Rights Philosophy Forum, Rousseau

Bio

"Rousseau was born in Geneva, Switzerland, and died in Ermenonville
(28 miles northeast of Paris). His mother, Suzanne Bernard Rousseau,
died a week after his birth, and his father Isaac abandoned him in 1722.
His childhood education consisted solely of reading Plutarch's Lives and
Calvinist sermons.

"Rousseau left Geneva on March 14, 1728, after several years of
apprenticeship to a notary and then an engraver. He lived with and was
supported by Madame Louise de Warens, a French Catholic woman.
Although she was twelve years older than him and married, they became
lovers, and Rousseau converted to Catholicism. In 1742 he moved to
Paris where, he became friends with Diderot and contributed several
articles to his Encyclopédie. He also befriended and lived with Thérèse
Lavasseur, an illiterate seamstress who bore him five children.

"In 1762, Rousseau published Emile, or Education, and The Social
Contract, both of which were burned in Geneva. Emile was also
denounced by the Sorbonne and condemned by the French parliament.
(Eventually, The Social Contract would be burned across European
capitals.) Rousseau was forced to flee the increasingly hostile French
government. Geneva had exiled him, so he made a brief stay in Bern. In
January of 1766, he took refuge with the philosopher David Hume in Great
Britain, but after 18 months he left because he believed Hume was
plotting against him.

"Rousseau returned to France under the name "Renou," although
officially he was not allowed back in until 1770. As a condition of his
return, he was not allowed to publish any books, but after completing his
Confessions, Rousseau began private readings. Because of his
partially-justified paranoia, he did not seek attention or the company of
others. While taking a morning walk on the estate of the Marquis de
Giradin at Ermenonville, Rousseau suffered a hemorrhage and died on
July 2, 1778. Rousseau was interred in The Panthéon in Paris in 1794,
six years after his death. The tomb was designed to resemble a rustic
temple, to recall Rousseau's theories of nature.

The Social Contract

"Rousseau's most important work in political philosophy is almost
certainly The Social Contract, which outlines the basis for a legitimate
political order. Building on his earlier work, such as the Discourse on
Inequality, Rousseau claimed that the state of nature, in which man is
originally a "noble savage" eventually degenerates into a brutish condition
without law or morality, at which point the human race must adopt
institutions of law or perish. In the degenerate phase of the state of
nature, man is prone to be in frequent competition with his fellow men
whilst at the same time becoming increasingly dependent on them. This
double pressure threatens both his survival and his freedom. According
to Rousseau, by joining together through the social contract and
abandoning their claims of natural right, individuals can both preserve
themselves and remain free. This is because submission to the authority
of the general will of the people as a whole guarantees individuals
against being subordinated to the wills of others and also ensures that
they obey themselves because they are, collectively, the authors of the
law."

"Each of us places in common his person and all of his power, under the
supreme direction of the general will; and, as a body, we receive each
member as an indivisible part of the whole" (The Social Contract; Chapter
VI, my translation).

It is important to distinguish Rousseau's idea of the 'general will' from
what he called the 'will of all,' or simply rule by majority. The general will
considered the true common interest of all members of society, while the
will of all considered private interests, a sum of particular wills. Rousseau
felt that the general will was infallible, whereas the will of all may be
fallible because: a) people tend to seek their own well-being and not
necessarily that of their neighbor, and b) people may quite simply make
mistakes as to what the good is. He felt that the best way to arrive at the
general will was through an open deliberation by an informed public. If
public views were represented by factions, they would become narrower,
while the differences between groups became greater, until one group
wins by sheer numbers, marginalizing the others.

"While Rousseau argues that sovereignty should thus be in the hands of
the people, he also makes a sharp distinction between sovereign and
government. The government is charged with implementing and
enforcing the general will and is composed of a smaller group of citizens,
known as magistrates. Rousseau was bitterly opposed to the idea that
the people should exercise sovereignty via a representative assembly.
Rather, they should make the laws directly. This restriction means that
Rousseau's ideal state could only be realised, if at all, within a very small
society. Much of the subsequent controversy about Rousseau's work has
hinged on disagreements concerning his claims that citizens constrained
to obey the general will are thereby rendered free.

"Rousseau was one of the first modern writers to seriously attack the
institution of private property, and therefore is often considered a
forebearer of modern socialism and communism (see Marx, though Marx
rarely mentions Rousseau in his writings). Rousseau also questioned
the assumption that the will of the majority is always correct. He argued
that the goal of government should be to secure freedom, equality, and
justice for all within the state, regardless of the will of the majority."

(Excerpts adapted and portrait taken from the Wikipedia article on Rousseau. Click
here for complete article.)

Works

The Social Contract (English )

Du Contrat Social (French )

Emile
(both English and French)

Discourse on Inequality (English)

Discours sur l'Inégalité (French)