Why did Rousseau reject Hobbes’s view that humans were naturally hostile to each other?

Jean-Jacques Rousseau rejected the view held by Thomas Hobbes that humans are naturally hostile because he believed that such antagonism is not an inherent trait of humanity but rather a product of society and civilization.12

While Rousseau agreed with Hobbes that original humans in the state of nature were solitary beings, he fundamentally disagreed with the characterization of that state as "poor, nasty, brutish, and short". Instead, Rousseau argued that:13

• Natural Goodness: Original humans were healthy, happy, free, and inherently good.14
• Absence of Vices: In the primitive state, humans lacked social traits such as pride, envy, and fear of others, which only developed once people began to live together in societies.23
• Corruption by Society: Rousseau maintained that human vices and hostility emerged only after the formation of societies, the development of families, and the introduction of the "fatal" concept of property, which fostered inequality and conflict.143

Ultimately, Rousseau exonerated nature and blamed the corrupting influence of civil society for the development of the destructive passions that Hobbes mistakenly attributed to human nature.123