DEPARTMENT OF LAW

TRINITY INSTITUTE OF PROFESSIONAL STUDIES

BALLB: Sem-2

POLITICAL SCIENCE

ASSIGNMENT

Submitted to: Ms. Richa Tyagi Ma’am

Submitted by: Pranavi Challa
Enrolment Number: 01420603821
(Batch 2021-2026)

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 I N D E X

1. About J. J. Rousseau

2. The theory of Social Contract

a) Human Nature

b) State of Nature

c) Causes of Social Contract

d) Nature of the Contract

e) Criticism

3. Theory of General Will

a) Features
b) Criticism

4. Rousseau’s Theory of Popular Sovereignty

5. Conclusion

6. References

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 THEORY OF GENERAL WILL

BY: Jean Jack Rousseau

About Jean Jack Rousseau1

He was born in Greece, in 1712. His mother died few days after his birth and his father who was a clocks man,
was occupied the entire day. Later due to some circumstance, his father moved out of Greece and he with him.
He kept a wandering life first to learn music, then as a philosopher and writer. He wrote a variety of books: “A
Discourse on the Origins of Inequality (1755)” and “The Social Contract (1762)”, the novels Julie, “The New
Eloise (1761) and Émile”, On Education (1762); and the autobiographical Confessions (1782–1789), among
other works.
Rousseau is called the champion of “Popular Sovereignty” which is the principle that the authority of a state and
its government are created and sustained by the consent of its people, through their elected representatives (rule
by the people), who are the source of all political power.
Today, he is denoted as the champion of “General Will”, which would be described in this paper.

The
General
Will

1. Bosanquet, B. (1899). The philosophical theory of the state (3rd ed.). London: Macmillan .
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Theory of Social Contract2:

A social contract is an agreement made between the people and the sovereign of the state as to how they will be
ruled. Thomas Hobbes believed that the sovereign and the populas agree that the sovereign should have
unlimited control and power over the population, provided that they keep the population safe and stable.
Whereas, John Locke argued that the sovereign and the people agree that the state will have very limited power
and shall only be allowed to exercise this power to protect its citizen’s natural rights; life, liberty and property.
Based on the works of Hobbes and Locke, Rousseau developed a new social contract theory that goes even
further to balance freedom of the individual and the power of the sovereign. To put it simply, Rosseau’s theory
claims that it should be the people that should become the sovereign.

I. Human nature:
In his book, The Social Contracts (1762), Rousseau opens with the following phrase, “Man is born free and he
is everywhere in chains.” He assumed that man is naturally good by his birth and he does not have any evil
tenderness in him. It is due to the social circumstances and the action of others during his lifetime that turns his
goodness of heart into evil.
He termed humans as “Noble Savage” and believed that the original man was free from sin, appetite or the
concept of right and wrong and that those deemed “savages” were not brutal but noble. But “he” became
diseased and degenerated, obsessed with the things of the world. According to him, man was close to the nature,
law and justice. If the basic need of the man was fulfilled, he would live a peaceful life. But it was the
development of civilization, with which the greed and the want for more of the man also increased and turned
the man into “evil”.

II. State of Nature:

a) The nature is pre-social and pre-political.

b) In the state of nature all men lived in an isolated life and he was not bound neither by obligation
and duty.
c) It is assumed that in state of nature man was free, equal, peaceful and happy.
d) Man was unknown of fear, social good, evil, not afraid of death, no fear of lose of property or
family.
2
1. Grofman, B., & Scott, L. F. (1988). Rousseau’s general will: A condorcetian perspective. American
Political Science Review, 82, 567–576.
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 e) When social order stated taking place, the social actions created problems. Social instincts
compelled him to live in groups, consequently social institutions came into being. Then reason
began to operate on men, his interest in self-love, began to shape into pride. This led to conflict
which was due to private property which led to chaotic situation.
f) Inequality, murder and war resulted when people began to claim ownership during social life.
g) The powerful rich exercised their right on the land that belonged to everyone and fooled the
common people into accepting them as rulers.
h) The state of nature turned the man corrupt, it turned the primitive man turn into a man guided by
self-interest and pity.

III. Causes of Social Contract:

A. While equality and happiness disappear from man’s life, the Sate of Nature turned into cunning and
brutal which affected the emotional and economic life of man.
B. Man wants to harmonize the institutions of family and property with the institutions of liberty, equality
in the state of nature.
C. Men are forced to create society, when the condition in the state became intolerable, Rousseau found a
solution to this by initiating a social contract in 1762.

IV. Nature of the Contract:

a. Rousseau’s social contract is reference of Hobe’s authority and Locke’s Liberty.

b. He says that liberty is fundamental, that it is the natural right of individuals that should be provided to
individuals right from the birth.
c. Authority and liberty are complementary to each other and that one may not exist without other.
d. The life in the society becomes miserable in the absence of liberty, as liberty is the necessity of human
nature.
e. Liberty is accompanied by Authority and it is then that law and order is established in the state.

V. Criticism:

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 a) Condition of the state of nature, incredible: Critiques say that Thomas Hobe’s state of nature was too
terrible to be true whereas Rousseau’s state of nature was too good to be true. As Rousseau’s believes
were contradictory to that of Hobe’s in which he believed man to be good from the beginning and that
the fact and circumstances changed his nature into evil.
b) Too ambiguous and contradictory: Critiques believe that Rousseau’s ideas lack clarity and simplicity of
thoughts. And his explanations are vague and subjected to various doubts and individual’s
interpretations. According to them his theory was not entirely convincing.

Theory of General Will3:

Collectively held will that is aimed at common interests. In other words, the general will is the will of
the community or the will of all that represents the welfare of all. It is central to the political philosophy
of Jean Jack Rousseau and an important concept of modern republican thought.

According to Rousseau the state was created through social contract and in such a civil society, the
people should make rules for themselves and the rules of the contact are called General Will. The origin
of general will roots back to the era of Christian theology. For example, in the second half of the
seventeenth century Nicolas Malebranche attributed to God, but he used it in universal way. Rousseau
used it in the political sense as he being the political philosopher.

Features:

1. General Will is popular sovereignty: according to Hobes the sovereign created the authority over
the people and apart from people, he is the leviathan. But Rousseau created sovereignty out of
the people themselves. And according to this, people will follow the rules of the general will in
the state and not some absolute ruler.
2. Rousseau differentiated general will and particular will; will of the community is the general will
and the will of the individual is included in the particular will, in which the particular will could
be in favor of the general will and it might be against the general will. When the particular will is

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1. https://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/socialcontract/characters/
2. The general will before Rousseau by: P Riley - Political theory, 1978

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 in favor of the general will it is called the real will and when it is against the general will, it is
called the actual will.
3. When an individual is interest momentarily by his self-interest and is acting against general will
then it is called as actual will. If he acting on the common good then, he is acting on his real will.
4. According to Rousseau; the absolute unanimity is necessary for only the original contract and
once the state is established, the consent is implied in the fact of residence, however the
unanimity in practice is impossible to secure, so general will to Rousseau is not necessarily a
unanimous will.
5. According to Rousseau4, the general will be infallible and is always a right as it stands for the
general interest and the welfare of all. Since the general will is the real will of each individual, it
must be sovereign, it should be followed and obeyed by all.
6. Rousseau says the obedience to individual is the obedience to oneself, because everyone is the
maker of the general will.
7. General will is the best will of every individual. As everyone has agreed to cooperate and
obliged to the rules set by them. And as the general will is the collection of each individual’s
will, the general will be the best will of every individual.
8. General will is permanent, inalienable and indivisible, it cannot be given away partly or fully by
citizens to the legislature or any other body. If it is divided or delegated, then the general will is
destroyed. If the nation appoints representatives, it loses its freedom,
9. Rousseau calls the general will as the voice of the people and he compares the voice of people
with the voice of God.
10. Rousseau makes a distinction between the general will and executive will. He considered
lawmaking as the task of the sovereign general will but the enforcement of laws as the work of
executive will, which is the agent of general will. Thus, the government is the agent of the people
subordinated to the people. Government is the product of the sovereign decree, thus the general
will be impersonal while the executive will is personal.

Criticism5:

4
1. What is the general will? By: G Sreenivasan - The Philosophical Review,
2. The general will: Rousseau, Marx, communism
A Levine, L Andrew - 1993
5
1. Rousseau's general will by: P Riley - The Cambridge Companion to Rousseau, 2001
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 a) General Will is too abstract: according to the critiques the concept of general will is too
narrow and abstract, and very subtle distinctions have been made between the general
will and the will of all and many arguments are advanced to further explain it.
b) Difficulty in locating of general will: in a large modern state, where all people cannot
meet together and express their general will, which makes it impossible to locate or
discover general will, in such a state.
c) Excluded women and slaves: During the times, when the theory was formed women,
children and slaves were not considered to be the active participants of the society and
hence the general will be narrow and man-centered.
d) General will is a totalitarian idea: Because Rousseau gives absolute power to the General
Will and no option to the individual will. In which the general will can neither be wrong
or unjust. And individuals cannot protest against the authority of general will, which in a
direct or indirect way leads to the democratic form of government.
Critiques said that the General Will is, “A type of leviathan with his head chopped off.”
e) Critics say that the concept of “common interest” is difficult to define and the doctrine of
general will is based on the concept of common interest and that common good is general
will. Justification of common good is subjective in nature.
f) Rousseau made no distinction between state and nature: according to critics, it is a
serious mistake an could be easily utilized by totalitarian state, to suppress the
individuals.

Rousseau’s Theory of Popular Sovereignty

2. Hegel, G. W. F. (2008). Elements of the philosophy of right. (H. B. Nisbet, Trans.). Cambridge/New York:
Cambridge University Press.
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Sovereign: Strictly outlined, a sovereign is that the voice of the law and also the absolute authority inside a
given state. In Rousseau's time, the sovereign was sometimes associate with the absolute monarch. Within the
accord, this word is given a new meaning, which is; in a healthy republic. Rousseau defines the sovereign as all
the voters acting jointly. Rousseau uses the term ‘sovereign’ as a label for the person holding the supreme
power in a state. This confirms the fundamental notion of sovereignty: that a sovereign has absolute and
inalienable power overs its subjects.

Government: This is the chief power of a state, that takes care of explicit matters and day-after-day business.
As many alternative varieties of government as their square measure states, they will be roughly divided into
democracy (the rule of the many), aristocracy (the rule of the few), and autocracy (the rule of one individual).
The govt represents the people: it’s not sovereign, and it cannot represent the overall can. It’s its own company
can that’s usually at odds with the overall can. For this reason, there’s usually friction between the government
and also the sovereign that may achieve the downfall of the state.

However, Rousseau’s definition marks a radical break as he argues that individuals are often subjected to a
sovereign power while not losing their freedom is that if they’re the sovereign power. Rousseau’s thought of the
individuals as sovereign requires participation, with the direction of state being determined by what Rousseau
terms ‘the general will’. Thus, it is often argued that Rousseau develops a theory of sovereignty.

Features of the “Popular Sovereignty”

1. Rousseau assigns unlimited and absolute power to the sovereign: but this absolutism is not based on
Hobbes’s view of sovereignty on fear and intimidation, but based on consent. It is based upon the
contract which is just and equitable and makes every act of sovereignty to the advantage of all.
2. Rousseau’s sovereignty is inalienable: Sovereignty based on general will, it is just like a soul in living
organisms, which cannot be separated from the body. Its power maybe transferred from one government
to another but the will cannot.
3. Rousseau imposes certain limitations on sovereign powers: Rousseau’s sovereign cannot act
arbitrarily, but its every act only for the general welfare. And the sovereign must ensure equality of all
before law and must promulgate all rules of justice and equality.

Conclusion

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Rousseau recognized in The Social Contract that his conception of the General Will was utopian in the
circumstances of eighteenth-century Europe. Rousseau’s egalitarian and populist ideas were otherwise
antithetical, appropriated the concept to justify seizure of power by the Third Estate from the nobility. However,
he sought to circumscribe its revolutionary implications by channeling its exercise through representative
government.

The concept of the general will has had a deep and lasting influence on modern republican thought, particularly
in the French tradition. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789 (article 6), a founding
document of the current French Constitution, defined law as the expression of the general will.

References

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Books:

1. Bosanquet, B. (1899). The philosophical theory of the state (3rd ed.). London:
Macmillan.
2. Grofman, B., & Scott, L. F. (1988). Rousseau’s general will: A condorcetian
perspective. American Political Science Review, 82, 567–576.
3. Hegel, G. W. F. (2008). Elements of the philosophy of right. (H. B. Nisbet, Trans.).
4. Levine, A. (1993). The general will: Rousseau, Marx, communism.

Journal:

1. What is the general will? By: G Sreenivasan - The Philosophical Review

2. The general will before Rousseau by: P Riley - Political theory, 1978

3. The Concept of the General Wll in the Writings of Rousseau, Sièyes, and Robespierre
Stephen Carruthers

Website:

1. https://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/socialcontract/characters/

2. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27743941

3. https://www.thoughtco.com/popular-sovereignty-105422

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