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dc.contributor.authorHOLLEY, Jared
dc.date.accessioned2018-12-06T13:55:28Z
dc.date.available2018-12-06T13:55:28Z
dc.date.issued2018
dc.identifier.citationEuropean journal of political theory, 2018, Vol. 17, No. 4, pp. 411-431en
dc.identifier.issn1474-8851
dc.identifier.issn1741-2730en
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1814/59954
dc.descriptionFirst published: 12 August 2018en
dc.description.abstractThis article argues that in order to understand the form of modern political freedom envisioned by Rousseau, we have to understand his theory of taste as refined Epicureanism. Rousseau saw the division of labour and corrupt taste as the greatest threats to modern freedom. He identified their cause in the spread of vulgar Epicureanism - the frenzied pursuit of money, vanity and sexual gratification. In its place, he advocated what he called 'the Epicureanism of reason', or refined Epicureanism. Materially grounded on an equitable proportion of needs and faculties, this was a hedonist theory of self-command designed to cultivate the temperate enjoyment of sensual pleasure. I argue that Rousseau hoped that a shift from vulgar to refined Epicureanism would secure political freedom in modernity by grounding the politics of the general will in an economics of balanced growth and a reinvigorated appreciation of natural beauty. This perspective provides a new way of both clarifying the role of economic justice and aesthetic judgment in Rousseau's republican state theory, and of assessing the consistency of his moral and political thought.
dc.language.isoen
dc.publisherSageen
dc.relation.ispartofEuropean journal of political theory
dc.subjectAesthetics
dc.subjectEpicureanism
dc.subjectinequality
dc.subjectJean-Jacques Rousseau
dc.subjectjudgment
dc.subjectpopular sovereignty
dc.subjectGeneral willen
dc.titleRousseau on refined Epicureanism and the problem of modern liberty
dc.typeArticleen
dc.identifier.doi10.1177/1474885118788963
dc.identifier.volume17
dc.identifier.startpage411
dc.identifier.endpage431
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dc.identifier.issue4


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