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The General Will (II) and the Question of Stability

§1. The Point of View of the General Will

1. The five questions about the general will we have gone over so far have, as I’ve indicated, an abstract, formal quality. Missing so far is the content of the general will: that is, the specific political principles and values, and the social conditions that the general will wills and requires to be realized in the basic structure.

Answers to the next five questions will shed some light on these things:

(6)What is the point of view of the general will?

(7)Why must the general will, to be rightful, spring from all and apply to all?

(8)What is the relation between the general will and justice?

(9)Why does the general will tend to equality?

(10)How is the general will related to civil and moral freedom?

Answers to these questions tell us much about the content of the general will. The last question is especially important, as we shall see. A proper understanding of it holds the key to understanding the full power of Rousseau’s thought.

2. We begin with the sixth question: What is the point of view of the general will? For Rousseau the common good (which is specified by the social conditions needed for us to attain our common interests) is not to be accounted for in utilitarian terms. That is, in willing the common good the general will does not will the social conditions required to attain the greatest happiness (the greatest fulfillment of all the various interests of individuals) summed over all members of society. In Political Economy Rousseau says that the maxim that the government “is allowed to sacrifice an innocent man for the safety of the multitude” is “one of the most execrable that

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tyranny ever invented, the most false that might be proposed, the most dangerous that might be accepted, and the most directly opposed to the fundamental laws of society.” He continues: “Rather than that one ought to perish for all, all have engaged their goods and their lives for the defense of each one among them, in order that private weakness always be protected by public force, and each member by the whole State.”1

Here Rousseau is emphatic that the fundamental laws of the society of the social compact are not to be founded on an aggregative principle. The general will does not will maximizing the fulfillment of the sum of all the interests of all kinds that individuals have. Rather, the fundamental laws of society are to be based solely on common interests. (Recall SC, 2:1.1.)

We have seen that our common interests are given in terms of certain fundamental interests. These include the interests expressed by the two natural forms of self-love (amour de soi and amour-propre) as well as our interests in the security of our person and property. Security of property, rather than mere possession, is one of the advantages of civil society (SC, 1:8.2). There are also our interests in the general social conditions for the development of our potentialities (for free will and perfectibility) and our freedom to advance our aims as we see fit within the limits of civil freedom.

3. It is these fundamental interests secured for each citizen—and not the greatest satisfaction of our various interests of all kinds both fundamental and particular—that specify our good from the point of view of the general will. These fundamental interests everyone shares. The appropriate grounds for basic laws is that they secure through social cooperation, on terms all would agree to, the social conditions necessary to realize those interests.

To express this idea from the point of view of the general will, we say that only reasons based on the fundamental interests we share as citizens should count as reasons when we are acting as members of the assembly in enacting constitutional norms or basic laws. From that point of view, those fundamental interests take absolute priority over our particular interests in the order of reasons there appropriate. When we vote on fundamental laws, we are to give our opinion as to which laws best establish the political

1. See Jean-Jacques Rousseau, On the Social Contract, with Geneva Manuscript and Political Economy, p. 220.

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and social conditions enabling everyone equally to advance their fundamental interests.

Note that the idea of a point of view, as used in these remarks, is an idea of deliberative reason, and as such it has a certain rough structure: that is, it is framed to consider certain kinds of questions—those about which constitutional norms or basic laws best advance the common good—and it admits only certain kinds of reasons as having any weight. Thus, it is clear from this that Rousseau’s view contains an idea of what I have called public reason.2 So far as I know the idea originates with him, though versions of it are certainly found later in Kant, who is also important in this connection.

§2. The General Will: The Rule of Law, Justice, and Equality

1. We can proceed more easily by taking the next three questions together:

(7)Why must the general will, to be rightful, spring from all and apply to all?

(8)What is the relation between the general will and justice?

(9)Why does the general will tend to equality?

The point of view of the general will connects these three questions and shows how they are related.3 It shows why, to be rightful, it must spring from all and apply to all; it shows how it is related to justice and why it inclines towards equality, as Rousseau says in SC, 2:1.3. A central part of the answer is in SC, 2:4.5, which reads:

The engagements that bind us to the social body are obligatory only because they are mutual, and their nature is such that in fulfilling them

2.John Rawls, Justice as Fairness: A Restatement, ed. Erin Kelly (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2001), pp. 91f. Public reason is the form of reasoning appropriate to equal citizens who as a corporate body impose rules on one another backed by the sanctions of state power. Shared guidelines for inquiry and methods of reasoning make that reason public, while freedom of speech and thought in a constitutional regime make that reason free.

3.Keep in mind throughout the following comments that the public acts in which the general will is most characteristically expressed are the enactments of basic political or fundamental laws (SC, 2:12.2) in which citizens have voted their opinion as to which such enactments best secure the common good.

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one cannot work for someone else without also working for oneself. Why is the general will always right and why do all constantly want the happiness of each, if not because there is no one who does not apply that word “each” to himself, and does not think of himself as he votes for all? Which proves that the equality of right, and the concept of justice it produces, are derived from each man’s preference for himself and consequently from the nature of man; that the general will, to be truly such, should be general in its object as well as in its essence; that it should come from all to apply to all; and that it loses its natural rectitude when it is directed towards any individual, determinate object. Because then, judging what is foreign to us, we have no true principle of equity to guide us.

2. This is a marvelous paragraph. Be sure to read it carefully. It is impossible to summarize briefly. Rousseau holds that when we exercise our general will in a vote on the fundamental laws of society, we are to consider basic political and social institutions. These fundamental laws will, in effect, specify—render determinate—the terms of social cooperation and give definite content to the social compact.

This being so, we are in effect voting for all members of society, and in doing so we think of ourselves and our fundamental interests. Since we are voting on a fundamental law, the general will is general in its object. That is, fundamental laws mention no individuals or associations by name, and must apply to all. This answers the second part of the seventh question.

Moreover, we are each guided by our fundamental interests, which we all have in common. Thus, the general will is always rightful and, in virtue of their general will, citizens want the happiness of each. For in voting they take the “each” to be themselves as they vote for all. The general will springs from all in that everyone by adopting the point of view of the general will is guided by the same fundamental interests as everyone else. This answers the first part of the seventh question.

We also see why the general will wills justice. In the passage quoted above Rousseau says (or so I interpret him) that the idea of justice, which the general will produces, derives from a predilection we each have for ourselves, and thus derives from human nature as such. Here it is essential to note that this predilection yields the idea of justice only when it is expressed from the point of view of the general will. When not made subor-

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dinate to that point of view—the point of view of our deliberative reason with the structure sketched previously—our predilection for ourselves may, of course, produce injustice and violations of right.

3. We see also why the general will wills equality: it does so first, because of the features of the point of view peculiar to the general will, and second, from the nature of our fundamental interests, including our interest in avoiding the social conditions of personal dependence. These conditions must be avoided if our amour-propre and perfectibility are not to be corrupted, and if we are not to be subject to the arbitrary will and authority of particular others. Knowing the nature of these fundamental interests, citizens, in voting their opinion as to what best promotes the common good, vote for fundamental laws that secure the wanted equality of conditions.

Rousseau addresses these considerations about equality in SC, 2:11.1–3. Here he says (2:11.1) that freedom and equality are: “the greatest good of all, which ought to be the end of every system of legislation . . . Freedom because all private dependence (dépendance particulière) is that much force subtracted from the body of the State; equality because freedom cannot last without it.”

For Rousseau, in the society of the social compact, freedom and equality, when properly understood and suitably related, are not in conflict. This is because equality is necessary for freedom. Lack of personal independence means a loss of freedom, and that independence requires equality. Rousseau views equality as essential for freedom and that, in large part, is what makes it essential. Equality is not, however, strict equality: “With regard to equality, this word must not be understood to mean that degrees of power and wealth should be exactly the same [for all], but rather that with regard to power, it should be incapable of all violence and never exerted except by virtue of status [authority] and the laws; and with regard to wealth, no citizen should be so opulent that he can buy another, and none so poor that he is constrained to sell himself ” (SC, 2:11.2).

Rousseau denies that this moderated degree of inequality, which is not so great as to lead to personal dependence, and yet not so restrictive as to lose the benefits of civil freedom, is a fantasy that cannot be achieved in practice. Granted some abuse and error is inevitable. But, he says: “. . . does it follow that it [inequality] must not at least be regulated? It is precisely because the force of things always tends to destroy equality that the force of

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legislation should always tend to maintain it” (SC, 2:11.3). Also: “The private will tends by its nature towards preferences, and the general will toward equality” (SC, 2:1.3).

This remark of Rousseau’s is an ancestor of the first reason why, in justice as fairness, the basic structure is taken as the primary subject of justice.4

4. To pull together these remarks about the general will: The point of view of the general will is a point of view we are to take up when we vote our opinion as to what fundamental laws best advance the common interests that establish the bonds of society. Since these laws are general and apply to all citizens, we are to reason about those laws in light of the fundamental interests we share with others. These interests specify our common interests, and the social conditions for achieving these interests specify the common good.

Accepted facts, or reasonable beliefs, about what best advances the common good provide the basis for the reasons that properly have weight in our deliberations from the point of view of the general will. The general will results from our capacity to take up this appropriate point of view. It calls upon our shared capacity for deliberative reason in the case of political society. As such, the general will is one form of the potentiality for free will of the Second Discourse: it is realized as citizens in society pursue the common good as it directs. One corollary of this is that the achievement of our freedom—as the full exercise of our capacity for free will—is possible only in society of a certain kind, one that meets certain conditions in its basic structure. This is a very important point, and we will come back to it below.

We can now see why Rousseau thinks our wills tend to coincide and become the general will when we ask ourselves the right question. Of course, this is only a tendency, and not a certainty, since our knowledge is incomplete and our beliefs about appropriate means may reasonably differ. Moreover, there may be reasonable differences of opinion in matters of interpre-

4. Rawls, Justice as Fairness, §§3, 4, 15. The basic structure of society is the way in which the main political and social institutions of society fit together into one system of social cooperation, and the way they assign basic rights and duties and regulate the division of advantages that arises from social cooperation over time. A just basic structure secures what we may call background justice. To ensure that fair background conditions (for free and fair agreements) are maintained over time, it is essential that the basic structure be the primary subject of justice.

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