Transcript Jean Jacques Rousseau

State of nature:
Hobbes
Locke
Multitude of individuals
Equality, war
Natural law,
property (labor
creates property),
community justice
Reasons for
entering the
contract
To gain peace & security To establish
(≠ prospects of a violent organized law and
death)
order provided by
predictable and
impartial institutions
Rousseau
Noble savages (A-social
individuals)

Decay (property, institutions,
manners, civilization)

Civil Society
(impossibility of returning to
the past) Need for a social
contract that recuperates the
best of the state of nature +
the best of civilization
Individuals
alienate…
Sov
All of their rights (but
self-protection)
Sovereign power is
delegated and given a
form  Subjects
No alienation of
All of their rights (“total
rights, but “Fiduciary alienation of each associate”)
power” institute the No delegation
government
Absolute (alienable)
≠ Symbol of
Absolutism
Absolute & inalienable (the
people)
Hobbes & Locke
1642-1651--England's Puritan Revolution and Civil Wars
1648--Peace of Westphalia ends Thirty Years' War
1648--King Charles I of England is publicly beheaded in London --Outbreak
of the Fronde (revolt of the nobility) in France 1649
1651—Thomas Hobbes publishes Leviathan, “the first general theory of
politics in the English language” (E & E 356)
1660--English monarchy is restored
1661--Louis XIV begins his personal rule at age 14
1663--Eight proprietors are granted Carolina in the New World by Charles II
1670--Secret treaty between Charles II and Louis XIV (Treaty of Dover)
1673--England's Test Act excludes Roman Catholics from holding office
1682--Louis XIV moves government and court to Versailles
1688--England's Glorious Revolution –Birth of Constitutional Monarchy
1689-90—John Locke publishes The Two Treatises of Government
1689--England's Bill of Rights
1707--Union between Scotland and England under the name of "Great
Britain"
Rousseau
1723--Louis XV attains majority
1750—Jean Jacques Rousseau’s essay A Discourse on the Moral Effects of the Arts and
Sciences is awarded by the Academy of Dijon
1751-72—Publication of The Enciclopédie in France (edited by Diderot, with contributions
by d’Alembert, Holbach, Helvetius, Turgot, Haller, Morellet, Quesney, Voltaire, and
Montesquieu)
1752--September 14, Great Britain adopts the Gregorian calendar
1755—Rousseau’s Discourse on the Origin of Inequality. Rousseau also publishes his
Discourse on Political Economy in Diderot’s Enciclopédie
1756-1763-- Seven Year's War
1762—Rousseau publishes The Social Contract
1777--American Revolution
1778--Alliance between United States and France
1783--Peace of Versailles between France, England, Spain, and United States
1787--Signing of the Constitution of the United States
1789--Outbreak of hostilities in France with the fall of the Bastille July 14 -- Abolition of
French feudal system, Declaration of Rights of Man, nationalization of church property
begins
1792--French Revolutionary Wars begin -- 1792--French royal family imprisoned
1793--Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette executed
1793--Robespierre joins Committee on Public Safety -- Roman Catholic faith banned in
France
1793--First Coalition against France of Britain, Austria, Prussia, Holland, Spain
1794--U.S. navy established
1795--France makes peace with Prussia, Tuscany, Spain
1795--White Terror and bread riots in Paris
1795--Napolean assumes commander-in-chief
1799--Second coalition against France as Austria declares war -- French Directory
overthrown, Bonaparte coup d'etat and made First Consul
Classical political categorization (RF):
Reactionary
Conservative
Right
Moderate (Center)
Social
Order
Reformist
Revolutionary
Left
The Enlightenment (18th
century)

Natural Sciences: discover of LAWS that
regulate the physical world.


The Philosophes aspired to discover the
LAWS that regulate human beings and
society.
18th century:
Faith in Reason and Science



Development of a critique of Absolutism
and the power of the Church in behalf of
human freedom.
Commitment to Social and Political
Reform.
Locke, Montesquieu, Voltaire, Rousseau,
Smith, Condorcet, Kant.
Enlightenment
=
Promethean Dream
Epistemes
Truth is understood as...



Antiquity
Renaissance & the
Enlightenment
Modernity (onwards)



Revealed
Discovered (in
Nature)
Constructed
Rousseau:
The Social Contract
Radical Democratic
Contractualism, or Precursor of
Totalitarianism?
Jean-Jacques Rousseau





1712-1778
Born in Geneva, rebelled against the
Calvinist atmosphere and left the city in
1728.
Travels (Italy), Mme. de Warens.
1742, Paris.
1745, Meets Therese Levasseur.
Main Works


1750: Discourse on the Arts and the
Sciences (1st prize Academy of Dijon).
1755: Discourse on inequality
Discourse on Political Economy

1762: On the Social Contract.
Emile
Work lost (destroyed)
Political Institutions
Rousseau’s ideas influenced
the 1789 Revolution...
On the Social Contract
“I want to inquire whether there can
be some legitimate and sure rule of
administration in the civil order,
taking men as they are and laws as
they might be.” (17)
“Man is born free, and
everywhere he is in chains.”
“The social order is a sacred
right which serves as a
foundation for all other rights”
The Social Order...
Does not have its origins in nature,
but in a convention.
The First Societies (II)
•Family: children remain bound to
their father only so long as they
need him.
•Equality and independence.
•Political societies  Family
(pleasure of commanding) (love)
“Every man born in slavery is born
for slavery; nothing is more
certain.”



Because...
“In their chains slaves lose everything,
even the desire to escape.” (19)
“If there are slaves by nature, it is
because there have been slaves against
nature.” (19)
The Right of the Strongest (III)
•“The strongest is never strong
enough to be master all the time,
unless he transforms force into
right and obedience into duty.”
•“Force is a physical power; I fail
to see what morality can result
from its effects.”  Arendt
“For what kind of right is it
that perishes when the force
on which it is based
ceases?”
“Obey the powers that be.” (
Saint Paul)...
“If that means giving in to
force, the precept is sound,
but superfluous.”
“All power comes from God...”

“...but so does every disease. Does
this mean that calling in a
physician is prohibited?”
Conclusion:

“one is obliged to obey only
legitimate powers.”
On Slavery (IV)


Conventions are the source of authority
among men.
Problems: is a contract of slavery
conceivable?
According to ...



Grotius: an individual can alienate his
liberty and turn himself into a slave.
A people can also do this
Also Hobbes.
Contract of Slavery



I give up my freedom in order to survive.
The same does a multitude.
The despot assures his subjects civil
tranquility (= Hobbes)
Rousseau...


“A tranquil life is also had in dungeons; is
that enough to make them desirable?”
“To say that a man gives himself
gratuiously is to say something absurd
and inconceivable. Such an act is
illegitimate and null...”

“Renouncing one’s liberty is
renouncing one’s dignity as a
man, the rights of humanity and
even its duties. There is no
possible compensation for
anyone who renounces
everything. Such a renounciation
is incompatible with the nature of
man.”
War as source of slavery

The victor –who has the right to kill the
vanquished- pardons his life if he agrees
to become his slave.


HEGEL’S MASTER/SLAVE DIALECTICS.
But...


There is no right to kill the enemy derived
from war...
Men are not naturally enemies (
Hobbes)... It is the relationship between
things and not that between men that
brings about war.
Fights, duels, encounters...
(individuals)




...do not make a state.
“War is not therefore a relationship
between one man and another, but a
relationship between one state and
another.”
Only States are enemies...
And States may be killed without any
single individual be killed.
Rousseau claims his
principles are based on
Reason.
Therefore...

“Neither a person enslaved during wartime
nor a conquered people bears any
obligation whatever toward its master,
except to obey him for as long as it is
forced to do so.”
 Slavery
and Right are
contradictory terms.
The Social Compact (V)


Men cannot engender new forces.
Thus, they have to unite the forces they
have in a single major force...
The Social Contract creates...

A form of association that “defends and
protects with all common forces the
person 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.”
The Clauses...


Are UNIVERSAL.
Main clause: “the total alienation of each
associate, together with all of his rights, to
the entire community.”
Each person...
“gives himself whole and entire.”
 (so) nobody wants to make the
condition burdensome...
 ... Actually, each person gives
herself to no one.

 “Each
of us 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.”
Contract.
Twofold commitment

Individuals commit themselves...


As members of the sovereign to private
individuals;
As a member of the state toward the
sovereign.
This act of association
generates “a moral and
collective body composed of as
many members as there are
voices in the assembly, which
receives from this same act its
unity, its common self, its life
and its will.”
“This public person, formed
thus by union of all the others
formerly took the name city,
and at present takes the name
republic or body politic, which
is called state by its members
when it is passive, sovereign
when it is active, power when
compared to others like itself.
The associates “collectivelly
take the name people;
individually they are called
citizens, insofar as participants
in the sovereign authority, and
subjects, insofar as they are
subjected to the laws of the
state.”
The sovereign cannot
derogate the original act of its
institution, that is... It cannot
annihilate itself.
Emergence of...
A MORAL AND COLLECTIVE
BODY
(is “body” here a metaphor?)
with a...
General Will
No Guarantees.

“the Sovereign, being formed wholly of
the individuals who compose it, neither
has nor can have any interest contrary
to theirs; and consequently the
sovereign power need give no
guarantee to its subjects, because it is
impossible for the body to wish to hurt
its members.”
The General Will

Individuals may have a private will
different from the General Will.

In case of conflict (implicit rule)
“whoever refuses to obey the general
will will be forced to do so by the entire
body.”

That is, “he will be forced to be free.”
The General Will...

Emerges from Deliberations.

General Will  The Will of All
(Common
Interest)
(Private
Interests)
The passage from nature to civil
society...

Changes a stupid and unimaginative
animal into an intelligent being and a
man  Master of himself.

Develops feelings of Justice, Moral
Liberty, and the experience of Reason in
individuals.

Changes possesion into property.
Equality

“[I]nstead of destroying natural equality,
the fundamental compact substitutes, for
such physical inequality as nature may
have set up between men, an equality
that is moral and legitimate... [so that]...
Men become every one equal by
convention and legal right.”
Sovereignty is Inalienable

“Sovereignty, being nothing less
than the exercise of the general will,
can never be alienated, and ... The
Sovereign, who is no less than a
collective being, cannot be
represented except by himself: the
power indeed may be transmitted,
but not the will.”
No Representation...
Foundation for DIRECT
democracy.


Government
“What then is government? An
intermediary body set up between the
subjects and the Sovereign, to secure
their mutual correspondence, charged
with the execution of the laws and the
maintenance of liberty, both civil and
political.
The members of this body are called
magistrates or kings, that is to say
governors, and the whole body bears the
name prince.”
Sovereignty is Indivisible
Sovereignty is Absolute


State = Body
“As nature gives each man absolute
power over all his members, the social
compact gives the body politic absolute
power over all its members also, and it is
this power which, under the direction of
the general will, bears, as I have said, the
name of Sovereignty.”
The Right of Life and Death


The social contract seeks the
preservation of the life of the Whole, so...
We must be ready to give up our own life
for its sake...
The Right of Life and Death


“the citizen is no longer the judge of the
dangers to which the law desires him to
expose himself; and when the prince says
to him: ‘It is expedient for the State that
you should die,’ he ought to die, because it
is only on that condition that he has been
living in security up to the present, and
because his life is... [now] a gift made
conditionally by the State.”
(Ex: Socrates)