Jean-Jacques Rousseau

For his contribution to Strauss and Cropsey’s History of Political Philosophy, Allan Bloom turns his attention to Jean-Jacques Rousseau, one of the most influential and misunderstood philosophers of the Enlightenment. The most important thing to understand about Rousseau is to understand the central question with which he is dealing. This question is why is it, if people are born free why are they in chains everywhere?

For Rousseau the answer to this question is civil society and government. According to Rousseau, the modern state is in error because it focuses on only one part of human nature- the desire to have self-protection. This is a clear break with most of what has made up the Enlightenment assumptions on the nature of government, particularly that which is found in the thought of Hobbes and Locke. Another break Rousseau makes with the Enlightenment is that contra many of their assumptions, Rousseau does not think civil society leads to greater happiness, rather it leads to the enslavement of the many by the few. Rousseau, despite his reputation has a far dimmer conception of progress than he is typically seen as having as even scientific and artistic progress are seen as a sign of inequality as so few can properly do those things well. From this comes an idealization of the part, particularly as it relates to the Classical republican idea and perhaps not surprising wished to revive the political practice of the ancients and bring back the city-state.

It should however be noted that while Rousseau wants to bring back the political practice associated with the ancient city-state, it does not follow fro, this that he also wants to bring back the theory attached to it. Rather, on this point Rousseau makes a very radical break with the ancients. According to Rousseau, the chief problems with the Classical theory were twofold. Those reasons are as follows: 1) the ancients failed to properly understand what is natural and 2) their theory of justice ended up simply providing a justification of inequality. For Rousseau, earlier philosophers misunderstood “natural man” because they placed their own biases in their thought on this subject. Rousseau holds that in the state of nature people have no firm social bonds and are thus free and independent.

Without a natural conception of civil society to separate people from other animals, Rousseau looks to two other elements to do this. These are as follows: 1) people’s will and 2) people’s perfectibility; that is the ability to make gradual improvements. In these two concepts lies both the origin of civil society as well as its solution. As people begin to develop and perfect speech and permanent establishments, family bonds are formed, but there are still no laws, state, nor inequality. Competition with others eventually brings about the concept of private property, and from this comes inequality. Inequality produces a state of war between the haves and the have-nots. Faced with the state of war between them and the poor, the rich seek a way to protect both their lives and property and from this arises both the state and civil society. Civil society is thus defined by the conflict between people’s natural freedom and the chains in which they are placed.  

For Rousseau, the solution to this is for people to totally submit their rights and property to the community, a move that will produce quality and the general will, what Rousseau calls the united will of the entire population. People’s wills are to be united to that no one can for their will on another or have another force their will on that person. Will is central to Rousseau’s thought, radicalizing its importance to the point where even morality becomes grounded in the will. Furthermore, people may though the general will, will any government they like into existence, but it can only justly last as long as it suits them.

Through community, private wills are to be merged into the general will. Unsurprisingly, this creates a more robust need for unity, so robust in fact that according to Rousseau serration of powers is to be abolished in the general will. It should be point out that the general will presupposes no specific law will be made, that is not Rousseau’s concern here. Rather than seeing certain laws passed that he finds to be just, Rousseau is more concerned with the establishment of a framework in which just laws can be made. The general will in Rousseau’s mind is to be a place of universal representation and total equality, thus even the worst aspects of society are to be included in the general will. Government is to be used to guide people towards the general will and maintain equality. For Rousseau, this is the chief function of a government operating under the general will. Generally speaking, the smaller this government is the better, but this government still must be large enough to dominate private wills while at the same time not being so large that it dominates the general will. For Rousseau, if this balance is not held, two conditions can arise that should be avoided. These conditions are as follows: 1) anarchy and 2) tyranny. Rousseau holds that anarchy is what occurs when each person follows his/her own private will with no regard to the general will. By contrast, tyranny occurs when people submit their own private wills to the private will of a single person. In this respect, tyranny can be seen as arising from the confusion of the general and private will. One last thing that needs to be mentioned is that the general will must abolish private property and will have to go through constant revolutions in order to maintain its equality as even when the general will is in effect, there is still a tendency for provided classes to develop.