Beyond liberalism: The moral community of Rousseau's Social Contract

Canadian Journal of Political Science

Volumn 34, Issue 3, 2001, Pages 579-600

  Froese, Katrin ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY   (Canada)

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[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0035647622     PISSN: 00084239     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/s0008423901778018     Document Type: Article

References (63)

1. An elaboration of the argument here is forthcoming in Rousseau and Nietzsche: Toward an Aesthetic Morality, to be published by Lexington Books (Lanham).
2. The idea that individuality can only emerge within a community and does not necessarily constitute a struggle against the social order is taken up by communitarian proponents of Rousseau's vision such as Michael Sandel who challenges the notion that we are particular individuals first and social individuals second, insisting that the contingencies of social circumstances are "what make them the particular persons they are" (Michael Sandel, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982], 51).
3. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, On the Social Contract, in Peter Gay, ed., Basic Political Writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1987); hereafter, Social Contract. Ernst Cassirer praises Rousseau for the formal rationality that surfaces for the first time in the Social Contract, arguing that it enables Rousseau to overcome arbitrariness ( Ernst Cassirer, The Question of Jean-Jacques Rousseau [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989], 55).
4. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, On the Social Contract, in Peter Gay, ed., Basic Political Writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1987); hereafter, Social Contract. Ernst Cassirer praises Rousseau for the formal rationality that surfaces for the first time in the Social Contract, arguing that it enables Rousseau to overcome arbitrariness ( Ernst Cassirer, The Question of Jean-Jacques Rousseau [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989], 55).
5. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, On the Social Contract, in Peter Gay, ed., Basic Political Writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1987); hereafter, Social Contract. Ernst Cassirer praises Rousseau for the formal rationality that surfaces for the first time in the Social Contract, arguing that it enables Rousseau to overcome arbitrariness ( Ernst Cassirer, The Question of Jean-Jacques Rousseau [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989], 55).
6. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, On the Social Contract, in Peter Gay, ed., Basic Political Writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1987); hereafter, Social Contract. Ernst Cassirer praises Rousseau for the formal rationality that surfaces for the first time in the Social Contract, arguing that it enables Rousseau to overcome arbitrariness ( Ernst Cassirer, The Question of Jean-Jacques Rousseau [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989], 55).
7. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, On the Social Contract, in Peter Gay, ed., Basic Political Writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1987); hereafter, Social Contract. Ernst Cassirer praises Rousseau for the formal rationality that surfaces for the first time in the Social Contract, arguing that it enables Rousseau to overcome arbitrariness ( Ernst Cassirer, The Question of Jean-Jacques Rousseau [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989], 55).
8. Leo Strauss, Natural Right and History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953), 274.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid., 90.
11. Rousseau, Social Contract, I.1.
12. Strauss, Natural Right and History, 274.
13. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourses on the Origins of Inequality , in Gay, ed., Basic Political Writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 42; hereafter Discourses.
14. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourses on the Origins of Inequality , in Gay, ed., Basic Political Writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 42; hereafter Discourses.
15. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourses on the Origins of Inequality , in Gay, ed., Basic Political Writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 42; hereafter Discourses.
16. Asher Horowitz, Rousseau: Nature and History (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987), 52.
17. Ibid., 61.
18. Rousseau, Discourses, 40.
19. Ibid., 46.
20. Ibid., 48.
21. Ibid., 39.
22. Ibid., 44.
23. Ibid., 64.
24. Ibid., 63.
25. Ibid., 64.
26. Ibid., 68.
27. Ibid., 63.
28. Rousseau, Social Contract, I.1.
29. Rousseau, Discourses, 77.
30. Rousseau, Social Contract, I.6.
31. Ibid., I.8.
32. Rousseau, Discourses, 67.
33. Rousseau, Social Contract, I.6.
34. Ibid.
35. Ibid., I.7.
36. Marshall Berman assumes that Rousseau attributes to the individual a unique identity which must be allowed to come to the surface, since unequal social structures have forced individuals to don masks in order to survive. In an equal community presumably the true self could step forward ( Marshall Berman, The Politics of Authenticity [New York: Athenaeum, 1970], 117 ). However, in my view, there is no inner identity waiting to be unveiled, for individual identity only evolves in interaction with others. However, in Julie: La Nouvelle Heloise, Rousseau points out that this kind of transparency can actually undermine equality ( La Nouvelle Heloise, trans. Judith H. McDowell [University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1968]).
37. Marshall Berman assumes that Rousseau attributes to the individual a unique identity which must be allowed to come to the surface, since unequal social structures have forced individuals to don masks in order to survive. In an equal community presumably the true self could step forward ( Marshall Berman, The Politics of Authenticity [New York: Athenaeum, 1970], 117 ). However, in my view, there is no inner identity waiting to be unveiled, for individual identity only evolves in interaction with others. However, in Julie: La Nouvelle Heloise, Rousseau points out that this kind of transparency can actually undermine equality ( La Nouvelle Heloise, trans. Judith H. McDowell [University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1968]).
38. Marshall Berman assumes that Rousseau attributes to the individual a unique identity which must be allowed to come to the surface, since unequal social structures have forced individuals to don masks in order to survive. In an equal community presumably the true self could step forward ( Marshall Berman, The Politics of Authenticity [New York: Athenaeum, 1970], 117 ). However, in my view, there is no inner identity waiting to be unveiled, for individual identity only evolves in interaction with others. However, in Julie: La Nouvelle Heloise, Rousseau points out that this kind of transparency can actually undermine equality ( La Nouvelle Heloise, trans. Judith H. McDowell [University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1968]).
39. Rousseau, Social Contract I.6; emphasis in original.
40. Rousseau, Discourses, 63.
41. Asher Horowitz, Rousseau, 186, emphasis in original.
42. Rousseau, Social Contract, I.7.
43. Ernst Cassirer, "The Question of Jean-Jacques Rousseau," in Harold Bloom, ed., Jean Jacques Rousseau (New York: Chelsea House, 1988), 20.
44. Stephen Ellenburg contrasts Rousseau's and Kant's political philosophy, since Kant endorsed a juridical egalitarianism while condoning a political hierarchy, defending the division of ruler and ruled. He therefore points to a contradiction between Kant's moral and political philosophy (Stephen Ellenburg, "Rousseau and Kant: The Principles of Political Right," in R.A. Leigh, ed., Rousseau after Two Hundred Years [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982], 5 ). Kant justifies this through the pernicious effect that nature has on the human psyche. Repressive forms of government are to train human beings to suppress the nature within.
45. Cassirer, The Question of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 23.
46. Judith Shklar, Men and Citizens: A Study of Rousseau's Social Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), 21.
47. Ibid., 72.
48. Rousseau, Social Contract, I.7.
49. Jean Starobinski, Transparency and Obstruction, trans. A. Goldhammer (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1991).
50. N. J. H. Dent, Rousseau: An Introduction to his Psychological, Political and Social Theory (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988), 184.
51. Ibid.
52. Jean-Jacques Roussseau, Discourse on Political Economy, in Guy, ed., Basic Political Writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 120.
53. Jean-Jacques Roussseau, Discourse on Political Economy, in Guy, ed., Basic Political Writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 120.
54. Frederick Neuhouser, "Freedom, Dependence and the General Will," The Philosophical Review 102 (1993), 369.
55. Asher Horowitz and Gad Horowitz, Everywhere They Are In Chains (Scarborough: Nelson, 1988), 69.
56. Rousseau, Social Contract, II.2.
57. Ibid., II.4.
58. This is an issue on which Rousseau's position is by no means definitive. In Emile, for example, Rousseau uses an intimate love relationship to instil in his hero the devotion and sense of responsibility for the community while at the same time recognizing the danger to the community that this poses ( Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile, trans. Allan Bloom [New York: Basic Books, 1979]).
59. This is an issue on which Rousseau's position is by no means definitive. In Emile, for example, Rousseau uses an intimate love relationship to instil in his hero the devotion and sense of responsibility for the community while at the same time recognizing the danger to the community that this poses ( Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile, trans. Allan Bloom [New York: Basic Books, 1979]).
60. Rousseau, Social Contract, IV. 2.
61. Ibid.
62. Ibid., II.7.
63. Ibid., IV. 8.