PS 112: Modern and Contemporary Political Theory

The Social Contract

Jean Jacques- Rousseau
Reporter No. 11
Jean Jacques- Rosseau

 Born in Geneve, Switzerland

 Most popular and influential of the Philosophers prior during the French Revolution and the
development of modern political and educational thought.
 He published “The Social Contract” in 1762 at the age of 50 years old.

What is Social Contract?

 The agreement through which each person enters into civil society.
 The contract binds people into a community that exists for mutual preservation.

State of Nature

 A primitive condition law or morality.

 Men are ignorant and innocent, “Nobel Savage”
 Men are born with potential goodness

BOOK I

 Rousseau declares, “ Man is born free; and everywhere, he is in chains.”

 The Family is the “most ancient of all societies” and the only society that is natural to man.
 The Family provides the first model of political societies.
 The strongest is never strong enough to be always the master unless he transforms strength into right
and obedience to duty.
 The force doesn’t create right and that legitimate powers are the only ones we are obliged to obey.
 Rousseau opposes slavery or the ownership of the person, since no man has a natural authority over his
fellow.
 Rousseau calls the collective grouping of all citizens the “sovereign”. The sovereign expresses the general
will that aims for the common good.

BOOK II

 The sovereign is inalienable: it cannot defer its power to someone else or be represented by a smaller
group.
 Sovereignty is indivisible: the sovereign always and necessarily the will of the people, and not some part
of it.
 A citizen must render whatever services or goods are necessary to state, but the state cannot demand
more than what is necessary from the citizen.
 The sovereign deals only with matters that are common of interest.
 Rousseau supports the death penalty, arguing that the sovereign has the right to determine whether its
subjects should live or die.
 Rousseau defines law as an abstract expression of the general will is universally applicable.
 The law is essentially record of what the people collectively agree on it, and it must apply to all of them.
 Rousseau acknowledges the problem of how laws should be laid down. How can a people as a whole sit
down together write up a code of law?
  Rousseau’s proposed solutions comes in the form of a “lawgiver”. He must be supremely intelligent, and
willing to work selflessly on behalf of people.
 For government to be effective, society cannot be too large and for a society to be secure, it cannot be too
small.
 All laws should pursue the principles of freedom and equality.
 Rousseau’s distinguish four different classes of law; Political Law, Civil Laws, Criminal Laws and Moral
Law.

BOOK III

 Rousseau presents the executive branch as the government or the “supreme administration”.
 He defines government “as an intermediate body set up between the subjects and the sovereign to secure
their mutual correspondence”
 The whole government body as a whole, Rousseau calls prince.
 Rousseau points out that no one form of government is best but there is a government which one is most
suited to the situation.
 Even there is no best form of government, Rousseau think that there is such a thing as a good
government.
 Rousseau writes that the “life principle” of the body politic is found in the authority of the sovereign’s
“legislative power”. This, he maintains, is the state’s heart while the executive branch, as the brain.
 Rousseau claims that there is no contract between the people and the government or executive branch.
No contract exists between citizen and magistrates, for such would be an surrendering of their freedom.

BOOK IV

 The general will, Rousseau claims, is indestructible.

 He declares that the “upright and simple” individual facilitates the general will.
 Rousseau maintains the voting right is an inalienable right of every citizen.
 Elections by choice or votes are best suited to an aristocracy, while elections by lot are more suited to a
democracy.
 Religion was initially the foundation of society.
 Rousseau declares Catholicism as the religion of man, it is the true gospel, the he initially proposes as
fitting for its civil state.
 Rousseau proposes a civil religion: “ a purely civil profession of faith,” whose creed is defined by the
general will and aimed at helping individuals become good citizens.

Instructor: Mr Fritz Krieg Allawey

Prepared by: Jehuz Flora Huliganga