Rousseau's Social Contract

A. Legitimacy of Exercise of Political Power: How?

1. Natural Freedom

2. What grants Legitimacy to Social Contract?

3. What could this new kind of freedom be?

a. in state of nature, natural freedom comes from independence from others

b. Problem: in society, it is no longer possible to be independent

c. Not necessarily:

i. free b/c independent

ii. free b/c no personal dependence

4. Republican Freedom:

a. Natural Freedom:

b. New Freedom:

B. What is the Nature of the Political Community established by the Social Contract?

1. The Social Contract:

(a) Establishes a community with a general will that is the source of the law

(b) People itself Remains Sovereign: No Representatives:

(i) Traditional View of Social Contract: Doctrine of Double Contract

(ii) Rousseau: rejects doctrine of double contract

(c) Complete alienation of individual's powers to the community

2. Question: how to protect the individual from the power of the political community?

-Rousseau's Solution: Political Rule via General Will & Laws

3. Contrast with Locke:

a. Locke: legitimacy from limitation on exercise of political power: protection of individual rights

b. Rousseau: legitimacy from reflecting the general will of the people, something all individuals share in common

C. What is the General Will?

-what we will together in common in our capacity as citizens when we ask ourselves what the general will of the community is

-Preconditions for General Will to Exist

1. Background Presupposition: common interests

2. ® Material precondition:

3. ® Cultural preconditions:

4. Institutional Requirements

D. Summary of Principles of Political Right plus Questions

1. Reconciliation of political rule with freedom: republican freedom

2. What happens to individuals in the minority?