Naturalistic       Metaphysical                Metaphysical
      |               nonteleological             teleological
      |                    |                             |
   Hobbes                |                             |
      |                 Locke                      Bentham
   Hume                  |                             |
     ||                 Rousseau                       |
     ||                    |                          Mill
     ||                  Kant                          |
     ||                    |                             |
     ||                  Rawls      +-----------------+  |
     ||                    | |      |                 |  |
     ||                    | +------+               Harsanyi
     ||                    V                          V  V
     ||              +-----------------------+      +------------------------+
     |+------------> |egalitarianism         |      |utilitarianism          |
     |               +-----------------------+      +------------------------+
     +--------------------------------------------------------^






              This shows how various thinkers arrived
              at  one or the other of the rival social
              contract theories.

Source : Game Theory and the Social Contract: vol2 by Ken Binmore

The Social Contract

1762

Book 1

I mean to inquire if, in the civil order, there can be any sure and legitimate rule of administration, men being taken as they are and laws as they might be. In this inquiry I shall endeavor always to unite what right sanctions with what is prescribed by interest , in order that justice and utility may in no case be divided.

I enter upon my task without proving the importance of the subject. I shall be asked if I am a prince or a legislator, to write on politics. I answer that I am neither, and that is why I do so. If I were a prince or a legislator, I should not waste time in saying what wants doing; I should do it, or hold my peace.

As I was born a citizen of a free State, and a member of the Sovereign, I feel that, however feeble the influence my voice can have on public affairs, the right of voting on them makes it my duty to study them: and I am happy, when I reflect upon governments, to find my inquiries always furnish me with new reasons for loving that of my own country.

Chapter i

Subject of the first book

Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains. One thinks himself the master of others, and still remains a greater slave than they. How did this change come about? I do not know. What can make it legitimate? That question I think I can answer.

If I took into account only force, and the effects derived from it, I should say: "As long as a people is compelled to obey, and obeys, it does well; as soon as it can shake off the yoke, and shakes it off, it does still better; for, regaining its liberty by the same right as took it away, either it is justified in resuming it, or there was no justification for those who took it away." But the social order is a sacred right which is the basis of all other rights. Nevertheless, this right does not come from nature, and must therefore be founded on conventions. Before coming to that, I have to prove what I have just asserted.

Chapter iii

The Right of the Strongest

The strongest is never strong enough to be always the master, unless he transforms strength into right, and obedience into duty. Hence the right of the strongest, which, though to all seeming meant ironically, is really laid down as a fundamental principle. But are we never to have an explanation of this phrase? Force is a physical power, and I fail to see what moral effect it can have. To yield to force is an act of necessity, not of will - at the most, an act of prudence. In what sense can it be a duty?

Suppose for a moment that this so-called "right" exists. I maintain that the sole result is a mass of inexplicable nonsense. For, if force creates right, the effect changes with the cause: every force that is greater than the first succeeds to its right. As soon as it is possible to disobey with impunity, disobedience is legitimate; and, the strongest being always in the right, the only thing that matters is to act so as to become the strongest. But what kind of right is that which perishes when force fails? If we must obey perforce, there is no need to obey because we ought; and if we are not forced to obey, we are under no obligation to do so. Clearly, the word "right" adds nothing to force: in this connection, it means absolutely nothing.

Obey the powers that be. If this means yield to force, it is a good precept, but superfluous: I can answer for its never being violated. All power comes from God, I admit; but so does all sickness: does that mean that we are forbidden to call in the doctor? A brigand surprises me at the edge of a wood: must I not merely surrender my purse on compulsion; but, even if I could withhold it, am I in conscience bound to give it up? For certainly the pistol he holds is also a power.

Let us then admit that force does not create right, and that we are obliged to obey only legitimate powers. In that case, my original question recurs.

Chapter iv

Slavery

Since no man has a natural authority over his fellow, and force creates no right, we must conclude that conventions form the basis of all legitimate authority among men.

If an individual, says Grotius, can alienate his liberty and make himself the slave of a master, why could not a whole people do the same and make itself subject to a king? There are in this passage plenty of ambiguous words which would need explaining; but let us confine ourselves to the word alienate. To alienate is to give or to sell. Now, a man who becomes the slave of another does not give himself; he sells himself, at the least for his subsistence: but for what does a people sell itself? A king is so far from furnishing his subjects with their subsistence that he gets his own only from them; and, according to Rabelais, kings do not live on nothing. Do subjects then give their persons on condition that the king takes their goods also? I fail to see what they have left to preserve.

It will be said that the despot assures his subjects civil tranquillity. Granted; but what do they gain, if the wars his ambition brings down upon them, his insatiable avidity, and the vexatious conduct of his ministers press harder on them than their own dissensions would have done? What do they gain, if the very tranquillity they enjoy is one of their miseries? Tranquillity is found also in dungeons; but is that enough to make them desirable places to live in? The Greeks imprisoned in the cave of the Cyclops lived there very tranquilly, while they were awaiting their turn to be devoured.

To say that a man gives himself gratuitously, is to say what is absurd and inconceivable; such an act is null and illegitimate, from the mere fact that he who does it is out of his mind. To say the same of a whole people is to suppose a people of madmen; and madness creates no right.

Even if each man could alienate himself, he could not alienate his children: they are born men and free; their liberty belongs to them, and no one but they has the right to dispose of it. Before they come to years of discretion, the father can, in their name, lay down conditions for their preservation and well- being, but he cannot give them irrevocably and without conditions: such a gift is contrary to the ends of nature, and exceeds the rights of paternity. It would therefore be necessary, in order to legitimise an arbitrary government, that in every generation the people should be in a position to accept or reject it; but were this so, the government would be no longer arbitrary.

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. Finally, it is an empty and contradictory convention that sets up, on the one side, absolute authority, and, on the other, unlimited obedience. Is it not clear that we can be under no obligation to a person from whom we have the right to exact everything? Does not this condition alone, in the absence of equivalence or exchange, in itself involve the nullity of the act? For what right can my slave have against me, when all that he has belongs to me, and, his right being mine, this right of mine against myself is a phrase devoid of meaning?

Grotius and the rest find in war another origin for the so- called right of slavery. The victor having, as they hold, the right of killing the vanquished, the latter can buy back his life at the price of his liberty; and this convention is the more legitimate because it is to the advantage of both parties.

But it is clear that this supposed right to kill the conquered is by no means deducible from the state of war. Men, from the mere fact that, while they are living in their primitive independence, they have no mutual relations stable enough to constitute either the state of peace or the state of war, cannot be naturally enemies. War is constituted by a relation between things, and not between persons; and, as the state of war cannot arise out of simple personal relations, but only out of real relations, private war, or war of man with man, can exist neither in the state of nature, where there is no constant property, nor in the social state, where everything is under the authority of the laws. Individual combats, duels and encounters, are acts which cannot constitute a state; while the private wars, authorised by the Establishments of Louis IX, King of France, and suspended by the Peace of God, are abuses of feudalism, in itself an absurd system if ever there was one, and contrary to the principles of natural right and to all good polity.

War then is a relation, not between man and man but between State and State, and individuals are enemies only accidentally, not as men, nor even as citizens, but as soldiers; not as members of their country, but as its defenders. Finally, each State can have for enemies only other States, and not men; for between things disparate in nature there can be no real relation.

Furthermore, this principle is in conformity with the established rules of all times and the constant practice of all civilised peoples. Declarations of war are intimations less to powers than to their subjects. The foreigner, whether king, individual, or people, who robs, kills or detains the subjects, without declaring war on the prince, is not an enemy but a brigand. Even in real war, a just prince, while laying hands, in the enemy's country, on all that belongs to the public, respects the lives and goods of individuals: he respect rights on which his own are founded. The object of the war being the destruction of the hostile State, the other side has a right to kill its defenders, while they are bearing arms; but as soon as they lay them down and surrender, they cease to be enemies or instruments of the enemy, and become once more merely men, whose life no one has any right to take. Sometimes it is possible to kill the State without killing a single one of its members; and war gives no right which is not necessary to the gaining of its object. These principles are not those of Grotius: they are not based on the authority of poets, but derived from the nature of reality and based on reason.

The right of conquest has no foundation other than the right of the strongest. If war does not give the conqueror the right to massacre the conquered peoples, the right to enslave them cannot be based upon a right which does not exist. No one has a right to kill an enemy except when he cannot make him a slave, and the right to enslave him cannot therefore be derived from the right to kill him. It is accordingly an unfair exchange to make him buy at the price of his liberty his life, over which the victor holds no right. Is it not clear that there is a vicious circle in founding the right of life and death on the right of slavery, and the right of slavery on the right of life and death?

Even if we assume this terrible right to kill everybody, I maintain that a slave made in war, or a conquered people, is under no obligation to a master, except to obey him as far as he is compelled to do so. By taking an equivalent for his life, the victor has not done him a favour; instead of killing his without profit, he has killed him usefully. So far then is he from acquiring over him any authority in addition to that of force, that the state of war continues to subsist between them: their mutual relation is the effect of it, and the usage of the right of war does not imply a treaty of peace. A convention has indeed been made; but this convention, so far from destroying the state of war, presupposes its continuance.

So, from whatever aspect we regard the question, the right of slavery is null and void, not only as being illegitimate, but also because it is absurd and meaningless. The words slave and right contradict each other, and are mutually exclusive. It will always be equally foolish for a man to say to a man or to a people: "I make with you a convention wholly at your expense and wholly to my advantage; I shall keep it as long as I like, and you will keep it as long as I like."

Chapter vi

The Social Compact

I suppose men to have reached the point at which the obstacles in the way of their preservation in the state of nature show their power of resistance to be greater than the resources at the disposal of each individual for his maintenance in that state. That primitive condition can then subsist no longer; and the human race would perish unless it changed its manner of existence.

But, as men cannot engender new forces, but only unite and direct existing ones, they have no other means of preserving themselves than the formation, by aggregation, of a sum of forces great enough to overcome the resistance. These they have to bring into play by means of a single motive power, and cause to act in concert.

This sum of forces can arise only where several persons come together: but, as the force and liberty of each man are the chief instruments of his self-preservation, how can he pledge them without harming his own interests, and neglecting the care he owes to himself? This difficulty, in its bearing on my present subject, may be stated in the following terms --

"The problem is to find a form of association which will defend and protect with the whole common force the person and goods of each associate, and in which each, while uniting himself with all, may still obey himself alone, and remain as free as before." This is the fundamental problem of which the Social Contract provides the solution.

The clauses of this contract are so determined by the nature of the act that the slightest modification would make them vain and ineffective; so that, although they have perhaps never been formally set forth, they are everywhere the same and everywhere tacitly admitted and recognised, until, on the violation of the social compact, each regains his original rights and resumes his natural liberty, while losing the conventional liberty in favour of which he renounced it.

These clauses, properly understood, may be reduced to one -- the total alienation of each associate, together with all his rights, to the whole community; for, in the first place, as each gives himself absolutely, the conditions are the same for all; and, this being so, no one has any interest in making them burdensome to others.

Moreover, the alienation being without reserve, the union is as perfect as it can be, and no associate has anything more to demand: for, if the individuals retained certain rights, as there would be no common superior to decide between them and the public, each, being on one point his own judge, would ask to be so on all; the state of nature would thus continue, and the association would necessarily become inoperative or tyrannical.

Finally, each man, in giving himself to all, gives himself to nobody; and as 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, and an increase of force for the preservation of what he has.

If then we discard from the social compact what is not of its essence, we shall find that it reduces itself to the following terms --

"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."

At once, in place of the individual personality of each contracting party, this act of association creates a moral and collective body, composed of as many members as the assemble contains votes, and receiving from this act its unity, its common identity, its life and its will. This public person, so formed by the union of all other persons formerly took the name of city, and now takes that or Republic of body politic; it is called by its members State when passive, Sovereign when active, and Power when compared with others like itself. Those who are associated in it take collectively the name of people, and severally are called citizens, as sharing in the sovereign power, and subjects, as being under the laws of the State. But these terms are often confused and taken one for another: it is enough to know how to distinguish them when they are being used with precision.

Chapter vii

The Sovereign

This formula shows us that the act of association comprises a mutual undertaking between the public and the individuals, and that each individual, in making a contract, as we may say, with himself, is bound in a double capacity; as a member of the Sovereign he is bound to the individuals, and as a member of the State to the Sovereign. But the maxim of civil right, that no one is bound by undertakings made to himself, does not apply in this case; for there is a great difference between incurring an obligation to yourself and incurring one to a whole of which you form a part.

Attention must further be called to the fact that public deliberation, while competent to bind all the subjects to the Sovereign, because of the two different capacities in which each of them may be regarded, cannot, for the opposite reason, bind the Sovereign to itself; and that it is consequently against the nature of the body politic for the Sovereign to impose on itself a law which it cannot infringe. Being able to regard itself in only one capacity, it is in the position of an individual who makes a contract with himself; and this makes it clear that there neither is nor can be any kind of fundamental law binding on the body of the people -- not even the social contract itself. This does not mean that the body politic cannot enter into undertakings with others, provided the contract is not infringed by them; for in relation to what is external to it, it becomes a simple being, an individual.

But the body politic or the Sovereign, drawing its being wholly from the sanctity of the contract, can never bind itself, even to an outsider, to do anything derogatory to the original act, for instance, to alienate any part of itself, or to submit to another Sovereign. Violation of the act by which it exists would be self-annihilation; and that which is itself nothing can create nothing.

As soon as this multitude is so united in one body, it is impossible to offend against one of the members without attacking the body, and still more to offend against the body without the members resenting it. Duty and interest therefore equally oblige the two contracting parties to give each other help; and the same men should seek to combine, in their double capacity, all the advantages dependent upon that capacity.

Again, the Sovereign, being formed wholly of the individuals who compose it, neither has nor can have any interest contrary to theirs; and consequently the sovereign power need give no guarantee to its subjects, because it is impossible for the body to wish to hurt all its members. We shall also see later on that it cannot hurt any in particular. The Sovereign, merely by virtue of what it is, is always what it should be.

This, however, is not the case with the relation of the subjects to the Sovereign, which, despite the common interest, would have no security that they would fulfil their undertakings, unless it found means to assure itself of their fidelity.

In fact, each individual, as a man, may have a particular will contrary or dissimilar to the general will which he has as a citizen. His particular interest may speak to him quite differently from the common interest: his absolute and naturally independent existence may make him look upon what he owes to the common cause as a gratuitous contribution, the loss of which will do less harm to others than the payment of it is burdensome to himself; and, regarding the moral person which constitutes the state as a persona ficta, because not a man, he may wish to enjoy the rights of citizenship without being ready to fulfil the duties of a subject. The continuance of such an injustice could not but prove the undoing of the body politic.

In order then that the social compact may not be an empty formula, it tacitly includes the undertaking, which alone can give force to the rest, that whoever refuses to obey the general will shall be compelled to do so by the whole body. This means nothing less than that he will be forced to be free; for this is the condition which, by giving each citizen to his country, secures him against all personal dependence. In this lies the key to the working of the political machine; this alone legitimises civil undertakings, which, without it, would be absurd, tyrannical, and liable to the most frightful abuses.

Book IV

Chapter ii

Voting

It may be seen, from the last chapter, that the way in which general business is managed may give a clear enough indication of the actual state of morals and the health of the body politic. The more concert reigns in the assemblies, that is, the nearer opinion approaches unanimity, the greater is the dominance of the general will. On the other hand, long debates, dissensions and tumult proclaim the ascendancy of particular interests and the decline of the State.

This seems less clear when two or more orders enter into the constitution, as patricians and plebeians did at Rome; for quarrels between these two orders often disturbed the comitia, even in the best days of the Republic. But the exception is rather apparent than real; for then, through the defect that is inherent in the body politic, there were, so to speak, two States in one, and what is not true of the two together is true of either separately. Indeed, even in the most stormy times, the plebiscita of the people, when the Senate did not interfere with them, always went through quietly and by large majorities. The citizens having but one interest, the people had but a single will.

At the other extremity of the circle, unanimity recurs this is the case when the citizens, having fallen into servitude, have lost both liberty and will. Fear and flattery then change votes into acclamation; deliberation ceases, and only worship or malediction is left. Such was the vile manner in which the senate expressed its views under the Emperors. It did so sometimes with absurd precautions. Tacitus observes that, under Otho, the senators, while they heaped curses on Vitellius, contrived at the same time to make a deafening noise, in order that, should he ever become their master, he might not know what each of them had said.

On these various considerations depend the rules by which the methods of counting votes and comparing opinions should be regulated, according as the general will is more or less easy to discover, and the State more of less in its decline.

There is but one law which, from its nature, needs unanimous consent. This is the social compact; for civil association is the most voluntary of all acts. Every man being born free and his own master, no-one, under any pretext whatsoever, can make any man subject without his consent. To decide that the son of a slave is born a slave is to decide that he is not born a man.

If then there are opponents when the social compact is made, their opposition does not invalidate the contract, but merely prevents them from being included in it. They are foreigners among citizens. When the State is instituted, residence constitutes consent; to dwell within its territory is to submit to the Sovereign.

Apart from this primitive contract, the vote of the majority always binds the rest. This follows from the contract itself. But it is asked how a man can be both free and forced to conform to wills that are not his own. How are the opponents at once free and subject to laws they have not agreed to?

I retort that the question is wrongly put. This citizen gives his consent to all the laws, including those which are passed in spite of his opposition, and even those which punish him when he dares to break any of them. The constant will of all the members of the State is the general will; by virtue of it they are citizens and free. When in the popular assembly a law is proposed, what the people is asked is not exactly whether it approves or rejects the proposal, but whether it is in conformity with the general will, which is their will. Each man, in giving his vote, states his opinion on that point; and the general will is found by counting votes. When therefore the opinion that is contrary to my own prevails, this proves neither more nor less than that I was mistaken, and that what I thought to be the general will was not so. If my particular opinion had carried the day I should have achieved the opposite of what was my will; and it is in that case that I should not have been free.

This presupposes, indeed, that all the qualities of the general will still reside in the majority: when they cease to do so, whatever side a man may take, liberty is no longer possible.

In my earlier demonstration of how particular wills are substituted for the general will in public deliberation, I have adequately pointed out the practicable methods of avoiding this abuse; and I shall have more to say of them later on. I have also given the principles for determining the proportional number of votes for declaring that will. A difference of one vote destroys equality; a single opponent destroys unanimity; but between equality and unanimity, there are several grades of unequal division, at each of which this proportion may be fixed in accordance with the condition and needs of the body politic.

There are two general rules that may serve to regulate this relation. First, the more grave and important the questions discussed, the nearer should the opinion that is to prevail approach unanimity. Secondly, the more the matter in hand calls for speed, the smaller the prescribed difference in the numbers of votes may be allowed to become: where an instant decision has to be reached, a majority of one vote should be enough. The first of these two rules seems more in harmony with the laws, and the second with practical affairs. In any case, it is the combination of them that gives the best proportions for determining the majority necessary.

The Social Contract

The most oft-quoted line of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's The Social Contract (published 1762) is the first: 'Man is born free, yet everywhere he is in chains.' If we were to read no further, we would think that had we continued, we would have been reading a defence of man's liberty at the expense of the power of the state. This is not so - in fact, The Social Contract describes how individual freedom can supposedly be preserved within an all-powerful civil society.

The work is split into four parts. Part one discusses the principles and justification for a civil state, the second discusses the rights of sovereignty, the third discusses various forms of government (democracy, aristocracy and monarchy) and their exercise and the fourth deals of various bodies within the government and of civil religion.

The basic underlying principle of the book is that the state of nature is brutish, and to become moral and good man must join in a social institution. Social contract theory is the agreement between a state and its citizens which justifies the state's power over the citizens. However, in resigning themselves to the power of the state, men give up their freedom (in the state of nature, I can hunt a hog, slaughter it, and eat it; in society, I can only do so if it is my hog); how can freedom be maintained in civil society?

Rousseau defines particular desires, which he calls 'will's. Every individual has a 'particular will', which describes what he himself desires for himself. There is an aggregate 'will of all', which describes what the members of a group desire when their particular wills are combined. Finally, there is the 'general will', the will which produces the best for the group. This general will is what should have the power of sovereignty within civil society, and each citizen should accept this will as his own. In doing so, he accepts the laws and conventions of the society as his own.

The general will, by definition, is infallible, indivisable (it applies to all) and inalienable (no-one but the people can discern the general will). However, this does not mean that the decisions of the people always carry the same weight - each individual is usually capable of discerning his particular will, and hence we can always establish the 'will of all'. Is this 'will of all' (what the people desire) the same as the general will (what is best for all people)? Not always - in fact, rarely, some would say. The job of the legislator then, is to interpret the general will and guide it in the right direction.

Rousseau had a fair bit to say on private property, and in this regard is seen as a forerunner to Karl Marx. The following indeed could be taken as an attack on capitalism -

"as to wealth, no citizen should be rich enough to be able to buy another, and none poor enough to be forced to sell himself."

He then goes on to attack the class of wealthy people, saying that 'from this class springs tyrants'. He attacks private property, saying that when a man signs himself to the social contract he hands over all his powers, of which his possessions are a part. While within the state man has power over his property, this right is subordinate to the community's right over it.

Of Democracy, says Rousseau -

"If there were a people of Gods, its government would be democratic, so perfect a government is not for men."

A true democracy, where every decision of the executive branch is taken by the people, is not a valid proposal - the people cannot remain assembled continuously to attend to public affairs. A true democratic government would perpetually change its mind and accomplish nothing. Aristocracy, particularly elective aristocracy, is a far safer bit, says Rousseau. A small group of elected magistrates governs public affairs in this case, and although this creates another general will (the will of the government itself, seperate to the will of the people), this will is likely to be more controlled and less likely to change. Hence things can be accomplished for the people, so long as checks are made to keep the will of the government close to the will of the people (such as elections which strip the magistrates of their power if they do not please the people.

In defence of monarchy, he has to say that when the general will is concentrated in one man, it is as concentrated as it can be, and hence is to be most effective. Unfortunately, as Plato has said, a man who is fit to be king is rare in nature, and further the royal education corrupts a man, as does his absolute power. Therefore a King is not usually a good government, as bad men will come to the throne or it will make them so.

There is much to be said in critique of The Social Contract. For a start, the basic assumption that we remain free by subordinating ourself to what is best for our community (and therefore for us) is "dodgy". Secondly, the idea that the general will is not always known to the people can be used to justify totalitarianism - the government can say it is enacting what is best for the people, when in fact all it is doing is enacting its own will.

It also seems that to make sure people were always voting from the perspective of the whole, Rousseau would ban private associations, as they would let another will - the will of a particular subset - creep into voting. Rousseau valued a homogenous populace that voted together - we respect discussion and debate as the best way to find the general will.

Despite these shortcomings, The Social Contract is still well worth reading, as it provokes thought and helps us understand the history of political thought. It is especially useful for an understanding of the French Revolution, of which Rousseau was once described as the evangelist. Che Guevara is also reported to have taken the book on his campaigns.

Requirement of Total Alienation

Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s The Social Contract is his basis for the ideal society by which there are a few (but complex) rules to follow. One of the most commonly recognized and disputed of these “rules” is that, as Rousseau claims, a society would require the “total alienation of each associate … to the entire community.” However, it is definitely not as simple of a concept as it sounds.

Rousseau identifies one of the problems of a society as being the consistency (or lack thereof) in rights and freedoms. He believes that individual rights can be easily maintained with a social contract, but there is more to total freedom than just the rights of a single person: a public body needs to cross the line between the rights of many people, and the collective rights of the entire populous (referred to as “civic rights”). Rousseau would say that the only way in order for everyone to have rights, especially those that are equal, is if they are abandoned for a more communal organization of rights.

A society should be based on a single motive, whereby those living in the society must unite their separate powers. Before their powers are amalgamated, society is left with unequal persons: some men simply have more power than others. This problem is solved once they are brought together and shared amongst everyone else. When this social contract is broken each person actually gains back their individual rights from the society, but their civil rights are lost. As soon as one person breaks the social contract (by not taking interest, for example), the entire purpose of the contract is void.

Because the same form of alienation is applied to everyone who agrees to the social contract, no one’s interests are being any more or less served than anyone else’s. Additionally, no one has individual rights to claim for any longer; no higher authorities exist to judge upon others, and thusly everyone is given equal power. Every person places the same amount of personal loss upon the agreement of the shared contract, but everyone also gains in power to preserve what he or she already has.

Some of the terms Rousseau defines for the social contract, those affected by it, and that which is created by it are very mistakable for one and another. They are, however, clearly defined and made specifically to identify the various stages and processes of his social contract ideal. Ego, he describes, is the collective life and will of the community and all of its people, and the republic or public body is the “public person” formed by the social contract under which everyone exists equally. The state is what he calls the republic when it is playing a passive role, and a sovereign when it is playing an active one. Those who agree to this alienation of rights are known as a people when speaking collectively, citizens when referred to individually, and subjects when being spoken under the laws of the state.

I’m not really too sure how much I agree with these ideas of a totally freedom-alienated society in which further freedoms are gained. This seems far too contradictory to me. As well, I don’t believe that a consensus on the alienation of a people’s freedom is possible no matter the size of the society. I think that there are far too many people in this world that cannot be entirely trusted and are not as dedicated to civil rights as much as they might think they are. The time taken to organize such a contract and the people for which are willing to be part of it’s binding ideals, I believe, is not worth the (high) risk of failure with the discrepancy of one single person. There needs to be some sort of higher power that is able to control and maintain the rights of public body – though this in itself does already defeat the entire purpose and premise of Rousseau’s idea, it might be safe to say that this higher power could work from a distance. Even still, I’m sure that Rousseau would agree that this reverses the entire principle of the social contract.

In a reality it might be hard to say exactly how to implement such a binding contract among countries, provinces, towns, or neighborhoods. As that suggests, much of its success would be based on the size of the society for which the contract would be issues. Too big of a society would create problems with consistency of agreement and assurance that people are indeed following the accord. Too small of a society might prove useless in it’s creation, and the “united powers” of a people would be too small to create any such significant difference. Another issue is that of how to get everyone to take part in this, at what age are you old enough to agree or disagree to the contract, and what happens to those who disagree or break the contract. The first issue would be a matter of vote or signed a physically signed contract that would be bound by specific laws. It could be decided, for instance, that at the age of 18 (a common legal voting age) you would be required to sign the said agreement in order to take part in the society. If you did not agree with the contract or later broke it, you might be banished from society. However, in the worst case scenario as Rousseau originally states, anyone who breaks the contract is ruining the society for everyone else and the idea of civil rights no longer exist, and the lesser individual rights are gained back. Individual rights provide little or no support for a community with equal interests in freedom.

The biggest problem with the social contract, as far as I’m concerned, is the instability and fragility of such a community that would be partaking in this contract. As Rousseau states, and has be reiterated several times throughout this essay, a republic and it’s ego would be complete disproved once as much as one person goes against the contract. Herein lies a collection of smaller issues that were discussed in the above two paragraphs. It is far too easy to have a society collapse because of the problem of one single person. The whole process and aim of the social contract and collective rights would be totally dismissed by the constant rebuilding and maintenance. To have one’s rights constant being questioned, taken away and then given back would only cause more dismay than the social contract was originally designed to eliminate. Rousseau might argue that if such a republic was to be created in the first place and such a contract to be agreed upon then all of the citizens to be placed under the contract would already be aware of everyone else. Such a society would simply not be created in the first place if such uncertainly existed and if such people with potential to bring ruin were known to be apart of it. I almost believe that Rousseau would argue that, although maybe somewhat pompously, once a group enters into such collectively civil rights that the enjoyment and benefit would be too great for any sane person to ever wish to go against. Despite these definitely well thought out objections, I still believe that risk and almost inevitable downfall of a society (whether sooner or later after agreement) is not worth the trouble that everyone who does wish to take part in a proper manner.

 

Node your homework.

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