Jean Jacques Rousseau first became famous for his answer to the question set by the Academy of Dijon, “Whether the Restoration of the Arts and Sciences has had the effect of purifying or corrupting morals”. Rousseau, of course, answered with a resounding no, for which he won the prize, and thus began his life as a political philosopher.
From the initial essay, and the subsequent clarification of it required by numerous criticisms, Rousseau developed the Discourse on the Origins of Inequality. Hampsher-Monk sees the Discourse as a natural development from the first essay, for in his view the Discourse seeks to deal with the question “implicit in his earlier criticism of contemporary culture – if modern society is false and artificial, what would it be to be true and natural?”. Here we have the essence of the Social Contract – Rousseau’s desire to design a society which is free from the inequality which the arts and sciences has created, and the subsequent dependence this has created. Daniel Cullen, in his book, Freedom in Rousseau’s Political Philosophy argues that the Social Contract is intended to find a form of association that avoids the natural inclination of social relations to create a condition of domination and submission, and instead create a society where all are equal, and remain as ‘free as before’. Rousseau, himself, states the problem in chapter 6 of Book 1:- “‘How to find 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 no one but himself, and remains as free as before.’ This is the fundamental problem to which the social contract holds the solution.”
In this study of Rousseau’s Social Contract I will first explore the notion of ‘freedom’, as defined by Rousseau, and its importance in the Social Contract. I will then show how Rousseau’s ‘freedom’ is protected by ensuring society protects equality, thus preventing dependence, and how he intends to achieve this by ensuring the people govern themselves, under the direction of the ‘general will’. With reference to several different theories on Rousseau’s general will, I will then evaluate to what extent they correspond with Rousseau’s criteria, to what extent they fulfil the requirements as laid down in the Social Contract, whilst at the same time demonstrate the inherent difficulties each definition has in discovering the general will. Finally I will comment on the need for a ‘Legislator’, and the problems this seems to pose for the success of the Social Contract. In doing so, I will seek to answer the question as presented.
Freedom in the Social Contract
“The concept of freedom is the core of Rousseau’s political thought and its fundamental enigma” Rousseau begins the Social Contract with the quote, “Man was born free, and he is everywhere in chains”. But what does Rousseau mean by ‘free’? In the Social Contract, Rousseau defines freedom in terms of ‘natural’, ‘civil’ and ‘moral’ freedom, yet never appears to make clear which freedom ‘man is born into’, nor whether this is the same ‘free’ he aims to ensure with the Social Contract, as stated in the essential problem (see introduction, above), which for Rousseau is so important to protect? Frederick Neuhouser, in his article ‘Freedom, dependence and the general will’ cites a quote from Hegel on his understanding of Rousseau’s political Philosophy : “The human being is free, and this is certainly his substantial nature. This freedom is not something that is surrended in the state; rather, it is first constituted therein. Natural Freedom, the predisposition to freedom, is not real freedom, for only the state is the realization of freedom”.
There are several important points in this brief synopsis. One is the reference to ‘natural freedom’ as opposed to ‘freedom within the state’, what Rousseau calls ‘civil freedom’. The second is that freedom is the ‘natural’ state of man, and that society can only be legitimate when it allows man to be free. The third and most important point is as Neuhouser states – “The state is the realization of freedom”. There would seem, however, to be an apparent contradiction in this assertion, for although man is born free, which is his ‘substantial nature’, he cannot actually be free unless he is part of a rational state, yet Rousseau argues in the ‘Discourse on Equality’ that, “society no longer offers …anything more than assemblage of artificial men and factious passions which have no true foundations in nature”, and that “the spirit of society …corrupts in this way all our natural inclinations [towards peace and freedom]“. Thus, before we can begin to decide whether Rousseau succeeds in the aims of the Social Contract, as set out above, we must decide exactly what ‘freedom’ he is trying to protect.
Natural freedom is the freedom of all to take what they wish in order to preserve themselves, limited only by their physical strength. But Rousseau argues that however strong an individual is, he can never be master over all – eventually he has to seek the assistance of others in order to survive. In Bk I chapter 6, Rousseau sets out why natural freedom is not enough : “I assume that men reach a point where the obstacles to their preservation in a state of nature prove greater than the strength each man has to preserve himself in that state.” Thus, freedom in a state of nature is not, in Rousseau’s belief achievable, for society is inevitable and freedom can only be understood in terms of, and within a civil society. But Rousseau is not merely suggesting that freedom can only be understood in terms of civil society, but that it actually creates a new form of freedom – giving his actions the “moral quality they previously lacked”, and taking mankind from the status of a “stupid limited animal” to that of a “creature of intelligence and a man”. Yet as we have already seen, Rousseau accuses civil society of taking man away from his natural desire for ‘peace and freedom’ to one of ‘factious passions’.Hampsher-Monk cites the Discourse on Inequality, “But from the moment that one man had need of help from another …. equality disappeared.” Here, perhaps we have our first definition of what Rousseau means by freedom – a condition where all individuals are equal; for as Rousseau tells us in the Discourse on Inequality, inequality leads to dependency, and once one man must rely on another, he is no longer free. Indeed, Shklar quotes Rousseau as saying that inequality is the ‘first source of evil’ , whilst Riley goes further, “Above all, the imperfect socialization of modern man, in Rousseau’s view, allowed private persons and corporate interests to control other private persons, leading to extreme inequality and personal dependence; only generality of laws based on an idea of common good, he thought, could abolish all private dependence, which was for him, perhaps, the supreme moral evil.” So, the Social Contract has to protect freedom in terms of equality, which can perhaps be better understood as everyone being independent. But if the move from a state of nature to a civil society created inequality, how
can it now safeguard equality? Here we have the key to the problem posed by the initial aim – that of finding a means of association in which one ‘obeys no-one but himself’, in other words where no-one is dependent on another.
To create this equality, Rousseau demands that every citizen alienates both himself and all his rights to the community, for in doing so, it is no longer in any individual’s interest to ‘make conditions onerous for others’, for if he does he will of course be making conditions equally onerous for himself. Here we have for Rousseau what is essentially the social pact – “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.” Thus the general will is the will of the society, a will which all have agreed to follow, by being part of the one body, which in Rousseau’s social contract, is the sovereign body. For Hampsher- Monk this a significant departure from traditional contract theorists such as Hobbes. Hobbes, at the same time as establishing the community, also created an absolute sovereign to whom the community were immediately subordinate to. For Rousseau, this act of subordination merely dissolved the community as soon as it was created. In book 1 chapter 4, Rousseau discusses the impossibility of slavery, including that of a people becoming slave to an absolute sovereign. Rousseau considers such a relationship to be illegitimate because the promises of the monarch to protect his people and their property in return for their submission is always empty, because if the people are slaves to the sovereign they cannot be said to own anything for it belongs to the sovereign, so the sovereign is in effect merely protecting his own property, and the people are giving themselves to the absolute sovereign in return for nothing; Rousseau describes such a contract as “… absurd, unthinkable; such an action would be illegitimate, void… To say the same of a whole people is to conjure up a nation of lunatics; and right cannot rest on madness.” From this Hampsher-Monk concludes Rousseau is asserting that “legitimacy is only possible if sovereignty is retained by the people”, and if we look at the very first paragraph of the first chapter of book 1, we find that Rousseau claims that in the Social Contract, he can make legitimate the transformation referred to in the famous opening line, “Man was born free, and he is everywhere in chains.” Thus, the general will, as the will of the sovereign body, is intended to ensure that the sovereign acts in the interest of the people, by ensuring that the law is the legitimate will of every individual, acting as one body for the benefit of the whole community, “that it should spring from all for it to apply to all”, rather than the private wills of a few interested parties (or one in the case of an absolute sovereign), acting on their won behalf – “for the private will inclines by its very nature towards partiality, and the general will towards equality”, the stated aim of the Social Contract. The general will is therefore central to the Social Contract, because as Neuhouser says, it is intended to solve the fundamental problem in Rousseau’s political philosophy, to devise a form of political association that “reconciles the associates needs for social co-operation with their essential natures as free being”.
The General Will
The social contract, as conceived by Rousseau, is dependent on the general will, probably the most elusive concept in Rousseau’s philosophy. For the reader to make any judgement as to the validity of the Social Contract, and its effectiveness in solving the main problem posed within it, it is crucial that they are able to understand both the conceptual theory behind it, as well as the practical problems of discovering the general will as envisaged by Rousseau. I shall seek to define the general will, and in doing so examine how valid the concept really is. Rousseau is concerned to ensure that although man is living in a society, ‘he remains as free as before’. For Rousseau, freedom requires that all individuals are equal; inequality leads to dependency, and once one man must rely on another, he is no longer free. In Book II, chapter 3, Rousseau discusses the differences between the ‘will of all’, and the ‘general will’, saying that although the general will is always right, the deliberations of people are not. Hampsher-Monk argues that there is a ‘distinct, common good’ separate from the particular will of each member. But Rousseau says that the general will is “..no more than the sum of individual desires”, and that the discover the general will one merely has to let the ‘pluses and minuses’ cancel each other out, and the general will is what’s left. In terms of the problems regarding discovering the general will, Rousseau is confident that the people will naturally want to will the general will, so long as they are not misled by others, and only when factions become involved does the private interests of groups outweigh the desire to choose the common good, a desire Rousseau thinks is present in each individual. This, however, proves to be one of the most profound problem that most writers have with the general will – how does the sovereign body know that the ‘balance’ left after cancelling out the ‘pluses and minuses’ is in fact the general will, rather than simply being a majority view of interested individuals, and is thus safeguarding the rights and freedoms of all its members, rather than favouring certain elements of society? One solution is provided by Hilail Gildin, in her book ‘Rousseau’s general will – the design of an argument’, in which she seeks to show how the balance between pluses and minuses can indeed produce a general will. She uses the example of the desire to have clean air – a common interest of all, and the subsequent need for all to achieve this by fitting catalytic converters to their cars. Each driver would ideally like all the other drivers to fit a catalytic converter to their [the other drivers'] cars, but does not want the expense of fitting one to his own car – what is in effect the private will of each individual. Using Gildin’s example we can use Rousseau’s logic to cancel out the pluses and minuses, and find the balance is indeed heavily in favour of fitting catalytic converters to cars. For if there were 100 drivers making the decision, in each case he would want the other 99 to install a catalytic converter, and only want one [himself] not to have to. The example seems tenuous, however – firstly she has to assume that every member of the sovereign body is a driver. However, in reality, it seems unlikely that such uniformity within the sovereign body would exist on many, if indeed any issue. Without it, the issue merely becomes one of factional concern, with the private interests of different groups taking precedence of the general will, and the largest faction winning. Secondly, and more problematically, the method of voting seems very obtuse. The example suggests that to work, each member says not only what his own private will is, but what he would like everyone else to do. Gildin’s example is saying that even though the individual did not want what the general will decided, it was because he voted out of self-interest, but by cancelling out the inherent self interests of each individual, you are left with the general will, which the sovereign body has agreed to accept, thus ensuring that the common good is decided on. This can only mean that in every case each individual is ‘forced to be free’, because every individual has in fact voted against the course of action needed to preserve the social pact and safeguard society. J Plamenatz is in no doubt that Gildin’s solution is incorrect – “Beware of political philosophers who use mathematics … to illustrate their meaning! God will forgive them, for they know what they do, but we shall not understand them.” He considers a solution of finding the general will out of the remaining balance using the pluses and minuses is ‘sheer nonsense’ because if three people have a common interest of x, and individual preferences of a, b, and c , then what is common to all is of course x, but the sum of the differences is a+b+c – so how can two definitions of the general will give different answers from the same data? Thus, Plamenatz and others seek to dismiss any solution relying on such calculations. For such a conclusion, whilst providing a convincing solution to the concept of a balance left from the pluses and minuses, seems to me to miss the point of the whole concept of the general will. Hampsher-Monk takes the view that the general will is “that decision, which if enacted by the people, would sustain the society…”, because in his view the general will must assume that their is an “objective common good , distinct from the particular interests or wishes of the individuals composing society”. Thus, the ‘general will’, as an abstract concept exists within all the citizens, and the real problem is devising institutions which will ensure it is the general will which is voted for, rather than a particular will, which an uniformed majority may mistakenly vote for in the belief that theirs is the general will. Thus, although Gildin’s solution provides a good practical explanation of the enigma of the general will, it appears to ignore the philosophical importance of the general will. As Gildin says, this interpretation of the general will has attempted to show that “…just intention can be supplied without presupposing moral virtue”, yet Rousseau claims that the change from a state of nature to the civil society, as laid down by the Social Contract gives man’s actions “… the moral quality they previously lacked”, and that is the reason for joining the social pact. A solution that can determine a general will solely as a sum of individual wills does not, it seems to me, create any moral responsibility to the members of the body to follow that decision. As J B Noone says, “Without a concept of personal accountability the whole idea of morality and therefore of legitimacy is vacuous”. Why should I feel compelled to do something that not only I, but everyone else said they didn’t want to do? As we said earlier, Rousseau ensures the legitimacy of the general will because it ‘springs from all for it to apply to all’, but in Gildin’s example it doesn’t actually spring from anyone, let alone everyone. Hampsher-Monk argues that legitimacy in Rousseau’s philosophy can only exist by obeying a decision reached by majority voting, as it is the “only means of realising political right”, because this is the only way of ensuring the general will tends towards “liberty and equality”, the ultimate aims of the Social Contract. However, to determine the general will by means of majority voting is a problematic process. To understand the difficulties such a method creates for discovering the general will, we will now study the arguments in Riker’s book Liberalism against Populism, in which he seeks to show how what he describes as the ‘paradox of voting’. Using the notions of preference and choice, Riker uses the example of three people 1,2,3, being given three alternatives x,y,z and asked, using simple majority rule, to pair the three alternatives into preferences eg. x preferred to y, y preferred to z,thus x preferred to z. With this simple example, Riker shows how between the three of them, a simple majority has all three alternatives equally preferred to the other.
Person 1 : Prefers X to Y; Prefers Y to Z; Prefers X to Z; = X to Y to Z
Person 2 : Prefers Y to Z; Prefers Z to X; Prefers Y to X; = Y to Z to X
Person 3 : Prefers Z to X; Prefers X to Y; Prefers Z to Y; = Z to X to Y
If a simple majority is used, then there is a 2:1 majority in favour of each alternative – between X and Y Person 1 and 3 choose X, only Person 2 chooses Y;=X between Y and Z Person 1 and 2 choose Y, only Person 3 chooses Z;=Y between X and Z Person 2 and 3 choose Z, only Person 1 chooses X.=Z
Thus between them, they have all made each letter the general will, thus making it far from the general will of the sovereign body. Riker goes on, however to make a far more damaging conclusion, by showing how if one was to use the logic of transitivity – if X is preferred to Y and Y is preferred to Z, it is logical to assume that X is preferred to Z, – the example above would concluded that between X and Z, X was actually preferred , since X is preferred to Y, and Y is preferred to Z. The consequence of this would mean that even though only person 1 preferred X, his preference would have been agreed to – making him a dictator. Yet transitivity of thought is entirely logical – as Riker points out if a man prefers $5 to 3$, and 3$ to $1, he’s hardly likely then to say that he also prefers $1 to $5. If this is the case, Riker can only conclude that the only way to achieve a coherent answer is to impose a dictator – the Hobbesian solution the Social Contract is suppose to refute! Ben Radcliffe, replying to William Riker’s book Liberalism versus Populism, uses Riker’s definition of populism to serve as a broad definition of the general will :
“1) What the people, as a corporate entity, want ought to be social policy 2) The people are free when their wishes are law” Radcliffe uses this to demonstrate briefly Riker’s main argument against the general will, both as a concept and a realistic entity. In Radcliffe’s view, Riker’s main criticism is that if the definition above is correct, then the general will cannot be viable, because an election merely tells us the most favoured alternative, not necessarily what was actually the best option, for that option may not have been offered. If the general will cannot be guaranteed to give the people what they really want (ie what is in the common good), and thus does not enact the wishes of the people, by his own definition they cannot be free, thus rendering the general will useless to safeguard the freedom of the citizens. Radcliffe, in seeking to address Riker’s argument’s against the general will, accepts that if democratic means cannot ensure the determination of the general will, it will be rejected. In Radcliffe’s view, Riker dismisses the general will because of the “alleged incoherences of majority rule” (see above) in that Riker sees no argument for the general will ensuring freedom, when that will is “inconsistent, irrational, invalid and devoid of meaning”. Radcliffe disagrees, for he believes that majority rule is the “only legitimate form of decision making” because it has a “moral dimension”, because he feels that if a majority decide on a course of action that they sincerely believe is in the common good, then it has the effect of placing us under ‘moral obligation’ to agree to it. Indeed, according to Radcliffe, the general will actually provides Rousseau with a way out of the problems envisaged by Riker, for in his opinion the general will “provides a mechanism for linking unanimity with majority voting”. For Radcliffe does not abandon the assertion that laws to binding on all must be agreed to by all. He agrees that for the decision of the general will to have legitimacy in a majority system those laws must at some point be agreed to by an unanimous decision of the sovereign body, to allow everyone to assent to them. This helps to overcome the problem of a disaffected minority, since they must agree to the majority decision before it can become law; Such a system has the obvious drawback of giving an individual’s or a small minority the power to veto, with the resulting difficulty in getting legislation passed. Radcliffe seeks to explain the general will in terms of a trial, with the corporate body of citizens forming the jury, in search of the truth, or what Radcliffe describes as a “sincere estimate of …the collective interest.” Radcliffe argues that in this case, a simple majority will produce the correct result, but only if the issue is a matter of genuine social concern, otherwise it will only produce a will of all, not the general will. This apparent simplification of the general will is not as drastic as it might seem, because if we study Rousseau’s intentions with regard the jurisdiction of the general will, we find that in the Social Contract [2 4 4], he states that the general will must be “general in its purpose as well as its nature” – anything more specific becomes a particular concern, which Rousseau is anxious to avoid, for that would risk violating the social pact by allowing factional concerns into the voting procedure, and no longer making it a vote about purely social needs. Such a concept of the general will is not that dissimilar to a concept of voting proposed by Locke, except as Radcliffe says, Locke had the corporate body agree unanimously at its conception to abide by the decision of the majority in any consequent vote. Whilst I feel this does offer a more realistic approach to the general will, I still feel it doesn’t demonstrate the concept of a general will above and beyond the private will of the individual, which I believe Rousseau thought existed. A more satisfactory interpretation of the general will is, I think, outlined in the Prisoner’s dilemma below.
There is insufficient evidence to convict either prisoner of a serious crime with which they are both charged. Each prisoner will be asked separately whether he wishes to confess, and in doing so lighten his potential sentence. However, if one prisoner confesses, and the other doesn’t, the former will receive only one year (because he has assisted the investigation), whilst the other will receive the full ten years for the crime; If both confess, they will both be convicted of the serious crime but in return for confessing will only receive a 6 year sentence each; but if neither confesses, neither can be convicted of the serious crime, only of a lesser charge, for which there is only a 2 year sentence. The private will of each prisoner will therefore be to confess, because for prisoner one, row two is in each case preferable to row one, whilst for prisoner two, column two is always preferable than column one. Thus the will of all – the sum of the two prisoners’ decision – leads both prisoners to decide to confess, even though what would have been in the common interest of both parties would have been for neither of them to confess – in effect the general will of the corporate body. For me, this probably the easiest way to understand the concept of the private will and the general will – the former is what we, in seeking to preserve our own private interest would choose, whilst the latter, although apparently not in my interest when viewed in terms of my needs as an individual, becomes beneficial when judged in terms of the public interest or the ‘common good’. Runciman and Sen use this definition to offer a useful explanation of the notorious phrase in the Social Contract “…that whoever refuses to obey the general will shall be constrained to do so by the whole body, which means nothing other than that he shall be forced to be free;”. As we shall see, this one sentence has caused tremendous argument and debate over exactly what Rousseau meant by it, with many accusing him of being a Totalitarian for demanding it. Runciman and Sen, however, see nothing so sinister in the concept of forcing someone to be free. They simply argue that Rousseau is saying that people need an enforceable contract in order that they follow what is in the common interest – in the case of the prisoner’s dilemma, they need an assurance that both parties will not confess, in order that neither are convicted – so that if one party breaks the contract by confessing, he must be forced not to confess, for that is what is in the common good, and by agreeing to be bound by the general will, he must follow what is in the common good, or the social contract becomes violated and void. This seems to me to be a very different interpretation of the concept of forcing someone to be free than the one required by Gildin’s example above. In her example, each member of the sovereign had to be forced to go against the desire expressed in their vote (for everyone to fit a catalytic converter except them personally) in order that the general will, as calculated by the balancing of the pluses and minuses, could be enacted. Runciman and Sen, however, seem to say that everyone could be shown a ‘best course of action’, but this can only work if everyone knows everyone else will agree to it. We have already said how the alienation of one’s rights to the general will mean it is in no- one’s interest to make conditions onerous for another – so if one were forced to follow the decision which is fact in the best interest of all concerned, one would actually be forced to follow to the course of action best for their own welfare. Thus the argument that Rousseau is advocating some form of totalitarian regime appears invalid, for as Hampsher-Monk says, “Rousseau does not talk about being forced to commit ‘free acts’, but of being forced in respect of acts which jeopardize (the state or condition) freedom”, in other words, those that jeopardize the social pact, and thus their own freedom.
The Lawgiver
“The social contract, then, is Rousseau’s unique solution to the problem of legitimacy”.
The general will was intended by Rousseau to be the solution to the problem of ensuring that society legitimately ruled over all . For as long as the law is determined by all the people, in their role of sovereign, then it is legitimate, for it has the moral legitimacy of a majority (see above), which for Noone is crucial because for him legitimacy is in effect an “authority whose commands are moral obligations”. However, as Shklar says, Rousseau is not sufficiently confident in the people to formulate the laws needed to sustain society even if it is able to will them through the general will – “…it needs help if it is to defend them effectively”. Although Rousseau says that the people are the Sovereign, and that the laws are agreed by all by means of the general will, he does not advocate that the people propose the laws, only assent or dissent to any laws put before them. Thus, it is not up to the people to assess which is the best option within the prisoners dilemma, only to agree that not confessing is the best option. For although the general will is always rightful, Rousseau acknowledges that the “judgement which guides it is not always enlightened” :- “Individuals see the good and reject it; the public desires the good, but does not see it. Both equally need guidance. Individuals must be obliged to subordinate their will to their reason; the public must be taught to recognise what it desires…. Hence the necessity of a lawgiver”.
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