Jean-Jacques Rousseau The Social Contract. Rousseauean Democracy

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The Social Contract

The Social Contract

Rousseauean Democracy

The Social Production of Liberty

“Man is/was born free, and everywhere he is in chains…”

Human history



Human history

Primeval slime



Human history

Primeval slime Modern society



Human history


No natural differences could conceivably put people in dependent position



Human history


No natural differences could conceivably put people in dependent position

Yet today, vast majority of world’s population is being brutally oppressed


The question Rousseau is raising, is how could naturally equal creatures get themselves in the position of allowing the convention that inequality is permissible?

How did we get into this situation? Not by nature (Book I, chapter 2) Not by justice (Book 1, chapter 3)


Note the trajectory of history Rousseau is not going to suggest that we can go

backwards

We can choose specific states or conditions of our society, but we cannot decide whether or not to be members of society

Human history


Need to find a way to build on the nature that we have and fashion institutions and social arrangements to foster liberty

Why liberty?


“To renounce liberty is to renounce being a man, to surrender the rights of humanity and even its duties. For him who renounces everything no indemnity is possible. Such a renunciation is incompatible with man's nature; to remove all liberty from his will is to remove all morality from his acts.”

-- Social Contract, Book I, chapter IV


What are the moral implications of selling or otherwise alienating our liberty?

If we could do something like that, we would be providing ourselves with the means of avoiding morality

To renounce liberty is like ceding our moral sense as we can claim our action was the result of slavery


We can ask ourselves, what if everybody did that?

What if everybody was able to escape moral responsibilities by claiming that their actions were not authentically theirs?

Holding people accountable for their actions is part of what being free entails


Liberty becomes integral to my conception of myself – to our definition of what a human being is – what is implied in saying this life is my life.

Personal life plans demands liberty Liberty then means being in a position where

I am not dependent on the will of any other person

Rousseau’s social contract (Book I, chp. vi)

The Social Contract

But what kind of liberty are we talking about? Natural liberty vs civil liberty (Book I, chp. 8) Natural liberty is self defeating (recall PD) Civil liberty

Not having to obey any laws except those which are in some sense an expression of my own will

Civil liberty is a human creation

The Social Contract

It is only with this type of liberty – with civil liberty – that we can say that we are free

And thus only with this type of liberty that we can be fully human

If we follow only those laws which are an expression of my will, then my life really is my life – every action will be an action I choose to do

The Social Contract

What do we say about a person who did not value this kind of liberty?

They are not being all that they could be, they are not fully human in that they are not participating in moral discourse

Rousseau is saying our humanity stems from the fact that we can reflect on the status of our affairs

The Social Contract

We can ask questions like

How should I live? What is justice? What would be a good

life for me? For you? For us?

Animals can’t do this

The Social Contract

Problem is, how do we realize this in society? For example… the more elaborate our social

interdependence becomes, the more we have a division of labor

Each of us performs ever more exact functions The more the specialization progresses, the greater

the likelihood that some people will occupy strategically important positions

These people will be able to exploit their position to exercise power over others

The Social Contract

The Social Contract

How do we organize our social lives so that we can enjoy civil liberty?

How do we create a set of social institutions so that we trade natural liberty for civil liberty

Rousseau astutely builds his theory by using our dependence as the means of securing our liberty

Only way civil liberty will work is if it is a product of social cooperation

The Social Contract

“One who dares to undertake the founding of a people should feel that he is capable of changing human nature, so to speak; of transforming each individual, who by himself is a perfect and solitary whole, into a part of a larger whole from which this individual receives, in a sense, his life and his being; of altering man’s constitution in order to strengthen it; of substituting a partial and moral existence for the physical and independent existence we have received from nature” (Book 2, chp. vii).

The Social Contract

The only way civil liberty will work is if it is a product of social cooperation

Contrast with Locke’s view Locke mistakenly postulates a liberty not

predicated on the necessity of our social ties The liberty Locke describes is the freedom to be

unencumbered by societal considerations, each of us decides for ourselves whether or not to be part of the society

The Social Contract

Rousseau argues that Locke is wrong Society is not a club, not a voluntary

organization Locke errs by treating people in socially

advantageous slots as if they were naturally advantaged and thus free to pack up and go home if the social arrangements are not to their liking

The Social Contract

Locke erroneously assumes property rights are natural rights and thus those who have property are free to defect from society when property is threatened

Rousseau is arguing that this is wrong since the property these individuals possess is secured by a system of social cooperation.

The Social Contract

So if Locke’s version of the social contract is incorrect, what type of social contract would be adopted?

Book 1, chp. vi Rousseau’s contract presupposes that the

only morally acceptable contract is one which insures that each person is at the same time governor and governed

The Social Contract

We should recognize that neither Hobbes’ nor Locke’s contract would be chosen by individuals ontologically structured such that they have liberty and liberty is the essence of humanity

Hobbes is easy to see, but what about Locke? Recall thieves in alley example Locke merely provides a peaceful way to make

coercion regular

The Social Contract

For example, look at modern U.S. How are laws passed?

Hold elections where most people don’t vote Where winners go through all this deal making to

get laws passed in their own private interest How are losers not at the mercy of the

majority? In what sense am I obeying only myself?

The Social Contract

The system is good insofar as it is better to count heads than to break them

But because the system stabilizes a situation does not make it just

Look at the contract Rousseau proposes Create a process in which everything is

alienated, but unlike Hobbes, we’re not giving it to any particular person or institution

The Social Contract

In other words, we need to develop a social decision making process whereby we can all submit to and become dependent on no one in particular

Need some sort of democracy where each person counts equally


Is this the case in the U.S.? Compromises reached are built on the

inequalities which pervade the process at the start

In the US, we have dependency relations, and we’ve stabilized a bad social system, but…


All that means is that when you have better or worse masters, you don’t have freedom, and we have no moral reason for not bolting from the master when we can

In US, we have a fairly stable, institutionalized way of making decisions, but it doesn’t make people free

What would it take to make people free?


The only social decision process which would make people free – or, more exactly, secure their freedom – would be one where no one had more power or input than anyone else

How do we do that?


Roots are democratic, since, equality is the basis of freedom and democracy is the only system which incorporates an egalitarian premise

But, instilling democratic institutions alone is insufficient for a morally acceptable democracy


Three steps1. Need to insure that the decision process is not

based on prior social conditions that reflect power relations

2. Redistribute to insure that no socially strategic positions exist


“I have already defined civil liberty; by equality, we should understand, not that the degrees of power and riches are to be absolutely identical for everybody; but that power shall never be great enough for violence, and shall always be exercised by virtue of rank and law; and that, in respect of riches, no citizen shall ever be wealthy enough to buy another, and none poor enough to be forced to sell himself: which implies, on the part of the great, moderation in goods and position, and, on the side of the common sort, moderation in avarice and covetousness.” -- Book 2, chapter 11


Three steps1. Need to insure that the decision process is not based on

prior social conditions that reflect power relations2. Redistribute to insure that no socially strategic positions

exist3. People don’t vote on private interests

Note: if we’ve done Steps 1 and 2 correctly, we will have no difficulty with this step

Two kinds of will: Particular Will General Will


Particular will Private considerations Ask “what would be good for me” Basis is narrow self interest


General Will Public considerations/collective interest Ask “what would be good for us?” General will is general in essence and object

Think of the Prisoners’ Dilemma matrix The GW is like voting based on cooperative

outcome


Compare Rousseau’s democracy with modern U.S.

In US, need to vote on particular will or you will get hammered

Dependence? In US, the winners impose power on the losers

In Rousseau? Who are we dependent upon? Since vote is on general will, we are not

dependent on anybody

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Jean-Jacques Rousseau The Social Contract. Rousseauean Democracy