Rousseau Social Contract Essay

How do you describe a society? A common answer would be how it conducts its government. Governments are perceived as an essential part of our society, and it is difficult to imagine a world without them. However, early philosophers considered the presence of government to be a topic of concern. How did man first start to develop the ideas of government? There were many philosophers who took interest in this question such as Aristotle, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau Jacques sought to answer the question by developing social contract theories. These two theories describe how man came to agree on the ideas behind civil societies. Aristotle, however, believed governments were a natural part of human

While they both require the consent of the people and active involvement from those citizens, it is Rousseau’s contract that asserts virtue and morals into the government. He does this in his argument against particular will of citizens Rousseau’s social contract requires the general will of the public to be unanimous, so he says, “His absolute and naturally independent existence can lead him to view what he owes to the common cause as a gratuitous contribution, the loss of which will be less harmful to others than its payment is burdensome to him. And considering the moral person that constitutes the state merely as being produced by reason because it is not man, he would enjoy the rights of a citizen without being willing to fulfill the duties of a subject- an injustice whose spread would cause the ruin of the body of politics.”(175) The point made by Rousseau is that a man gives himself to the state. If one does not, he has false morals, and commits injustice. Another point is made that “For such is the condition that, by giving each citizen to the fatherland, guarantees him against all personal dependence- a condition that makes for the ingenuity and the functioning of the political machine and that alone makes legitimate civil engagements which would otherwise be absurd, tyrannical, and liable to the most enormous abuses” (175) This paragraph can be mirroring Locke’s social contract. Locke’s social contract can be said to rely heavily on personal dependence, and tries to put the government as far away from the people as possible. Locke promotes free market and property. Rousseau says that those actions promote tyranny. Aristotle believes tyranny to be the worst form of government. Rousseau has made a point to add morals into the government, and fight tyranny, both very similar to Aristotle’s ideal civil life, but he, also, calls for a lawgiver that plays a role that mirrors Aristotle’s virtuous king.