Jean-Jacques Rousseau

1. Jean-Jacques Rousseau The Social Contract

2. The Social Contract • Radical Critique of Liberal Ideology • History • The Question of Sociability • The Social Production of Liberty • The Social Contract • Rousseauean Democracy

3. Radical Critique of Liberal Ideology: History • Liberals like Locke are correct in making liberty important – indeed in making it the overriding concern – but they woefully misunderstand the nature of society • Society is not an object of choice • Implications of that view: • Responsibility for success/failure rests squarely on the individual

4. Radical Critique of Liberal Ideology: History • Rousseau argues: • It is society, not nature or individuals, which creates a system of rewards or punishments • For example… Aristotle on slavery • Question Rousseau raises is what is true of us by virtue of being human and not merely being a part of a particular society? • For the radical tradition, history becomes important because human societies have a life in time

5. Radical Critique of Liberal Ideology: History • With a sense of history, we can see how different attributes emerge in us as different institutions rise and fall • Very little that’s “permanent” in human nature

6. Radical Critique of Liberal Ideology: Sociability • For Rousseau, and the radical tradition, human beings are radically social creatures • We have become heavily dependent on the wills of other people

7. Radical Critique of Liberal Ideology: Sociability • Rousseau recognized that in moving from natural to modern man, we gain some skills/attributes but lose others • For us, we have no choice but to be members of a society • But this necessary dependence on other people is what makes oppression possible • The division of labor makes us dependent on others, and thus creates the logical possibility for inequality.

8. The Social Production of Liberty • Implications? • Recall Locke’s State of Nature • Everyone improves only in the sense of the institutionalized values in a particular dimension of society, in this case the economy and the availability of market transactions through social institution of money

9. The Social Production of Liberty • Social contract, then, stabilizes the inequality • For Rousseau, this is simply ideology used to justify the new inequality • That is, ideas of those benefiting most from the inequality (2nd Discourse) • Locke on democracy… • Why is democracy a good idea?

10. The Social Production of Liberty • Thieves in alley example • Note, it is to my advantage to vote, but I’ll lose the vote every time I run into these guys • What makes democracy a good idea under these conditions?

11. The Social Production of Liberty • Good if we forget the original coercion baseline of the alley • Is Locke’s social contract a good idea? • Likewise, it’s good only if we forget that we are treating social inequalities as natural inequalities • Note that if we recognize the social basis of the inequality, we can change the social arrangements and eliminate the inequality

12. The Social Production of Liberty • The social contract in Locke is contaminated by ideological considerations • Inequalities Locke sees are social, not natural • Therefore any liberal society which claimed natural rights existing prior to government is merely propagating ideology • No such rights exist, since rights themselves are a convention and thus subject to change or amendment

13. The Social Production of Liberty • Locke’s formulation is wrong on 2 counts: • It misconceives the true nature of man • As we saw in the Second Discourse, man in the state of nature is unrecognizable as a human being • It misconceives the social contract

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

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

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

17. 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

18. 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

19. 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 do we get out of this situation? • Not by nature (Book I, chapter 2) • Not by justice (Book 2, chapter 3)

20. 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

21. 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?

22. 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

23. 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

24. 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

25. 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)

26. 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

27. 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

28. 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

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

30. 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

31. The Social Contract

32. 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

33. 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).

34. 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

35. 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

36. 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.

37. 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

38. 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

39. 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?

40. 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

41. 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

42. 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…

43. 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?

44. 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?

45. 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

46. 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

47. 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

48. 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

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

50. 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