2. Social Contract – is the view that persons’
moral and/or political obligations are
dependent upon a contract or agreement
among them to form the society in which
they live.
3. •Revamp civilization from its very root.
•Governments are defective because civilization
has drifted from its true from.
- Since nature’s edicts are good and civilization
its evil perversion, only one recourse remains if
social salvation is to be effective: “Back to
nature”
4. “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains. Many a one
believes himself the master of others, and yet he is a greater
slave than they . . . If I considered only force and the results that
proceed from it, I should say that so long as a people is
compelled to obey and does obey, it does well; but that, so soon
as it can shake off the yoke and does shake it off, it does better;
for, if men recover their freedom by virtue of the same right by
which it was taken away, either they are justified in resuming it,
or there was no justification for depriving them for it.”
5. Social Contract’s chief doctrines
1. Man’s inalienable right of freedom
2. Man’s inalienable right of equality
3. Sovereignty of the people
4. Civil society as a social contract
5. The general will
6. The constitution of a government
7. Civil religion
8. “Since no man has any natural authority
over his fellow-men, and since force is no
the source of right, convention remains as
the basis of all lawful authority among
men.”
WILL FREEDOM EQUALITY
9. “To say that a man gives himself for nothing is to say what is
absurd and inconceivable; such an act is illegitimate and invalid
for the simple thing of a whole nation is illegitimate and invalid
for the simple reason that he who performs it is not in his right
mind. To say the same does not confer rights… They are born
free men… To renounce one’s liberty is to renounce one’s
quality as a man, the rights and also the duties of humanity…
Such a renunciation is incompatible with man’s nature, for to
take away all freedom from his will is to take away all morality
from his actions.”
10. “If it is necessary to obey by
compulsion, there is no need to
obey from duty; and if men are
no longer forced to obey,
obligation is at end. We see,
then, the this word right adds
nothing to force; it here means
nothing at all. Obey the powers
that be. If that will never be
violated. All power comes from
God, I admit; but every disease
comes from him too; does it
follow that we are prohibited
from calling a physician?”
14. General will is one of the most important doctrines in
Rousseau’s Social Contract,
“If, then, we set aside what is not of the essence of the
social compact, we shall find that it is reducible to the
following terms: ‘Each of us puts in common his person
and his whole power under the supreme direction of the
general will; and in return we receive every member as an
indivisible part of the whole.’”
15. People along compose a State; they
constitute the ‘body politic’, hence posses
sovereignty. The state apart from persons does
not exist; it is a compact into which they enter;
monarchs and other leaders do not rule from
above, but derive power from below as public
servants.
16. Rousseau contends that the State is a
creation which came into existence
exclusively for the sake of the common
good, and therefore must be at the
disposal of the general will, the citizenry’s
inalienable rights, and the basis upon
which all sovereignty rests.
17. The State is a unity which depends for support
on its citizenry assuming their respective
responsibilities; should anyone neglect his
duty of offend in
any way, the
entire body is affected.
“So soon as the multitude is thus united in one
body, it is impossible to injure one of the
members without attacking the body, still less
to injure the body without the members
feeling the effects."
18. • An important factor of the social contract
principle is its guarantee of legal equality,
endorsing that endued by nature to men;
furthermore the compact compensates for
any deficiency and discrepancy in physical
of intellectually inequality owing to
individual differences.
• Equality is not genuinely experienced, but
only illusionary in corrupt forms of
government despite their democratic
nature. Corrupt States serves as a device to
keep the poor in poverty.
19. Sovereign power, stemming from the general will, rests with the people
as a natural birthright. Although persons may relegate power to another,
will cannot be transferred, much less, alienated.
‘Masters’ are a foreign concept
to a body-politic philosophy based
on the social-contract principle; their
appearance destroys the body politic.
“The general will is always right and
always tends to the public
advantage; but it does not follow
that the resolutions of the people
have always the same rectitude.
Men always desire their own good,
but do not always discern it; the
people are never corrupted, though
often deceived and it is only then
that they seem to will what is evil.”
20. •Will of all, composed solely of tallying votes for selfish persons
concerned with private or vested interests is indicative of a
corrupt Democracy; however in a good State, people do not
vote for selfish benefits merely, but for that which is beneficial
to the nation or body politic as a whole.
•Due to its vital importance, the acceptance of the social
contract itself must be by a unanimous majority; such
unanimous consent is tacitly given when a person moves within
the political environs of the State.
•Rousseau makes the basic assumption that the general will is
found invariable in the infallible majority.
21. Three separate wills are detectable in
the State:
1.Private Citizen or the Individual Will
2.Governing or Administrative body or the
Corporate Will
3.People or the Sovereign Will
22. The Constitution of a Government
Democracy – exercise of government is entrusted in the
hands of the people as a whole
Aristocracy – administration of government is entrusted
in the hands of a few
Monarchy – reins of government is concentrated in the
hands of a single magistrate.
Anarchy – governments are subjected to abuse they
degenerate; complete deterioration.
23. •Government per se – the agent of a
sovereign people and subservient to
them.
•Governments are established by
sovereign decree
24. Concluding Remarks.
•Although Rousseau designates his political theory a ‘social
contract’, it is what would be termed today a ‘democracy’.
Rousseau, however reserves the term ‘Democracy’ for a type of
government organization.
•His Social Contract has been indirectly the foundation stone of
American Democracy.
•Rousseau deserves the credit for engineering the democratic
concept of life in modern times.
