Rousseau’s “Social Contract” A.K.A. ‘How to Fix France...Maybe!’

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Jean-Jacques RousseauBorn 1712, Died 1778

Most popular and influential of the ‘philosophes’ prior to and during the French Revolution!

Published “The Social Contract” in 1762.

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Rousseau’s ‘Problems’

Can there be legitimate political authority?

How is freedom possible in civil society?

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A Few Assumptions...

Our Nature = total physical freedom, no restraints on behaviour

To be human, we must be active in a ‘society’

Each member of society must enter into a ‘social contract’ with all of the others

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What is a ‘social contract’?

the agreement through which each person enters into civil society

The contract binds people into a community that exists for mutual preservation.

We sacrifice physical freedom to gain civil freedom (rational thought!)

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In the political sphere...

Everyone will be ‘free’ because everyone will forfeit the same amount of freedom and receive the same amount of responsibility.

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Administration: Two Parts

sovereign - the voice of the law and absolute authority within the state. In Rousseau’s words, the sovereign is “the people speaking together” (GENERAL WILL)

government - charged with application of the law toward particular matters (PARTICULAR WILLS)

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Quotes

“Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.”

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Quotes

“The Sovereign, having no force other than the legislative power, acts only by means of the laws; and the laws being solely the authentic acts of the general will, the Sovereign cannot act save when the people is assembled.”

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Quotes

“Every law the people have not ratified in person is null and void -- is, in fact, not a law.”

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Quotes

“The legislative power belongs to the people, and can belong to it alone.”

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Liberty, Equality, Fraternity

“For a young people to be able to relish sound principles of political theory and follow the fundamental rules of statecraft, the effect would have to become the cause; the social spirit, which should be created by these institutions, would have to preside over their very foundation; and men would have to be before law what they should become by means of law.”

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Liberty, Equality, Fraternity

How can liberty, equality, fraternity be written into law if man does not already possess these values/attributes? If the French people have NEVER experienced these things before, how equipped are they to institute them ?

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