Terri Collier

One of the most enigmatic thinkers of the 18th century, Jean-Jacques Rousseau's colourful life and consistent defiance of social conventions are reflected in his political writings. He was born in Geneva in 1712. His mother died in childbirth and his father, a watchmaker, left his son to the care of relatives when he was exiled from the city for brawling in 1722. As a young man Rousseau was forced to take several menial positions, but through self-education and the patronage of wealthy women he established himself as a talented musician and intellectual. In Paris in 1645 Rousseau first made the acquaintance of Diderot and the Paris encyclopedistes. Thus began his uneasy relationship with enlightenment thought.

In 1750 Rousseau wrote his Discourse on the Sciences and the Arts for a competition at the academy of Dijon, in which he established the themes which he was to develop in much of his subsequent political philosophy. The competition had asked for an essay on the impact of the arts and sciences on human morals. Rousseau argued that these were merely the seductive characteristics of a modern society in which mankind had lost his natural liberty and entered a moral decline. Rousseau equated virtue with innocence which once lost could never be regained.

The controversy surrounding this essay established Rousseau's place in the intellectual life of Paris. His contemptuous distaste for the mannered salons in which philosophical debate was conducted, however, resulted in his remaining something of an outsider. In 1755 he published the Discourse on the Origin of Inequality. His arguments that the institution of private property was the prime source of all moral corruption presented a direct challenge to the modernist doctrines of Locke, Grotius and Pufendorf. The encyclopedistes understood the romanticism of Rousseau's developing position as anti-enlightenment and broke their connections with him.

Rousseau's greatest and most influential work The Social Contract was published 1762. The earlier Discourses had established a problem. Natural man, he believed, had been innocent but unfulfilled and incapable of morality. The process by which morality might be achieved was the same process which seemed inevitably to corrupt and degrade him. Since the return to innocence was impossible, how was man best to live in society? In The Social Contract Rousseau presented his answer. His account of the social contract differs radically from earlier contract theories in that when individuals contract to enter society, each makes that contract simultaneously with the others and with himself. Each is a part of the sovereign which he is contracted to obey. From the isolated selves of individuals a collective entity is formed which can both legislate for and embody its individual members. Most significantly, freedom is changed by the act of contract. Before contracting, man's freedom lies in pursuing his individual interests, afterwards freedom consists in obeying the general will.

Probably the most elusive and criticised aspect of Rousseau's political philosophy, the general will is that policy or action which will be to the greatest benefit of the society as a whole. This can be discovered only when the citizens act as members of the sovereign, setting aside their personal interests or sectarian affiliations. This is a normative concept in that the general will is that which the sovereign assembly of citizens ought to decide. For Rousseau the general will is not created by the sovereign but discovered by it. His political philosophy centres on developing political institutions that facilitate discovery of and adherence to the general will. The resulting state is one that is regarded by Rousseau's critics as totalitarian. Since freedom consists in obedience to the general will, those who do not obey must be 'forced to be free'. Membership of interest groups is forbidden and the legislator is extremely powerful. However, Rousseau insisted that the object of political right must be liberty and equality, and it is to these ends that his philosophy was directed.

Despite his pessimistic view of society and his hope that a revolutionary age could be prevented, a decade after his death Rousseau's writings inspired many of the leaders of the French revolution. The same characteristic zeal that had led the encyclopedistes to reject Rousseau's philosophy has been found inspirational by many who have shared his sense of outrage at the inequalities present within their own societies. Fidel Castro is said to have carried a copy of The Social Contract throughout his days as a revolutionary. And despite the undisciplined character of his work, philosophers such as Kant and Hegel acknowledged their debt to Rousseau.

Suggested reading
The Social Contract, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, Emile, The Confessions (autobiography), Jean Jaques Rousseau (various editions)