Rousseau General Will

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.

A government where everyone has and knows the same rights, where all men are treated equally. John Locke says, in his Second Treatise on Government, “Because men consent to government in order to preserve their natural rights to life, liberty and property, whenever the government attempts to take away or destroy the life, liberty, or the property of the people, the government puts itself in a state of war with the people and the people no longer have to obey the government.” (Locke Doc A) Which states that men give in to the government to maintain their natural rights and whenever the government tries to take away those rights they go into war and the people no longer have to obey the government. The people consent to government to keep their rights and if the government tried taking their rights away, it would not be fair. Jean-Jacques Rousseau says in his most famous work, The Social Contract, “Each person gives their freedom to the general will, but they also become part of the general will and have the same power as everyone else.”

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

According to Thomas Jefferson, an influential leader, “No government can continue good but under the control of the people.” Jefferson’s quote suggests that the social contract and state are only run sufficiently under the authority of the people. There is a common assumption that a definite agreement among the population of a society, is dictated by the individuals themselves. In the past, various theorists as well as powerful leaders have made conscience endeavors to demystify whether the social contract is imposed by the sovereign or society. This essay makes an argument that the social compact is dictated by individuals because individuals have the power to alter the governments they exist within. The state is what the people define it as. It is bound by territory, and people, states comprise of governments. The Social Contract is developed by Jean Jacques Rousseau about what is believed to be the greatest method to establish a political community.

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).

Locke indicates that, by giving up some of one's rights, the state gains legislative power and is obliged to use this power to make laws that benefit the people, who hired it. Locke writes that, "This legislative is not only the supreme power of the common-wealth, but sacred and unalterable in the hands where the community have once placed it...over whom no body can have a power to make laws, but by their own consent, and by authority received from them." (XI 134) Rousseau argues that the state should not be able to acquire legislative power, but simply acts as an executive. He claims that the legislative power comes from the people, for the sovereign is simply the general will of everyone, in which the state should obey and enforce. Rousseau states that, "Each of us puts his person and all his power in common under the supreme control of the general will, and, as a body, we receive each member as an indivisible part of the whole" ( ), showing that the aggregate mind of the people, the general will, has the legislative power as "all" powers are given to it.

Book I Chapter 7, titled "The Sovereign" encourages a more controlling government and society. In the last paragraph (Social, p.64) he shows the reader a necessity for force among those who disagree with the general will. Rousseau thinks that anyone who refuses to obey the general will should be forced to be free. Freedom exists only by living under the general will. He is claiming that the general will is always correct and should not tolerate anyone who disagrees. This is the perfect way to ensure a totalitarianistic society.

All men must consent to this “two-way commitment between the public and the individuals belonging to it” (8). This social compact between the subjects of a state creates the states “unity, its common identity, its life and its will” (7). Rousseau then laid out the two crucial parts of a state and their crucial separation: the sovereign, or the people, and the government. At the end of Book I, Rousseau summarized his proposed social contract by stating that it “replaces…physical inequalities as nature may have set up between men by an equality that is moral and legitimate, so that men who may be unequal in strength or intelligence become equal by agreement and legal right” (11). Rousseau’s social contract in theory would give each individual, regardless of physical strength or education, guaranteed freedom from the chains of the state.

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.

Although, Rousseau distinguishes two specific types of liberty, natural liberty and civil liberty. Natural liberty, Rousseau states, is the freedom to pursue one 's own desires whereas civil liberty is the freedom to pursue the general will. The general will is a key concept in Rousseau 's The Social Contract; Rousseau defines the general will as the majority opinion of what is most beneficial to the common interest without any influence from private interest.

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

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.