Rousseau’s Social Contract: General Will and Citizen Freedom
The general will considers only and exclusively the common interest. It is important to distinguish the general will from the will of all. The general will is not always equal to the will of all. The reason is that the people always want the good, but do not always know what that good is. For this reason, the general will needs the figure of the legislator, whose function is to advise and enlighten the people to know and see their best interest. Only the general will is infallible; it is always wise and just as it seeks the common good. The general will has a clear moral character, as it is for the interest and the best for everyone. Natural liberty becomes civil liberty, which is to obey something we ourselves have ordered, and therefore is a greater, moral freedom. The resulting joint body of the compact, formed by all participants and provided with a general will, is called the Republic. Each member participates in the drafting of laws but also must meet these same laws; the free citizen is both sovereign and subject, according to Rousseau himself. The sovereign is the Republic, the joint body formed by all citizens, and is inalienable because the exercise of the general will cannot be transferred to anyone. Sovereignty is also indivisible because the general will cannot be divided without ceasing to be general. One of the criticisms of this proposal is that Rousseau’s ideas could only take place in small communities. Rousseau is in favor of the separation of powers and distinguishes between the Sovereign, who is in charge of the legislature and issues laws, and the government that is the executive, i.e., is charged with enforcing the laws created by the legislature or Sovereign.
Emile’s Education and Development of Moral Sentiment
The first step is to form autonomous citizens, who must be away from social prejudice and focus on human nature. Rousseau applied his education to an imaginary student project, Emilio. The child is seen as a human being in a state of nature, and their first learning must develop their natural feelings (self-love and mercy) and let him be guided by their own experience. This first stage of education has a negative character: Emilio is kept away from external influences. With adolescence begins the second stage, in which he begins to maintain social relationships. Their education must now have a positive nature: he must make his own decisions based on his feelings and his reason. Emilio wants to be a self-sufficient human whose moral development is to improve their sense of pity and compassion (empathy: putting yourself in the place of man and understanding their feelings). After the foundation of morality, it is not reason but emotion.
Rousseau: The Social Contract, Book I, Chapters VI-VII
The aim of this work is to show that you can create a form of political association that allows people to remain free. The essence of man is his freedom, which he lost when leaving the hypothetical state of nature in which man is good, independent, and happy. But it is possible to achieve civil liberty through a covenant or contract of equals.
Chapter VI is about the time when man sees the need to create a contract, which has only one clause: the surrender of each to the general will. The general will is a force that results from the sum of all citizens.
In Chapter VII, Rousseau discusses the figure of the Sovereign who is ultimately the people, and it establishes the difference between the general will and the will of all. The idea that the free citizen is sovereign and subject of himself appears in this chapter.