ABSTRACT

Rousseau is among the most influential and important public moralists of the eighteenth century. His popular treatise on education, Emile, argues that parents should ideally rear their own children. It is small wonder, therefore, that his decision to place his own children in a foundling hospital has exposed Rousseau to the charge of hypocrisy and seriously damaged his credibility as a moralist and educational theorist. This article argues that this view is unfair. Only when his behaviour as a parent is put in the context of his theory of public education in its entirety, including works other than Emile, can a fair judgement be made about his treatment of his own children. Above all, it will be shown that Rousseau’s denial that he was a hypocrite is substantially correct and vitally important to the credibility of the new moral sensibility that was central to his theory of education.

摘要

卢梭是18世纪最有影响力和最重要的公共道德主义者之一。他的流行教育著作《埃米尔》（Emile）认为，父母应理想地养育自己的孩子。因此，难怪他决定将自己的孩子安置在一家弃婴医院里，使卢梭面临虚伪的指控，并严重损害了他作为道德主义者和教育理论家的信誉。本文认为这种观点是不公平的。仅当他作为父母的行为被纳入他的整个公共教育理论的整体范围内时，包括埃米尔以外的作品，能否对他对待自己的孩子的行为做出公正的判断。最重要的是，将表明卢梭否认自己是伪君子，这对于他的教育理论至关重要的新道德感的可信度是非常正确的，并且至关重要。