Family, friends, faculty colleagues and former students mourn the loss of Roger D. Masters, the Nelson Rockefeller Professor of Government Emeritus at Dartmouth College. Roger, a member of the faculty at Dartmouth for 56 years, died peacefully at the Jack Byrne Center in Hanover on June 22, 2023, shortly after his 90th birthday. Roger was born on June 8, 1933 in Boston. He is survived by his three children, Seth, William and Kathy, four grandchildren, Nina, Julia, Zoe, and Beatrice, and his former wife, Judith Bush.
Roger came to Dartmouth in 1967 after receiving his PhD in Political Science from the University of Chicago, serving in the US Army for two years and after teaching at Yale University for six years. He wrote his dissertation on the political philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau under the direction of Leo Strauss and Joseph Cropsey. Roger always regarded Strauss as the most important influence on his professional life. Nevertheless, in a remarkable number of respects, Rousseau seems to have set the pattern for Roger’s intellectual career and collegial stance. Yet, Roger emphatically disagreed with many of Rousseau’s arguments on the basis of scientific advances in evolutionary theory, chemistry and physics, as his “Critical Reflections” in his first book had already made clear.
When Roger began his study of Rousseau’s thought, Anglophone scholarship focused on Rousseau’s contributions to the French Revolution and his connection to nationalist and totalitarian movements. Many scholars argued his thought was inconsistent, moving between Rousseau as individualist and naturalist (Discourse on Inequality) and Rousseau as collectivist (Social Contract). Roger’s dissertation and the book that grew out of it treated Rousseau as a coherent thinker and an uncommonly careful writer.
The appearance of The Political Philosophy of Rousseau (Princeton University Press, 1968) was a landmark in Rousseau studies. It was soon recognized as the most comprehensive account of Rousseau as a systematic thinker. There had been scholars who argued that Rousseau had a system, but Roger demonstrated it in detail with interpretations of all his major texts. It has become a classic work and continues to be one of the most cited works of Rousseau scholarship.
Roger was among the first of a wave of scholars, many of them fellow students of Strauss, who began to produce careful, accurate translations of European philosophers. In preparation for writing this book, Roger, with Judith Masters (now Judith Bush) translated Rousseau’s First and Second Discourses. They remain among the best translations of Rousseau. Roger with Judith decided to translate Rousseau’s other works. Originally this was to consist of four volumes. He invited Christopher Kelly to become his partner on the Collected Writings of Rousseau, which led to 20 years of work and 13 volumes. They comprise the most complete set of translations of works by Rousseau, including several that had never been translated, making the totality of Rousseau’s thought available in English. The first volume, which appeared in 1990, contained the first English translation of Rousseau Judge of Jean-Jacques.
Roger took seriously Rousseau’s core dilemma that the progress of science makes a life of virtue ever more difficult. Roger believed that political philosophy had to be based on science. That meant human nature had to be understood scientifically to establish the basis for a just and good society. That became a challenge to which Roger increasingly devoted his prodigious intellectual energies. The range of topics he investigated was extraordinarily wide. For the most part, Roger explored novel scientific concerns about human nature to better understand their social and political implications. His intention throughout was to provide data that would facilitate progress toward improving our shared moral order.
Biology, Roger believed, provided the starting point to investigate what scientific discoveries could tell us about human nature. Thus, his focus became the field of sociobiology, that is, identifying the contributions of biological mechanisms that influence political behavior. Roger recognized that scientific discoveries have refuted Rousseau’s notion of human evolution. He hypothesized that since humans share most of their genes with primates, they may also behave similarly in certain respects. On the other hand, cultural responses may affect and be affected as they interact with biological factors. Thus, he argued that the binary of nature and nurture must be replaced with a more complex set of interactions.
A series of experiments with his departmental colleague, Denis Sullivan, other colleagues and students, showed that facial displays by politicians communicated reassurance or threat like those expressed by other primates. Politicians’ nonverbal displays often turned out to be more influential in shaping voter reactions than the contents of their messages. Later, Roger extended this study to identify neurochemical factors in the brain that influenced emotional responses. At the theoretical level, this led to his co-edited book, The Neurotransmitter Revolution: Serotonin, Social Behavior, and the Law (Southern Illinois University Press, 1994).
Later, he engaged in empirical studies of aggression and violence—concerns Rousseau had also considered. Roger and other colleagues, particularly the chemist Myron Coplan, demonstrated that environmental exposure to neurotoxic heavy metals, lead and manganese, are associated with heightened levels of violent crime. They also showed that elevated levels of lead in the brain and the body may occur when municipalities fluoridate their water with agents that trigger the release of lead from pipes. Roger always took the next step by asking how public policy might be designed in response to these new discoveries of the effects of brain chemistry on personality.
Roger’s devotion to collegiality was central to his conception of academic life. He never put boundaries on his participation in the institutions that constitute scholars’ communal fellowship. He acted, perhaps not always consciously, by following Rousseau’s contention that in a properly constituted society, people would give themselves totally to the community they created. They could then expect to receive back from the community a transformation of what they contributed, that is, a fully engaged society with all others who have joined. He lived by that social contract.
Roger was an astonishing person to work with and to know. He was extraordinarily quick at seeing new ideas and running with them. His willingness to converse touched multitudes of colleagues and students. His invitation to Christopher Kelly to join the Rousseau translation project was typical. They had not met. Roger had served as an outside reviewer for Kelly’s promotion and tenure. He asked Kelly in part because he had been impressed with Kelly’s disagreement with Roger’s interpretation of Rousseau. It hadn’t occurred to Nelson Kasfir, when he joined the Government Department at Dartmouth, how much he would learn from Roger. Nor, how willing and eager Roger would be to teach him. Roger’s enthusiasm for teaching extended to his students, in whom he invested heavily. He was a fierce advocate for advancing their careers, particularly if they chose to engage in teaching and research. Reflecting Roger’s readiness to cross disciplinary boundaries, his former students can be found in departments of philosophy, political science, law and neuroscience—a remarkable achievement for a mentor who only taught undergraduates. His former student, now professor, John Scott insists: “I owe everything I have done and achieved in my career to Roger.” Many more can testify how radically Roger influenced their careers. ■
