant. In contrast to Pettit, Rousseau's understanding of domination is not purely procedural—it has a substantive component. Consider, for instance, the way Rousseau defines an arbitrary, capricious, or “whimsical” will. According to Rousseau, it is not one that is procedurally unaccountable, but one that does not track true needs: “Whim” is “a word by which I mean all desires that are not true needs and which can only be satisfied with another's help” (Emile, bk. III, 215); “true need, natural need, must be carefully distinguished from the need which stems from nascent whim” (bk. II, 217); “arbitrary” evaluations are ones “whose only law are fashions or prejudice” (bk. IV, 511); and “caprice” is manifest in vanity but not gluttony, because gluttony “is an appetite of nature,” whereas vanity “is a work of opinion” (bk. II, 295).Footnote ⁴

Rousseau's distinction between true needs and those that are merely the product of “opinion,” “fashion,” or “prejudice” allows for the possibility that people might be mistaken about their interests. Therefore, Rousseau does not believe that relationships with less accountability are necessarily dominative, assuming they track true needs. As he explains in Political Economy, although “the functions of the father of a family and of the foremost magistrate should aim at the same goal”—namely, promoting the welfare of their subordinates—it would be wrong to grant magistrates the same level of discretion (Political Economy, 5). Most parents love their children, but there is no comparably strong natural impulse capable of inspiring political authorities with a love of their subjects. Indeed, far “from the chief's having a natural interest in the happiness of private individuals, it is not uncommon for him to seek his own happiness in their misery” (4). The likelihood of harm or abuse separates the two cases—the parent from the public official—warranting much stricter accountability mechanisms in the case of the magistrate.

Although he believes that accountability mechanisms are often necessary, Rousseau is under no illusion that they are sufficient. He maintains that formal procedures will not prevent domination unless they are supported by appropriate norms, and he goes much further than contemporary neo-republicans in describing those norms and explaining how to encourage them. This is because he believes the psychological causes of domination to be deep and the obstacles to non-dominative relations formidable. Although Rousseau does not think domination is “natural” to human beings—it did not exist in the state of nature—he believes it emerges as soon as we begin to socialize with others regularly and realize that they are evaluating us (Emile, bk. I, 197; bk. II, 211–16). This dawning awareness transforms amour de soi, our natural love of self, into amour-propre, a prideful self-love that cannot tolerate signs of disesteem from others (bk. IV, 364). Rousseau maintains that we tend to conflate acts of service with expressions of love or esteem (bk. IV, 363). Hence our pride is stoked by the spectacle of others rushing to meet our desires, and we delight in seeing ourselves obeyed (bk. II, 216). Conversely, our self-love is offended when others refuse to minister to us, leaving us angry, even violently furious (bk. II, 219). On Rousseau's view, amour-propre easily renders us hostile to the independence of others, unable to tolerate the fact that their natural concern with themselves means that they do not always share our will. Thus whereas Pettit stresses the ease of group-level identification and concludes “there need be no miracle of self-denial involved in manifestations of widespread civility within a community” (Reference Pettit1999, 260), Rousseau believes that it is psychologically difficult for us to treat others as equals, much less put them first, and that a non-dominative community is only possible under a specific conditions.

Rousseau describes two methods for achieving a non-dominative community. The first is his public solution, explored in works such as the Social Contract and Political Economy. The public solution aims to fashion citizens who conceive of themselves as parts of a larger body governed by a general will in which their fellow citizens are included. In Emile, Rousseau provides a brief description of the public solution only to announce (for unspecified reasons) that true citizenship and the public education that accompanies it are no longer possible in the modern era (bk. I, 164). Instead, Rousseau pursues a private or domestic solution to the problem of domination. This solution does not try to unite people by constructing a common, public self. Rather, its object is the creation of a new “natural man” capable of living in society, a person who retains his self-preference and sense of individuality, but experiences the separateness of others without being pained by it.Footnote ⁵ As I argue later, Emile’s domestic solution emerges as a normatively attractive alternative to Rousseau's public solution, one that draws a provocative connection between non-domination and care.

EMILE'S CARING EDUCATION

Rousseau's natural man is created by “domestic education or the education of nature” (Emile, bk. I, 165). As other interpreters have stressed, this education commences with a “negative” or “preservative” end in view (see Marks Reference Marks2005 on this point). Rousseau does not try to eradicate Emile's natural self-preference. Instead of “denaturing” him, Rousseau enables Emile to develop on his own, protecting him from corrupting influences that might inflame his amour-propre. Later, when Emile reaches puberty, the tutor carefully cultivates his capacity for human attachment, steering him away from anything that would render him servile or engender a love of domination. In this section, I highlight the most salient features of Emile's education as a way of promoting freedom as non-domination, by means of care.

In defining “care,” I follow recent care ethics scholarship, which generally understands care as an activity or practice consisting of an active, intentional attempt to ascertain and meet the needs of one or more other persons (e.g., Engster Reference Engster2007, ch. 1; Tronto Reference Tronto2013, ch. 1). This concept also has an associated ethic, a set of values and virtues that good care embodies. Joan Tronto, for instance, identifies attentiveness, responsibility, competence, and responsiveness as virtues critical to care (Reference Tronto1993, 127). Care ethicists maintain that a decent society demonstrates sufficient concern for the well-being of each of its members, and they stress the value of care in increasing public attention to and support for individuals whose basic needs are going unmet. Care ethicists also argue that caregiving can produce several normatively valuable affects and dispositions, such as concern, compassion, and affection (Engster Reference Engster2007, ch. 5). Care work creates ties between people and builds habits that encourage future altruistic behavior; furthermore, many individuals find giving and receiving care a significant source of personal fulfillment. As I demonstrate later, care—along with its associated values and virtues—is firmly embedded in Rousseau's theory of education.

Not every political theorist who writes about education or is concerned with citizens’ characters necessarily has a care theory of education. But this label is warranted in Rousseau's case for four reasons: (1) Rousseau defines education in such a manner as to give care a central place, even going so far as to reject a conceptual distinction between care and education; (2) he stresses the moral-pedagogical value of receiving care; (3) he insists that pupils must be taught to provide care to others; and (4) he strives to cultivate in both tutor and pupil an ethic of care that includes many of the core virtues central to contemporary care ethics, such as attentiveness, responsibility, competence, and responsiveness. In what follows, I substantiate these claims in order. Some of the ground I cover builds on an emerging conversation among Rousseau scholars, who highlight a number of ways in which care figures in Rousseau's thought. Melissa A. Butler, for instance, claims that Rousseau endorses a sharp public/private distinction in Emile and Julie, but not in works such as Political Economy, Constitution of Poland, and the Social Contract, in which the state assumes a number of caregiving responsibilities (Reference Butler and Lange2002, 213). She also notes that despite Rousseau's endorsement of a patriarchal family structure, there are a number of important male caregivers in his writings, including the tutor in Emile, Wolmar in Julie, and the Social Contract’s Legislator (221–22). In addition, Brian Duff points out that Rousseau is deeply concerned with convincing men to accept their domestic responsibilities, including the responsibility to father and care for children (Reference Duff2011, 32 and passim). Yet the crucial and hitherto unnoted point, which I argue here, is that Rousseau conceives of education itself as a caregiving activity and that he aims to instill a care ethic in both tutors and their pupils for the sake of non-domination.

The centrality of care to Rousseau's project is evidenced by the great frequency with which Rousseau employs the language of “care” (soin) and “taking care” (avoir soin de), often interchangeably with the language of education. For example, Rousseau speaks of the “education of nature” (Emile, bk. I, 162) and then of nature's “care” (bk. I, 173, 189). He also repeatedly characterizes the tutor's educative work as “care.”Footnote ⁶ Rousseau is able to treat education and care as equivalents because he employs “education” to refer to any experience that develops and shapes a living thing (bk. I, 162). In adopting this broad usage, Rousseau rejects what he describes as the ancient (i.e., Greco-Roman) definition of education. The ancients, he claims, associated education with rearing and caring for children and distinguished it from instructing and teaching: They believed that “education, instruction, and teaching are three things as different in their object as are the governess, the preceptor, and the master” (bk. I, 166–67). But Rousseau insists that they were wrong to draw these distinctions; to the contrary, all of these activities belong to one unified, educative caregiving practice, which ought to be presided over by a single person (bk. I, 166–67). Rousseau devotes considerable attention to even the earliest and most basic parts of child care, discussing issues such as swaddling and breastfeeding at length, because these matters are critical to a pupil's moral and intellectual development as a free agent.

Rousseau's caring education is intended to help Emile avoid domination and teach him not to dominate others. One facet of Rousseau's account that distinguishes it from much of the contemporary neo-republican literature is his insistence that domination is an evil not only for those who are dominated but also for the dominators themselves. In Rousseau's view, masters are ultimately rendered dependent and servile by the power they wield over others:

Always preoccupied with how to exploit others and maintain them in servitude, dominators are never free to simply do as they please. Because the harms of domination fall on master and slave alike, individuals who wish to be free must avoid both dominating and being dominated. In keeping with this point, Rousseau's education inoculates Emile against the temptation to dominate both to prevent him from threatening others’ freedom and to help him secure his own.

The very reception of care in childhood contributes to this process. It is the care that infants receive when they are young that first prepares them to love: “The child ought to love his mother before knowing that he ought to. If the voice of blood is not strengthened by habit and care, it is extinguished in the first years, and the heart dies, so to speak, before being born” (Emile, bk. I, 172; see also Marks Reference Marks2007, 731, on this point). Care helps the child extend his self-love to others—in feeling his needs addressed by others, he comes to love them (Emile, bk. IV, 363). Thus, should a child receive care, he will be “inclined to benevolence, because he sees that everything approaching him is inclined to assist him, and from this observation he gets the habit of a sentiment favorable to his species” (bk. IV, 363).

Care also forestalls domination by helping children become strong and independent. When we need others excessively, we are tempted to dominate them, and we are vulnerable to domination by them. Therefore, Rousseau's education aims to foster an equilibrium between the pupil's abilities and desires. From the very outset, he strives to “accord children more true freedom and less dominion, to let them do more by themselves and to exact less from others. Thus, accustomed early to limiting their desires to their strength, they will feel little the privation of what is not going to be in their power” (Emile, bk. I, 198). Tutors must curb the growth of unnecessary desires and cultivate the skills, habits, and character traits that children will need to live happily and independently as adults.Footnote ⁷ At the same time, they must avoid spoiling or smothering their pupils. Excessive care prevents children from developing the ability to take care of themselves (bk. I, 172–73; bk. II, 256) and encourages them to view those around them as their servants (bk. I, 195; bk. IV, 381). Catering to a child's every whim without attempting to distinguish between true needs and requests that should not be indulged encourages a dominative disposition, and it can lead to the caregiver being dominated. Hence a good caregiver meets true needs while conceding little to arbitrary or willful demands.

Emile's freedom is secured not only by the care he receives but also by the care that he is taught to provide: Rousseau's pedagogy aims to discipline amour-propre by inculcating the capacity to care for others in turn. As many scholars have noted, in Book IV of Emile, Rousseau calls for compassion toward others. Rousseau believes that compassion extends the self and that this self-extension is the very basis of justice and moral relations (bk. IV, 389). Although learning to “care about” others is certainly an important part of Emile's education, interpreters often overlook the critical role that learning to provide care plays. Self-extension is not merely a matter of sympathizing or loving—it requires active caregiving:

This is not only because habitual caregiving cultivates the sentiment of compassion. It is because the very act of caregiving extends the self, inserting a part of one's being into the being of another. Speaking of Emile and Sophie, their tutor declares: “How many times, as I contemplate my work in them, I feel myself seized by a rapture that makes my heart palpitate!” (bk. V, 674; my emphasis). He also refers to Emile as his child, his work, even his property (bk. IV, 493). The tutor acquires a “property” in Emile and becomes his “true father” through caregiving labor (bk. V, 589; cf. Julie, pt. 4, Letter X, 384). Here it is not abstract pity or compassion, but the concrete work of benefiting another that creates a shared sense of self. Care enables us to “extend amour-propre to other beings” and “transform it into a virtue” (Emile, bk. IV, 409–10).

Accordingly, once Emile grows older, the tutor encourages him to constantly work at improving the world around him, extending “his zeal and his care to everything that is of primary and general utility” (bk. V, 622). During the period of Emile and Sophie's courtship, Emile spends much of his time roaming the surrounding countryside, teaching farmers better farming methods, giving them money to improve their own homes and lands, settling legal disputes, caring for sick peasants, protecting persons dominated by powerful neighbors, helping young people get married, and offering emotional support to women who have lost their children (bk. V, 622–23). Once Emile and Sophie are married, the tutor happily contemplates “how many benefactions Emile and Sophie can spread around them from their simple retreat, and how much they can vivify the country and reanimate the extinguished zeal of the unfortunate village folk” (bk. V, 668).

Rousseau maintains that acts of care are the preferred means of discharging our desire to connect, which otherwise would ensnare us in dominative relations. There is a danger here, of course. Like all human relationships that involve vulnerability and dependence, caregiving relationships can readily become dominative if they are not carried out in the right ways. Whereas the neo-republican approach primarily relies on accountability mechanisms to prevent interpersonal domination, Emile focuses on inculcating an ethic of care that ought to guide caregiving as a practice. To that end, Rousseau stresses some of the core virtues that care ethicists have identified as critical to successful caregiving. Joan Tronto's influential list of care virtues include responsibility, the willingness to take on the burden of helping others; attentiveness, the ability to suspend one's self interest and “genuinely. . . look from the perspective of the one in need”; responsiveness, gauging the effect of one's care by attending and being receptive to the reaction of the care recipient; and competence, the moral and intellectual capacity to successfully address the needs of others (Tronto Reference Tronto2013, 35). Each of these virtues has a central place in the tutor's care of Emile and in the care that Emile is expected to provide to others.

The importance of responsibility to Rousseau is evident in his frequent chiding of parents who fail to perform their duties. He deplores the hands-off approach of fathers who prioritize “business, offices, duties” over raising their children and educating them (Emile, bk. I, 174–75), as well as mothers who “neglect a mother's care” by failing to breastfeed or provide “maternal solicitude” to their infants (bk. I, 170). These neglected children, left in the hands of domestics who do not experience parental love for them (bk. I, 170–71) or turned over to institutions such as “boarding schools, convents, [and] colleges,” will have lifelong difficulty forming attachments to others (bk. I, 175). In keeping with Rousseau's attempts to foster a greater sense of responsibility in parents, the tutor is careful to cultivate a sense of responsibility in Emile. I have already noted some of the ways that Emile is encouraged to take responsibility for the needs of those around him in his adolescence, and even earlier in his education, he receives lessons that prepare him to serve others. For instance, when he is a child, the tutor engages in acts of charity in front of Emile and explains to him that the rich are responsible for sustaining “all those who do not have the means of life, either from their goods or from their labor” (bk. II, 238). As this example shows, if the pupil is to become an adult who takes responsibility for aiding those around him, the tutor must provide the model. Hence Rousseau also exhorts tutors to assume a great deal of responsibility for others:

By encouraging individuals to accept a greater degree of responsibility for meeting the needs of others, Rousseau hopes to counteract the all-too-human tendency to harm or neglect those around us when it is convenient for us to do so (e.g., Emile bk. I, 169–70, 175).

Rousseau also stresses the importance of attentiveness and responsiveness, demanding that we consider the needs of others carefully and make an effort to understand the world from their points of view. One of the key features that separates Rousseau's theory of education from that of other political philosophers is that he expounds it with reference to an imaginary pupil, with his own name, background, and attributes (Emile, bk. I, 176–83). The book assumes an increasingly novelistic form as it progresses, and Emile is increasingly presented as a literary character whose speech and actions are reported. Rousseau does this not only to illustrate how his educational maxims might be applied to a particular individual (bk. I, 181) but also to model patterns of observation, empathy, and response that are characteristic of a good caregiver.

Again and again Rousseau criticizes “ill-considered care” (Emile, bk. II, 210), lamenting the tendency of would-be educators to treat children as miniature adults instead of attempting to see the world from their points of view: “Childhood has its ways of seeing, thinking, and feeling which are proper to it. Nothing is less sensible than to want to substitute ours for theirs” (bk. II, 222). Similarly, Rousseau faults educators for failing to notice how their lessons are truly affecting children: “[f]ull of what is going on in your head, you do not see the effect you are producing in theirs” (bk. II, 229). For instance, forcing children to utter social niceties they do not mean and perform duties they do not feel only teaches them that society values appearances and will reward inauthentic behavior (bk. II, 223). A good educator is able to empathize not only with children in general but also with his pupil in particular: Tutors must take on the “true function of the observer and philosopher who knows the art of sounding hearts while working to form them” (bk. IV, 379). If it were possible, Rousseau would want a tutor who had been specifically “raised for his pupil” and was uniquely placed to understand him; he would also want the tutor to be young enough that he could share his pupil's enjoyments (bk. I, 176–77). Unless one makes an effort to perceive the world from the perspective of the person cared for and to pay attention to the effects of one's care, it is likely to have pernicious results.

Lastly, Rousseau highlights the need for moral and intellectual competence. Emile's moral capacity to care for others is predicated on habits of character and sentiment that enable him to freely identify with and respond to the needs of others. As was noted earlier, even the earliest care Emile receives in childhood inclines him to take a benevolent view of human beings. Once he reaches adolescence, the tutor nurtures Emile's growing interpersonal awareness and capacity for attachment so as to imbue him with a strong desire to reduce the suffering of others. Emile is exposed to persons in distress in order to bring “the first tenderness” to his heart, eliciting feelings of pity and compassion (Emile, bk. IV, 374–75). He is also taught to recognize them as his equals. Rousseau claims that, when we believe ourselves superior to others, we cannot empathize with them. For this reason, the tutor speaks of all human beings “with tenderness, even with pity, but never with contempt,” so that Emile “puts himself in no class but finds his bearings in all” (bk. IV, 378).

The tutor fosters Emile's intellectual growth as well, cultivating his judgment so that his care of others will be discerning and appropriate, rather than presumptuous, unhelpful, or harmful (Emile, bk. IV, 406–07). To this end, the tutor places Emile in situations where he is able to observe diverse human beings and learn about them (e.g., bk. IV, 392, 399–401, 407–8, 514; bk. V, 646). He also encourages Emile to learn by “putting beneficence in action” (bk. IV, 409). Rousseau claims that, in caring for others and “drawing from our greater and lesser successes reflections on their causes, there is little useful knowledge which cannot be cultivated in a young man's mind” (bk. IV, 409). As a result of the care he provides, Emile will learn to “weigh and appraise” the actions of others, “their tastes, and their pleasures and to evaluate what can contribute to or detract from men's happiness more accurately than can those who are interested in no one and never do anything for others” (bk. IV, 409).

Rousseau's emphasis on the virtues and values of care helps answer the charge, levied by some interpreters, that the tutor's power over Emile is itself a form of domination (e.g., Crocker Reference Crocker, Hobson, Leigh and Wolker1992; Cullen Reference Cullen1993; Gauthier Reference Gauthier2006; for a more mixed assessment, see Wingrove Reference Wingrove2000). At first blush, there might seem to be a troubling paternalism inherent in Rousseau's belief that people can be mistaken about their own interests. This claim appears to authorize “caring” for someone contrary to his or her own wishes, and indeed the tutor is prepared to overrule Emile's preferences when he thinks it is necessary. In my view, caution is certainly warranted in concluding that one understands another person's interests better than he or she does. But the alternative—uncritically deferring to the opinions of care recipients—is equally problematic. Such a policy is obviously unwise in the case of children. It also seems a poor fit for the contented slave in Harbour's thought experiment or the abusive husband in Hirschmann's—the former believes he is being cared for adequately when he is actually being dominated; the latter demands excessive care from his wife to the point of dominating her. Owing to such considerations, many care ethicists have argued for “objective” standards of care (e.g., Bubeck Reference Bubeck1995, 129; Held Reference Held2006, 74), appealing to “vital biological needs” (Engster Reference Engster2007, ch. 1) or the “basic capabilities” approach developed by Martha Nussbaum and Amartya Sen (Tronto Reference Tronto1993, 140; see Nussbaum Reference Nussbaum2000 and Sen Reference Sen1989). At the same time, they have emphasized virtues of attentiveness and responsiveness to mitigate the risk of would-be caregivers imposing their vision of what is best on their charges in a harmful and dominative fashion. Rousseau develops a substantive conception of care and embraces some of the same virtues for similar reasons.

One need not automatically jump from the premise that someone is not taking adequate care of his or her own interests or is being badly cared for by another to the conclusion that it is some third party's responsibility (the government's, for instance) to coercively intervene. Nevertheless, we are prepared to allow this in many cases. With respect to children, for instance, their inability to take care of themselves justifies the supervision of parents or guardians, who are subject to a degree of government oversight in turn. Therefore, it seems to me that if the tutor's care is objectionable, it is not because he overrules Emile's preferences, but because he does so in ways that do not actually serve Emile's interests. And indeed, I would readily grant that some of the tutor's measures are controlling, unnecessary, and counterproductive, such as his very strict supervision of Emile's sexual development (e.g., Emile, bk. IV, 504–5; bk. V, 589). That said, I hold with scholars who would defend his general approach against this objection (e.g., Marks Reference Marks2012; Schaeffer Reference Schaeffer2014). The aim of the tutor's education is a caring one: securing Emile's future autonomy by preserving him, nurturing him, and cultivating his capacity for social, moral, and intellectual judgment. In keeping with this, their relationship moves toward equality and friendship over the course of Emile's life, which is one of the tutor's explicit goals (bk. IV, 402).Footnote ⁸ And while Emile is in his care, the tutor's fidelity to caring virtues mitigates the risk of neglecting, harming, or using him: Emile's needs are front and center, his wishes are consulted, and his responses are carefully considered. For these reasons, Emile is cared for rather than dominated.

To sum up, the domestic education Rousseau outlines in Emile strives to create an individual capable of experiencing the separateness of others without pain, one who can resist the temptation to dominate others, and one who will be less vulnerable to domination by them. Care is indispensable to the process: Receiving proper care has critical moral-pedagogical consequences, and learning to provide care to others in turn helps discipline our powerful desire to connect to others. Rousseau urges caregivers to practice virtues such as attentiveness, responsiveness, responsibility, and competence, and to encourage them in their charges, thereby equipping them to relate to others in caring and non-dominative ways. The result is a provocative and psychologically plausible account of how a caring moral education might diminish the desire to dominate and the propensity to be dominated by others, without becoming dominative itself. In the next section, I explore how Emile's education equips him not only to avoid dominative relations but also to become the type of citizen the neo-republican project requires—one able to identify and prevent the domination of others.

EMILE AS CITIZEN

The natural education that Rousseau provides Emile is also intended to be a form of political education. An influential line of interpretation, exemplified by Judith Shklar's Men and Citizens (Reference Shklar1969), denies that this is the case: Shklar maintains that the education Emile receives is meant to prepare individuals for relatively small and intimate social settings, such as an individual household or estate (e.g., Clarens in Julie) and is not a recipe for removing domination from public life.Footnote ⁹ Contra Shklar's reading, I show that Emile's way of life constitutes an alternative form of citizenship, rather than an alternative to citizenship, and that his education helps address the problem of domination at a political level.Footnote ¹⁰

It is clear from the outset of Emile that Rousseau believes proper domestic care and education will have profound political consequences. His early remarks about the family and the importance of breastfeeding draw a direct link between what happens in the home and what happens in the political sphere: “But let mothers deign to nurse their children, morals will reform themselves, nature's sentiments will be awakened in every heart, the State will be repeopled. This first point, this point alone, will bring everything back together” (Emile, bk. I, 171). It is in the home that one first learns to deal with other human beings, and it matters greatly whether one receives an education in freedom or in domination. Having established a firm foundation, the tutor completes Emile's political education in the last book of Emile: The tutor shows him political life, teaches him the principles of political right, and prepares him to serve his country.

In Book V, the tutor announces that “[n]ow that Emile has considered himself in his physical relations with other beings and in his moral relations with other men, it remains for him to consider himself in his civil relations with his fellow citizens. To do that, he must begin by studying the nature of government in general, the diverse forms of government, and finally the particular government under which he was born, so that he may find out whether it suits him to live there” (Emile, bk. V, 646). In addition to observing the politics, manners, and mores of different countries, Emile and the tutor engage in philosophical conversations about the principles of political right: Emile is taught the central doctrines of the Social Contract, which Rousseau refers to and summarizes for the reader (bk. V, 649–62). Owing to the comprehensive political education Emile is going to receive, Rousseau claims that if Emile, “at the conclusion of his travels begun and continued with this intention, does not come back versed in all matter of government, in public morals, and in maxims of State of every kind, either he or I must be quite poorly endowed—he with intelligence, and I with judgment” (bk. V, 649).

This is not merely an academic exercise—it is designed to increase Emile's competence to engage in civic care. In arguing that caring for others is a salutary outlet for amour-propre, Rousseau maintains that we should not limit ourselves to caring for single individuals. Caretaking activity aimed at the well-being of larger groups is preferable: “The less the object of our care is immediately involved with us, the less the illusion of particular interest is to be feared. The more one generalizes this interest, the more it becomes equitable, and the love of mankind is nothing other than the love of justice” (Emile, bk. IV, 409–10; cf. Political Economy, 7–8). Although Rousseau supports intimate caring relationships, he is well aware of the dangers of parochialism: Partial attachments can lead us to prioritize the needs of some in such a way so as to damage or neglect others. Hence the need to enlarge one's perspective in the service of justice and equity. In keeping with this, Rousseau's natural education extends pupils’ amour-propre beyond their family and friends to their fellow citizens (Emile, bk. IV, 386–87).

In Book V, the tutor explains to Emile that even though he has no republican fatherland, he still has political responsibilities:

Emile has political obligations to support his country and its laws, even though the general will is inoperative—the pretense that the laws of one's country are binding because they are the expression of one's own will is not invoked here. Notably, Emile's responsibilities include the obligation to assume political office if called to do so. Like Cincinnatus, Emile must be ready to go “from the plow to the Consulate” and “fulfill the honorable function of Citizen in the post assigned to you” (Emile, bk. V, 668). Emile's earlier caregiving activities have been a kind of preparation for this responsibility. Just after exhorting the adolescent Emile to spend his time caring for everyone around him, the tutor likens him to “those illustrious Romans who, before being admitted to public offices, spent their youth in prosecuting crime and defending innocence, without any other interest than that of instructing themselves in serving justice and protecting good morals” (bk. IV, 407). Indeed, Emile resembles the Romans in another significant respect—like the Roman citizens, Emile's virtue is a product of private rather than public education (Political Economy, 22).

If I am correct that Rousseau offers Emile as a model of citizenship, how does it compare to the public solution's Spartan model? Interpreters have long been divided over whether Rousseau believes Emile's education is superior to the Spartan-style education outlined in other works. Although I am of the opinion that Rousseau does regard it as such, I do not insist on that interpretation here. What I wish to emphasize for present purposes is that, from a contemporary standpoint, the education outlined in Emile is a more attractive solution and is better suited to address the problem of domination in polities today. Many of Rousseau's critics, including a number of neo-republicans, reject his public solution on the grounds that it involves a “positive” conception of liberty that equates freedom with participation in democratic politics (e.g., Maynor Reference Maynor2003, 14; Shapiro Reference Shapiro2012, 317; Skinner Reference Skinner, Rorty, Schneewind and Skinner1984, 195, 217; cf. James Reference James2013, 3; Urbanati Reference Urbanati2011, 166), whereas others reject it because it seems to call for particularly extreme and self-abnegating forms of civic virtue and patriotic attachment (e.g., Pettit Reference Pettit2012, 14). As I show, neither of these concerns applies to the solution presented in Emile.

In contrast to the selfless Spartan, the form of social and political agency that Rousseau envisions for Emile is not a self-abnegating one. Whereas the public solution's model citizen loves his country “exclusive of himself” and attaches little importance to his family (Emile, bk. I, 164), Emile emphasizes the possibility of harmonizing care and concern for oneself, one's family, and one's fellow citizens. Emile cares for others, but he does not forget “that his first duty is toward himself” (bk. IV, 406–7). Even Emile's care for others is not purely altruistic: The tutor reminds the reader that “all these means by which I take my pupil out of himself” give Emile “an inner enjoyment” (bk. IV, 410). Caring extends one's sense of self, which Rousseau takes to be a fundamental human desire; furthermore, helping the vulnerable gives one the pleasures of sympathy and the sensation of one's own strength (cf. bk. IV, 382). Rousseau highlights other benefits to caregivers as well, such as the material and emotional rewards they reap from both the object of their care and those who care about him or her in turn (bk. I, 180).

Rousseau goes further—care for oneself and one's family is not only compatible with but also forms the very basis of caring for one's country. Rousseau's assertion, quoted earlier, that the act of breastfeeding has such profound social and political consequences rests on his belief that the capacity to respect the independence of others depends on the care one receives in youth; the care children receive from their family members equips them to form healthy social and political attachments later. Hence Rousseau criticizes Plato's Republic for abolishing the family, “as though there were no need for a natural base on which to form conventional ties; as though the love of one's nearest were not the principle of the love one owes the State; as though it were not by means of the small fatherland which is the family that the heart attaches itself to the large one; as though it were not the good son, the good husband, and the good father who make the good citizen!” (Emile, bk. V, 537).

Moreover, Emile implies that concern for one's fatherland is compatible with concern for the human race as a whole. In contrast to the “inevitable” harshness with which citizens in the Spartan mold treat foreigners (Emile, bk. I, 164), Emile cares for his fellow citizens without xenophobia. Indeed, before the tutor teaches him that his fellow citizens merit special concern, Emile's inclinations are completely cosmopolitan: “What difference does it make to me where I am? Wherever there are men, I am at the home of my brothers” (bk. V, 666). Since, according to Rousseau, the love of humanity is the same thing as love of justice, it follows that Emile has a deeper attachment to justice than Sparta-style citizens.

Also, Emile does not equate freedom with active participation in democratic government. Although Emile must support the laws and serve his country should it call for his assistance, public service is depicted as an important but potentially burdensome duty, rather than the core constitutive ingredient of liberty or the good life (Emile, bk. V, 668). The tutor considers it unlikely that a man of Emile's integrity will be entrusted with political office, given the corrupt nature of the present age (bk. V, 669). Nevertheless, he still has obligations to his compatriots and must serve his country if called to do so (bk. V, 667–68). Despite the fact that Emile is not raised to be a republican citizen in the mode of Cato, he will imitate Cincinnatus if necessary.

Even if he is never called to office, Emile will benefit his fellow citizens regardless. He will live among them, resisting injustice, caring for the indigent, and promoting peace and harmony. In so doing, he will serve as a “benefactor” and a “model” for his fellow citizens, one with the potential to create a new Golden Age (Emile, bk. V, 668). The fact that Emile will be actively involved with those around him and might inspire a widespread social transformation distinguishes him from the pre-political men of the first Golden Age and the self-contained households of Neuchâtel. Rousseau maintains that demonstrating to one's fellow citizens the right way to live is itself exercising a kind of citizenship (bk. V, 667–68), a point he is especially keen to stress in his own case (on this point, see Kelly Reference Kelly2003, chs. 4–5).

Strikingly, Emile's ability to engage in and build support for non-dominative relations does not hinge on the prior existence of just republican institutions. Through the care he receives, Emile is brought to know and love true political order by “the mere appearance of order” present in corrupt polities, and to become a person for whom “the public good, which serves others only as a pretext, is a real motive” (Emile, bk. V, 667). This means that he is able to identify injustice in the society he inhabits and to imagine alternative institutional arrangements that might prevent domination. His education thereby prepares him to act as a critic and reformer.

For all of these reasons, Emile presents a more attractive model of citizenship than Rousseau's Spartan alternative. It does not require sacrificing one's private interests and intimate relationships for the sake of the common good; rather, it argues that caregiving can discipline amour-propre by giving us a stake in the well-being of others, eventually enabling us to generalize our love of ourselves into a just concern for the welfare of all (Emile, bk. IV, 389). Nor is Emile called to live a thoroughly political life; he has political responsibilities to his fellow citizens, but he is not obligated to pursue a career in politics unless his country truly needs him. It seems to me that Emile expresses an ideal of citizenship that is robust, but more practicable than the Spartan model, and much more compatible with liberal values. Moreover, it illustrates how a caring education might cultivate precisely the type of citizen a non-dominative republic requires—one who is capable of identifying domination, driven to respond to it, and willing to assume a degree of public responsibility for transforming social and political institutions in a non-dominative direction.