Jean-Jacques Rousseau The Social Contract

The Social Contract Rousseauean Democracy

The Social Production of Liberty “Man is/was born free, and everywhere he is in chains…” Human history

The Social Production of Liberty “Man is/was born free, and everywhere he is in chains…” Human history Primeval slime

The Social Production of Liberty “Man is/was born free, and everywhere he is in chains…” Human history Modern society Primeval slime

The Social Production of Liberty “Man is/was born free, and everywhere he is in chains…” No natural differences could conceivably put people in dependent position Human history Modern society Primeval slime

The Social Production of Liberty “Man is/was born free, and everywhere he is in chains…” No natural differences could conceivably put people in dependent position Human history Modern society Primeval slime Yet today, vast majority of world’s population is being brutally oppressed

The Social Production of Liberty The question Rousseau is raising, is how could naturally equal creatures get themselves in the position of allowing the convention that inequality is permissible? How did we get into this situation? Not by nature (Book I, chapter 2) Not by justice (Book 1, chapter 3)

The Social Production of Liberty Note the trajectory of history Rousseau is not going to suggest that we can go backwards We can choose specific states or conditions of our society, but we cannot decide whether or not to be members of society Human history

The Social Production of Liberty Need to find a way to build on the nature that we have and fashion institutions and social arrangements to foster liberty Why liberty?

The Social Production of Liberty “To renounce liberty is to renounce being a man, to surrender the rights of humanity and even its duties. For him who renounces everything no indemnity is possible. Such a renunciation is incompatible with man's nature; to remove all liberty from his will is to remove all morality from his acts.” -- Social Contract, Book I, chapter IV

The Social Production of Liberty What are the moral implications of selling or otherwise alienating our liberty? If we could do something like that, we would be providing ourselves with the means of avoiding morality To renounce liberty is like ceding our moral sense as we can claim our action was the result of slavery

The Social Production of Liberty We can ask ourselves, what if everybody did that? What if everybody was able to escape moral responsibilities by claiming that their actions were not authentically theirs? Holding people accountable for their actions is part of what being free entails

The Social Production of Liberty Liberty becomes integral to my conception of myself – to our definition of what a human being is – what is implied in saying this life is my life. Personal life plans demands liberty Liberty then means being in a position where I am not dependent on the will of any other person Rousseau’s social contract (Book I, chp. vi)

The Social Contract But what kind of liberty are we talking about? Natural liberty vs civil liberty (Book I, chp. 8) Natural liberty is self defeating (recall PD) Civil liberty Not having to obey any laws except those which are in some sense an expression of my own will Civil liberty is a human creation

The Social Contract It is only with this type of liberty – with civil liberty – that we can say that we are free And thus only with this type of liberty that we can be fully human If we follow only those laws which are an expression of my will, then my life really is my life – every action will be an action I choose to do

The Social Contract What do we say about a person who did not value this kind of liberty? They are not being all that they could be, they are not fully human in that they are not participating in moral discourse Rousseau is saying our humanity stems from the fact that we can reflect on the status of our affairs

The Social Contract We can ask questions like Animals can’t do this How should I live? What is justice? What would be a good life for me? For you? For us? Animals can’t do this

The Social Contract Problem is, how do we realize this in society? For example… the more elaborate our social interdependence becomes, the more we have a division of labor Each of us performs ever more exact functions The more the specialization progresses, the greater the likelihood that some people will occupy strategically important positions These people will be able to exploit their position to exercise power over others

The Social Contract

The Social Contract How do we organize our social lives so that we can enjoy civil liberty? How do we create a set of social institutions so that we trade natural liberty for civil liberty Rousseau astutely builds his theory by using our dependence as the means of securing our liberty Only way civil liberty will work is if it is a product of social cooperation

The Social Contract “One who dares to undertake the founding of a people should feel that he is capable of changing human nature, so to speak; of transforming each individual, who by himself is a perfect and solitary whole, into a part of a larger whole from which this individual receives, in a sense, his life and his being; of altering man’s constitution in order to strengthen it; of substituting a partial and moral existence for the physical and independent existence we have received from nature” (Book 2, chp. vii).

The Social Contract The only way civil liberty will work is if it is a product of social cooperation Contrast with Locke’s view Locke mistakenly postulates a liberty not predicated on the necessity of our social ties The liberty Locke describes is the freedom to be unencumbered by societal considerations, each of us decides for ourselves whether or not to be part of the society

The Social Contract Rousseau argues that Locke is wrong Society is not a club, not a voluntary organization Locke errs by treating people in socially advantageous slots as if they were naturally advantaged and thus free to pack up and go home if the social arrangements are not to their liking

The Social Contract Locke erroneously assumes property rights are natural rights and thus those who have property are free to defect from society when property is threatened Rousseau is arguing that this is wrong since the property these individuals possess is secured by a system of social cooperation.

The Social Contract So if Locke’s version of the social contract is incorrect, what type of social contract would be adopted? Book 1, chp. vi Rousseau’s contract presupposes that the only morally acceptable contract is one which insures that each person is at the same time governor and governed

The Social Contract We should recognize that neither Hobbes’ nor Locke’s contract would be chosen by individuals ontologically structured such that they have liberty and liberty is the essence of humanity Hobbes is easy to see, but what about Locke? Recall thieves in alley example Locke merely provides a peaceful way to make coercion regular

The Social Contract For example, look at modern U.S. How are laws passed? Hold elections where most people don’t vote Where winners go through all this deal making to get laws passed in their own private interest How are losers not at the mercy of the majority? In what sense am I obeying only myself?

The Social Contract The system is good insofar as it is better to count heads than to break them But because the system stabilizes a situation does not make it just Look at the contract Rousseau proposes Create a process in which everything is alienated, but unlike Hobbes, we’re not giving it to any particular person or institution

The Social Contract In other words, we need to develop a social decision making process whereby we can all submit to and become dependent on no one in particular Need some sort of democracy where each person counts equally

Rousseauean Democracy Is this the case in the U.S.? Compromises reached are built on the inequalities which pervade the process at the start In the US, we have dependency relations, and we’ve stabilized a bad social system, but…

Rousseauean Democracy All that means is that when you have better or worse masters, you don’t have freedom, and we have no moral reason for not bolting from the master when we can In US, we have a fairly stable, institutionalized way of making decisions, but it doesn’t make people free What would it take to make people free?

Rousseauean Democracy The only social decision process which would make people free – or, more exactly, secure their freedom – would be one where no one had more power or input than anyone else How do we do that?

Rousseauean Democracy Roots are democratic, since, equality is the basis of freedom and democracy is the only system which incorporates an egalitarian premise But, instilling democratic institutions alone is insufficient for a morally acceptable democracy

Rousseauean Democracy Three steps Need to insure that the decision process is not based on prior social conditions that reflect power relations Redistribute to insure that no socially strategic positions exist

Rousseauean Democracy “I have already defined civil liberty; by equality, we should understand, not that the degrees of power and riches are to be absolutely identical for everybody; but that power shall never be great enough for violence, and shall always be exercised by virtue of rank and law; and that, in respect of riches, no citizen shall ever be wealthy enough to buy another, and none poor enough to be forced to sell himself: which implies, on the part of the great, moderation in goods and position, and, on the side of the common sort, moderation in avarice and covetousness.” -- Book 2, chapter 11

Rousseauean Democracy Three steps Need to insure that the decision process is not based on prior social conditions that reflect power relations Redistribute to insure that no socially strategic positions exist People don’t vote on private interests Note: if we’ve done Steps 1 and 2 correctly, we will have no difficulty with this step Two kinds of will: Particular Will General Will

Rousseauean Democracy Particular will Private considerations Ask “what would be good for me” Basis is narrow self interest

Rousseauean Democracy General Will Public considerations/collective interest Ask “what would be good for us?” General will is general in essence and object Think of the Prisoners’ Dilemma matrix The GW is like voting based on cooperative outcome

Rousseauean Democracy Compare Rousseau’s democracy with modern U.S. In US, need to vote on particular will or you will get hammered Dependence? In US, the winners impose power on the losers In Rousseau? Who are we dependent upon? Since vote is on general will, we are not dependent on anybody