Rawls J. Lectures on the History of Political Philosophy

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in return we also gain moral freedom. This alone makes us master of our-

selves: “For the impulse of appetite alone is slavery, and obedience to the

law one has prescribed to oneself is freedom” (SC, 1:8.3).

The point to be made here is that the institutions of the society of the

social compact must order our relations of dependence upon society as a

whole and our relations with one another so that both our moral and our

civil freedom are, if possible, fully achieved.

7. Rousseau’s second comment is made in elaborating the articles of as-

sociation. He says that since the alienation of ourselves to the whole soci-

ety is unconditional, the social union is as perfect as it can be. His point is

that as parties to the social compact we no longer have any rights valid

against society itself, provided the compact is properly formed and fully

honored. There is no higher authority to which we can appeal to judge be-

tween ourselves and the political society of the social compact. To claim

this would be to see ourselves as still in the state of nature, as still outside

the legitimate political society the compact establishes. The terms of that

compact properly made and fully honored constitute the ﬁnal court of ap-

peal (SC, 1:6.7).

Here it is essential to remember that the social compact is an answer to

the ﬁrst question we noted earlier, namely: what are the correct principles

of political right? There is no paradox, then, in saying, as I interpret Rous-

seau to say, that there is no higher authority to which we may appeal than

the terms of the social compact itself, provided, as always, it is properly

formed and fully honored.

Rousseau’s third (and ﬁnal) comment is that: “as each gives himself to

all, he gives himself to no one; and since there is no associate over whom

one does not acquire the same right one grants him over oneself, one gains

the equivalent of everything one loses.” Indeed, we do even better: for now

our life and our means of life are protected by the united force of the

whole community (SC, 1:6.8).

Now, this establishes our personal independence. Why? Well, we gain

the same rights over others as they gain over us, and this we have done by

agreeing to an exchange of rights, for reasons rooted in our fundamental

interests, including the interest in our freedom. We are no longer depen-

dent on the particular and arbitrary wills of other speciﬁc persons. From

the Second Discourse we know that Rousseau thinks this kind of dependence

must be avoided: it corrupts our perfectibility and arouses the unnatural

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forms of amour-propre—the will to dominate or the fawning servility found

in a society marked by unjustiﬁed inequalities.

Each of us is, of course, dependent on political society as a whole. But

in the society of the social compact each is an equal citizen and not subject

to anyone’s arbitrary will or authority. Moreover, as we shall see, there is a

public commitment to establishing an equality of conditions among citi-

zens that ensures their personal independence. It is part of Rousseau’s

moral psychology that our natural and proper amour-propre requires that we

be personally independent, and that there be a public commitment to an

equality of conditions that guarantees that independence.

8. Finally, Rousseau gives another deﬁnition of the social compact re-

duced to its essentials: “Each of us puts his person and all his power in com-

mon under the supreme direction of the general will; and in a body we re-

ceive each member as an indivisible part of the whole” (SC, 1:6.9).

This is the ﬁrst occurrence in the Social Contract of the term “the gen-

eral will” (la volonté générale). It is essential to understand its meaning and

how it connects with Rousseau’s other basic ideas. So I turn to this idea.

First, however, let’s look at some of the terms deﬁned in SC, 1:6.10:

With the social contract there comes into being a public person, in classical

times called a city (the polis), now a republic, or body politic. This body is an

artiﬁcial and collective body with as many members as voters in the assem-

bly. The assembly includes the whole people, all citizens.

In its active role (e.g., that of enacting a basic law), the body politic is

called the Sovereign; in its passive role, the State; when spoken of in connec-

tion with other similar bodies, it is called a Power; as when we say “the great

powers of Europe,” meaning the leading European states.

Those persons associated together by the social contract, when taken

collectively, are the people. When taken individually as those who share

(equally) in the sovereign power, they are citizens; while they are subjects in-

sofar as they put themselves under the laws of the state. Above I have said

that citizens share equally in sovereign power. Although Rousseau doesn’t

say this in SC, 1:6.10, it’s plainly his view, and it’s worth emphasizing since

it distinguishes his view from Locke’s.

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3. Note here, however, that for Rousseau the assembly did not include women. They

are not regarded as active citizens; for Rousseau, their place is in the home.

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§3. The General Will

1. What we have said so far about the social compact is extremely gen-

eral and rather unclear. In order to get a clearer view, let’s look at the na-

ture of the association that Rousseau thinks would be entered into given

the conditions he imposes on the compact. A way to do this is to ﬁgure out

how he understands the general will.

This term occurs about seventy times in the Social Contract (including

references via pronouns). The ﬁrst occurrence is the one noted above. To

repeat it: “Each of us puts [into the community] his person and all his

power in common under the supreme direction of the general will; and in a

body we receive each member as an indivisible part of the whole” (SC,

1.6.9).

Thus, what provides the justiﬁcation of political authority in society on

matters of political justice—an authority exercised through a vote of the as-

sembly of the people—is bona ﬁde expressions of the general will. This will

is properly expressed in fundamental political laws concerning constitu-

tional essentials and basic justice, or in laws suitably related thereto. Funda-

mental laws are legitimate in virtue of their being bona ﬁde expressions of

the general will. How are we to understand this idea?

2. To begin: Each individual incorporated into political society has par-

ticular interests (SC, 1:7.7). Within the limits of civil freedom (established

by the social compact), these interests are the basis of valid reasons for ac-

tion. Each of us has, then, a private, or particular, will. Here, by will, I take

Rousseau to mean a capacity for deliberative reason: this is the capacity for

free will of the Second Discourse. One aspect of this capacity is shown in our

making decisions in the light of reasons connected with our particular in-

terests. These decisions are expressions of our particular will.

Observe that the existence of particular interests is taken for granted.

The society of the social contract is not one in which people have no inter-

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4. The idea of the general will has a long history. See Judith Shklar, Men and Citizens

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), pp. 168–169 and 184–197. See also her arti-

cle on the general will in Dictionary of the History of Ideas, ed. P. Weiner (New York:

Scribner’s, 1973), Vol. 2, pp. 275–281; and Patrick Riley, The General Will Before Rousseau

(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986).

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ests separate from those of the political society, or no interests distinct from

and often contrary to the general will and the common good.

3. For Rousseau the society of the social compact is not a mere aggrega-

tion of people. Rather, an essential condition of that society is that its

members have what Rousseau calls a general will. About this, I shall now

ask ﬁve questions:

(1) What is the general will the will of ?

(2) What does the general will will?

(3) What makes the common good possible?

(4) What makes common interests possible?

(5) What determines our fundamental interests?

In answer to the ﬁrst question: What is the general will the will of ?: it is

the will all citizens have as members of the political society of the social

compact. It is a will distinct from the private will each also has as a particu-

lar person (SC, 1:7.7).

To answer the second question: what does the general will will?: we say

that, as members of the political society, citizens share a conception of their

common good (SC, 4:1.1). That they share such a conception is itself public

knowledge between them. We might say: when all citizens conduct them-

selves in their thought and action reasonably and rationally as the social

compact requires, the general will of each citizen wills the common good,

as speciﬁed by their shared conception of that common good.

Let’s note that the general will is not, certainly, the will of an entity that

in some way transcends the members of society. It is not, say, the will of

the society as a whole as such (SC, 1:7.5; 2:4.1). It is individual citizens who

have a general will: that is, each has a capacity for deliberative reason

which, on appropriate occasions, leads them to decide what to do—how to

vote, say—on the basis of what they each think will best advance their com-

mon interest in what is necessary for their common preservation and gen-

eral welfare, i.e. the common good (SC, 1:7.7). In other words, the general

will is a form of deliberative reason that each citizen shares with all other

citizens in virtue of their sharing a conception of their common good.

What citizens think best advances this common good identiﬁes what

they view as good reasons for their political decisions. Every form of delib-

erative reason and will must have its own way of identifying valid reasons.

Thus, as members of the assembly, as citizens, we are not to vote our par-

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ticular, private interests as we might like to, but to express our opinion as to

which of the general measures presented as alternatives best advances the

common good (SC, 4:1.6; 4:2.8).

This brings us to the third question: What makes the common good

possible? As stated, the general will wills the common good, but the com-

mon good is speciﬁed by our common interest. Here the common good is

social conditions that make possible, or assist, citizens’ attaining their com-

mon interests. Thus, without common interests, there would be no com-

mon good, and so, no general will. Consider SC, 2:1.1: “The ﬁrst and most

important consequence of the principles established above is that the gen-

eral will alone can guide the forces of the State according to the end for

which it was instituted, which is the common good. For if the opposition

of private interests made the establishment of societies necessary, it is the

agreement of these same interests that made it possible. It is what these dif-

ferent interests have in common that forms the social bond, and if there

were not some point at which all the interests are in agreement, no society

could exist. Now it is uniquely on the basis of this common interest that so-

ciety ought to be governed.”

Note that it is our common interests that yield the social bond and

make possible our general will. This conﬁrms what we said above: namely,

that the general will is not the will of an entity that transcends citizens as

individuals. For the general will ceases or dies when citizens’ interests

change so that they no longer have fundamental interests in common. The

general will depends on such interests.

The fourth question is: What makes possible the common interests

that specify the common good? The answer to this is our fundamental in-

terests as we have described them under our initial assumptions; for exam-

ple, the ﬁrst assumption where we grouped them under amour de soi and

amour-propre. There are also fundamental interests given our common and

enduring social situation: for example, the fact that our situation is one of

social interdependence, and that mutually advantageous social cooperation

is both necessary and possible.

This brings us to the ﬁfth question: What determines our (common)

fundamental interests? To this the answer is Rousseau’s conception of hu-

man nature and of the fundamental interests and capacities essential and

appropriate to it. Or we could say: it is his conception of the person re-

garded in its most essential aspects. This conception is, I believe, a norma-

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tive conception and from it the enumeration of our fundamental interests

is derived. As stated earlier, Rousseau doesn’t look to people as they ac-

tually are in a society marked by extremes of inequality between rich and

poor, powerful and weak, with the resulting evil of domination and subjec-

tion. He is looking to human beings as they are by nature, understood in

the light of his conception thereof. That nature determines our fundamen-

tal interests.

Notice here what is common to social contract doctrines, namely, a

normalization of interests attributed to the parties to the contracts. In

Hobbes, it is our fundamental interests in self-preservation, conjugal affec-

tions, and “riches and the means of commodious living.” In Locke it is lives,

liberties, and estates. In Rousseau it is the fundamental interests we have

surveyed. Everyone is assumed to have these interests in roughly the same

form, and, as reasonable and rational, to order them in the same way.

4. Perhaps this interpretation of Rousseau’s thought is borne out by

what he says about the general will in SC, 2:3:

2:3.1. The general will is always right and always tends to the public

good.

2:3.2. There is often a great difference between the will of all and the

general will.

2:3.2. The general will considers only the common interest, while the

will of all considers private interest, and is but the sum of private wills.

2:3.2. The general will is what remains after taking away from private

wills the pluses and minuses that cancel each other out and taking the sum

of these wills as modiﬁed by those subtractions.

2:3.3. The great number of small differences will converge on the gen-

eral will and the decision will always be good, provided that the people are

properly informed and have no communication among themselves.

2:3.3. When one group dominates in society, there is no longer a gen-

eral will.

2:3.4. For the general will to be well expressed, there should be no sec-

tional associations in the state and each citizen should decide for himself.

2:3.4. If sectional associations exist, then to enlighten the general will it

is necessary to multiply their number and to prevent inequality among

them.

These statements can be interpreted in various ways. I read them as

saying that our particular interests are likely to bias our vote, and this is so

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even when, with the best intentions, we try to ignore them and to vote our

opinion as to what best advances the common good. This is a very different

conception of voting than the one we are perhaps more familiar with: that

we can always vote our particular interests. But accepting Rousseau’s view,

particular interests are obstacles to conscientious voting; they get in the

way of a reasoned view of the common good, for this good is speciﬁed as

meeting the fundamental interests which all citizens share.

Hence we see why Rousseau says such things as these: The general will

considers only the common interest. The general will is what remains after

taking away from the private wills the pluses and minuses that cancel each

other out. These pluses and minuses I read as the various private and partic-

ular interests that cause the biases that incline us this way or that. Even

when we are conscientious and intend to vote our opinion as to what best

advances the common good, we may miss the mark swayed by particular

interests in ways unnoticed by us.

Rousseau says the great number of small differences, that is, the great

number of small biases, will most likely converge on the general will. So if

the people are properly informed and vote their own opinion, the overall

vote will most likely be correct. What he may have in mind here is that

each informed and conscientious vote can be seen as a sample of the truth

with a considerably greater than 50/50 chance of being correct. Therefore,

as the number of such samples increases (as more well-informed citizens

vote conscientiously) the probability increases that the outcome of the vote

converges on what really does advance the common good.

5. To brieﬂy recap the answers to the ﬁve questions:

(1) The general will is a form of deliberative reason shared and exer-

cised by each citizen as a member of the corporate body, or the public per-

son (the body politic), that comes into being with the social compact (SC,

1:6.10);

(2) The general will wills the common good, understood as the social

conditions that make it possible for citizens to realize their common in-

terests;

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5. Of course, for this interpretation to work, it must be assumed that the samples are

independent of one another. Otherwise the Bernoulli law of large numbers will not apply.

Perhaps this is why Rousseau says that there should be no communication among citizens.

But in any case, the analogy seems rather far-fetched. It is discussed by K. J. Arrow, Social

Choice and Individual Values, 2nd ed. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986), pp. 85f.

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(3) What makes the common good possible is our common interests;

(4) What makes our common interests possible is our shared funda-

mental interests;

(5) What determines our fundamental interests is our common human

nature (as Rousseau conceives of it) and the fundamental interests and ca-

pacities appropriate to it; or alternatively, Rousseau’s conception of the per-

son as a normative idea.

Once we have answered this ﬁfth question, we have pushed the formal

account of the general will and what makes it possible as far as we can. By

formal account, I mean that the account concerns the general will’s relation

to such formal ideas as the common good, common interests, fundamental

interests, and a conception of human nature.

Next time I shall go over ﬁve other questions concerning the general

will. Being able to answer these is a good test of whether we understand

the idea of the general will. While some references to the general will in

the Social Contract are obscure, I believe the idea itself can be made clear,

and the main things Rousseau says about it are consistent and make good

sense.

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6. By way of comment, I have no objection to calling our human nature with its fun-

damental interests appropriate to it “the essence of human nature.” This is objectionable

only when we think that by saying it, we are giving some further grounding, or some

deeper (or metaphysical) justiﬁcation of what we have already said. I would say instead

that if Rousseau’s view covers all that we think on clear reﬂection we may reasonably

judge and can claim, then it stands by itself. That is all that one can do. Not of course that

his view actually does that.

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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 con-

tent 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 real-

ized 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 gen-

eral 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 Rous-

seau’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 so-

cial 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 great-

est happiness (the greatest fulﬁllment of all the various interests of individ-

uals) summed over all members of society. In Political Economy Rousseau

says that the maxim that the government “is allowed to sacriﬁce an inno-

cent 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 dan-

gerous that might be accepted, and the most directly opposed to the funda-

mental laws of society.” He continues: “Rather than that one ought to per-

ish 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.”

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 nat-

ural forms of self-love (amour de soi and amour-propre) as well as our inter-

ests 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 develop-

ment 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 funda-

mental 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

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1. See Jean-Jacques Rousseau, On the Social Contract, with Geneva Manuscript and Politi-

cal Economy, p. 220.

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