Isabella Tianzi Cai
PH412 Philosophy of the Enlightenment
April 6, 2009
“We judge happiness too much on the basis of appearances; we suppose it to be where it is least present” (229). Young people are easily fooled by appearances because appearances are most immediate to their senses. The old proverb goes, to see is to know. This applies best to young people who lack experiences in social interactions. Therefore, they do not recognize that “[b]oisterous games and turbulent joy veil disgust and boredom” and “melancholy is the friend of delight” (229). They also do not understand that “[t]enderness and tears accompany the sweetest enjoyments, and excessive joy itself plucks tears rather than laughs” (229). With no idea that appearances can be false, they are easily influenced by those who appear to have fun.
However, I wonder why when a young person witnesses wild joys, he or she does not experience jealousy. Rousseau warns us of the awakening of amour-propre due to comparison that one makes between oneself and others (235). The only logical conclusion that I can draw from the afar mentioned arguments is that reason is the sole culprit of amour-propre. Before there is reason, comparison is impossible, and jealousy is nowhere to be found. With the advent of reason in children, comparison springs into life and along comes amour-propre.
Of course, reason also guards us against amour-propre. Good judgment helps us decide our dominant passions: they can be “humane and gentle or cruel and malignant,” or they can be “passions of beneficence and commiseration or of envy of covetousness” (235). My own experiences confirm the relationship that I draw between amour-propre and reason because I often find people who are older than me share my joys and sorrows more readily than those who are younger. I do not think those who are older could have abandoned their reason when they sympathize with me, but I doubt that many of my younger friends know how to distinguish true happiness from apparent happiness.
