Philosophy in the eighteenth century

¶ … Jean Jacque Rousseau published on the Social Contract, his theory of how man moves from the state of nature to form a social contract, in 1762, he was offering his views largely in response to works that had been published near the end of the previous century by John Locke and Thomas Hobbes. Both of these English philosophers had developed social contract theories which argued that men entered the state in order to achieve some social good, such as a guarantee of physical security or protection of property rights that had been impossible to achieve by themselves on their own resources when they were in the state of nature. Rousseau takes issue with some of the conclusions that were reached by the works of these two men -- especially to the degree that they place power in the hands of the sovereign and infuse that sovereign with a kind of divine right to rule. Rousseau thought that men would not make such a move if they were first found free and noble and under their own auspices. He attempts, therefore to imagine a world in which such a move takes place in order to determine what kind of state would make sense for men in such an original position to develop.

In this brief paper, I will review the work of Rousseau as it relates to the development of his state of nature argument and his subsequent social contract theory. His basic argument will be summarized and a critical analysis will be offered, with references to the works of Locke and Hobbes made where appropriate.

Rousseau begins his account by claiming that "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains." (17). How can a man who believes that he is the master of himself and others, Rousseau asks, end up being a mere slave? This is the question that Rousseau sets for himself to answer. In order to provide his answer, he states that -- despite the duel facts that men are born with unequal natural endowments and that the strongest and best among men may be able to rule through force or cunning in a natural state, when all are left to their own devices -- this does not make it right. What Rousseau is concerned with is legitimate power. For only when man is convinced that he must enter a state and obey the dictates of a ruling authority because it has a right to tell him what to do will he willingly give up his power in himself and enter the state.

So what are the conditions under which a man is so convinced and such a move is made possible? Rousseau argues, firstly, that the move must be made voluntarily. "Renouncing one's liberty is renouncing one's dignity as a man, the rights of humanity and even its duties," he argues, thus making his point of the extreme gravity of the situation. Then, he adds "There is no possible compensation for anyone who renounces everything." (20) Thus he argues against placing oneself in a state which is ruled by an absolute sovereign. But what form of the state would one find acceptable?

Rousseau's next move is to imagine the state of nature as a place in which men have already come to a point in which they find it necessary to band together and form some type of association, or else each man perish in the absence of such an association. He then sets the terms of the contract: "[How do we] [f]ind a form of association which defends and protects with all common forces the persons and goods of each associate, and by means of which each one, while uniting with all, nevertheless obeys only himself and remains as free as before?" A number of conditions apply as a result of this construction, each member must give himself equally. In so giving each grants the same rights to others over himself that he is in turn granted by them over them. Each member gains the equivalent of everything he loses, and a greater amount of force to protect what he has. Given these conditions, Rousseau is ready to make his argument:

If therefore one eliminates from the social compact whatever is not essential to it, one will find that it is reducible to the following terms. Each of use places his person and all his power in common under the supreme direction of the general will, and as one we receive each member as an indivisible part of the whole."

By locating the binding force of the state in this concept of a general will, Rousseau thinks he has formulated a source for legitimate power. Of course, how he constructs the state comes to be crucial. The devil, as the saying goes, is in the details. But in establishing authority in the general will (with its attendant concept of the common good) Rousseau forms the heart of his argument for legitimate authority.

Then, Rousseau begins to unravel. He argues that a person can be made to obey the general will because he agreed to be bound by it (26). He argues that a sovereign is to be established who will ultimately have absolute and indivisible power, held as it is in a tense relationship with his obligations to seek the general will (30, 34). He argues that a person can be put to death for disobeying the state in its application of the general will (35). And he goes on like that. It seems that, far from disliking the sovereign that Locke, for example, establishes because he is too strong or his power unjust, Rousseau simply didn't like the reasoning behind the initial application.