The Social Contract
Everyone should complete this worksheet and submit it via Weblearn by the end of 0th week TT. Answers should be fairly brief:
notes and bullet points, 50-150 words or so each. References to the text should give book and chapter rather than page
number. It is absolutely fine for you to work through this, with the book, in a group; but try to answer the questions for
yourself.
1.
Set out, as formally as you can,
a. The arguments for slavery that Rousseau considers;
b. Rousseau’s argument(s) against slavery.
2.
Why would (might) individuals enter into the social contract? [Book 1 ch6]
3.
Hence for the social compact not to be an empty formula, it tacitly includes the following engagement which alone can
give force to the rest, that whoever refuses to obey the general will shall be constrained to do so by the entire body: which means
nothing other than that he shall be forced to be free. [Book 1 ch 7]
 Construct the most sympathetic (to Rousseau) analysis of this passage that you can.
 Criticise this passage from the point of view of J S Mill in On Liberty
[It might help to consider whether you/Rousseau/Mill agree that the following are coherent analyses or valid inferences:
Subject S is free if S is bound by a rule or law that S has imposed upon herself.
Subject S is free if S is a fully voluntary member of a collective C and S is bound by a rule or law that C has imposed upon each and
every member of C
Agent A uses force on subject S to set S free; S is free;
S is free only to the extent that s/he freely chooses between options and acts on her choice
S is free iff S herself has chosen freedom (ie chosen to choose between options and to act on them) [how is this different from the
previous?]]
4.
What does Rousseau mean by ‘sovereignty’?
[distinguish: sovereignty, sovereign (nouns); sovereign (adjective)
where does sovereignty come from?
where does sovereignty lie?
what does sovereignty do?]
5.
What brings about the dissolution of the state? come up with as many distinct factors, processes, failures, events, tendencies etc as you can.
6.
‘...where the Represented is, there no longer is a Representative.’ [Book III chs 14,15]
Exactly what are Rousseau’s arguments on the subject of political representation?
7.
What elements of Rousseau’s argument and analysis conduce to the view that ‘the general will’ is a
procedural phenomenon?
8.
What elements of Rousseau’s argument and analysis conduce to the view that he is a ‘perfectionist’ with
regard to individual human life?
9.
Find examples of the following rhetorical devices:
antithesis (contrast, use of opposites, in a balanced construction);
irony (words saying one thing but meaning another);
litotes, understatement;
anticlimax (clauses arranged so that the final one(s) is much weaker than the reader expects);
paradox (assertions seemingly opposed to commonsense (but which may yet be sensible or true));
hyperbole, exaggeration;
metaphor.
10.
What elements of Rousseau's argument and analysis conduce to the view that his theory of legitimacy is
prescriptive?
[if it's not prescriptive, what else might it be? ideal but not prescriptive?]