Rousseau: The General Will
Chapter Thirty-Three
Syllabus topic 2.2.1, "Social Contract/ Consent Theory"
Pages 157 to 161 of 506
In one line
Rousseau says you can be governed and still be free, if the law you obey is a law you helped make and which aims at the good of everybody including you.
In the wording a student can write in an exam: Rousseau seeks a form of association which defends the person and goods of each member with the whole common force, and in which each, while uniting himself with all, may still obey himself alone and remain as free as before; his solution is the total alienation of each associate with all his rights to the whole community, so that sovereignty rests permanently in the people acting as a body, and the law they make expresses the general will, which aims always at the common interest.
The problem he sets himself
Rousseau's book opens with the sentence everybody quotes and few can place: "Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains." Read the next lines, because they contain the actual project. He says one who thinks himself the master of others remains a greater slave than they; that he does not know how the change came about; but that he thinks he can answer the question what can make it legitimate.
That is the whole book in one sentence. Rousseau is not asking how the state arose. He is asking what would make it rightful.
He rejects two answers immediately.
Force cannot make right. If force alone justified obedience, then the moment a people could shake off the yoke and did so, it would do still better, since it would be regaining its liberty by the same right by which it was taken. An obligation that disappears when the strength behind it disappears was never an obligation.
Nobody can contract into slavery. To renounce liberty is to renounce being a man, and an agreement which gives everything on one side and nothing on the other is void for want of any equivalent.
The contract
Rousseau states the terms of the compact himself, and this is the passage to quote: "Each of us puts his person and all his power in common under the supreme direction of the general will, and, in our corporate capacity, we receive each member as an indivisible part of the whole."
Three features of that formula do all the work.
The alienation is total. Everybody gives everything. This sounds worse than Hobbes and is not, for the reason in the next point.
Everybody gives to everybody, so nobody gives to anybody. Rousseau's own argument is that in giving himself to all, each man gives himself to nobody, and since there is no associate over whom he does not acquire the same right as he yields others over himself, he gains an equivalent for everything he loses, with more force to preserve what he has.
Rousseau: The General Will
The sovereign is the people themselves. There is no third party to receive the transfer. That is the crucial difference from Hobbes, whose sovereign is a beneficiary outside the covenant, and from Locke, whose government is a trustee. In Rousseau the sovereign is the associated people, and it can never be alienated or represented.
The general will
This is the concept the University asks about, and it is best approached through a distinction.
The general will aims at the common interest. It is what the people will as a body, considering what is good for the whole.
The will of all is merely the sum of particular wills, each considering its own private interest.
Rousseau's own statement is that there is often a great difference between the two: the general will considers only the common interest, while the will of all takes private interest into account and is no more than a sum of particular wills; take from these same wills the pluses and minuses that cancel one another, and the general will remains as the sum of the differences.
Four further points make the concept usable.
It is about the object, not the number. A will is general because of what it aims at, not because many people hold it. A unanimous vote to plunder a minority is not the general will; a narrow majority aiming at the common good may be.
The people can be mistaken. Rousseau says the people is never corrupted but is often deceived, and only then does it seem to will what is bad. So a wrong decision does not prove the general will was absent; it may prove the people were misinformed, which is why he cares so much about how deliberation is conducted.
Law must be general in both directions. It must come from all and apply to all. A rule aimed at a named person is not law in Rousseau's sense at all.
Sovereignty cannot be represented. Rousseau's hostility to representation follows: a people that elects representatives to will on its behalf has given away the very thing that made it free.
"Forced to be free"
This is the most attacked sentence in political philosophy and it must be stated exactly.
Rousseau's argument is that the compact would be an empty formula if a member could claim the benefits of the association while refusing its burdens, since he would enjoy the rights of a citizen without being willing to fulfil the duties of a subject, and the continuance of such an injustice would undo the body politic. So the compact tacitly includes the undertaking that whoever refuses to obey the general will shall be compelled to do so by the whole body. And, in his own words, "this means nothing less than that he will be forced to be free", since it is this condition that, by giving each citizen to his country, secures him against all personal dependence.
Rousseau: The General Will
How to read it charitably. The person being compelled is a member of the sovereign who is at that moment consulting his private interest rather than the general will he shares. Compelling him to obey the law is compelling him to act on his own real will as a citizen, and it frees him from dependence on other individuals, which is the only freedom the association can guarantee.
How to read it critically, and both readings should appear in an answer. It permits an authority to tell a person that what they say they want is not what they really want, and to coerce them in the name of their own freedom. That is precisely the structure of the argument every authoritarian regime has used, and Isaiah Berlin's critique of positive liberty, which appears again at topic 3.1.1, is built on this sentence.
A worked example
A village of two hundred households must decide about a common water tank in a drought.
The will of all is the sum of what each household wants: everybody wants as much water as possible for themselves, and the loudest voices belong to those with the most land.
The general will is what they will as a community considering the common interest: a rationing rule that keeps the tank alive through the summer. Notice it may be less than any household wanted individually.
Rousseau's conditions in miniature. The rule must apply to everybody, including whoever proposes it, or it is not law. Households must deliberate as citizens and not as landholders, which is why Rousseau distrusted factions: a bloc of large landholders voting together produces a particular will wearing a general disguise. And the decision cannot be handed to a representative, because the moment two men decide for two hundred, the two hundred have stopped being sovereign.
And the hard case. One household breaks the rationing at night. The village stops them and fines them. On Rousseau's account they are not being oppressed: as a member of the community they willed the rule, and they are being held to their own will as a citizen against their appetite as an individual. Whether that description is true or is a convenient way of describing coercion is the argument the sentence has generated for two hundred and fifty years.
Rousseau: The General Will
Distinctions that carry marks
| General will | Will of all | |
|---|---|---|
| Aims at | The common interest | Private interests |
| What it is | What the people will as a body | The sum of particular wills |
| Made general by | Its object | Nothing; it is only an aggregate |
| Can a majority be wrong about it? | Yes; the people may be deceived | The question does not arise |
| Rousseau's formula | What remains when the pluses and minuses of particular wills cancel out | The simple sum |
| Hobbes | Locke | Rousseau | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who holds sovereignty | The sovereign, outside the covenant | The community, government as trustee | The people, always and inalienably |
| Can it be represented? | Yes, and must be | Yes | No |
| Freedom under the state | Whatever the sovereign leaves unregulated | Life, liberty and estate, protected | Obedience to a law one gives oneself |
| What breach permits | Nothing | Resumption of the trust | The question does not arise; the sovereign is the people |
What Rousseau is NOT
The general will is not the majority. It is defined by its object. A majority may be deceived and a unanimous vote may be a particular will.
It is not "the will of the state". The state is the machinery; the general will belongs to the associated people.
"Forced to be free" is not a defence of tyranny in Rousseau's own intention, though it has repeatedly been used as one, and an answer should say both things.
Total alienation is not Hobbes's surrender. In Hobbes everything goes to a sovereign outside the agreement; in Rousseau everything goes to the whole of which each person is a part, so what is given is also received back.
Quick revision
- The opening: "Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains." The project is not how it happened but what can make it legitimate.
- Force cannot make right, and nobody can contract into slavery.
- The compact: "Each of us puts his person and all his power in common under the supreme direction of the general will, and, in our corporate capacity, we receive each member as an indivisible part of the whole."
- Total alienation, but to everybody, so each gives himself to nobody and gains an equivalent.
- General will against will of all: common interest against the sum of private interests; the difference is Rousseau's own.
- Generality is about the object, not the number. The people is never corrupted but often deceived.
- Sovereignty is inalienable and cannot be represented.
- "Forced to be free": whoever refuses to obey the general will shall be compelled by the whole body, which secures each citizen against personal dependence. State the charitable and the critical reading together.
Test yourself
1. What is the general will, and how does it differ from the will of all? The general will is what a people wills as a body when it considers the common interest. The will of all is merely the sum of particular wills, each considering its own private interest. Rousseau's own account is that the difference is often great, and that if one takes from those particular wills the pluses and minuses that cancel one another, the general will remains as the sum of the differences. A will is general because of what it aims at, not because of how many hold it.
Rousseau: The General Will
2. State the terms of Rousseau's social compact and explain why total alienation is not slavery. Each of us puts his person and all his power in common under the supreme direction of the general will, and in our corporate capacity we receive each member as an indivisible part of the whole. It is not slavery because everyone gives everything to everyone, so that in giving himself to all each man gives himself to nobody; there is no associate over whom he does not acquire the same right as he yields, so he receives an equivalent for what he loses, together with greater force to preserve it.
3. Can the general will be mistaken? Explain. The general will itself is always directed at the common interest and in that sense is always right, but the people can fail to see what the common interest is. Rousseau's formulation is that the people is never corrupted but is often deceived, and only on such occasions does it appear to will what is bad. A wrong decision therefore does not prove that the general will was absent, and this is why Rousseau attends so closely to how deliberation is conducted and why he distrusts factions.
4. Explain "forced to be free" and give the argument on both sides. Rousseau says the compact would be an empty formula if a member could claim the rights of a citizen while refusing the duties of a subject, so it tacitly includes an undertaking that whoever refuses to obey the general will shall be compelled by the whole body, which means nothing less than that he will be forced to be free, since this secures each citizen against personal dependence. Charitably, the person is being held to his own will as a citizen against his appetite as an individual. Critically, it licenses an authority to tell people that what they say they want is not what they really want and to coerce them in the name of their freedom, which is the structure Berlin attacked in his account of positive liberty.
5. Why does Rousseau reject representation? Because sovereignty is the exercise of the general will, and a will cannot be transferred to another without ceasing to be one's own. If a people elects representatives to will on its behalf, it has given away the very thing that made it free, and it is sovereign only during the moment of election. This is the sharpest contrast with Locke, whose legislature represents the community as a trustee, and it is why Rousseau's model fits a small city better than a large modern state.
The rest of this subject
These notes are cut from the University's printed syllabus. Open the syllabus itself, or the past papers, for the same subject.