Rawls J. Lectures on the History of Political Philosophy

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and social conditions enabling everyone equally to advance their fundamen-

tal 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.

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 to-

gether:

(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.

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 in-

clines 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

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2. John Rawls, Justice as Fairness: A Restatement, ed. Erin Kelly (Cambridge, Mass.: Har-

vard 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 sanc-

tions 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 ap-

ply 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 him-

self 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 ob-

ject. Because then, judging what is foreign to us, we have no true prin-

ciple of equity to guide us.

2. This is a marvelous paragraph. Be sure to read it carefully. It is impos-

sible to summarize brieﬂy. Rousseau holds that when we exercise our gen-

eral 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 gen-

eral 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 our-

selves, 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 ex-

pressed 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, be-

cause of the features of the point of view peculiar to the general will, and

second, from the nature of our fundamental interests, including our inter-

est in avoiding the social conditions of personal dependence. These condi-

tions 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 author-

ity 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 condi-

tions.

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 equal-

ity, when properly understood and suitably related, are not in conﬂict. This

is because equality is necessary for freedom. Lack of personal indepen-

dence 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 re-

gard 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 ex-

cept 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 be-

cause 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 pri-

vate will tends by its nature towards preferences, and the general will to-

ward 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. 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 inter-

ests that establish the bonds of society. Since these laws are general and ap-

ply to all citizens, we are to reason about those laws in light of the funda-

mental 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 com-

mon 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 be-

come 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 incom-

plete and our beliefs about appropriate means may reasonably differ. More-

over, there may be reasonable differences of opinion in matters of interpre-

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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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tation—for example, about the level of poverty at which people are so poor

as to sell themselves and thus lose their personal independence.

§3. The General Will and Moral and Civil Freedom

1. This brings us to the tenth question: How is the general will related

to civil and moral freedom? Rousseau believes that the society of the so-

cial compact achieves in its basic political and social institutions both civil

and moral freedom. The social compact provides the essential social back-

ground conditions for civil freedom. Assuming that fundamental laws are

properly based on what is required for the common good, citizens are free

to pursue their aims within the limits laid down by the general will (SC,

1:8.2). This is quite straightforward.

The deeper question concerns moral freedom. In his accounting of

what we gain from the society of the social compact, he says the following:

“To the foregoing acquisitions of the civil state could be added moral free-

dom, which alone makes man truly the master of himself. For the impulse

of appetite alone is slavery, and obedience to the law one has prescribed for

oneself is freedom” (SC, 1:8.3).

Similarly, moral freedom consists in obeying the law one has prescribed

for oneself. And we know that that law is the fundamental law of the soci-

ety of the social compact: namely, the laws enacted from the point of view

of the general will and properly based on citizens’ fundamental shared in-

terests. So far so good, but there seems more to it than this.

2. Perhaps we have only to pull together what we have said. I assume

that all the requisite conditions are satisﬁed for the society of the social

compact to obtain. Obviously Rousseau is not talking about the case when

they do not. With this granted, in that society citizens achieve their moral

freedom in these respects:

One respect is that, in obeying the law and conducting our civil free-

dom within the limits that the general will has laid down, we are acting not

only in accordance with the general will, but from our own will. The rea-

son is that we have freely voted along with others in laying down those lim-

its, and this holds whether we were in the majority or not (again assuming

the requisite conditions). (On this see SC, 4:2.8–9.)

Another respect is that the law we give to ourselves satisﬁes the condi-

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tions of the social compact, and the terms of this compact issue from our

nature as we now are. That is, those terms depend on our fundamental in-

terests, and these are always our fundamental interests, given by our nature

in Rousseau’s sense. This is so even if, when we look at disﬁgured and dis-

torted members of corrupt societies, it may appear that they are not, al-

though those cases are not relevant here. In those societies people may be

mistaken about what their fundamental interests really are, though they

surely know from their vices and misery that something is grievously

wrong.

3. Again, we might worry about the terms of the social compact be-

cause of our social interdependence. Recall that this interdependence is one

of our basic assumptions in setting up the compact situation. Doesn’t this

weigh down and constrict our freedom? Yet for Rousseau this interdepen-

dence is also part of our nature. This is shown in some of the attributes he

says are necessary to the legislator, as the person who “dares to undertake

the founding of a people” (SC, 2:7.3). Integral to his view is that our funda-

mental interests and our capacities for freedom and perfectibility can come

to their fullest fruition only in society, or more speciﬁcally, in the society of

the social compact. So much is clear even from the Second Discourse.

Another matter that may cause difﬁculty is the thought that the social

compact is an event that happened some time in the past. However, in the

case of Rousseau, I do not think he views it—or perhaps better, that we

need not view it—that way in interpreting him. Rather, I take a present

time, ongoing, interpretation: this means that the terms of the social com-

pact arise out of the conditions that always obtain in a society well-ordered

in Rousseau’s sense. Thus, citizens are always socially interdependent in

such a society. They always have the same fundamental interests. They al-

ways have the same capacity for free will and to achieve moral and civil

freedom under appropriate conditions. They are always moved by amour de

soi and amour-propre, and so on. This follows this present time interpreta-

tion, once the situation of the social compact is set up in Rousseau’s way.

The terms of the social compact, then, simply issue from the way citi-

zens fundamentally are now, at any time, in a society realizing those terms.

So following and acting from laws satisfying those terms, citizens act from a

law they give to themselves. They achieve their moral freedom.

In conclusion: moral freedom, then, once properly understood, is sim-

ply not possible outside of society. This is because that freedom is the ca-

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pacity to fully exercise and to be guided by the form of deliberative reason

appropriate to the situation at hand. That, for Rousseau, is what moral free-

dom is. And it cannot be realized without attaining skills attainable only

within a social context: all the skills necessary for language in which to ex-

press thought, and beyond that the ideas and conceptions required to delib-

erate correctly and much else. It is also not possible without signiﬁcant so-

cial occasions in which to exercise the requisite powers to their fullest.

§4. The General Will and Stability

1. There are still questions about the general will we haven’t discussed,

and indeed we can’t cover them all. This is because almost everything in the

Social Contract bears on the idea of the general will in some way. We should

consider two other questions, so I turn to them brieﬂy.

Recall that in the last lecture I listed four questions that must be distin-

guished in considering any political conception of right and justice, includ-

ing Rousseau’s: namely,

(1) What does the conception say are the reasonable or true principles

of political right and justice; and how is the correctness of these principles

established?

(2) What workable and practicable political and social institutions most

effectively realize these principles?

(3) In what ways do people learn principles of right and acquire the mo-

tivation to act from them so as to preserve stability over time?

(4) How might a society realizing the principles of right and justice

come about; and how has it in some actual cases, if any such exist, come

about?

We have interpreted the idea of the social compact as addressed to the

ﬁrst two questions. For Rousseau the principles of political right are those

that meet the terms of that compact, and these terms require that certain

principles and values be realized in that society’s basic structure. The third

question is about the psychological forces that help to maintain stability and

how they are acquired and learned. The fourth question is about origins

and the process whereby the society of the social compact might arise.

In SC, 2:7–12, of the Social Contract we ﬁnd the curious ﬁgure of the

legislator (or law-giver), the founder of the state who gives the people their

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fundamental laws. The law-giver is not the government or the sovereign,

and because it is his role to set up the constitution, he has no role in that

constitution. Nor does he have a role as a ruler, “For...onewhohasau-

thority over laws should also not have authority over men” (SC, 2:7.4). He

has no right to impose his will on the people. While he is viewed as having

extraordinary wisdom and knowledge, he has no authority for his work as a

law-maker, and yet he must somehow persuade the people to accept his

laws. Historically, this has often been done by persuading the people that

the laws are given to them, through him, by the gods. Religion and persua-

sion, it seems, are required at the founding of a just state.

2. What is the role of the law-giver in Rousseau’s doctrine? I believe this

ﬁgure is Rousseau’s way of addressing the last two of the questions just

listed. If we look at SC, 2:6.10, we ﬁnd passages that bear on each of those

questions. Thus, Rousseau says:

Laws are properly speaking only the conditions of the civil association.

The people that is subject to the laws ought to be their author. Only

those who are forming an association have the right to regulate the

conditions of society. But how will they regulate these conditions? Will

it be in common accord, by sudden inspiration? . . . Who will give it

the necessary foresight to formulate acts and publish them in advance?

...Howwill a blind multitude, which often does not know what it

wants because it rarely knows what is good for it, carry out by itself an

undertaking as vast and as difﬁcult as a system of legislation? ...The

general will is always right, but the judgment that guides it is not al-

ways enlightened. . . . Private individuals see the good they reject; the

public wants the good it does not see. All are equally in need of

guides. The former must be obligated to make their wills conform to

their reason. The latter must be taught to know what it wants....

From this arises the necessity for a legislator.

Here Rousseau has in mind the fourth question, that of origins and

transition: he is asking how, given the great obstacles that must have ob-

tained in the absence of a free, equal, and just social world, how a society

of the social compact could ever have come about. Surely, Rousseau sug-

gests, it requires a kind of rare good fortune in the person of a law-giver.

Lycurgus of ancient Greece is mentioned as an example of a historical ﬁg-

ure who played this role, abdicating his throne to give his homeland laws

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(SC, 2:7.5). Only such a law-giver will know enough about human nature to

know how laws and institutions need to be arranged in order to transform

people’s characters and interests so that, given historical conditions, their

actions accord with what those arrangements enjoin. And only such a law-

giver would be able to persuade people to follow those laws in the ﬁrst

place.

3. That Rousseau is also concerned with the question of stability is

shown in other things he says. Thus, in SC, 2:7.2, he says: “If it is true that a

great prince [Rousseau’s term for government as a collective body] is a rare

man, what about a great legislator? The former only has to follow the

model that the latter should propose. The latter is the mechanic who in-

vents the machine; the former is only the workman who puts it together

and starts it running.” He adds: “At the birth of societies, says Montesquieu,

the leaders of republics create the institutions; thereafter, it is the institu-

tions that form the leaders of republics.”

Later in SC, 2:7.9, Rousseau says: “In order for an emerging people to

appreciate the healthy maxims of politics, and follow the fundamental rules

of statecraft, the effect would have to become the cause; the social spirit,

which should be the result of the institution, would have to preside over the

founding of the institution itself; and men would have to be prior to laws

what they ought to become by means of laws.”

And so it is that: “This is what has always forced the fathers of nations

to have recourse to the intervention of heaven and to attribute their own

wisdom to the Gods” (SC, 2:7.10).

That Rousseau is talking about the third question of stability is clear

once we put it in the form suggested by the above: namely, how does it hap-

pen that political institutions come to generate the social spirit that would

be necessary, at the founding, to enact laws establishing those institutions.

For if institutions do generate the spirit that would enact them, they will be

enduring and stable.

How far-reaching is the change from the state of nature (the early stage

of history of the Second Discourse) that is brought about by the legislator’s

work is evident from what Rousseau says earlier in SC, 2:7.3:

One who dares to undertake the founding of a people should feel that

he is capable of changing human nature, so to speak; of transforming

each individual, who by himself is a perfect and solitary whole, into a

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part of a larger whole from which the individual receives, in a sense,

his life and his being; of altering man’s constitution in order to

strengthen it; of substituting a partial and moral existence for the phys-

ical and independent existence we have all received from nature. He

must in short take away man’s own forces in order to give him forces

that are foreign to him and that he cannot make use of without the

help of others....Sothat if each citizen is nothing, and can do noth-

ing, except with all the others, and if the force acquired by the whole

is equal or superior to the sum of the natural forces of all the individu-

als, it may be said that legislation has reached its highest possible point

of perfection.

This is an extraordinary paragraph. It illustrates the extent to which

Rousseau views us as socially dependent on the society of the social com-

pact even though we are personally independent (that is, not dependent on

any other particular persons). The powers we acquire in society are powers

we can only use in society and then only in cooperation with the compli-

mentary powers of other persons. Think of how the trained powers of mu-

sicians reach their fullest fruition only when exercised with other musicians

in chamber music and orchestras.

4. What Rousseau says about the law-giver is clear enough once we

grasp the two questions he is addressing, admittedly in an unusual way.

There is nothing mysterious about the role of the law-giver, however rare

such a ﬁgure may be.

Taking the question of historical origins ﬁrst, it is evident that the soci-

ety of the social compact might come about in many ways. For example, it

could happen that gradually over several centuries, through a series of vio-

lent religious wars, people eventually came to think it no longer practicable

to use force in such struggles and reluctantly came to accept as a modus vi-

vendi the principles of liberty and equality. Religious toleration seems to

have come about in some such way. All thought the division of Christen-

dom was a terrible disaster, nevertheless toleration seemed better than un-

ending civil war and the destruction of society.

So later generations may come to endorse certain principles on their

merits, much as after the wars of religion ceased, the principles of religious

liberty were gradually accepted as basic constitutional liberties. It is a com-

monplace that early generations may introduce principles and institutions

for different reasons than the reasons that those coming later, who have

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