Which would you argue is Rousseau's main concern: freedom or
Which would you argue is Rousseau's main concern: freedom or equality? 'Find a form of association which will defend and protect, with the whole its joint strength, the person and property of each associate, and under which each of them, uniting himself to all, will obey himself alone, and remain as free as before.' This is the fundamental problem to which the social contract gives the answer."(S.C. p.54). Thus Rousseau defines his objective in the Social Contract, using the expression to designate the primary act of association necessary to the creation of a legitimate political order. Contrary to Hobbes and Locke, Rousseau contended that it was civil society, not nature, that gives rise to a state of affairs always in danger of degenerating into war. Civil society begat governments and laws, inequality, resentment and other woes. Governments and laws "bound new fetters on the poor, and gave new powers to the rich; which irretrievably destroyed natural liberty, eternally fixed the law of property and inequality, converted clever usurpation into inalterable right, and, for the advantage of a few ambitious individuals, subjected all mankind to perpetual labour, slavery and wretchedness. It would be absurd Rousseau went on, to s
He values equality because it bars dependence. The general will is the will of the citizens and the will of the sovereign when it enacts legislation. Each one has one vote to contribute in the decision-making process. The state, enacting laws with penalties attached is an indirect mechanism to help citizens stay on the path of virtue. We shall therefore try to demonstrate that while ostensibly Rousseau seems to be more concerned with freedom that freedom cannot be obtained or rather maintained without equality. We also have come to acquire, in the course of the dreadful history of our species, a concern for private property. In what ways does this construct respect the freedom of the citizens and what does Rousseau understand that freedom to be? Following the example of Isaiah Berlin, I shall use freedom and liberty "to mean the same". Political liberty in this sense is simply the area within which a man can act unobstructed by others. Rousseau contends that his Republic maintains and guarantees moral liberty, civil liberty and political liberty. As we said before, Rousseauian political freedom is essentially negative, an attempt to stave off, primarily, the corruption of the social and economic interdependence of modern commercial life. Furthermore, these laws which guide and coerce us are laws of our own making: "man acquires in the civil state, moral liberty, which alone makes him master of himself; for the mere impulse of appetite is slavery, while obedience to a law which we prescribe to ourselves is liberty. To avoid error in weighing one against the other, we must clearly distinguish natural liberty, which is bounded only by the strength of the individual, from civil liberty, which is limited by the general will" (Peter Raymond Cave). we must clearly distinguish between natural freedom, which is limited only by the strength of the individual, from civil freedom which is limited by the general will.
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