ROUSSEAU

Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) was the greatest thinker that the French produced. In the
entire history of political theory, he was the most exciting and most provocative. By the very
magic of his style, no other political thinker could come anywhere near him. He was a genius
and keen moralist who was ruthless in his criticism of eighteenth-century French society. He
was one of the most controversial thinkers, as evident from the conflicting, contradictory and
often diametrically opposite interpretations that existed of the nature and importance of his
ideas.
Rousseau made a passionate appeal for human equality. Paradoxically the greatest mind of
the Enlightenment had nothing in common with his contemporaries. As a political moralist
and a constitution builder, he made Utopian demands. In the Discourses on Origins of
Inequality (1755) he described how contemporary society fell short of civilized standards. In
the Social Contract (1762) he stipulated and portrayed a decent and humane society. While
the former diagnosed the disease, the latter gave remedies and cures. He mainly focused on
whether human beings could enjoy civilization and freedom, society and moral integrity. He
propounded the notion of General Will as the real basis of legitimate power and authority.
He highlighted the importance of realizing freedom in the modern age, and pointed to the
problems of reconciling freedom with claims of authority. He attempted to reconcile merit,
liberty and equality in a society that would be consensual, participatory and democratic. In
fact, one would have to read both these works together to understand the full implication of
his ideas.

Rousseau's Political Philosophy

 In Rousseau's view, the most fundamental relationship of the human individual was
with the society, though the original person lived in a state of nature which was pre-
social and pre-political.
 In spite of his idealization of the state of nature, there was no going back to it. In a
state of nature, the individual was guided by instinct and not by reason. He differed
from animals only because he possessed a will and the desire for perfectibility.
 The basic interest of Rousseau's natural person was very similar to that of Hobbes, as
both were guided by a primary need and compulsion of life, namely self-preservation.
The difference lay with regard to the state of nature.
 The youth of the world, as Rousseau described this period of the state of nature, was
a time when human beings (noble savage) were equal—or more appropriately,
Unequal—as he mentioned the distinct possibility of some inequalities in this period
The most important thing that he emphasized as that these inequalities did not hinder
the independence and self-sufficiency of humans, as they could continue to lead "free,
healthy, honest and happy lives'' (Rousseau). The rise of civilization was attributed to
human beings' discovery of metals and agriculture, bringing in division and
specialization of labour. It was linked to the institution of private property.
 Rousseau did not see reason as an innate quality in the individual. It was mostly
dormant until a situation arose in which it was needed. The natural person was able
to fulfil his needs without much assistance from reason. A happy individual was not
 much of a thinking being. Reason, for Rousseau, was an instrument to attain ends, and
if one's ends were satisfied effortlessly, then it played a marginal role.
 The natural man had limited physical desires, but the moment he reasoned, the range
of desires also increased, causing him to think about his desires increasingly. The
appetite of a rational person was unlimited. Since happiness was dependent on
satisfaction of desires, a rational person remained miserable.
 Reason created artificial and false needs. It was not merely the satisfaction of needs,
but also the desire to be a certain kind of person that entailed problems. The natural
person ceased to be happy, peaceful and became dependent and miserable, losing
both natural equality and innocence. The natural person did not lose his compassion,
but the feeling got subsumed under reason.

Analysis of Inequality
 Rousseau demonstrated how humans who were naturally health, good, dumb and
roughly equal to one another became sickly, evil, intelligent- and highly unequal when
they mixed in society. The greatest horror of modern society was the fact that it was
a highly unequal one. Having provided the reasons for the "fall" of the human being,
his verdict or behalf of modern society was essentially negative. He concluded that for
all their efforts, human beings had only succeeded in making themselves miserable.
 Civilization had multiplied the desire for needs, but the inability to fulfil them made
human beings unhappy. Rousseau did not see material progress ushered in by modern
technology as constituting civility and happiness. Modern civilization was highly
unequal, as it did not reflect merely natural, but also artificial inequalities and hence
was corrupting and wrong.
 Rousseau was an advocate of approximate social equality but not total equality. He
was willing to permit two sorts of inequality. The first was the natural inequality
between the young and old, the weak and strong, the wise and stupid; the second was
the inequality that resulted from rewarding those who rendered special service to the
community. Natural inequalities and those who made distinguished contributions to
society were the only types of inequalities that he permitted. He maintained that
existing social inequality did not belong to these types.
 Rousseau rejected the idea that social inequalities reflected natural inequalities of
talents. It was ridiculous to think that the rich were vastly wealthier than the rest of
the population, because they were infinitely more gifted and talented. The real reason
was the unscrupulous business practices that they and their ancestors had employed.
The same was the case with the powerful. He repudiated differences in ability as the
sole justification for social inequalities.
 Social equality implied equality of opportunity. While in a capitalist society wealth was
used to secure benefits, in a communist society it was power and prestige that
conferred privileges. He rejected both these principles of distribution. He ruled out
the principle of egalitarianism as a levelling one, as he did not obliterate distinct
individual endowments. The basis of natural right was not human reason, but human
sensitivity. It was healthy self-interest and pity or compassion that prevented
individuals from harming one another, except in legitimate self-defense.
 Rousseau saw a direct link between luxury, ever-expanding needs and the rise of art
and science, after which true courage failed and virtues declined.
Institution of Private Property
 This state of affairs, a period of ideal bliss and happiness, disappeared with the
emergence of private property. In the cases of both Hobbes and Rousseau, the
institution of property was absent in the state of nature. But in spite of this similarity,
there were important differences in their writings on the emergence of civil society.
 For Hobbes, the primary and original purpose of civil society was to make secure the
right of self-preservation, the right to life, whereas for Rousseau, since the human
person in the state of nature was instinctively good, life as such was not threatened,
and as a consequence civil society emerged not for its preservation, but for the
protection of the property of a few. In this way civil society was created for the selfish
interests of a few people, whereas for Hobbes the need for a civil society was more
universal, since life was dear to all, and everybody without any exception would
compose the commonwealth for security.
 In the case of Rousseau, property was the only artificial right to privilege that emerged
in society, and this right belonged to a few. The institutionalization of property rights
put an end to the self-sufficiency that existed in the state of nature, bringing misery
to the majority. The change from the state of nature to that of civil society was
abrupt. It emerged when, the First man, who having enclosed a piece of ground, he
thought himself of saying This is mine" and found people simple enough to believe
him, was the real founder of civil society.
 In Rousseau's ideal, a golden mean between the primitive state of nature and his own
contemporary times would emerge. There would be no division of labor. The moment
a person became dependent on the other, he lost his independence and autonomy.
Human beings not only compared themselves materially, but also liked others to
recognize them as superior. Not only did property create social dissensions, but it also
brought forth new kinds of mutual dependence between the rich and the poor. The
rich needed the services of the poor, and the poor required the help of the rich. The
distinctions increased and became sharper. The poor coveted the property of the rich
and the rich feared losing it, leading to a state of war similar to the one described by
Hobbes.
 Sabine argues that Rousseau had no serious idea of abolishing property and no very
definite idea about its place in the community. Rousseau's ideal, however, was an
economic system based on small farmers owning tracts of land. He opposed the sharp
distinctions that property ownership entailed. In this sense he could be regarded as a
ritual forerunner of modern socialism, for his perception that property as the source
of misery and inequality. His indictment of property, like that of Plato, was on moral
grounds.

Civil Society
 Rousseau, like Hobbes, failed to provide a logical answer to explain the transformation
of human instinct into reason, except that change was abrupt, brought into existence
by the will and effort of a few individuals, there would be no going back to the state
of nature.
 Society was accepted inevitable, for human life was not possible without it. He spoke
of a past with virtually no hope of recapturing it. In the state nature the individual was
guided by instincts of self-preservation and passion
  It was because human beings were endowed with a will that why they were different
from other animals. However, its presence did not destroy their instinctive goodness.
Two things followed from this presumption. First, though civilization had a corrupting
influence on the individual the real self would still remain undisturbed. This led to the
second proposition that a higher form of political organization was both desirable, and
feasible. Such a structure would be in accordance with the needs and nature of the
individual.
 For Rousseau, vanity among human beings and difference in property and possessions
led to inequality. The rich became richer and the poor poorer. Laws were enacted to
protect property rights. Civil society degenerated into a state of war, extreme
inequality, ostentation, cunning ambition and enslavement. Through laws and other
political devices, the rich were able to corner power and dominate, while the poor
descended into slavery. Civilized man was born a slave and died as one
 The natural man lost his ferocity once he began to live in society. He became weak.
Desires expanded and comforts in due course became necessities, leading to a loss of
natural independence. Increasing dependence created problems in human
relationships, for it made people vain and contemptuous. While self-esteem was good
for a person, vanity led to individual’s social ills. Vanity could not be satisfied for it
made the satisfaction of desires difficult. Once an individual became vain, it was
difficult to get rid of his vanity.

Social Contract
 There was thus no going back to the state of nature. For Rousseau society was
inevitable, without which man could not fulfill him or realize his native potentials. If
he was critiquing civil society, it was because it was not founded on just principles and
had corrupting influence. The task therefore was to create a new social order that
would help man realize his true nature.
 To such a task Rousseau devoted himself in Social Contract. The key to the
construction of the ideal social-political order was to handle the problem of political
obligation, namely, why should man obey the state through a proper reconciliation of
authority with freedom, as it ought to be—a task which, according to Rousseau, was
unsatisfactorily and inadequately done by his predecessor philosophers.
 Social Contract opens dramatically: "Man is born free, and he is everywhere in
chains". His purpose is how to. make the chains legitimate in place of the illegitimate
chains of the contemporary society. With such a purpose, Rousseau's theoretical
problem is: "To find a form of association capable of defending and protecting with
the total common force, the person and the property of each associate, and in which
each, while uniting himself with all, may still obey himself alone, and remain as free
as before", through a social contract.
 As a result of the contract, the private person ceases to exist for the contract produces
a moral and collective Body, which receives from the same act its unity, its common
identity, its life and its will. This public person formed from the union of all particular
individuals is the State when it is passive; the Sovereign when it is active; a Power,
when compared with similar institutions.
 After the institution of a state, Rousseau visualizes a great transformation in the
human being. It substitutes in his conduct a rule of justice for the rule of instinct and
 gives to his action a moral character which theretofore he had lacked. Rousseau goes
to the extent of saying that he is transformed from a stupid and limited animal into an
intelligent creature and man.
 But for Rousseau, the contract is not a single event, but a way of thinking.

General Will and Individual Freedom

 In the Social Contract, Rousseau portrayed the nature of the higher organization
where he attempted to show that a human being's transformation need not always
be for the worse, provided the right kind of polity could be built. Unlike the early
contractualists, Rousseau was keen to show how the right rather than the first society
could be created, for he was hopeful that the right society would transform the noble
savage to a humane person, immortalized by his famous words, "Man is born free and
is everywhere in chains".
 The freedom that the noble savage enjoyed in the state of nature would be possible
under the right kind of society governed by the "General Will.
 The right kind of society would enhance human freedom, for nothing was dearer to a
person than liberty. Most of the French thinkers of the eighteenth century regarded
liberty as crucial to the individual's development. Rousseau too reiterated this theme
and regarded liberty as central to his theoretical construct. For Rousseau, the entire
objective of a contract was to reconcile liberty with authority.
 Liberty was fundamental; so was authority, for one could not exist meaningfully
without the other. He rejected the idea that the social contract involved the surrender
of freedom to a third person. Instead, a legitimate polity had to "defend and protect
with the whole common force the person and goods of each associate, and in which
each, while uniting himself with all, may still, obey himself alone, and remain as free
as before.
 Rousseau's conception had many positive points. He took it for granted that human
beings could not return to the state of nature. Consequently, whatever had to be
achieved was discovered only within civil society.
 Rousseau regarded consent as the basis of society, but emphasized the importance of
the community along with the need to protect individual freedom. A community was
created for the benefit of the individual, and Rousseau attempted to reconcile the two
claims: that of the community with that of the individual, the claims of authority with
those of liberty. A community that was constituted by all consenting individuals
voluntarily submitting to the general will was the solution to his paradox of persons
born free, but yet in chains. There was a moral transformation in the individual once
a community was created. This was because, having voluntarily created it, the
community was seen as furthering the individual - moral autonomy.
 Since it was through society that individuals realized their full potential, it could be
reorganized to ensure the freedom that individuals enjoyed when they were in a state
of nature. This was possible once the right society was created, for that would
maximize or at least offer the quintessence of individual liberty.
 His ideal republic would be a community of virtue, for only virtuous: individuals could
be truly free. A free society presupposed virtue. A whole community rested on moral
law. From Plato Rousseau got the idea that political subjection was primarily moral
and the community was the supreme ethical entity. The community was a moral and
collective person and not merely an aggregation.
 He described the community vested with a "General Will", a will of all individuals
thinking of general and public interests. It was the "Common Me", meaning that the
best spirit of the individual was represented in it. The selfish nature of the human
individual was transformed, bringing forth cooperative instincts and essential
goodness.
 The General Will would be the source of all laws. The human being could be truly free
If he followed the dictates of the law. Civil liberty, for Rousseau, was similar to Locke's
notion of freedom under civil law. It meant freedom from the assault of others.
Individuals are free only if they have physical security. Freedom also meant eliminating
the arbitrary will of another person and that would mean the establishment of the
rule of law.
 None should have greater influence in the making of the law and no one would be
above the law. Each individual would have to be a lawmaker, consenting to obey a law
if it maximized freedom. Hence he desired that the state to be free would have to be
a consensual and participatory democracy.
 He was categorical that the General Will could emerge only in an assembly of equal
lawmakers. It could not be alienated.
 The "executive will" could not be the "General Will". Only the legislative will, which
was sovereign, could be the General Will. The legislature was supreme for both Locke
and Rousseau. While Locke defended representative majoritarian democracy within
which the legislature was supreme, for Rousseau it was direct democracy that
embodied the legislative will. The individual participated in the articulation of the
General Will; for citizenship was the highest that one could aspire for. The General
Will could not be the will of the majority.
 Sovereignty, for Rousseau, was inalienable and indivisible, but vested in the body
politic, thereby expounding the concept of popular sovereignty. He was original, for
he ruled out transfer of sovereignty and accepted the idea that sovereignty originated
and stayed with the people.
 The most controversial aspect of the notion of the General Will was Rousseau's
assertion that freedom consisted in following its dictates. True freedom could be
realized if one followed the moral law that one had agreed to adhere to willingly and
voluntarily. Freedom could not be through maximization of self-interest, but by
promotion of certain common ends.
 The General Will held the key to the moral transformation of the individual, since it
consisted of all the real wills as opposed to the actual will. The real will was the
capacity and intention within the individual to aim for the general welfare of all. The
actual will, however, was the selfish individual will. Rousseau tried to obviate human
selfishness by designing democratic institutions that would provide the incentive to
accept moral laws which advanced common interests. An important precondition was
a certain level of economic and social equality. Ever with the acceptance of the
General Will, it was possible that there could be an erring individual who might be
enslaved by his lower self, and therefore be unfree. In that case the individual could
be "forced to be free".