Rousseau’s “voice is the voice of Locke, but the hands are those of
Hobbes” The influence of Hobbes upon Rousseau is, indeed, marked and
singular.
With Rousseau as with Hobbes, the natural man in the state of nature
was absolutely independent of others.
The only difference between the two
was that with Rousseau he was not at war with others, although eventually
when equality and happiness of the early state of nature was lost, Rousseau’s
mankind, too, went in to a state of ceaseless warfare.
Again, that there was only
one contract by which each individual surrendered all his rights, and the
authority of the sovereign to whom rights had been surrendered were strongly
reminiscent of Hobbes.
For Rousseau, it was the General Will which was
sovereign : for Hobbes it was the King.
once Rousseau established the
sovereign power in the General Will, he endowed it with as much absolute
unlimited, all-embracing, inalienable and indivisible powers as Hobbes had
given to his sovereign monarch.
Similarly, General Will, according to Rous
seau, could neither be wrong nor unjust.
It could even force the individual will
to its own point of view.
Are these conclusions not similar to those of Hobbes
The only difference is that in the case of Hobbes these are the attributes of a
King, whereas with Rousseau they belong to the General Will and what this
General Will precisely is, Rousseau remained throughout vague and indefinite
About it. In any case, both Hobbes and Rousseau make man the plaything
The sovereign, no matter who the sovereign is, a King or the General Will
Evaluation of Rousseau’s Theory. Rousseau was the apostle of popular
Sovereignty and the secret of his political philosophy is found in the substitution
For “a sovereign” of “the sovereign” He justified revolutions against
arbitrary rule and was the pioneer to preach the ideals of democracy. Sedgwick
says that the characteristic of Rousseau’s revolutionary doctrine of popular
sovereignty is that it rests on three very simple principles :
“(1) That men are by nature free and equal (2) that the rights of government must be based of
some contract freely entered into by these equal and independent individuals
and (3) that the only contract at once just to the individuals becomes an
indivisible part of a body that retains an inalienable right of determining an
own internal constitution and legislation a sovereign people.”
Rousseau brings into prominence the idea of consent and establishes once for all that
will, not force, is the basis of the State.
He also champions the cause of directdemocracy by vesting the legislative power in the people. Rousseau's political
teachings has a profound appeal for the fathers of the Constitutions of the
United States of America and France To quote Dunning, Rousseau's spin
and "dogmas, however disguised and transformed, are seen everywhere borin
in the speculative system and in the governmental organisations of the stirring
era that followed his death." Rousseau died in 1778.
But the main defect in Rousseau's philosophy is in his explanation of the
General Will. He places no limit on the absolute power of the whole over its
members. Rousseau, indeed, gives on option to the individual will against the
General Will, which can neither be wrong nor unjust. Similarly, individuals
cannot protest against the authority of the General Will. Law, according to
Rousseau, is the expression of the General Will.
If the individual suffers from
punishment, say the death penalty, he is really a consenting party it his own
execution as he is a part of that sovereign will which made the law under which
he is condemned. Rousseau really tried to explain how government can be
justified--how men can submit to it and yet remain free men and not slaves,
and he thought he could do that by showing that government is a natural
development inasmuch as it is only in the State that men fully realize their
capacities.
Here he was preaching something which is fundamentally true and
important. But unfortunately Rousseau is often obscure, not always consistent,
and there is a vein of mysticism running his doctrine. He wrapped up
the lesson he was trying to teach in a language that paved the way for
totalitarianism.
And totalitarianism is a hateful, whether the individual
is asked to make complete surrender to a mystical entity called the
General Will or to a personal leader like Hitler or Mussolini. Then, Rousseau
does not differentiate between the State and society and fusion of the two is a
handy weapon with Rousseau's admirers in totalitarian States to suppress the
individual, his aspirations and his personality.
Finally, Rousseau's advocacy
of small States, with limited population, and his categorical condemnation of
representative institutions present practical difficulties, a direct democracy
offers on solution for the political ills from which a nation-State is believed to
suffer.
criticism of the social contract theory
The doctrine that the State originated in a contract was a favourite theme
of political speculation during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. But
in the nineteenth century it was subjected to a searching criticism.
Even before the publication of Rousseau's Social contract, Hume, the English
philosopher declared that contract as the basis of relations between between the
governors and the governed was incompatible with the facts of history. Jeremy
Bentham said, "I bid adieu to the original contract, and I leave it to those to
amuse themselves with the rattle who could think they need it.
" Bluntschli characterised it "in the highest degree dangerous, since it makes the State and
its institutions the product of individual caprice." Sir Henry Maine maintained
that nothing could be "more worthless" than such an account of the origin of
society and government as given by Hobbes.
As an explanation of the origin of the State the theory is now entirely
discredited. The following points of criticism may be noted:
Historically ,the theory is a mere fiction. There is nothing in the whole
range of history to show that the State has ever been deliberately created created as a
result of voluntary agreement.
Nor can we suppose that man could ever think
of governing himself when he lived under conditions of extreme simplicity,
ignorance and even brutality by which the state of nature is characterized. The
fact of the matter is that man can live only if he lives in society, and that he
an live in society only if he accepts certain restraints on his freedom of action.
These restraints are government in the germ. Society and State are natural
institutions. It is man's social need which gives them existence and they
continue to exist because of this need.
The example of the Mayflower compact of 1620, is very often cited in
support of the theory of Social Contract. The Puritan emigrants to America
while they were still on board the ship Mayflower, drew up and signed
document which declared: "We...do, by these presents, solemnly and mutual,
in the presence of God and one another, covenant and combine ourselves
together info a civil body politic, for our better ordering and preservation.
But this is not a correct example; nor can any similar example be cited
to hold a parallel to the formation of the State by men living in the State of
nature. The Puritans emigrating to new lands were not ignorant of political
institutions. They were born and had lived in the State and when they went out
of it they were fully familiar with the nature of their political governance, and
the rights and duties of a citizen in a politically organised society.
What the Mayflower compact really meant was "merely the transplanting to new land
of political institutions by men already subjected to political authority." And
the covenant they concluded did not mark the origin of a new State. They
remained subjects of England even after setting up their body politic. When
the United State of America came into being by virtue of a solemn compact
(the Articles of Confederation), the State had been familiar to them both as an
idea as well as a fact.
The theory of Social Contract is, indeed, remote from actualities and
completely oblivious of facts. Nothing like the State of nature of nature had ever existed
and even Hobbes himself, after discussing the state of nature, admitted that
"was never generally so." The most primitive peoples that the Anthropologist
have described, lived under a regulative system of some sort and conformed
to rigid customary modes of behaviour.
It is quite unhistorical to suppose that
such men would resort to a contract. The vary idea of a contract belongs to
later stage of social development then the hypothesis demands. Primitive man
did not possess that maturity of outlook which the making of a social contract
presupposes. Moreover, the conditions of a contract also presuppose a system
of law to support it.
The advocates of the Contract Theory hold individuals as making
contract for their personal safety and the security of property. But history tell
us just the other way. Early law was more communal than individual and the
unit of society was not the individual but the family.
"was the unit
property was held in common. Custom formed law and each man was born
into his status in society. Society has thus moved form status to contract and
not form contract to status, as it has been maintained by the Contractual is
Contract is not the beginning, according to sir Henry Maine, but the end
society. In the primitive society birth determined the position of every ma
it was not a matter of choice or voluntary arrangement.
"He who is born
a slave, let him remain a slave; the artisan, an artisan; the priest, a priest, a priest."
This is the command of status and we cannot imagine a slave having free choice
to contract. If he has a free choice to contract, then, he no longer remains a slave.
Even if be granted that the State is the re
Rousseau’s “voice is the voice of Locke, but the hands are those of
Hobbes” The influence of Hobbes upon Rousseau is, indeed, marked and
singular.
With Rousseau as with Hobbes, the natural man in the state of nature
was absolutely independent of others.
The only difference between the two
was that with Rousseau he was not at war with others, although eventually
when equality and happiness of the early state of nature was lost, Rousseau’s
mankind, too, went in to a state of ceaseless warfare.
Again, that there was only
one contract by which each individual surrendered all his rights, and the
authority of the sovereign to whom rights had been surrendered were strongly
reminiscent of Hobbes.
For Rousseau, it was the General Will which was
sovereign : for Hobbes it was the King.
once Rousseau established the
sovereign power in the General Will, he endowed it with as much absolute
unlimited, all-embracing, inalienable and indivisible powers as Hobbes had
given to his sovereign monarch.
Similarly, General Will, according to Rous
seau, could neither be wrong nor unjust.
It could even force the individual will
to its own point of view.
Are these conclusions not similar to those of Hobbes
The only difference is that in the case of Hobbes these are the attributes of a
King, whereas with Rousseau they belong to the General Will and what this
General Will precisely is, Rousseau remained throughout vague and indefinite
About it. In any case, both Hobbes and Rousseau make man the plaything
The sovereign, no matter who the sovereign is, a King or the General Will
Evaluation of Rousseau’s Theory. Rousseau was the apostle of popular
Sovereignty and the secret of his political philosophy is found in the substitution
For “a sovereign” of “the sovereign” He justified revolutions against
arbitrary rule and was the pioneer to preach the ideals of democracy. Sedgwick
says that the characteristic of Rousseau’s revolutionary doctrine of popular
sovereignty is that it rests on three very simple principles :
“(1) That men are by nature free and equal (2) that the rights of government must be based of
some contract freely entered into by these equal and independent individuals
and (3) that the only contract at once just to the individuals becomes an
indivisible part of a body that retains an inalienable right of determining an
own internal constitution and legislation a sovereign people.”
Rousseau brings into prominence the idea of consent and establishes once for all that
will, not force, is the basis of the State.
He also champions the cause of directdemocracy by vesting the legislative power in the people. Rousseau's political
teachings has a profound appeal for the fathers of the Constitutions of the
United States of America and France To quote Dunning, Rousseau's spin
and "dogmas, however disguised and transformed, are seen everywhere borin
in the speculative system and in the governmental organisations of the stirring
era that followed his death." Rousseau died in 1778.
But the main defect in Rousseau's philosophy is in his explanation of the
General Will. He places no limit on the absolute power of the whole over its
members. Rousseau, indeed, gives on option to the individual will against the
General Will, which can neither be wrong nor unjust. Similarly, individuals
cannot protest against the authority of the General Will. Law, according to
Rousseau, is the expression of the General Will.
If the individual suffers from
punishment, say the death penalty, he is really a consenting party it his own
execution as he is a part of that sovereign will which made the law under which
he is condemned. Rousseau really tried to explain how government can be
justified--how men can submit to it and yet remain free men and not slaves,
and he thought he could do that by showing that government is a natural
development inasmuch as it is only in the State that men fully realize their
capacities.
Here he was preaching something which is fundamentally true and
important. But unfortunately Rousseau is often obscure, not always consistent,
and there is a vein of mysticism running his doctrine. He wrapped up
the lesson he was trying to teach in a language that paved the way for
totalitarianism.
And totalitarianism is a hateful, whether the individual
is asked to make complete surrender to a mystical entity called the
General Will or to a personal leader like Hitler or Mussolini. Then, Rousseau
does not differentiate between the State and society and fusion of the two is a
handy weapon with Rousseau's admirers in totalitarian States to suppress the
individual, his aspirations and his personality.
Finally, Rousseau's advocacy
of small States, with limited population, and his categorical condemnation of
representative institutions present practical difficulties, a direct democracy
offers on solution for the political ills from which a nation-State is believed to
suffer.
criticism of the social contract theory
The doctrine that the State originated in a contract was a favourite theme
of political speculation during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. But
in the nineteenth century it was subjected to a searching criticism.
Even before the publication of Rousseau's Social contract, Hume, the English
philosopher declared that contract as the basis of relations between between the
governors and the governed was incompatible with the facts of history. Jeremy
Bentham said, "I bid adieu to the original contract, and I leave it to those to
amuse themselves with the rattle who could think they need it.
" Bluntschli characterised it "in the highest degree dangerous, since it makes the State and
its institutions the product of individual caprice." Sir Henry Maine maintained
that nothing could be "more worthless" than such an account of the origin of
society and government as given by Hobbes.
As an explanation of the origin of the State the theory is now entirely
discredited. The following points of criticism may be noted:
Historically ,the theory is a mere fiction. There is nothing in the whole
range of history to show that the State has ever been deliberately created created as a
result of voluntary agreement.
Nor can we suppose that man could ever think
of governing himself when he lived under conditions of extreme simplicity,
ignorance and even brutality by which the state of nature is characterized. The
fact of the matter is that man can live only if he lives in society, and that he
an live in society only if he accepts certain restraints on his freedom of action.
These restraints are government in the germ. Society and State are natural
institutions. It is man's social need which gives them existence and they
continue to exist because of this need.
The example of the Mayflower compact of 1620, is very often cited in
support of the theory of Social Contract. The Puritan emigrants to America
while they were still on board the ship Mayflower, drew up and signed
document which declared: "We...do, by these presents, solemnly and mutual,
in the presence of God and one another, covenant and combine ourselves
together info a civil body politic, for our better ordering and preservation.
But this is not a correct example; nor can any similar example be cited
to hold a parallel to the formation of the State by men living in the State of
nature. The Puritans emigrating to new lands were not ignorant of political
institutions. They were born and had lived in the State and when they went out
of it they were fully familiar with the nature of their political governance, and
the rights and duties of a citizen in a politically organised society.
What the Mayflower compact really meant was "merely the transplanting to new land
of political institutions by men already subjected to political authority." And
the covenant they concluded did not mark the origin of a new State. They
remained subjects of England even after setting up their body politic. When
the United State of America came into being by virtue of a solemn compact
(the Articles of Confederation), the State had been familiar to them both as an
idea as well as a fact.
The theory of Social Contract is, indeed, remote from actualities and
completely oblivious of facts. Nothing like the State of nature of nature had ever existed
and even Hobbes himself, after discussing the state of nature, admitted that
"was never generally so." The most primitive peoples that the Anthropologist
have described, lived under a regulative system of some sort and conformed
to rigid customary modes of behaviour.
It is quite unhistorical to suppose that
such men would resort to a contract. The vary idea of a contract belongs to
later stage of social development then the hypothesis demands. Primitive man
did not possess that maturity of outlook which the making of a social contract
presupposes. Moreover, the conditions of a contract also presuppose a system
of law to support it.
The advocates of the Contract Theory hold individuals as making
contract for their personal safety and the security of property. But history tell
us just the other way. Early law was more communal than individual and the
unit of society was not the individual but the family.
"was the unit
property was held in common. Custom formed law and each man was born
into his status in society. Society has thus moved form status to contract and
not form contract to status, as it has been maintained by the Contractual is
Contract is not the beginning, according to sir Henry Maine, but the end
society. In the primitive society birth determined the position of every ma
it was not a matter of choice or voluntary arrangement.
"He who is born
a slave, let him remain a slave; the artisan, an artisan; the priest, a priest, a priest."
This is the command of status and we cannot imagine a slave having free choice
to contract. If he has a free choice to contract, then, he no longer remains a slave.
Even if be granted that the State is the re
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