> Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the Social
Contract Theory
b.1712 - d. 1778
Switzerland
most famous work: Of the Social Contract
> Wolff’s Intro
• Regardless of the economic system under which a group
operates, every society is organized into specific groups based
upon tribe, race, ethnicity, religion, etc.
In each of these groupings, a smaller group controls the society
through force and laws - this smaller group is called the state
States, regardless of their purpose, have two common
characteristics:
1.
all states use force to obtain obedience to their commands
(military, police, law, fines, etc.)
2.
all states claim to be legitimate (have the right to rule)
• Generally, people accept the state’s claim of legitimacy and obey
even when they are not actually forced to do so
• this belief in the legitimacy of the state is what holds a society
together, but that does not necessarily make the state actually
right in its claim of legitimacy
• the fundamental questions for Rousseau, then, became:
When, if ever, does a state have a right to claim legitimacy?
Does a citizen ever have an obligation to obey the commands
issued by the state?
Is there any way a citizen can submit to the will of the state without
giving up his or her freedom and autonomy?
> Rousseau’s Philosophy
• Rousseau’s answer to the fundamental questions of legitimacy
and obedience was the social contract
• the idea was taken from law, in which two parties enter into a
contract for mutual benefit
• each member of the contract owes obedience because they a)
entered into the contract freely, and b) they benefit from the
contract
• so the state has the right to claim legitimacy because their
legitimacy is granted to them by the citizens
• the citizens, in turn, have to obey the state because they agreed
to and further because the state protects the rights of the citizens
• Rousseau argued that when a disagreement arises either
between the state and its citizens, or among the citizens
themselves, the General Will must be followed (majority rule)
• Rousseau claimed that if the state truly ruled in the best interest
of society, then everyone will want what is best for the group
• those that oppose the majority, then, actually put their own
freedom in peril, for the state in a social contract seeks to protect
the freedoms of its citizens
• Rousseau argued that those people, then, have to be forced by
the general will to obey in order to protect their individual liberties
in spite of the themselves