Rousseau Essays

Already, nearly seventy death warrants have been signed, and more will follow if you do not end this madness. At this rate, if the number of the accused continues, the whole town-no, the whole colony-will be facing the noose. Because of these trials, people have the chance to accuse others in revenge or to better themselves. Putnam has been accusing others to gain land, which he takes from the accused. However, Putnam’s status and wealth protects him from being accused. When these trials are over, the only people left will be greedy sinners and murderers. Murderers who knew the innocents they accused would likely be killed. As you are aware, the commandments tell us that we shall not murder. For the sake of our colony’s integrity, you must call these trials off before all the innocents are killed, and the people left living become a

Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Swiss-born French Enlightenment thinker most famous for the 1762, “The Social Contract.” “The Social Contract” is Rousseau’s most valued work due to its ties within the French Revolution.

In this book, Rousseau aims to discover why people gave up their liberty and how political authority became legitimate. In his case, sovereignty is vesting in the entire populace, who enter into the contract directly with one another. He explained, “The problem is to find a form of association which will defend and protect with the common force the person and goods of each associate, and in which each, while uniting himself with all, may still obey himself alone, and remains as free as before.” That was the fundamental problem which Social Contract provides the solution.

Rousseau thought that man was born weak and ignorant, but virtuous. It is only when man became sociable that they became wicked. (Cress, 80) Since civil society makes men corrupt, Rousseau advocated “general will”, more precisely the combined wills of each person, to decide public affairs. General will would become the sovereign and thus it would be impossible for its interests to conflict with the priorities of the citizens, since this would be doing harm to itself. Virtue came from the freedom of men to make decisions for the good of the

Rousseau is theorizing from the concept of the general will, which promotes individuals to become conscious citizens who actively participate as a community to form policies for a governing structure. The general will advocates for a commitment to generality, a common interest that will unite all citizens for the benefit of all. Rousseau states, “each one of us puts into the community his person and all his powers under the supreme direction of the general will; and as a body, we incorporate every member as an indivisible part of the whole” (Rousseau 61). The general will is an expression of the law that is superior to an individual’s

Rousseau establishes the Social Contract (Compact) that will provide the solution for a protective community of free individuals, who submit their freedoms or duties to the betterment of the whole collective body. While the individual is still free to conduct his life in freedom, the same citizen has a requirement to conduct business and make decisions that will be what’s best for the body. If everyone in the body commits to the arrangements of the contract, then the general members will have no problems with compelling to the political structure (Rousseau pg. 11).

Rousseau’s state of nature differs greatly from Locke’s. The human in Rousseau’s state of nature exists purely as an instinctual and solitary creature, not as a Lockean rational individual. Accordingly, Rousseau’s human has very few needs, and besides sex, is able to satisfy them all independently. This human does not contemplate appropriating property, and certainly does not deliberate rationally as to the best method for securing it. For Rousseau, this simplicity characterizes the human as perfectly free, and because it does not socialize with others, it does not have any notion of inequality; thus, all humans are perfectly equal in the state of nature. Nonetheless, Rousseau accounts for humanity’s contemporary condition in civil society speculating that a series of coincidences and discoveries, such as the development of the family and the advent of agriculture, gradually propelled the human away from a solitary, instinctual life towards a social and rationally contemplative

Man experiences the same impulsion but recognizes that he is free to comply or resist (Rousseau, 33).”

"None of the supposed rights of man go beyond the egoistic man, man as he is a member of civil society; that is, an individual separated from the community, withdrawn into himself, wholly preoccupied with his private interests and acting in accordance with his private caprice."

To better understand Rousseau’s thesis and social contract he proposed, we must first understand why Rousseau felt compelled to write and his main criticism of society during the 18th century. In sum, Rousseau argued that states (specifically France, though never explicitly stated) have not protected man’s right to freedom or equality. Rousseau began The Social Contract in dramatic fashion. He wrote, “man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains” (1). This quote is still used today, and is a powerful description of Rousseau’s central issue with society. He believed that every man is “born” naturally free—he has full autonomy and can do what he chooses. However, Rousseau argued that man is bound to the injustices of society.

By joining civil society and becoming a part of the general will, man is enriching his actions with a morality and rationality that was previously lacking. As he states in Book I, Chapter VIII, “although in this state he deprives himself of several advantages given to him by nature, he gains such great ones…that changed him from a stupid, limited animal into an intelligent being and a man” (Rousseau 56). What man posses in nature is an unlimited physical freedom to pursue everything that tempts him, although this is viewed by Rousseau as almost an enslavement towards one’s own instincts. In a civil state man is benefited by “substituting justice for instinct in his behaviour and giving his actions the morality they previously lacked” (Rousseau 54). In acting in accordance with the general will man is granted the most important form of all freedoms, civil freedom.

Therefore it is the people who hold the power within the state, and also the legal subjects within the republic. Rousseau refers to the individuals as citizens when they are acting passively, and sovereign when acting as an active group for example, devising laws. He writes 'this public group, so formed by the union of all other persons...power when compared with others like itself' (lines 41-43 Rousseau extract). Rousseau's evaluates his solution, perhaps tersely earlier in his work by suggesting that 'the total alienation of each associate, together with all his rights, to the whole of the community' (lines 17-18 Rousseau extract). The main aspects that incorporates Rousseau's version of social contract theory is that he wants to make a distinct separation of the 'will of all' from 'general will'. Will of all or individual will, is private wills and specific to each of the state's members, while general will is a common will for all and reflect the common good for state members. By separating the two wills, can help to reduce conflict that may arise between the two, and by evaluating all the opinions of each member. It is possible to see what issues are more pressing, and cancel out individualistic wills, if the majority of individuals share the opinions, thus making this majority, the general will. Rousseau sums this up when he writes, 'There is often a great deal of

Thus, the group collectively is more important than each individual that makes it up. The sovereign and the general will are more important than its subjects and their particular wills. Rousseau goes so far as to speak of the sovereign as a distinct individual that can act of its own accord.

As the individual relinquishes all he had to the sovereign, it would suggest he was going to become a slave to the state. However, this is exactly what Rousseau was trying to avoid. This sovereign was not concerned with a simple majority; in fact Rousseau expressed distain for existing forms of civil state and their limited freedoms; “ England regards itself as free, it is grossly mistaken; it is free only during the election of its Members of Parliament. As soon as they are elected, slavery overtakes it, and it is nothing.” (Rousseau, as cited in Garrard, 2012, p.33) His general will was a more a greater, almost spiritual consciousness, which Rousseau outlined, somewhat abstractly, as “a form of association which will defend the person and goods of each member with the collective force of all, and under which each individual, while uniting himself with the others, obeys only himself and remains as free as before” (Rousseau, 1968 p.60). The laws or constraints “never formally stated, they are everywhere the same, everywhere tacitly admitted and recognised” (Rousseau, 1968, p.60). Yes, you would give up natural liberty, but you would gain civil liberty, thus achieving freedom, however now within the constraints of the general will, a structure that

(p105, Blk 3). As the particular will is a product of appetite and the general will a product of reason, we should obey the general will which makes us noble and good. Rousseau argues that when a man acts on his particular will, he is slavish to his appetite and that makes him a stupid, limited animal. Whereas, when he adopts the general will, he is being an ennobled, intelligent being. In the painting, the brothers offer their lives on behalf of the country. In doing so, they are sacrificing their personal desires for the sake of their country and are thus considered heroes, reflecting Rousseau’s views.