Rousseau’s philosophy can be summed up in four words: nature good, society bad. He believed in the “natural goodness of man.” In his Discourse on Inequality, he paints a picture of man in his natural state, “wandering in the forests, without industry, without speech, without domicile, without want and without liaisons, with no need of his fellow-men, likewise with no desire to harm them.” Nobody is born mean-spirited, petty, vindictive, paranoid. Society makes them that way. Rousseau’s “savage man” lives in each moment with no regrets about the past or worries about the future.
Rousseau’s Savage Man regularly experiences feelings of self-love, which Rousseau calls amour-de-soi. This healthy emotion differs from the more egoistical variety, which he calls amour-propre. The first stems from human nature, the second from society. Amour-de-soi is the joy you feel when singing in the shower. Amour-propre is the joy you feel while singing at Radio City Music Hall. You may sing poorly in the shower but the delight is yours alone, independent of others’ opinions, and therefore, Rousseau argued, more authentic.
Know Thyself 