Introductory Notes
The social contract is Rousseau's argument for how it is possible for a state to ground its authority on a moral and rational foundation.
Moral authority arises from convention.
Everyone has a natural right to self-preservation. One has legitimate authority over another only if that authority is used to help the subordinate person to survive. Respect for or acknowledgment of authority (as can be seen in the family when the dependent child reaches maturity and may choose to submit to the authority of the parent) is always entered into voluntarily. Since (moral) authority of one person or group over another can be derived neither from nature nor from force, it must arise from convention.
Freedom is necessary for moral value.
Authority has moral value only if the individual freely submits to it.
Autonomy is necessary for freedom.
One cannot legitimately give oneself or enslave oneself to another, nor can a nation give itself to a king. The individual will cannot retain its freedom if it submits to the individual will or wills of others since the price would outweigh any benefits, both practically and morally. At a minimum, it would entail a relinquishing of one's autonomy and preservation as a human being.
There can be no unity if everyone acts on the basis of individual will and desire (as in the state of nature).
A free society (governed by the appropriate moral authority) is based on an agreement by which each person subordinates his or her individual will to "the general will" in exchange for being "an indivisible part of the whole". This produces a moral and collective body -- a "public person" -- comprised of citizens and subjects
The general will is that to which the individual will submits without loss of freedom. It binds and unifies individual wills and desires according to an objective obligation of each to the common good. This links the concept of liberty to that of law.
Since the general will is determined by the "common interest" and "tends to equality", and the will of all is determined by the sum of private interests which are variable, the two are not the same thing. Thus, the general will is not identical with the will of all, even though the two may agree.
No will can consent to that which is not a good for the being that does the willing. [Cf. Socrates.] Thus, the general will is necessarily directed toward that which is good for all, i.e. the common good.
The general will is binding on all subjects regardless of whether individual subjects agree with it or not.
In a free society, an act of sovereignty would be an agreement of a group with each of its members. [Rousseau's definition of "sovereignty".]
Since the general will is the only thing capable of directing the state for the sake of "the common good", any act of sovereignty would be an exercise of the general will.
Since an act of sovereignty must be consistent with the demands of liberty and moral autonomy, it cannot be "alienated" or given away. [Rousseau assumes the objectivity of the common goodÑan ontological and metaphysical assumption.]
Since sovereignty is the exercise of the general will, it is indivisible.
A new liberty emerges out of this free acknowledgment of law. In this way, one becomes an individual in a higher sense.
The passage from natural liberty (in the state of nature) to civil liberty (in the civil state) transforms the individual from an amoral, egoistic animal to a moral, intelligent human being.
On the Social Contract
Book I
Prelude
Rousseau addresses the central issue of political theory, viz. the legitimacy of authority. He claims that, as a citizen of a free state (Geneva), the right to vote imposes on him an obligation to formulate an understanding and approach to public affairs. [17; 141]*
Chapter I: Subject of the First Book
Rousseau begins with the famous phrase: "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains." This constitutes a change in the human condition, the legitimacy of which Rousseau sets out to address. He sets his target on a defense of the legitimacy of government and the "social order". The social order is identified as a foundational ("sacred") right with its origins in convention, not nature.
Chapter II: Of the First Societies
There is no natural authority of one individual over another. [18; 142]
Rousseau starts out with a view on original social structures similar to Locke's. The only natural society is the family in which the dependence of children imposes on the father a responsibility for the care of his children, and on the children a duty to obey the father. Those constraints are dissolved when the children reach the stage where they no longer need the care of the father. If the children continue to be governed by the father after this time, it must be due to their consent. Thus, subsequent obligations are conventional.
It follows that all human beings who have reached the age of reason are free. The task is to preserve this freedom. [Autonomy based on reason.]
Chapter III: On the Right of the Strongest
Force is not the basis of right or legitimate authority. [19; 143] There is no obvious connection between force and morality given that they are of different orders: force is physical; morality is not [implied]. A radical distinction is made between force and duty. Thus, force is not a legitimate source of power since it has no moral import.
Chapter IV: On Slavery
"Since no man has a natural authority over his fellow man, and since force does not give rise to any right, conventions therefore remain the basis of all legitimate authority among men." [20; 144] In other words, all legitimate authority is conventional.
Alienation is the giving or selling of something. Can people alienate their liberty? To sell oneself to another would be to subject oneself to slavery. What could possibly be gained by a people selling themselves to a king? Rousseau surveys the options and concludes that there is no benefit to be gained from such a transaction. Thus, it would be irrational.
Even if people could alienate themselves, they could not legitimately alienate their children because each person's liberty belongs to them alone. [Cf. Locke on ownership.] Thus, "for an arbitrary government to be legitimate, it would therefore be necessary in each generation for the people to be master of its acceptance or rejection." [20; 144] This raises problems for the continuity of legitimate authority.
To renounce one's liberty is to renounce one's dignity, human rights, and duties. Such a renunciation is incompatible with human nature.
Rousseau considers the argument (from Grotius and accepted by Locke) that slavery is a just outcome of war in that both sides profit from it. [21; 145] The person who may legitimately be killed is given back his life in exchange for service to his master.
War does not exist in the state of nature where there is no "constant property". It is dependent on property and is defined as a relation between states, not between human beings. [22; 146] The purpose of war is the destruction of a state. Thus, killing the defenders of the state is legitimate and a right. But as soon as a soldier surrenders, he or she becomes an individual person (human being) not an instrument of the enemy. Thus, one no longer has a right to take the lives of soldiers who have surrendered in war. It follows that slavery is not a just outcome of war.
Chapter V: That It Is Always Necessary to Return to a First Convention
There is a crucial distinction to be made between "subduing a multitude and ruling a society". Private interest defines the former which can never be legitimate.
Grotius claims that a people can give itself to a king. But that presupposes the prior existence of "a people". Thus, according to Rousseau, we must first examine the nature of "a people" since that is the true foundation of society.
Who gives the majority a right to choose for all, including a dissenting minority? A government organized according to majority rule is a convention, the justice of which presupposes an original unanimity. [23; 147]
Chapter VI: On the Social Compact [The Conditions Necessary for Becoming "a People"]
At some point it becomes necessary for human beings to form an organized body.
Given that one's individual liberty and power are necessary for survival, under what conditions could they be compromised without harm to oneself?
Fundamental Charge -- Unity and Security with Autonomy [24; 148]
"Find a form of association which defends and protects with all common forces the person and goods of each associate, and by means of which each one, while uniting with all, nevertheless obeys only himself and remains as free as before..."
This is achieved when each person ("associate") alienates all rights to the entire community. This condition applies equally to all, thus no one stands to gain from it at the expense of others.
In giving oneself completely to the community, "each person gives himself to no one".
Statement of the Social Contract: "Each of us places his person and all his power in common under the supreme direction of the general will; and as one we receive each member as an indivisible part of the whole."
Rousseau offers provisional definitions of "republic", "state", "sovereign", "people", "citizen", and "subject". [24f; 148f]
Chapter VII: On the Sovereign
The social contract gives rise to a reciprocal relationship and commitment as a member of the group (sovereign) to the individuals (including oneself), and as an individual to the group as a whole (of which one is a part).
While the sovereign (group) cannot act contrary to its own interests, a tension exists between private interests (individual will) and the common interest (general will).... Thus, force is necessary to maintain order and freedom. [25f; 149f]
Chapter VIII: On the Civil State
"This passage from the state of nature to the civil state produces quite a remarkable change in man, for it substitutes justice for instinct in his behavior and gives his actions a moral quality they previously lacked. Only then, when the voice of duty replaces physical impulse and right replaces appetite, does man, who had hitherto taken only himself into account, find himself forced to act upon other principles and to consult his reason before listening to his inclinations." [26f; 150f]
The loss of "natural liberty" is more than compensated for by the gain of civil liberty. [27; 151]
Rousseau is here distinguishing natural liberty, a freedom limited solely by the power and desire of the individual, and civil liberty which is limited by the general will. He also distinguishes possession, the power of the first occupant, from property which entails a positive title.
"Moral liberty" is defined as obedience to the law one prescribes for oneself. [Cf. Kant]
Chapter IX: On the Real Domain
Rights to property are determined by need and labor.
Everyone has a natural right to everything he or she needs to survive. Property rights impose a duty to respect "what does not belong to oneself". [28; 152]
Conditions for the Right of the First Occupant
1. The land must not be currently occupied.
2. No one may take more land than needed to subsist.
3. One must take possession by means of one's labor by cultivating it.
The social contract enables a new kind of "equality". In virtue of convention and right, all human beings in the body politic are made legitimate moral equals regardless of the physical inequalities that may have separated them on the basis of intelligence and strength in the state of nature.
Book II
Chapter I -- That Sovereignty is Inalienable
The opposition of private interests make society necessary; at the same time the accord of these interests make it possible. "It is what these different interests have in common that forms the social bond, and, were there no point of agreement among all these interests, no society could exist. For it is utterly on the basis of this common interest that society ought to be goverened." [29; 153]
The general will is the only thing that can guide a state to the common good, which is its proper and initial goal. This follows from the fact that the social bond in a society is based on shared private interests. This is what the people have in common, viz. a set of shared interests. This is the only foundation for social organization and government.
Since sovereignty is identical to the exercise of the general will, it cannot be alienated. Thus, only the sovereign can represent itself.
Since the private will tends toward individual preferences, and the general will toward equality, they do not always agree. [29f; 153f] [In what sense are preferences and equality comparable? See below, Chapter IV.]
Chapter II -- That Sovereignty is Indivisible
"Sovereignty is indivisible for the same reason that it is inalienable. For either the will is general, or it is not. It is the will of either the people as a whole or of only a part. In the first case, this declared will is an act of sovereignty and constitutes law. In the second case, it is merely a private will." [30; 154]
Chapter III -- On Whether the Will Can Err
It follows that "the general will is always right and always tends toward the public utility". [31; 155] It does not follow, however, that "the deliberations of the people" are infallible. They always want what is good for them, but do not always know what that is. Thus, the "will of all" is not identical to "the general will".
The general will is always determined by the "general interest"; the will of all is merely the sum of private wills and is determined by private interests.
The general will is the "sum of the differences" of the will of all. [31f; 155f]
Chapter IV -- On the Limits of Sovereign Power
An act of sovereignty is an agreement of the body with each of its members, not an arrangement between a superior and an inferior. The general will is not directed toward particulars. It is directed to all equally and never to individuals. Thus, to impose restrictions on one and not on another would be beyond the limits of sovereign power. (Cf. Ch. VI [37; 161] "clarification": "[A]ny function that relates to the individual does not belong to the legislative power.")
An act of sovereignty is
The social contract involves an advantageous exchange of
Chapter VI -- On Law
Goodness and order are objective conditions.
All justice comes from God and is based on reason. Laws are necessary conventions since justice is not administered naturally. [hidden Deist assumption?] [36; 160]
Rousseau introduces an important clarification of the claim that individuals are outside the limits of the sovereign. "[T]he law can perfectly well enact a statute to the effect that there be privileges, but it cannot bestow them by name on anyone. The law can create several classes of citizens, and even stipulate the qualifications that determine membership in these classes, but it cannot name specific persons to be admitted to them. It can establish a royal government and a hereditary line of succession, but it cannot elect a king or name a royal family. In a word, any function that relates to an individual does not belong to the legislative power."
Thus, humans are both free and subject to laws since the law is merely a record of their own wills.
Rousseau defines a republic as "a state ruled by laws" since it allows the public interest to govern. [38; 162] (res publica, public thing.)
But then Rousseau raises a problem: "The regulating of the conditions of society belongs to no one but those who are in association with one another. But how will they regulate these conditions? Will it be by a common accord, by a sudden inspiration? Does the body politic have an organ for making known its will? Who will give it the necessary foresight to formulate acts and to promulgate them in advance, or how will it announce them in time of need? How will a blind multitude, which often does not know what it wants (since it rarely knows what is good for it), carry out on its own an enterprise as great and as difficult as a system of legislation? By itself the populace always wants the good, but by itself it does not always see it."
Chapter VII -- On the Legislator
"Discovering the rules of society best suited to nations would require a superior intelligence that beheld all the passions of men without feeling any of them....At the birth of institutions, says Montesquieu, it is the leaders of republics who bring about the institution, and thereafter it is the institution that forms the leaders of the republic."
[Cf. Marx, "On the Jewish Question": "All emancipation is the leading back of the human world and of human relationships and conditions, to man himself. Political emancipation is the reduction of man to a member of civil society, to an egoistic independent individual, on the one hand and to a citizen, a moral person, on the other. Only when actual, individual man has taken back into himself the abstract citizen and has become a species-being in his everyday life, in his individual work and his individual circumstances, only when he has recognized and organized his own powers as social powers so that social power is no longer separated from him as political power, only then is human emancipation complete." The Portable Karl Marx, Eugene Kamenka, ed., 114.]
The person in the best position to establish laws is one who is not in power. (Legislator) [40; 164]
Thus, Rousseau believes that it takes a special inspiration to move people beyond their individual interests to a shared sentiment and the common good. That is the role of the legislator. In proposing such a scheme, Rousseau acknowledges a non-rational basis as a necessary precondition for deliberate, rational legislation.
Chapter XI -- On the Various Systems of Legislation
Rousseau defines "equality" as being neither owner of another nor owned by another. [46; 170]
Book III
Chapter I -- On Government in General
1. Every free action is caused by [49; 173]
2. In the body politic, actions are caused in the same way by
The need for communication and unified action on the part of the body politic gives rise to government. It is an intermediary between subjects and sovereign for communication and execution of laws and the preservation of civil and political liberty.
Members of the government are magistrates or governors; the entire body is called the prince. Thus, the government is founded not on a literal contract but a trust placed in the governors to administer the executive power of government.
SUBJECTS <----> GOVERNMENT <----> SOVEREIGN
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facilitates correspondence
executes laws
maintains civil & political liberties
**Government is
Why does a state need a government?
1. Legislation is general, i.e. a rule for all to follow.
2. But general laws need, from time to time, to be applied to individuals.
3. This is not a proper legislative task. (Rousseau thinks there is no reason to trust the sovereign to act justly in cases involving individuals. Keep in mind that the sovereign legislative body is the whole body of citizens. It would clearly be impractical to bring them all together to rule on each specific case that might arise.)
4. Thus, a government is needed to execute laws.
Thus, the government is
Chapter II -- On the Principle that Constitutes the Various Forms of Government
Individual Will
Corporate Will
Sovereign Will [53; 177]
Each member of the government is first himself, then a magistrate, and finally a citizen.
T. R. Quigley, 2003
* Numbers in square brackets refer to the page numbers. The first number refers to Jean-Jacques Rousseau, On the Social Contract, trans. Donald A. Cress, Indianapolis: Hackett, 1987; the second number refers to the corresponding page in Basic Political Writings, trans. Donald A. Cress, Indianapolis: Hackett, 1987.
**Adapted from: A Rousseau Dictionary, N.J.H. Dent, Cambridge & Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1992.