Rousseau is kind enough to give us his intention right away: "I want to inquire whether there can be a legitimate and reliable rule of administration in the civil order, taking men as they are and laws as they can be." (p. 280)
In short order, this is followed up with the famous line: "Man was born free, everywhere he in chains." (p. 281) This is hyperbole, but it is effective. We are ready to follow where Rousseau leads in examining the evils of civilization to see if we can't find something better.
Like Hobbes, Rousseau believes in a contract, and for similar reasons. Unlike with Hobbes, however, men do not place all authority in the sovereign, but rather in themselves under the general will: "Each of us puts his person and all his power in common under the supreme direction of the general will; and in a body we receive each members as an indivisible part of the whole." (p. 282)
It is unclear, to me at least, in what this will consists. Logically, it should be akin to simple majority, but as it is clear that the general will may run counter to it, this can not be the case. In any event, the difference between the role of contracts in Rousseau and Hobbes is clear enough.
Rousseau's contract involves a trade off: "What man loses by the social contract is his natural freedom and an unlimited right to everything that tempts him and that he can get; what he gains is civil freedom and the proprietorship of everything he possesses." (p. 282) This latter claim is hard to swallow. If we are to give up all of our rights, surely that includes our possessions. But if we do not have property rights, some means must be enacted to handle disputes. If the general will solves this dilemma for us, it must be demonstrated, for this would be an extraordinary accomplishment.
We see the general will sketched to some extent in the next book. It may not be alienated; it also tends toward equality. (p. 283) We also learn that it is rare for a man's private will to agree forever with the general will. Since the latter is binding, those entering the contract must understand this. Rousseau also asserts that the general will is indivisible.
We see that "the general will is always right and does not err." (p. 284) Yet this is different from the will of all, which is liable to err. This comes about through the creation of factions. The only solution is to ensure that all men speak their own opinion, which is presumably different from that of the faction. (p. 284)
Toward the end of this section, Rousseau hints at some limit to the general will's infallibility. It can only apply itself to a case of an entire people. In the next section, we learn that it is therefore competent to make laws. Determining whether or not the laws have been broken, in an individual case, is thus beyond the purview of the general will.
We need only remind the collectivists that society is comprised of individuals. One can have the latter without the former, but the latter are a necessary prerequisite to the former.
I'll try to add commentary for the rest of the book some time later this week.
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4 comments:
I haven't re-read this piece yet, but wanted to offer a little bit of clarification on the general will, which is the centerpiece of Rousseau's political theory. Rousseau explicitly contrasts the general will with the will of all or with any simple majority. The general can contain nothing particular to oneself, no private preferences or factional interests. The general will contains only what we are logically required to will precisely as citizens in order to preserve the conditions of our political freedom.
I think you're familiar with Kant. His categorical imperative is an appropriation and expansion of exactly this idea. The particular laws of any society are underdetermined by the general will, which provides only the general conditions of lawfulness. These conditions bind us, yet, because they are recognized as the expression of our own will, they are non-alienating; they are, in fact, the ultimate expression of our freedom.
Good explanation. Still, Rousseau writes that "one can never be assured that a private will is in conformity with the general will until it has been submitted the free vote of the people." (p. 286)
I don't think that you are wrong, but it's clear that Rousseau sometimes contradicts himself.
You link Rousseau to Hobbes--and there are obviously important connections between them--yet I think that there is an even more important difference, in that the social contract, for Rousseau, alters the basic constitution of man. For Hobbes, man is naturally anti-social; the government keeps his violent impulses in check. For Locke man is naturally sociable; government ameliorates various inconvenience and generates a greater abundance of goods for his enjoyment. Rousseau has a more paradoxical conception of human nature and a radically innovative position on the status of government. One way to put it might be that, for Rousseau, man is by nature non-social, but with the latent potential to transform himself into a social being. Entering to relations of mutual interdependence, he activates this potential. I described this process in my summary of the "Discourse," and I think Rousseau is right that society introduces a qualitative change in our constitution (even if I disagree with much of his characterization of our original self-sufficiency). You remain unconvinced, I recall, so perhaps we need to debate this further. It is clear, in any case, that this is Rousseau's position, and it has implications for his understanding of the social contract.
What is most important about the social contract, for Rousseau, is not that it instates a government, but that it produces a society. He writes, "To the foregoing acquisitions of the civil state [which you mention, Eric] could be added moral freedom, which alone makes man truly the master of himself" (283). To this he immediately adds, "For the impulse of appetite alone is slavery, and obedience to the law one has prescribed for oneself is freedom." The sentiment here is at once Ancient and Modern: reason, in some rarified sense, must triumph over passion, yet the source of normative legitimacy is located, not in the state, but in the individual.
You find "hard to swallow" Rousseau's claim that, entering the social contract, that part of what man gains is "civil freedom and the proprietorship of everything he possesses" (282). You continue: "If we are to give up all of our rights, surely that includes our possessions. But if we do not have property rights, some means must be enacted to handle disputes. If the general will solves this dilemma for us, it must be demonstrated, for this would be an extraordinary accomplishment."
I think the first point is Hobbesian. Property is a social institution, it implies a *right* to the object, which in turn implies a normative social framework. (Locke avoids the need to ground property rights in social institutions by grounding them in his theology.) The basic right alienated to the general will is our "natural right" to the unlimited freedom of taking whatever we can get. But this is an exchange of rights, not a unilateral surrender. Rousseau out-and-says that property rights are among the rights that will have to be secured for us within the constraints imposed by the general will. There isn't going to be an a priori way of says who specifically gets what in any particular case, but we can produce an impersonally universal set of procedures for arbitrating disputes that arise.
To the objection on p.286 that you cite in qualification of my previous post, I think the most sympathetic interpretation would be to read the claim epistemologically, i.e., simply as an acknowledgment that any would-be legislator needs to check his proposed interpretation against the will of the citizens whose general will he claims his interpretation to represent.
You remain unconvinced, I recall, so perhaps we need to debate this further.
I don't think it's fair to claim much of anything about our pre-historic ancestors. We can only guess as to what man was like before he was civilized.
Christianity teaches that there once was a sort of heaven on earth in the Garden of Eden, but even if you reject the myth of the fall, it's difficult to dispute the idea that man is fallen. In this sense, there is an element of truth in both Hobbes and Rousseau.
There isn't going to be an a priori way of says who specifically gets what in any particular case, but we can produce an impersonally universal set of procedures for arbitrating disputes that arise.
The way you mention this leads me to believe you have more to add. Are you thinking of a writer who utilized Rousseau to this end, or perhaps of the Revolutionaries?
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