Natural Innocence and the Psychology of Indignation in The<i> Dialogues</i> of Rousseau

In his last completed writing, Rousseau offers a comprehensive reflection on his central principle of 'natural goodness' through a portrait of himself as a prototype of natural man. Although he is presented as a human type free from amour-propre and its unnatural evils, many readers of the Dialogues judge its defence of Rousseau's slandered reputation to be an exceptional display of amour-propre itself. I argue that rather than being a model of natural man's freedom from amour-propre , Rousseau offers his self-defence as an illustration of the 'sentiment of injustice', a natural expression of amour-propre equally responsible for vice and virtue. A strong interpretation of the doctrine that man is naturally free from amour-propre comes to light instead as a form of faith in the innocence of human nature. The Dialogues reveal Rousseau's intention to offer a new naturalistic faith as a response to the secular political aims of his Enlightenment contemporaries.