Social Contract (Rousseau)

Encyclopedia : S : SO : SOC : Social Contract (Rousseau)

---

The Social Contract, Or Principles of Political Right (1762) by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, is the book in which Rousseau theorised about social contracts.

Rousseau explained his belief that the ideal society was one in which man's contract was not one between men and government, but between fellow men. Like John Locke, Rousseau believed that a government should come from the consent of the governed. Rousseau claimed that a perfect society would be controlled by the "general will" of its populace. While he does not truly define how this should be accomplished, he seems to suggest that the general will be discovered through an assembly of the citizens, together constituting the "sovereign", acting as their own legislators:

"THE Sovereign, having no force other than the legislative power, acts only by means of the laws; and the laws being solely the authentic acts of the general will, the Sovereign cannot act save when the people is assembled."[Book III, 12. HOW THE SOVEREIGN AUTHORITY MAINTAINS ITSELF]

"Every law the people has not ratified in person is null and void — is, in fact, not a law." [Book III, 15. DEPUTIES OR REPRESENTATIVES]

"The legislative power belongs to the people, and can belong to it alone"[Book III, 1. GOVERNMENT IN GENERAL]

The Social Contract was in any case a progressive work that aided in the movement away from absolute monarchy in Europe.

The heart of the idea of the social contract may be stated simply: Each of us places his person and authority under the supreme direction of the general will, and the group receives each individual as an indivisible part of the whole...

The stated aim of the Social Contract is to determine whether there can be a legitimate political authority. "Man is born free but everywhere he is in chains." He says that such political authority is not available to us in the state of nature thus we must enter into a social contract. In this social contract, everyone should be free because everyone gives up the same amount of freedom and because human beings are only truly free when participating in a political process.

Although Rousseau seems to prefer a benevolent Tyrant over any other form of government he remains obscure on this point. He does however state that the government should be divided into three parts. There should be the sovereign (which could be the whole population if it wills it) who represents the general will. That is the will which benefits society as a whole. There are the Magistrates which serve the sovereign and execute this will. Finally there are the citizens which form the collective will. He believes that states should be small as they give more power to the people and that the government would be more effective.

Main arguments:

People should have an active role in the government. People should vote not according to their personal interests but according to the general will. If the executive goes against the general will, it breaks the social contract.

See also

• Social contract; the more general concept

External links

• [The Social Contract at constitution.org]
• [Catholic Encyclopedia] Critical article
• [SparkNotes® entry on The Social Contract]

 

---

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.

Search Titles

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

Q

R

S

T

U

V

W

X

Y

Z

?