The Social Contract
Author | Jean-Jacques Rousseau |
---|---|
Original title | Du contrat social; ou, Principes du droit politique |
Country | France (edited in Amsterdam) |
Language | French |
Publication date | 1762 |
Original text | Du contrat social; ou, Principes du droit politique at French Wikisource |
Translation | The Social Contract; or, Principles of Political Right at Wikisource |
The Social Contract, originally published as On the Social Contract; or, Principles of Political Right (
The Social Contract helped inspire political reforms or revolutions in Europe, especially in France. The Social Contract argued against the idea that monarchs were divinely empowered to legislate. Rousseau asserts that only the general will of the people has the right to legislate, for only under the general will can the people be said to obey only themselves and hence be free. Although Rousseau's notion of the general will is subject to much interpretive controversy, it seems to involve a legislature consisting of all adult members of the political community who are restricted to legislating general laws for the common good.
Overview
The epigraph of the work is "foederis aequas / dicamus leges" Let us set equal terms for the truce. (Virgil, Aeneid XI.321–22). The stated aim of The Social Contract is to determine whether there can be a legitimate political authority, since people's interactions he saw at his time seemed to put them in a state far worse than the good one they were at in the state of nature, even though living in isolation. He concludes book one, chapter three with, "Let us then admit that force does not create right, and that we are obliged to obey only legitimate powers", which is to say, the ability to coerce is not a legitimate power―might does not make right, and the people have no duty to submit to it. A state has no right to enslave a conquered people.
Rousseau argues that legitimate authority must be compatible with individual freedom. Such authority can only be compatible with individual freedom if it is consented to, and hence there must be a social contract. However, Rousseau's conception of this social contract was different to that of thinkers before him, such as Grotius, Hobbes, and Pufendorf.[2]: 75 For Rousseau, since one's right to freedom is inalienable, the people cannot obligate themselves to obey someone other than themselves. Transferring rights to an authority involved renunciation of freedom and transformed the natural equality of men into subjection.[2]: 77 Hence, the only legitimate social contract is one that establishes the people themselves as the rulers. Rousseau refers to the united will of the people as the general will.[2]: 85 The general will, to be truly general, must only legislate laws with general form, i.e., laws that apply equally to all. For Rousseau, collective self-rule would increase freedom if the people to whom laws applied were also the ones prescribing them.[2]: 79 Rousseau, who objected to extreme wealth inequality, also argued that equality is essential for the attainment of liberty, and concluded that legislation ought to preserve equality.[2]: 80
Rousseau argues that the sovereign power must be separate from the government, which in Rousseau's terminology refers to the executive power. The division of sovereign from government is necessary because the sovereign cannot deal with particular matters like applications of the law.[2]: 89 Doing so would undermine its generality, and therefore damage its legitimacy. Thus, the government must remain a separate institution from the sovereign body. When the government exceeds the boundaries set in place by the people, it is the mission of the people to abolish such government and begin anew.
Rousseau claims that the size of the territory to be governed often decides the nature of the government. Since a government is only as strong as the people, and this strength is absolute, the larger the territory, the more strength the government must be able to exert over the populace (cf. also
Reception
Upon publication, the distribution of The Social Contract in France was prohibited, and Rousseau fled the country to avoid imprisonment.[2]: 99 However, it was primarily Rousseau's chapter on civil religion, rather than his ideas on liberty and sovereignty, that caused the controversy.
Immanuel Kant, one of the most influential
The French philosopher Voltaire used his publications to criticise and mock Rousseau, but also to defend free expression. In his Idées républicaines (1765), he reacted to the news that The Social Contract had been burned in Geneva, saying "The operation of burning it was perhaps as odious as that of writing it. […] To burn a book of argument is to say: 'We do not have enough wit to reply to it.'"[3][4] The work was also banned in Paris[5] and was forbidden by the Church being listed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum.[a]
The work received a refutation called The Confusion of the Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau by the Jesuit Alfonso Muzzarelli in Italy in 1794.[6]
The influence of Rousseau on
materia prima of the Devil; from which all falsehoods, imbecilities, abominations body themselves; from which no true thing can come? For Cant is itself properly a double-distilled Lie; the second-power of a Lie."[8]See also
- George Mason Memorial, Washington, D.C., includes Du Contract Social as an element of the statue of a seated Mason.
- Totalitarian democracy
Notes
References
- ^ R.A. Leigh, Unsolved Problems in the Bibliography of J.-J. Rousseau (Cambridge, 1990), plate 22.
- ^
ISBN 978-0-19-280198-2.- ^ Gay, Peter (1959). Voltaire's Politics: The Poet as Realist. New Jersey: Princeton University Press. pp. 214–219.
ISBN 1843540878.- ^ "Jean-Jacques Rousseau | The Core Curriculum". www.college.columbia.edu. Columbia University. Retrieved 12 April 2017.
ISBN 978-84-8468-038-3.- ^ Robespierre, Diary.
- ^ Carlyle, Thomas (1837). "Chapter 1.2.VII. Contrat Social.". The French Revolution: A History.
Further reading
- Bertram, Christopher (2003). Rousseau and the 'Social Contract'. Routledge.
- Cohen, Joshua (2010). Rousseau: A Free Community of Equals. Oxford University Press.
- Incorvati, Giovanni (2012) “Du contrat social, or the principles of political right(s). Les citoyens de Rousseau ont la parole en anglais”, in : G. Lobrano, P.P. Onida, Il principio della democrazia. Jean-Jacques Rousseau Du Contrat social (1762), Napoli, Jovene, p. 213-256.
- Williams, David Lay (2014). Rousseau's 'Social Contract': An Introduction. Cambridge University Press.
- Wraight, Christopher D. (2008). Rousseau's The Social Contract: A Reader's Guide. London: Continuum Books.
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Du Contrat social (Jean-Jacques Rousseau).Wikisource has original text related to this article:Wikiquote has quotations related to The Social Contract.
- The Social Contract Section from a philosophy encyclopedia entry on Rousseau
- Du contrat social (MetaLibri)
- The Social Contract translated 1782 by G. D. H. Cole at constitution.org
- The Social Contract Public domain audiobook G. D. H. Cole translation
- The Social Contract English translation audiobook on LibriVox.org
- Catholic Encyclopedia Based on an article critical of The Social Contract, written in 1908.
- SparkNotes entry on The Social Contract
- Rousseaus Gesellschaftsvertrag in Kurzform
- A site containing The Social Contract, slightly modified for easier reading
- The Social Contract on In Our Time at the BBC
- Du contrat social, or the principles of political right(s)