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ROUSSEAU (GENERAL WILL (General Will and Amour-Propre (The general will is…
ROUSSEAU
GENERAL WILL
Easy to imagine general will when you talk about a population that is only wealthy, Calvinist men
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Rousseau calls the collective grouping of all citizens the 'sovereign' - the sovereign expresses the general will that aims for the common good
People exercise their sovereignty by meeting in regular assemblies - when voting in assemblies, people should not vote for what they want personally but for what they believe is the general will
In Book II of the SC, Rousseau draws a distinction between the general will and the will of all
The society of the general will might be humanly possible - but inaccessible if we have become too corrupt
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RELIGION
Genevan Calvinism
Mason (1993) argues on how Rousseau's political thinking was shaped in part by his experiences growing up in Calvinist Geneva
BUT: at the same time, Rousseau was deeply conflicted about Geneva's Calvinism
"From his ironic commentary on holy books in the first Discourse to his rejection of the Genesis in the second; from his declaration in the Social Contract that "true Christians are made to be slaves" to his sustained denunication of catechism and church in Emile, Rousseau was more deliberately and provocatively irreligious than most in his time" (Mason, 1993)
Mason argues that the distinctive notion of membership in the state elaborated in Social Contract is informed by an identifiably Calvinist understanding of the idea of membership in the church
"In much the same way that the Genevan church sought to ensure the collective identity of believers as the body of Christ through a long, rigorous program of religious instruction, Rousseau [...] strives to ensure the collective self-identity of citizens as a body politics through a lifelong program of civic education (Mason, 1993)
Civil Religion: Rousseau distinguishes three different kinds of religion, recommends compromise between first two, the sovereign only has power over public domain, people are free to worship whatever they want in private - but: all citizens should also pledge allegiance to a civil religion
2) 'Religion of the Citizen': official religion of the state, complete with dogmas and ceremonies, this religion combines the interests of church and state, teaching patriotism and respect for law - but also corrupts religions and causes violence towards others
3) The kind of religion Rousseau associates with the Catholic Church - condemns forcefully, because it tries to set up two competing sets of laws
1) 'Religion of man': personal religion, linking the individual to God (by itself, this religion will hurt the state because a healthy state needs citizens who will struggle and fight to make the state strong and safe
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INEQUALITY
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Nature vs. Artifice
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In modern society: inequality derives from a process of human evolution that has corrupted man's nature
Following from definition of natural right and natural law, Rousseau answers whether God or Nature commands that people should be unequal
Nature has done little to make men sociable, men in natural state don't need each other (LINK TO LANGUAGE - SEE QUOTES)
Amour de soi is a natural sentiment, amour-propre is artificial - amour-propre is related to the fact that human beings in a civilized state can see oneself from the pov of others
The development of the human mind responsible for non-natural inequalities is the awakening and strengthening of amour-propre (yeast analogy to show that amour-propre is the cause but there are other factors as well)
FREEDOM
FREEDOM AND INEQUALITY: Everyone is free, because everyone has given up an equal amount of freedom - legal equality is basic tenet of social contract
Distinction between man and animal for Rousseau: man has the ability to act freely --> this allows him to choose and to vary his behavior + humans have the feature of perfectibility
Physical man is just another animal, man is like, yet unlike other animals because of the unique way he develops
Without the quality of perfectibility, humans would stay in SoN forever - Rousseau doesn't contradict himself in saying that perfectibility is the source of both enlightenment and vice, it is because perfectibility produces both, that perfectibility can account for human development
Modern states repress the physical freedom that we have a right to and don't secure the civil freedom that we want to achieve through entering into civil society
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'Morality' only has significance within the confines of civil society for Rousseau --> Freedom, rationality and morality are only possible within civil society
Civil Society is only possible if we agree to the Social Contract --> Civil Society as the source of rationality and morality --> We would not be human if we were not active participants in society
Rousseau links freedom with moral significance: our actions can only be moral if they were done freely (this also means that in giving up our freedom we give up our morality and humanity
The Social Contract solves the problem of how people can bind themselves to one another (in order to survive) and still preserve their freedom
In civil society, we lose the physical liberty of being able to follow our instincts freely, but we gain the civil liberty that places the limits of reason and the general will on our behavior --> makes us moral
PROPERTY
For Rousseau, property is the key to the foundation of civil society and therefore the root of many issues
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