Rousseau, The Social Contract

Social Ethics

◦ The organization of society must fulfill a few goals.

> It must meet demands (as best as possible).

> It must allow new demands to be voiced.

> It must have and create people who can do the task of invention.

> It must be flexible to respond to invention.

Rousseau’s overarching question

What makes a social contract legitimate?

> Compromise means that there will be disappointed demands.

> Maybe compromises need to be enforced.

> But can there be a legitimate contract that needs violent enforcement?

◦ Is the very idea of a contract compatible with the very idea of enforcement?

> Enforcement by whom and with what right?

Main claim

◦ Truth: humans are naturally free.

> A truth held self-evident.

◦ Obedience is something that is only traded for benefits

Being born unfree is against nature

Supporting argument - the strongest

◦ The strong might take power, but can only keep it if they can legitimize themselves.

> “transform[ing] strength into right and obedience into duty”

◦ Might does not make right - any such legitimization is a smokescreen

So what legitimizes the state?

◦ Freedom is inalienable.

> To freely give it away is “null and illegitimate, simply because the

man who does it is out of his mind”

> And even if possible, you cannot do it for future generations.

> Since they again themselves are born free.

The First Agreement

◦ A contract is only legitimate if it was unanimous.

> Because if there were dissenters, the majority has no legitimate rights over them.

> Again force/numbers do not make right.

◦ Living in a society means to choose freely, not just once but continuously, to join forces with others.

> One does is not coerced by the contract, only by duty to oneself.

◦ The social contract: legitimate because every person agrees to it out of duty to oneself and not out of anything else.

The General Will

> It is not merely the majority, but the collective will of the compact.

> The general will is towards the common good, and towards the good of each individual

◦ The social contract constitutes the general will - expresses the rules, freely chosen and continuously freely chosen, that determine the general will.

> Constitution

What does it mean to be freely chosen?

◦ Agreement to the social contract does not mean agreement with everything the general will decides, means to choose it over any other option you have

> Out of duty to oneself if one chooses the contract over becoming a hermit, refugee or revolutionary.

The Sovereign

◦ The ‘body politic’ - the free people subject to the contract in virtue of freely associated under the contract.

> Its members have commitments to the sovereign itself.

> And to each of the members of the sovereign.

◦ Thus, the general will must be a will for collective defense and general welfare.

> Preserving the freedom and well-being of all individuals.

◦ The members of the sovereign are forced to be free.

> Due to the sovereign’s duty to its members, it will also prevent its members from (insanely) selling their own liberties away

Accepting restrictions

◦ To have freely entered a social contract is to accept restrictions on one’s natural liberty

> But these restrictions are not due to force but due to freely accepting duties to others in exchange for equally many duties of others to oneself.