Possible Response to the activity
‘Rousseau and the Social Contract’
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) was born in Geneva, which was then a Calvinist republic.
He wrote extensively: on music (which he also composed, and for which he developed a novel
system of notation), on education, and on politics. Rousseau’s novel Julie, ou la nouvelle
Héloïse, was one of the most popular works of fiction of the eighteenth century. His views on the
education of children, developed in Émile, a semi-fictional work, were still influential in
educational policy in Europe in the mid-twentieth century. However, Rousseau’s most important
and controversial legacy is the Social Contract (Du Contrat Social, Principes du droit politique),
first published in 1762. Its influence has been described as equivalent to that of the ideas of
Freud or Marx.
However, the idea of a contract between a people and its ruler was not new: the Old Testament
furnishes many examples, such as between God and the people of Israel; Plato explored the
concept in The Republic; as did several influential political commentators of the sixteenth
century, such as Grotius and Puffendorf. At a convention of Parliament in 1688, James II was
accused of having attempted to subvert the constitution of the kingdom by breaking the original
contract between the king and his people.
In the Social Contract Rousseau’s prime project was the attempt to establish principles whereby
the rule, whether of a king or a government, could be justified or legitimated. Rousseau famously
opens his treatise with the remark that “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains”: what
could provide a more moral basis for the human political situation?
Rousseau begins with the consideration that the “family…may be called the first model of
political societies”, the father corresponding to the ruler: the children alienate certain freedoms in
exchange for the protection of a patriarch. Rousseau then considers slavery and the notion that
the crude exercise of power could be called a ‘right’. This he finds to be without any legitimacy: a
right cannot logically derive from the mere exercise of power, as “to yield to force is an act of
necessity…force does not create right”. In the section on slavery (Section 4) Rousseau remarks
that “we must conclude that conventions form the basis of all legitimate authority among men”;
this is one of the main premises of Rousseau’s argument.
For Rousseau, liberty is of the utmost importance (“To renounce liberty is to renounce being a
man”); he maintains that it is only in a state of liberty that we may legitimately alienate certain
freedoms, and thereby simultaneously also accrue genuine moral duties; only in the state of
liberty do these latter consequences result from rational choices. The idea that it is a universal
agreement to a body of law that guarantees liberties is another main strand of Rousseau’s
argument.
In Section 6, Rousseau presents his conception of the social contract, the main gist of his
reasoning being that people used to live in a “state of nature”; that they needed to act in concert
and create a social contract (or “compact” or “association”) in order to ensure their security. In a
social contract, each individual alienates his or her own freedoms completely to the whole
community, which then becomes a collective body that assumes the entire responsibility for
legally ensuring the rights and liberties of each individual: “Each man, in giving himself to all,
gives himself to nobody”; each person surrenders his or her individual liberties, to become “an
indivisible part of the whole”. For Rousseau, the ‘general will’, which is crucial to his argument for
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a social contract, is always right. Citizens of the community become members of what Rousseau
calls the Sovereign, an entity that comprises all individuals, embodying the collective will of all. It
follows that even if an individual dissents from the general will, he “shall be compelled to do so
by the whole body”; he shall be “forced to be free”. In other words, only by agreeing to the
general will of the Sovereign can the individual’s freedoms be guaranteed. Someone may not
like a particular decision of the Sovereign, but must accede in order to preserve freedom in
general.
In Section 8 Rousseau explains that In the acceptance of the general will, justice is substituted
for instinct; natural liberty, “which is bounded only by the strength of the individual” is contrasted
with the justice inherent in civil liberty, which is limited by the general will. Rousseau similarly
contrasts what he calls (mere) possessions, which pertain in the state of nature, with notions of
property (with legal definitions and to which rights are attached), which pertain in civil society.
Thus the social contract simultaneously removes us from the insecure state of nature, and
permits us the liberties of living in a legal system that protects property.
Critics of Rousseau have pointed out that despite his astute observations of human nature, his
earnest attempt to provide a rational basis (which most people accept is necessary) for
legitimate, democratic government contains several weaknesses.
I will here summarise several of the more important reservations concerning Rousseau’s
arguments, and will leave the reader with a few open questions, with which to engage with
others on topics that still resonate widely in political philosophy; many of the issues remain to be
conclusively resolved.
One of the most problematic issues is Rousseau’s idea of an original ‘state of nature’, which is
superseded by a society bounded by a social contract. Rousseau remarks (at the beginning of
Section 8) that “The passage from the state of nature to the civil state produces a very
remarkable change in man”. But was there ever a historical time when any human society
actually lived in a ‘state of nature’, not at all restricted by unwritten but accepted rules and norms
of social behaviour? Or was there ever a historical moment when behaviour changed and an
agreement was made for a social contract?
Concerning agreement to a social contract, critics have remarked that if there was no actual
contractual agreement, then a hypothetical agreement is simply a hypothetical agreement, which
is essentially void of any kind of validity.
Rousseau’s concept of a ‘general will’ has also vexed commentators: what exactly is it? It is
clearly a kind of abstraction, entailing an assumption that there is in society a commonality of will
that works for the common good. But what ensures that the general will may not be directed to
immoral or short-sighted ends, as may arise in a totalitarian state? The general will is supposed
to represent the will of all. But how do we guarantee that a majority in society do not persecute a
minority who may have beliefs or practices of which the majority disapprove?
These are complex and problematic issues, yet if government is no more than the rude exercise
of power, coherent arguments are needed to establish legitimacy. For a broad summary of the
arguments of contemporary philosophers on this topic, visit:
http://www.seop.leeds.ac.uk/entries/political-obligation/
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