Hobbes Locke Rousseau
Multitude of individuals
Equality, war
Natural law, property (labor creates property), community justice
To gain peace & security
(≠ prospects of a violent death)
All of their rights (but self-protection)
Sovereign power is delegated and given a form  Subjects
Absolute (alienable)
To establish organized law and order provided by predictable and impartial institutions
No alienation of rights, but “Fiduciary power” institute the government
≠ Symbol of
Absolutism
Noble savages (A-social individuals)

Decay (property, institutions, manners, civilization)

Civil Society
(impossibility of returning to the past) Need for a social contract that recuperates the best of the state of nature + the best of civilization
All of their rights (“total alienation of each associate”)
No delegation
Absolute & inalienable (the people)

Hobbes & Locke
1642-1651--England's Puritan Revolution and Civil Wars
1648--Peace of Westphalia ends Thirty Years' War
1648--King Charles I of England is publicly beheaded in London --Outbreak of the Fronde (revolt of the nobility) in France 1649
1651—Thomas Hobbes publishes Leviathan
1689-90—John Locke publishes The
, “the first general theory of politics in the English language” (E & E 356)
1660--English monarchy is restored
1661--Louis XIV begins his personal rule at age 14
1663--Eight proprietors are granted Carolina in the New World by Charles II
1670--Secret treaty between Charles II and Louis XIV (Treaty of Dover)
1673--England's Test Act excludes Roman Catholics from holding office
1682--Louis XIV moves government and court to Versailles
1688--England's Glorious Revolution –Birth of Constitutional Monarchy
Two Treatises of Government
1689--England's Bill of Rights
1707--Union between Scotland and England under the name of "Great
Britain"

Rousseau
1723--Louis XV attains majority
1750 —Jean Jacques Rousseau’s essay A Discourse on the Moral Effects of the Arts and
Sciences is awarded by the Academy of Dijon
1751-72 —Publication of The Enciclopédie in France (edited by Diderot, with contributions by d’Alembert, Holbach, Helvetius, Turgot, Haller, Morellet, Quesney, Voltaire, and
Montesquieu)
1752--September 14, Great Britain adopts the Gregorian calendar this day
1755 —Rousseau’s Discourse on the Origin of Inequality . Rousseau also publishes his
Discourse on Political Economy in Diderot’s Enciclopédie
1756-1763--The Seven Year's War
1762 —Rousseau publishes The Social Contract
1777--American Revolution
1778--Alliance between United States and France
1783--Peace of Versailles between France, England, Spain, and United States
1787--Signing of the Constitution of the United States
1789--Outbreak of hostilities in France with the fall of the Bastille July 14 -- Abolition of
French feudal system, Declaration of Rights of Man, nationalization of church property begins
1792--French Revolutionary Wars begin -- 1792--French royal family imprisoned
1793--Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette executed
1793--Robespierre joins Committee on Public Safety -- Roman Catholic faith banned in
France
1793--First Coalition against France of Britain, Austria, Prussia, Holland, Spain
1794--U.S. navy established
1795--France makes peace with Prussia, Tuscany, Spain
1795--White Terror and bread riots in Paris
1795--Napolean assumes commander-in-chief
1799--Second coalition against France as Austria declares war -- French Directory overthrown, Bonaparte coup d'etat and made First Consul

The Enlightenment (18th century)


Natural Sciences: discovery of LAWS that regulate the physical world.

The Philosophes aspired to discover the
LAWS that regulate human beings and society.

18th century:
Faith in Reason and Science…
Transforms political thought



Development of a critique of Absolutism and the power of the Church in behalf of human freedom
Commitment to Social and Political Reform
Locke, Montesquieu, Voltaire, Rousseau,
Smith, Condorcet, Kant

Enlightenment
=
Promethean (Classical) Dream

Epistemes
Truth is understood as...

Antiquity

Renaissance & the
Enlightenment

Modernity (onwards)

Revealed

Discovered (in
Nature)

Constructed

Classical political categorization (RF):
Reactionary
Conservative
Moderate (Center)
Reformist
Revolutionary
Right
Social
Order
Left

Rousseau:
The Social Contract
Radical Democratic
Contractualism, or Precursor of
Totalitarianism?

Jean-Jacques Rousseau





1712-1778
Born in Geneva, rebelled against the
Calvinist atmosphere and left the city in
1728.
Travels (Italy), Mme. de Warens.
1742, Paris.
1745, Meets Therese Levasseur.

Main Works



1750: Discourse on the Arts and the
Sciences (1st prize Academy of Dijon).
1755: Discourse on inequality
Discourse on Political Economy
1762: On the Social Contract.
Emile

Work lost (destroyed)
Political Institutions

Rousseau’s ideas influenced the 1789 Revolution...

On the Social Contract
“I want to inquire whether there can be some legitimate and sure rule of administration in the civil order, taking men as they are and laws as they might be.” (Social Contract 17)

“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.” (452)

“The social order is a sacred right which serves as a foundation for all other rights” (452)

The Social Order...
Does not have its origins in nature, but in a convention .

The First Societies (II)
•Family: children remain bound to their father only so long as they need him.
•Equality and independence.
•Political societies

Family
(pleasure of commanding) (love)

The Right of the Strongest
•“The strongest is never strong enough to be master all the time, unless he transforms force into right and obedience into duty.”
(452)
•“Force is a physical power, and
I fail to see what moral effect it can have.”(452)
 
Arendt

“Obey the powers that be.”
(

Saint Paul)...
“If that means giving in to force, the precept is sound, but superfluous.” (452)

“All power comes from God...”

“...but so does every disease. Does this mean that calling in a physician is prohibited?”

Conclusion:

“one is obliged to obey only legitimate powers .” (452)

On Slavery

Conventions are the source of authority among men.

Problems: is a contract of slavery conceivable?

According to ...



Grotius: an individual can alienate his liberty and turn himself into a slave.
A people can also do this
Also Hobbes.

Contract of Slavery


I give up my freedom in order to survive.
The same does a multitude.

The despot assures his subjects civil tranquility (= Hobbes)

Rousseau against...
• Grotius
• Hobbes
• (Caligula)
... Suggested that a certain part of the human species was destined to slavery (like Aristotle)
Can we renounce liberty?

Rousseau...

“A tranquil life is also had in dungeons; is that enough to make them desirable?”(453)

“To say that a man gives himself gratuiously is to say something absurd and inconceivable. Such an act is illegitimate and null...” (453)


“Renouncing one’s liberty is renouncing one’s dignity as a man, the rights of humanity and even its duties. There is no possible compensation for anyone who renounces everything. Such a renounciation is incompatible with the nature of man.” (453)

“Every man born in slavery is born for slavery; nothing is more certain.”



Because...
“In their chains slaves lose everything, even the desire to escape.” (19)
“If there are slaves by nature , it is because there have been slaves against nature .” (19)

What is wrong about the idea that slavery can be created through a contract?

“For what kind of right is it that perishes when the force on which it is based ceases?”

War as source of slavery


The victor –who has the right to kill the vanquished- pardons his life if he agrees to become his slave.

HEGEL ’S MASTER/SLAVE DIALECTICS.

But...


There is no right to kill the enemy derived from war...
Men are not naturally enemies ( 
Hobbes)... It is the relationship between things and not that between men that brings about war.

Fights, duels, encounters...
(individuals)




...do not make a state.
“War is not therefore a relationship between one man and another, but a relationship between one state and another.”
Only States are enemies...
And States may be killed without any single individual be killed (454).

Rousseau claims his principles are based on
Reason.

Therefore...

“Neither a person enslaved during wartime nor a conquered people bears any obligation whatever toward its master, except to obey him for as long as it is forced to do so.” (454)


Slavery and Right are contradictory terms.

Differences between...

A multitude

A society (people)

Aggregation

Association

Body Politic
How does the people originate?
FOUNDATION OF SOCIETY

The Social Compact (V)

Men cannot engender new forces.

Thus, they have to unite the forces they have in a single major force... (455)

The Social Contract creates...

A form of association that “defends and protects with all common forces the person and goods of each associate, and by means of which each one, while uniting with all, nevertheless obeys only himself and remains as free as before.”( 455)

The Clauses...

Are UNIVERSAL.

Main clause: “the total alienation of each associate, together with all of his rights, to the entire community.” (455)

Each person...

“gives himself whole and entire.”
 (so) nobody wants to make the condition burdensome...
 ... Actually, each person gives herself to no one.


“Each of us places his person and all his power in common under the supreme direction of the general will; and as one we receive each member as an indivisible part of the whole.”
(456)

Contract.
Twofold commitment

Individuals commit themselves...


As members of the sovereign to private individuals;
As a member of the state toward the sovereign. (456)

This act of association generates “a moral and collective body composed of as many members as there are voices in the assembly, which receives from this same act its unity, its common self, its life and its will.”

“This public person, formed thus by union of all the others formerly took the name city, and at present takes the name
republic or body politic, which is called state by its members when it is passive, sovereign when it is active, power when compared to others like itself.

The associates “collectivelly take the name people; individually they are called
citizens, insofar as participants in the sovereign authority, and
subjects, insofar as they are subjected to the laws of the state.”(456)

The sovereign cannot derogate the original act of its institution, that is... It cannot annihilate itself.(456)

Emergence of...
A MORAL AND COLLECTIVE
BODY
(is “body” here a metaphor?) with a...
General Will

No Guarantees.

“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 its members.” (457)

The General Will
 Individuals may have a private will different from the General Will.
 In case of conflict (implicit rule)
“whoever refuses to obey the general will will be forced to do so by the entire body.”

That is, “he will be forced to be free .” (457)

The General Will...
 Emerges from Deliberations .
 General Will

The Will of All
(Common (Private
Interest) Interests)

The passage from nature to civil society...
 Changes a stupid and unimaginative animal into an intelligent being and a man

Master of himself.
 Develops feelings of Justice, Moral
Liberty, and the experience of Reason in individuals.
 Changes possesion into property .

Natural Liberty
Civil Liberty
Moral Liberty

Equality

“[I]nstead of destroying natural equality, the fundamental compact substitutes, for such physical inequality as nature may have set up between men, an equality that is moral and legitimate... [so that]...
Men become every one equal by convention and legal right.”

Sovereignty is Inalienable

“Sovereignty, being nothing less than the exercise of the general will, can never be alienated, and ... The
Sovereign, who is no less than a collective being, cannot be represented except by himself : the power indeed may be transmitted, but not the will.” (458)

Sovereignty is Indivisible

Sovereignty is Absolute


State = Body
“As nature gives each man absolute power over all his members, the social compact gives the body politic absolute power over all its members also, and it is this power which, under the direction of the general will, bears, as I have said, the name of Sovereignty.”

No Representation...
Foundation for DIRECT democracy
“The deputies of the people, therefore, are not and cannot be its representatives: they are merely its stewards, and can carry through no definitive acts.” (470)

Representation

“The idea of representation is modern; it comes to us from feudal government, from that iniquitous and absurd system which degrades humanity and dishonours the name of man.” (470)



Government
“What then is government? An intermediary body set up between the subjects and the Sovereign, to secure their mutual correspondence, charged with the execution of the laws and the maintenance of liberty, both civil and political.” (466)
“The members of this body are called magistrates or kings, that is to say
governors, and the whole body bears the name prince. ”(466)

The Right of Life and Death
 The social contract seeks the preservation of the life of the Whole, so...
 We must be ready to give up our own life for its sake...

The Right of Life and Death

“the citizen is no longer the judge of the dangers to which the law desires him to expose himself; and when the prince says to him: ‘It is expedient for the State that you should die,’ he ought to die, because it is only on that condition that he has been living in security up to the present, and because his life is... [now] a gift made conditionally by the State.”
 (Ex: Socrates)

Democracy


“If we take the term in the strict sense, there never has been a real democracy, and there never will be.” (468)
“Were there a people of gods, their government would be democratic. So perfect a government is not for men.”
(469)