Rousseau: da piedade à indiferença

Abstract

The present communication aims to demonstrate that piety in Rousseau, although it is a condition of fundamental possibility for the establishment of more humane social relations, can become a condition for inhumanity and indifference to the suffering. It is argued, therefore, that while the imagination, and with it the capacity of man to recognize the other as his species, feeling for this empathy, finds a place conducive to its development in society, also reveals in this scenario, by the increase of the lights, that man's capacity for pity can sometimes manifest itself in relation to those who appear to be his equal, but in a very tenuous and even non-existent way, as regards those who by distance are evaluated as different, being therefore harassed. Added to this is that excessive exposure to certain events is presented in Emilio as counterproductive, since it leads to indifference.