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Rousseau - Coggle Diagram

- - - - purpose of this discourse is 'to mark, in the progress of things, the moment when, Right replacing violence, Nature was subkected to law'
      - first revolution 'the establishment of differentiation of families and introduced a sort of property'
    - - 'the first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, to whom it occured to say this is mine, and found people sufficiently simple to believe him, was the true founder of civil society'
        
        believes he who cultivates the lands should have rights to it- 'since labour alone gives the Cultivator the right to the produce of the land he has tilled, it consequently also gives him a right to the land, at least until the harvest'- socialisty right to produce
      - natural pity stifled and 'nascent society gave way to the most horrible state of war after which 'the rich, above all, must soon have sensed how disadvantageous to them was a perpetual war of which they alone bore the full cost'
        
        'laws... irreversibly destroyed natural freedom, forever fixed the law of property and inequality... for the profit of a few ambitious men henceforth subjugated the whole of mankind to labor, servitude and misery'
    - - 'pity is a natural sentiment which, by moderating in every individual the activity of self-love, contributes to the mutual preservation of the entire species'- and being natural is strongest in nature
      - arising of pride: 'the one who sang or danced the best; the handsomest, the strongest, the most skilful, or the most eloquent came to be the most highly regarded'
      - 'consuming ambition, the ardent desire to raise one's relative fortune less out of genuine need than in order to place oneself above others, instils in all men a black inclination to harm one another'
      - 'if one sees a handful of powerful and rich men at the pinnacle of greatness and fortune while the masses grovel in obscurity and misery, it is because the former value the things they enjoy only to the extent that the others are deprived of them, and they would cease to be happy if, without any change in their ow state, the people ceased to be miserable'
    - - 'the stronger did more work; the more skilful used his work to better advantage; the more ingenious found ways to reduce his labor' so that 'man, who had previously been free and independent, is now to speak subjugated by a multitude of new needs to the whole of Nature, and especially to those of this kind, whose slave he in a sense becomes even by becoming their master; rich, he needs their services; poor, he needs their help'
  - - - unlike father, chief of a society has no inherent desire to see the happiness of his people, but is obliged to
    - - 'the body politic is, then, also a moral being that has a will and this general will, which always tends to the preservation and the wellbeing of the whole and of each part'
        
        'every political society is made up of other, smaller societies of different kinds, each one of which has its interests and maxims' / the general will alongside a particular will- 'a given person may be a devout priest, or a courageous soldier, or a zealous lawyer, and a bad citizen'
        
        'personal interest is always inversely proportional to duty, and grow in direct proportion as the association grows narrower and the commitment less sacred'
        
        private interest means public discussion is not equal to general will rather 'most important maxim of legitimate or popular government... that has the good of the people as its object... is to follow the general will in all things' or 'how can the public needs be met without infringing on the private property of those who are forced to contribute to them'
    - - 'just as the lawgiver's first duty is to conform the laws to the general will, the first rule of public economy is that the administration conform to the laws'
      - politicians need more duty to will of people and less ambition as 'nothing can replace morals in sustaining government'
    - - 'it is important to maintain the proportion between the price of things and the duties imposed on them such that individuals' greed not be too tempted by the size of the profits to commit fraud'
  - - - 'Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains. One believes himself the others' master, and yet is more slave than they'
        
        'no man had a natural authority over his fellow man'
      - 'so clearly false that the social contract requires any genuine renunciation on the part of individuals'
      - 'everyone has a right to risk his life in order to preserve it'; 'it is in order not to become the victim of an assassin that one consents to die if one becomes an assassin oneself'
        
        when 'preservation of the state is incompatible with his own' because he has gone outside the laws of the state, it is right that he dies
      - 'there is not a single wicked person who could not be made good for something'
    - - 'the law of majority rule is itself established by convention and presupposes unanimity at least once'
      - give yourself wholly to all and yourself to no one as all equal so 'gains the equivalent of all one loses and more force to preserve what one has'- 'moral and collective body' replaces the individuals, receives its 'unity, its common self, its life and its will'
      - 'if there were not some point on which all interests agree, no society could exist'
      - 'sovereignty, since it is nothing but the exercise of the general will, can never be alienated and that the sovereign, which is nothing but a collective being can be represented only by itself; power may well be transferred, but not will'
        
        need a 'guarantor of this agreement' but 'as soon as there is a master, there is no longer a Sovereign, and from then on the body politic is destroyed'
      - 'one always wants one's good, but one does not always see it'
      - 'the sovereign alone is the judge of what matters' so has to be aligned w general will also as citizen owes all that is required and requested by sovereign cannot request that which is 'useless to the community'
      - 'what generalizes the will is not so much the number of voices as the general interest that unites them'
      - an act of sovereignty 'is not a convention of a superior with an inferior, but of a convention of the body with every one of its members'
      - 'just as he who has command over men ought not to have command over the laws, so neither should he who has command over the laws have command over men'
      - the government is 'an intermediate body established between the subjects and the sovereign so that they might conform to one another, and charged with the execution of the laws and the maintenance of freedom, both civil and political'; 'the government receives from the sovereign the orders which it gives to the people'
      - Magistrates have 3 wills: 'the individual's own will, which tends solely to his particular advantage'; 'the common will of the Magistrates which is concerned solely with the advantage of the Prince and may be called the corporate will'; 'the will of the people or the sovereign will' and so 'in a perfect legislation, the particular will or individual will should be null, the Government's own corporate will should be very subordinate, and consequently the general or sovereign will should always be dominant and the sole rule of all the others'
      - 'just as the general will is declared by the law, the public judgement is declared by the censorship'
    - - 'force does not make right, and one is obliged to obey only legitimate powers' which are made as such by convention'
      - 'when one of the associations is so large that it prevails over all the rest, the result you have is no longer a sum of small differences but one single difference then there is no longer a general will and the opinion that prevails is nothing but a private opinion'- erring of the general will
        
        in order to have the general will expressed well, it is therefore important that there be no partial society in the state, and that every citizen declare only his own opinion'
      - 'the more a social bond expands, the looser it grows, and in general a small state is proportionately stronger than a larger one'- social bond , but smaller states are in danger of being swallowed up by larger ones around them
        
        measure a body politic 'by the extent of its territory, and by the number of its people, and the proper ratio between these two measures is the State's genuine size'
      - 'the choice of the moment of institution is one of the most reliant features by which to distinguish the work of the Lawgiver from the Tyrant's'
      - democracy when the sovereign 'entrusts the charge of Government to the whole people or to the majority of the people so that there be more citizens who are magistrates than citizens who are plain private individuals'
        
        'if there were a people of Gods, it would govern itself democratically. SO perfect a government is not sutibale to men'
      - aristocracy when the sovereign 'restricts the Government to the hands of a small number, so that there be more plan Citizens than magistrates'
        
        'the best and most natural order is to have the wisest govern the multitude so long as it is certain they will govern it for its advantage and not their own'
        
        'while aristocracy requires somewhat fewer virtues than popular Government, it also requires others that are proper to it; such as moderation among the rich and contentment among the poor'
      - monarchy when the sovereign 'concentrates the whole of Government in the hands of a single magistrate from whom all the rest derive their power'
        
        'those who succeed in monarchies are most often nothing but petty bunglers, petty knaves, petty schemers' with petty talents & an ineptitude in serving the public
      - 'when the executive power is not sufficiently dependent on the legislative, that is to say when the ratio of Prince of Sovereign is greater than that of People to Prince, the lack of proportion has to be remedied by dividing the government'
      - 'the people appoints the chiefs who will be put in charge of the Government that has been established'
      - voting is different 'according to whether the general will is more or less easy to know, and the state more or less in decline', only the social pact requires unanimous consent
      - envisions assemblies that meet to ask 'whether it pleases the Sovereign to retain the present form of Government' and 'whether it pleases the People to leave its administration entrusted to those who are currently charged with it'
  - - - 'games which kept the Citizens frequently assembled, in exercises which increased their pride and self-esteem together with their vigour and strength, in spectacles which by reminding them of the history of their ancestors, their misfortunes, their virtues, their victories, stirred their hearts'
        
        'it is hard t exaggerate the extent to which the people's heart follows its eyes and how impressed it is with the majesty of ceremonials'
    - - ''there are only Europeans' because 'none has ever been given a national form by a distinctive institution'
        
        'it is education that must give souls the national form'
      - 'always begin by giving the Poles a great opinion of themselves and their fatherland'
      - 'the Polish nation is different in nature, in government, in morals, in language, not only from its neighbours but from all the rest of Europe'
- - - - justice is the common good so humans willing in accordance w common good will always produce it
- - - - 'much in those ideas seemed attractive, but their attractions required that they be formulated apart from his obviously implausible picture (implausible in contemporary terms) of citizens in a small republic gathering in person in a legislative assembly, or his exaggerated expectations about social and political consensus'
      - thinks wrong what readers see as 'a conflict between a 'primitivist' Rousseau of the Discourse on Inequality, celebrating out natural state of unreflective innocence, and a Rousseau in the Social Contract, who had made phis peace with culture and authority'
      - Rousseau, B: 'I have written on various subjects, but always with the same principles: always the same morality, the same belief, the same maxims, and if you will the same opinions'
      - same natural goodness of humanity running through all his thoughts
      - 'Rousseau's views, I believe, draw together an egalitarian-democratic ideal of a free community of equals, founded on a conception of individuals as free and animated by self-love, and owing much to the modern contractualist tradition, with a sometimes-communitarian political sociology, focused on the social solidarities that are arguably required to unite the independent members of a society of equals'
      - 'early and more 'critical' writings: Discourses, challenging Enlightenment view of improving human condition; seconf more positive & institutionally-focussed- Emile, SC, Julie; third more personal
    - - 'a socio-political world in which individuals realize their nature as fre by living together as equals, giving the laws to themselves, guided in those lawgiving judgments by a conception of the common good'
      - have to secure security and autonomy (self-legislating) and 'not protection that depends on submission and thus insults our freedom'
      - content doubt, realism doubt & third problem of 'accessibility' (a route leading to this state)
      - equality and common good 'fundamental'
        
        'in a society of the general will, citizens share an understanding of the common good and that understanding is founded on the members' commitment to treat one another as equals by refraining from imposing burdens on other citizens that those members would be unwilling to bear themselves'
      - 'Rousseau proposes to institutionalize the general will's supremacy through a direct democracy, whose equal citizens regularly assemble to reaffirm their social bonds and decide on the fundamental laws best suited to advancing their common good, and in which limits on social-economic inequality help to sustain the institutions'
      - of motivation, people's duty to the common good could override thier tendencies to vice
    - - Social Contract 'to show that a certain form of political association is legitimate by showing that individuals would themselves agree to that form, where those individuals would themselves agree to that form, where those individuals are understood to be interdependent, aware of their interdependence, endowed with the capacity to distinguish just from unjust arrangements, and endowed with a capacity for freedom'
      - self love -> general concern 'expressed, more particularly, in a concern for self-preservation and personal security'
        
        but also 'appears to assume a basic interest in the development and exercise of our faculties (SC 1.8.1), a human good which depends on social cooperation', individuals interdependent
      - 'while the general will 'looks only to the common interest', the will of all 'looks to private interest, and is nothing but a sum of particular wills'
        
        'I take Rousseau to mean that the will of all, unlike the general will, is really not a single, unitary will at all'
        
        'individuals have views about the claims that they can legitimately make on one another, and those views tend to conflict'
      - 'each person is, from the age of reason, the best judge of the means needed for such preservation. To alienate freedom, then, would be to place one's preservation under the care of someone less capable of judging how best to secure it, and thus to neglect 'the cares he owes himself' (SC 1.6.3)
      - will still find ourselves responsible for actions even if done under the instruction of someone else, as shown by our sense of guilt- 'committed to taking freedom to have supreme importance because freedom is required for acting on standards to which I take myself'
        
        'so long as we are susceptible to such feelings, and so long as they are connected to standards of conduct other than those dictated for us, we are unable to alienate our liberty- to accept that we are supremely bound to comply with the will of another person'
      - 'final authority rests in the shared understanding of the common good that partially characterizes that framework'
        
        'the people is an agent- a moral person- that exists as such only through a shared understanding of the common good and shared recognition of the authority of that understanding'
      - people's particular, separate interests will provide them with reasons for action, Cohen does not believe Rousseau envisions a unitary formation in which all interests are morphed into the common interest but 'Bloom takes Rousseau to endorse this no-tension ideal, in which individual interest and identity are fully absorbed into a public identity' and 'Durkheim, too, says 'each individual will vanished into a common, general will, which is the basis of society''
        
        virtuous man does not not have individual affections but conquers them in duty to common good
      - of responsibility and regulation, 'our interest in peace is common; but we divide about- and so need to coordinate on paying the costs of maintaining peace'/ 'citizens share and it is common knowledge that they share a conception of thier 'common good', although they may have- and indeed can in general be expected to have- different beliefs about what will advance that god'*
        
        'Rousseau unfortunately says almost nothing very definite about the notion of the common good' but it 'is not understood, as in classical utilitarianism, as a maximization of aggregate pleasure' but rather 'characterized in terms of shared human interests' and is #understood in distributive, not aggregative terms' and requires 'attention to the interests of each member in a way that gives equal consideration to each'
        
        'the idea of according equal consideration to the individual members of the political society, each of whom is assumed to take an interest in advancing his/her own interests- associated with self-love- is arguably more fundamental to Rousseau's conception of the society of the general will than is any substantive idea of the common good'
      - 'in essence we have an agreement to live together in a political society governed by a shared commitment to limit burdens on others (imposed through laws) to those burdens one would be prepared to live under oneself'
      - seemingly limits common interests to those of security of person and resources but also implies others such as an interest in self-development
      - don't need protection from general will because of its 'supremely regulatory role'
      - 'the stronger conception of unity through ordering is not an essential ingredient of the society of the general will, but comes from reflection on the conditions required for achieving such a society, in the face of certain kinds of human temptation'
      - 'citizens have reasonable confidence that the institutions conform to their shared conception of the common good, and those social institutions do in fact generally conform to it'- 'non-ideology/ confidence condition
  - - - 'Rousseau is following the lead of both Augustine, for whom pride is the source of primal sin, and Hobbes, who regards 'glory' as one'
    - - 'the ultimate aim of Emile's education... is to produce a 'man-citizn', an individual who possesses the capacities required to embrace the general will of his polity as his own own- the virtue essential to citizenship- while at the same time aboying a certain version of the ideal of self-sufficiency that defines men: the freedom to 'see with one's own eyes', to 'feel with one's own heart' , to be goverened only by 'one's own reason' (E,255/OC 4, 551), rather than being compelled always to conduct oneself, or to judge, as others see fit;
      - 'if he is to be happy and free in his attachments to others, he must learn how to be not only a man but also a citizen'
        
        'a rational self-sufficiency of a man with the socially dependent disposition, or frame of mind, of the citizen'