Jean Rousseau: Political Philosophy

Introduction

When reading the philosophies of a political thinker, one must maintain a multi-dimensional perspective, taking into account three fundamental aspects that significantly shape and enrich one’s understanding of their work.

1. Firstly, the personal life experiences of a philosopher. These experiences, whether marked by triumph or adversity, invariably mold their worldview and beliefs, influencing the very foundations upon which their philosophical edifice is constructed.
2. Secondly, contextualising a philosopher within the socio-economic and political milieu of their era. The prevailing conditions, whether marked by social upheaval, economic inequality, or political transformation, provide the backdrop against which their ideas are formulated. The philosopher’s engagement with the socio-political dynamics of their time, their reactions to the prevailing power structures, and their critiques of existing norms all serve as windows into the pressing issues of their day.
3. Lastly, the temporal dimension of a philosopher’s life and thought. Just as seasons change, so too does the human mind evolve over time. The age at which a philosopher articulates their ideas holds intrinsic importance. Early writings may exude the fervour of youthful idealism, while later works may reflect the wisdom borne of experience and reflection. The process of refinement, reformulation, or even the outright transformation of philosophical views throughout a philosopher’s life is a testament to the dynamic nature of intellectual inquiry. Understanding this evolution, punctuated by shifts in perspective, allows us to grasp the depth and breadth of their intellectual journey.

Thus, these three interwoven facets — personal life experiences, socio-economic and political context, and the evolving nature of a philosopher’s thought — are vital threads that together compose the fabric of their ideas.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the last of the troika of Social Contract theorists, was no exception

Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a product of the Enlightenment and influenced one of the greatest events in human history, namely the French Revolution. A Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer, his political philosophy has influenced scholars and politicians all over the world.

Rousseau: His Life

Rousseau (1712–1778), a romantic by birth, belonged to the influential middle-class family of Geneva. Because of his views, he lived most of his life in exile in France, where he died after many years of wandering, fairly convinced of a vast conspiracy against him.

Rousseau: His Time

Rousseau was the product of the Age of Enlightenment, during which modern ideals such as liberty, progress, and happiness became common... These ideals not only formed the basis of the American Revolution but also of the simmering French Revolution soon after his death

Core Ideas of Rousseau’s Political Philosophy

The political philosophy of every philosopher generally revolves around 3 ideas, namely

1. Condition of state and society in the State of Nature
2. How they enter into a Social Contract
3. Role & functions of government or ruler in power

However, before studying Rousseau’s political thoughts on these three, we must understand three basic ideas that prove the basis for his political philosophy 1. Man’s Nature: Good or Bad? 2. The Unnaturalness of Inequality 3. The Danger of Needs

1. Man’s Nature-Good or Bad?

Born as a romantic who lived during the Age of Enlightenment, Rousseau negates Hobbes’s extremely pessimistic view of humans as naturally self-centred and brutish. Instead, Rousseau takes a more opportunistic approach & argues that humans are innately good

2. The Unnaturalness of Inequality

For Rousseau, the questions of why and how human beings are naturally equal and unequal, are not natural. To him, the only kind of natural inequality is the physical inequality that exists among men

According to Rousseau, every person is more or less able to provide for himself according to his physical attributes. Accordingly, all the inequalities we recognize in modern society are due to the existence of different classes or the & exploitation of some people by others

Very bold statement? yes. That is why Rousseau terms these kinds of inequalities moral inequalities and devotes much of his political philosophy to identifying how a just government can seek to overturn them.

3. The Danger of Needs

According to Rousseau, one of the reasons for these “moral inequalities” is the unnecessary need to satisfy, which forces some to work to fulfill the needs of others. As a result, they will dominate their fellows when in a position to do so.

According to Rousseau, “needs” result from passions, which make people desire an object or activity. Initially, human needs were strictly limited to survival and reproduction. But with the development of the division of labour, these needs multiply to include many non-essential things

Although many of these needs are initially pleasurable and even good for human beings, men eventually become slaves to these superfluous needs, and the whole of society is bound together and shaped by their pursuit when these needs become a part of everyday life as necessities.

4. State of Nature

Following Hobbes and Locke, Rousseau also takes the state of nature as the hypothetical, prehistoric place and time where human beings live uncorrupted by society, understanding it is essential for society’s members to more fully realize their natural goodness

Rousseau’s conception of the state of nature is more positive than that of Hobbes who originated the term and viewed it as essentially a state of war and savagery. This difference in definition indicates the two philosophers’ differing views of human nature, as discussed above.

Rousseau eulogizes the state of nature not only for the physical freedom it provides to people but also for allowing them to be unencumbered by the coercive influence of the state and society. Thus, a person is free in a state of nature for two reasons, namely

1. Free from State and Society: First, a natural man is physically free because he is not constrained by a repressive state apparatus or dominated by his fellow men.
2. Free from Modern Desires: psychologically and spiritually free, not enslaved to any of the artificial needs

Consequently, Rousseau blames modern man’s enslavement for his own needs and all sorts of societal ills, from exploitation and domination of others to poor self-esteem and depression. He also maintains that as long as property and laws exist, people can never be entirely free

5. The Social Contract

For Rousseau, the state of nature is relatively peaceful, but a social contract becomes necessary to overcome conflicts that inevitably arise as society grows and individuals become dependent on others to meet their needs.

The Social Contract, with its famous opening sentence, ‘Man is born free, and he is everywhere in chains’, stated instead that people could only experience true freedom if they lived in a civil society that ensured the rights and well-being of its citizens.

By proposing a social contract, Rousseau hopes to secure the civil freedom that should accompany life in society. This freedom is tempered by an agreement not to harm one’s fellow citizens, but this restraint leads people to be moral and rational.

But Rousseau also believed in the possibility of a genuine social contract, one in which people would receive in exchange for their independence a better kind of freedom, namely true political, or republican, liberty. such liberty is to be found in obedience to what Rousseau called the volonté générale (“general will”) — a collectively held will that aims at the common good or the common interest.

Rousseau lamented the “fatal” concept of property and the “horrors” that resulted from the departure from a condition in which the earth belonged to no one.

Civil society, came into being to serve two purposes: to provide peace for everyone and to ensure the right to property for anyone lucky enough to have possessions. It was thus of some advantage to everyone, but mostly to the advantage of the rich, since it transformed their de facto ownership into rightful ownership and kept the poor dispossessed. It was, indeed, a somewhat fraudulent social contract, since the poor got so much less out of it than the rich.

Rousseau’s conception of citizenship was much more organic and less individualistic than Locke’s. The surrender of independence, or natural liberty, for political liberty meant that all individual rights, including property rights, were subordinate to the general will.

For Rousseau, a state is a moral person whose life is the union of its members, whose laws are acts of the general will, and whose end is the liberty and equality of its citizens. It follows that when any government usurps the power of the people, the social contract is broken; and not only are the citizens no longer compelled to obey, but they also must rebel.

6. Role and Functions of Government/Ruler-Collective Sovereignty

The Social Contract explains the form of government that best affirms the individual freedom of all its citizens, with certain constraints inherent to a complex, modern, civil society.

Strictly defined, a sovereign is the voice of the law and the absolute authority within a given state. In Rousseau’s time, the sovereign was usually an absolute monarch. In The Social Contract, however, this word is given a new meaning. In a healthy republic, Rousseau defines the sovereign as all the citizens acting collectively.

Together, they voice the general will and the laws of the state. The sovereign cannot be represented, divided, or broken up in any way: only all the people speaking collectively can be sovereign. The key concept of the Social Contract is what Rousseau calls the General Will, understood as the collective will of the entire citizen body.

Rousseau strongly believed in the existence of certain principles of government that, if enacted, can afford the members of society a level of freedom that at least approximates the freedom enjoyed in the state of nature. In The Social Contract and his other works of political philosophy, Rousseau is devoted to outlining these principles and how they may be given expression in a functional modern state.

General will is the will of the sovereign or all the people together, that aims at the common good — what is best for the state as a whole. Although each individual may have his or her own particular will that expresses what is good for him or her, in a healthy state, where people correctly value the collective good of all over their own good, the amalgamation of all particular wills, the “will of all,” is equivalent to the general will.

The most concrete manifestation of the general will in a healthy state comes in the form of law. To Rousseau, laws should always record what the people collectively desire (the general will) and should always be universally applicable to all members of the state. Further, they should exist to ensure that people’s freedom is upheld, thereby guaranteeing that people remain loyal to the sovereign at all times.

In obeying the General Will and the laws formed by it, the individual citizen, Rousseau argues, retains his original, natural freedom, because he is not obeying any outside authority but only his own will.

This general will is a moral will that aims at the common good and expects that all participate directly. It reconciles the individual and the community by representing the will of the community as deriving from the will of moral individuals. In other words, to obey the laws of such a community is in a sense, to follow one’s own will, assuming that one is a moral individual.

Rousseau’s account of the General Will has long perplexed interpreters. Is it a

1. Conception of Political Authority: The collective will of a people serves as the basis for all public morality and state laws. Provides legitimacy
2. Conception of the Common Good: It serves as a standard with which to judge them.Public Morality
3. Conception of a Gelling Bond: It serves as a gel to integrate individuals into society and the state. Soul/spirit

What does Rousseau mean by the statement that the General Will can “never err.”?

Rousseau means that the highest authority in a properly functioning society can only be society itself, and never a different authority, namely, the pre-political rights of the individual, or any theological claims of religious authorities.

Rousseau’s abstract conception of the general will raises some difficult questions.

1. How can we know that the will of all is equivalent to the common good?
2. Assuming that the general will exists and can be expressed in laws, what are the institutions that can accurately gauge and codify the general will at any given time?

Tackling these complex dilemmas occupied a large portion of Rousseau’s political thought, and he attempts to answer them in The Social Contract, among other places.

Until Rousseau’s time, the sovereign was regarded as an authoritative monarch who possessed absolute dominion over his subjects, a central authority responsible for enacting and enforcing all laws.

In Rousseau’s work, however, sovereignty is said to reside in all the people of the society as a collective. The people, as a sovereign entity, express their sovereignty through their general will and must never have their sovereignty abrogated by anyone or anything outside their collective self.

In this regard, sovereignty is not identified with the government but is instead opposed to it. The government’s function is thus only to enforce and respect the sovereign will of the people and in no way seek to repress or dominate the general will.

7. Role of the Legislator

Rousseau gives special importance to the role of a legislator, whom he describes as a human being of “superior intelligence,” able to see “all of the men’s passions yet having experienced none of them.”

Political societies require for their founding a lawgiver capable of “changing human nature... of transforming each individual, who by himself is a perfect and solitary whole, into a part of a larger whole.”

Rousseau’s concept of the Legislator is almost similar to the political thought of Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero, and preserved in Machiavelli in the form of the new founder-prince, but it is largely absent from the social contract theories of Hobbes and Locke.

Impact

Rousseau is a political theorist of the first rank, alongside such figures as Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Kant, and Hegel.

1. Revolutionary Ideas: Rousseau’s twin concepts of individualism and collectivism were reactions to the rationalism and utilitarian outlook of the Enlightenment and attempted to create a substitute for revealed religion. Now Rousseau proclaimed a secular egalitarianism and a romantic cult of the common man.
2. Revolutions: In general, Rousseau’s meditations on inequality, as well as his radical assertion of the notion that all men are by and large equal in their natural state, were important inspirations for both the American and French Revolutions. The fact that he was idolized by leaders of the French Revolution has led others to read his works as laying the intellectual foundations for the reign of terror and modern totalitarianism.
3. Masses Champion: His famous declaration “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains” called into question the traditional social hierarchy: hitherto, political philosophers had thought in terms of elites, but now the mass of the people had found a champion and were becoming politically conscious.
4. Nationalism: And, since the idea was misapplied from small villages or civic communities to great sovereign nation-states, Rousseau was also the prophet of nationalism that he never advocated.
5. European Union: Rousseau wanted a federal Europe. The present-day European Union owes its origins to the ideas propounded by philosophers like Rousseau
6. Double-edged weapon: Rousseau could inspire liberals, such as the 19th-century English philosopher T.H. Green, to a creative view of a state helping people to make the best of their potential through a variety of free institutions. It could also play into the hands of demagogues claiming to represent the general will and bent on moulding society according to their abstractions.