Rousseau and the general will
For some commentators the main achievement of Rousseau’s philosophical enquiry does not lie in his social contract hypothesis. As Vaughan (1962) and Derathe (1970) emphasize, the social contract theory is as old as European political thought, and as such it constitutes the weakest part of Rousseau’s work.
Rousseau’s main achievement is his concept of “general will” and his analyses which present and develop the general will as the condition of freedom for all. “There is often a considerable difference between the will of all and the general will: the latter looks only to the common interest, the former looks to private interest, and is nothing but a sum of particular wills” (Rousseau 1762 [2007]: 60). In what sense is this concept of general will as expressing the common interest to be understood? For Rousseau the state of nature is the reign of absolute physical independence of beings who inhabit it. No constraint, no necessity exist there to compel them to submit themselves to the domination of another (Rousseau 1754 [1997]: 149). That is, there is no necessity to force the beings of the state of nature to abandon it in favour of the state of culture. In such a context only an unnatural cause could explain the transition to this state of culture. This motivation could not be imagined but as the “will”. However, Rousseau thinks that a community could not wish to abandon a state where all enjoy physical independence to move into a state where this independence could be lost, at least for a part of the community. The new state could be desired only if it affords a superior mode of existence, only if the purely physical independence is promoted to the rank of freedom which is the cultural equivalent of physical independence, that is, “autonomy”. The general will is thus the outcome of the will which allows the human beings of the state of nature to abandon the latter. Such a will could be a particular aptitude or tendency. It is to be supposed that it is a common aptitude, in other words it is a property inherent in human nature itself. We owe to Kant the remarkable analytical effort which brought a philosophical rigour to this difficult concept of will.