Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712 – 1778)

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• Rousseau was born Geneva (Switzerland) in 1712 and live there until 1728
• His father was watchmaker and his mother died at Rousseau’s birth
• Arrived in Paris in 1742
• A turning point in his life was the 1749 essay competition on “has the
progress of science and arts contributed to corrupt or purify morals”?
• His second essay was on ‘origin of inequality’ – targeted the private property
• He was critical of Enlightenment
• Rousseau wrote the ‘Social Contract’ in 1762
• His ideas inspired French Revolution
• He gave the concept of popular sovereignty
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• Rousseau’s political philosophy is mainly discussed in the ‘second
discourses’ and ‘social contract’
• In the second discourses he discusses the state of nature and evolution of
society whereas, in the social contract he discusses the ‘general will’ and
‘popular sovereignty’
State of Nature
• A condition without social and political organized structure
• In a state of nature neither conflict nor cooperation, neither virtue nor vice,
neither happiness nor unhappiness
• Humans living in the state of nature are isolated, peaceful, mute and having
no worries for future
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Man Two Qualities in a State of Nature
• Freedom; Ability to decide for oneself
• Pity or Compassion; Ability to feel pain for the near ones
Note; these two qualities separate man from animals and therefore Rousseau
called them as Noble Savage
• When man become civilized these qualities get corrupted
• Arrival of private property makes the beginning of society
How man Moves From State of Nature to Society?
• The answer is Private Property
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• “The first man who, having enclosed a piece of land, thought himself of saying
this is mine, and found people simple enough to believe him, was the real
founder of civil society”
• The concept of mine and thine
• From here the origin of inequality begins and which is the causes of all human
miseries
• From this point a simple society in which relations between men were mutual
but independent has turned into interdependent and dependent
• Equality disappeared; replaced by inequality
• This developed a selfish character in individuals to have and owned more
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• Also develops a desire to be recognized by others
From the State of Nature to the State of War
• The inequality, dependence, growth of a selfishness and desire to be
recognized by others breeds violence
• Natural feelings of compassion is replaced by envy and competition, and
this leads to the state of war
Note; Rousseau and Marx criticisms of the private property; the only
difference between the two is psychological and material
• Now to end the state of war, the property holding class devised a civil
society or an illegitimate social contract
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First Social Contract/civil Society
• Rich and property owing class convince everyone else to form a government
• In order to protect their lives people agree for a social contract
• To have some sort of political authority
• But this contract is made by the rich and powerful for their own interest
• Here the rich entangled the poor in the device of laws and other structures
• This subject all poor into a new form of perpetual labor and slavery
• This is the situation, where men lost all its moral perfection
• To rectify this situation is to create a new society
• “Man is born free but everywhere in chains”
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Rousseau’s Social Contract
• State of nature = Freedom and equality
• Present condition = Dependence and inequality
• Now, Rousseau wants that we cannot go back to the state of nature
• However, while staying in society we can be as free as we can in state of
nature
• This is possible only by having the social contract
• The aims of the social contract are;
1. Protection of life and property
2. To get freedom where, one remains as free as they were before
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• In Rousseau contract right are social not natural, and there are no reserving
of rights
• The Rousseau contract requires that each member surrender to the
community all of his rights
• The surrender must be total and unconditional
• Each person, under the term of contract, gives all his rights to everyone, as
they give their rights to him
• Nothing is lost but a great deal is gained – in effect no one loses anything and
everyone gains security guaranteed by the power of the community
• Rousseau made community sovereign whereas Hobbes made sovereign the
head of the state
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• Rousseau combined the absolutism of Hobbes and popular consent of Locke
in his social contract
State and Government
• Rousseau made distinction between the government and the state
• A state denotes the community as a whole created by the social contract,
while a government denotes merely the individual or group of individuals
designated by the community
• The people first made the government and then voted for certain individuals
to run the government
• The government does not make laws only administer them
• The government is an intermediary between subjects and the state
• An individual can resist the government not the state
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• Rousseau opt for a direct democracy and repudiated the representative
democracy in England
• It is possible that an individual might pursue self interest
• To avoid such a particularism, which may destroy the community it is
necessary for the body politic to operate on the basis of GENERAL WILL
Rousseau’s Concept of General Will
• General Will is the collective interest of all the individuals living in a society
• It is what is good and best for the society as a whole
1. General Will
2. Private or particular will
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• We are to obey the General Will
Example; There are two self of an individual
1. Higher Self; if an individual actions are determined by higher self then he is
free
2. Lower Self; if an individual actions are determined by lower self then he is
not free
• In the same vein for a community the higher self is general will and it is the
sovereign
• General will decides the action and behavior of community through its laws
• When the society started following the general, they will experience the real
freedom