Rousseau Essays Essay Rousseau

1. Rousseau Essays
Rousseau
In all of the "general will's" different manifestations, it is what governs and preserves a society. One
problem may be that people are simply unable to say what they really desire, or what they ought to
desire, despite Rousseau's distinctions between private and public will. Any group of people in its
natural state, before the organization of society, will find itself caught up in disagreements between
the general and the private will. No agreement appears to exist between the two in a "state of
nature". However, in the state of social order the private will and general will seem to collide, and I
say they even become each other leaving us no worries that our private will is to be ignored.
The formation of the social...show more content...
This is why murderers cannot appeal to the nation by stating their will. In forming a society
Rousseau states, "the total alienation of each associate, together with all of his rights, to the entire
community" (pg 24), the keyword being 'entire'. This alienation is nothing more than the ritual
ignorance of your private will, which eliminates the potential for one person in a society to demand
things of the whole. Your private will is consumed by the general.
"But the whole less a part is not the whole, and so long as this relationship obtains, there is no longer
a whole, but rather two unequal parts" (pg 37). Any particular, whether it is a group or an individual,
must always be in agreement with the general will, because it is theirs. A minority complaint against
the acts of the general will, the murderer saying that murder should not be punished, is one of
misunderstanding. Although we must think about this from the murderer's perspective, he must do
the inverse.
"On this view, it is immediately obvious that it is no longer necessary to ask who is to make the
laws, since they are acts of the general will; nor whether the prince is above the laws, since he is a
member of the state; nor whether the law can be unjust, since no one is unjust to himself; nor how
is one both free and subject to the laws, since they are merely the record of our
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2. Essay Rousseau
Rousseau Rousseau's claim that "men cannot create new forces, but merely unite and direct existing
ones (Rousseau 147)." In view of that, Rousseau believed that what simply at some point man
realized that there were some obstacles, which became harmful to their maintenance in the state of
nature and eventually, these obstacles were strong enough to fight off the forces that each
individual used to preserve himself in that state. And accordingly Rousseau emphasized that
because of this it became clear to all men that there were advantages to seeming to be what one
actually wasn't. Because of this difference in appearing to be what one was not, in due course of
time this led to the establishment of justice. So how does one...show more content...
Consequently, justice rather than being mistaken for a 'new force,' is really just a transformative
redirection of already existing forces. Thus, intelligent men seeing the benefit of the combination
of their strengths to make the most of the weak seduced the powerless into allowing them to be
protected by the strong, when they had nothing to be protected against, for the sake of harmony
among them all. Previously, I explained how new forces are not created but nevertheless are
produced by simply uniting and directing existing forces. This claim can be associated with
Rousseau's later statement that the "passage from the state of nature to the civil state produces
quite a remarkable change in man, for it substitutes justice for instinct (Rousseau 150)." This
significant change takes place in mans behavior and gives his actions an ethical quality they
previously lacked. As far as replacing justice for instinct, because of this creation of a new union
Rousseau asserts that, "man finds himself forced to act upon other principles and he also finds
himself more active in applying his reason before listening to his preferences (Rousseau 151)."
Based on this explanation alone, it becomes evident that justice takes the place of instinct, for the
sole reason that when a man is a component of a civil state that is directed by a general will, he is
then forced like Rousseau claimed, to be relevant and use motive other
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