Unit-2 : Romanticism Lesson-1 : Jean Jacques Rousseau

( Life and Works )-

Rousseau was born in Geneva, Switzerland in 1712. His father's name was Isaac Rousseau.
He had to go through many difficulties in his childhood. His mother died while giving birth to him.
Therefore, the responsibility of his upbringing fell on his father.
But his father was quite characterless and irresponsible. Due to this, far from raising him
properly
. Therefore, his uncle took the responsibility of his upbringing. After studying in school for a few
days, he did not like it and left the school and took up a job in an office. But due to being
incompetent and not punctual, he had to lose that job. After this, he worked for a few days with
an excavator, who was quite ruthless and mistreated him, which also affected Rousseau and he
became an expert in stealing and lying. In the end he left this job as well. Thus there was no
morality left in Rousseau's personal character. At the age of sixteen he left home and started
wandering aimlessly here and there. At this time he had neither any biography of life nor any
aim or any kind of objective for the future. This means that he lived completely in the present.
He neither regretted the past nor was he worried about the future. Meanwhile he gained many
types of experiences, such as begging, giving false speeches, stealing etc. During this time
Rousseau also got many helpers, most of whom were women, who helped him a lot.

. In 1750, there was a turn in his life, which changed his mind overnight.

The night made him a great man. The Academy of Dijon held an essay competition on the
subject - "Has the Progress of Sciences and Arts Contributed to Corrupt or Purify Morals?".
Rousseau not only won the prize by participating in this competition, but also created a
sensation in the literary world. Four years later he wrote a book on the same ideology

This was developed into his second famous work "Discourse on Origin and Foundation of
Inequality
Now political and social subjects became the basis of his entire thinking, the best outcome of
which was in 1762 in the form of his two famous works 'Emile' and 'The Social Contract'. Other
famous works after him are - 'Confessions', 'Dialogues' and 'Manovilas

(Why Social Contract Theory?)

Rousseau was a liberal political thinker. Liberalism is a theory of politics that came into
existence after the fall of feudalism to make politics compatible with the market economy.
Historians often consider the seventeenth century English thinker John Locke (1632-1704) as
the 'father of liberalism' and remember the glorious revolution of 1688 there as the 'triumph of
liberalism'. Liberalism demanded that the limits of political power should be fixed in order to
provide full opportunity for progress to the emerging economic class so that the functions of
governance remain within the ambit of the legal system. Thus, it freed society from the various
restrictions
It accepted the individual as the centre of society and presented the argument that the individual
himself is endowed with discretion and he knows the best path for his own benefit. Therefore,
he should have freedom of enterprise
Liberalism considered private property to be a necessary condition for progress. Hence, in its
view, the duty of the government was to ensure that no one could create any hindrance in the
peaceful use of property and that no harm could be caused to law and order. The originators of
liberalism have given a special place to the theory of 'social contract' in the theories related to
the origin and nature of the state

(History of the theory of social contract)- To establish the individual and the state as means
and ends respectively, liberalism considered it necessary to clarify that the institution of the state
is the expression of the will of the individuals themselves. This is the basis of its entire power.
This way of thinking gave
Its summary was that the origin of the state is the result of mutual consent of the individuals
themselves. First of all, it The theory was systematically presented by Thomas Hobbes in the
seventeenth century. After that John Locke developed the idea of social contract as a theory of
constitutional governance. In the eighteenth century Rousseau gave a moral basis to the 'social
contract'.
Rousseau says that the state is not a natural institution, but an artificial institution, which is
established by mutual consent to fulfill certain objectives. Rousseau has described his theory of
social contract in his famous book 'Social Contract'. Rousseau mentions his theory of social
contract on the following grounds-
1. Man-Nature

2. Natural state

3. Social Agreement

1. Human nature: Rousseau has given a detailed description of the basic nature of man in his
famous book 'Social Contract'. In this book, he has mentioned a hypothetical situation, which he
has called 'natural condition'. Rousseau has explained the nature of man in detail and said that
man is good by nature. He is civilized, virtuous and complete. He has full feelings of kindness,
love and sympathy
Rousseau's man is simple, gentle, independent and prudent by nature. Rousseau says that
when man's self-love turns into pride, then he becomes a fool.
When pride takes this form, man becomes bad and his downfall begins. Due to pride, man feels
ashamed when he fails and puffs up with false pride when he succeeds. Due to pride, man
insults others and keeps burning with the feeling of taking revenge from others. It is pride that
makes man's nature mean and cruel, suppresses his sense of sympathy and makes his
conscience impure. Thus, pride is the root cause of all the evils in the world. Art and culture
flourishing under the umbrella of pride distorts man's nature. Rousseau further says that social
institutions and arts also have a big role in making man bad.

2. Natural state: According to Rousseau, in the natural state, man's life was simple, peaceful,

He was satisfied and happy. But he was an ideal wild animal, who did not wear clothes, lived a
nomadic life in the forests because he did not have any personal property. Man was able to fulfill
his needs very well. He did not have any feelings of good-bad, sin-virtue, high-low,
moral-immoral and mine-yours and neither did he harm anyone else for the fulfillment of his
personal interest. His behavior was controlled by natural laws. He did not do anything with a
feeling of revenge. Rousseau says that this was the state in which the feeling of belongingness
and mutual cooperation existed among the people. The person used to work according to his
strength and ability. In this state, the life of man was definitely like that of an animal, but he was
absolutely sinless and blameless
the natural man is neither moral nor immoral, neither good nor bad, neither happy nor sad. In
this state

Thus, Rousseau's natural state is neither a state of anarchy and war like Hobbes, nor a state of
goodwill, harmony and mutual cooperation like Locke. He neither considers this state to be
vice-like Hobbes nor virtuous like Locke. According to him, this state is neither sinful nor
virtuous. But Rousseau says that this
The situation did not last long due to the increase in population and the rise of private property.
With the increase in population, economic development started taking place rapidly, which
created inequality
Because economic development made people more aware and people started looking for more
and more wealth to accumulate. Rumo has written that a person first of all buys a house in the
lower class.
This situation did not last long due to the increase in population and the rise of private property.
With the increase in population, economic development started taking place rapidly, which
created inequality. This inequality
started with the origin of private property. Because economic development made people more
aware and people started looking for more and more wealth to accumulate. Rousseau has
written that the person who first fenced a plot of land and declared that 'this is mine' and other
people foolishly accepted his statement, was the real founder of civil society. Private property
had a wide impact. Along with this property, agriculture also started developing rapidly. Then the
family was established. Social institutions were born. Selfish tendencies of man got encouraged
and a feeling of jealousy started arising in humans. Clever and powerful people took more
advantage. They enslaved the weak and became rulers themselves, made laws and started
exploiting the weak. This created inequality in the society. The freedom of the natural state of
humans ended. Social inequality gave birth to other evils. The rise of art, science, institution of
private property, division of labour gave rise to civilised society in which the natural equality and
freedom of man came to an end.
With the rise of civilized society, poverty and misery began. With the growth of civilization,
poverty, exploitation, murder and disease increased. Thus, the basic problem of Rousseau is to
draw a blueprint for the creation of such an ideal society.

(Social Contract)-
According to Rousseau, when the natural conditions started deteriorating, inequality started
spreading as a result of the feeling of private property, then an agreement was made to
eliminate these evils, to save the human race from destruction and to establish an ideal state.
Therefore, according to Rousseau, people made an agreement among themselves. Rousseau's
social contract is different from the agreement of Hobbes and Locke. Hobbes imagines such an
agreement in which every person hands over all his rights to only one person on the condition
that all other people also hand over all their rights to that person. Both the state and the
government are created from this agreement.
Hobbes says that rights once given cannot be taken back. Hence, he is a supporter of
monarchy with absolute power. On the contrary, according to Locke's social contract, the
government is established in the form of a trust. But according to Rousseau's contract, all men
do not hand over all their rights to any individual but to the entire society (collective will).
Rousseau says that for this, every person made a collective agreement with other people. As a
result of this contract, no person suffered any kind of loss because whatever a person gives to
the society, he takes it back as a part of the society. Rousseau says that a person surrenders
himself completely. Hence, the conditions are the same for everyone, now no person can cheat
others.

Rousseau says that under this agreement, man has surrendered himself to the collective
society or the general will. The general will takes care of the equal interest of all. The general
will takes care of the equal interest of all. This general will is supreme. He says that when a man
is following the general will, at that time he is following the real will. This general will can never
be wrong. Rousseau says that through this agreement we get 'civil liberty' in exchange for our
'natural freedom
Whoever wants to get a new thing, he should get it through labour or other legal means. This
situation is possible only in a civilized society
Rousseau also says that although humans handed over all their rights to the society, they kept
with themselves those rights which were purely personal, such as the right to eat and drink and
to work according to their wishes. Along with this, Rousseau also says that which subjects are
of public importance or not, it will be decided by the society itself.

Criticism -

1. Rousseau's theory of natural state is baseless and has no basis. Nowhere in history do we
find any mention of the fact that the natural state was peaceful and happy because history
mentions a society contrary to the form described by Rousseau.

2. History is not even a witness to when and where the process of social agreement started.

3. According to history, the process of state formation was completed gradually in the form of a
sequential development and first there were tribes, then families were formed from tribes and
after a period of time, the state was established. But Rousseau does not believe that the state
originated in a sequential manner but believes that it originated through social agreement. It is
not possible for humans to suddenly come from the natural state to the political state. Wild
humans living in the natural state cannot suddenly become so intelligent that they can form a
state through agreement

4. There is also a logical flaw in Rousseau's theory of contract. The idea on the basis of which
society is established cannot be a contract under any circumstances, because the rights and
freedoms of the person have no importance separately from the society. Therefore, before the
formation of society, the person cannot have any right to make a contract.
(Importance of social theories):

Despite the above criticisms, Rousseau's theory of social contract has proved to be very
important

The ruler derives his power from the people and is accountable to the people. Second, political
science will always be indebted to Rousseau's theory of popular sovereignty. The ideology of
freedom, equality and fraternity propounded by him is considered valuable even in the modern
era. Apart from this, the French Revolution (1789) was also inspired by Rousseau's ideas. In
this regard, Napoleon had also said that if Rousseau had not been there, the French Revolution
would not have happened. Third, Rousseau gave birth to the democratic system through his
theory of general will. Fourth, it became clear through this theory that the state is based on
public consent. In other words, the origin of the state depends on the will of the people, not on
power. Fifth, Rousseau gave importance to the individual and considered him the goal and the
state as the means. Sixth, Rousseau made a strong attack on the theory of divine rights and
slavery and contributed to their elimination.

( Rousseau's views on governance and democracy)

Rousseau has made a clear distinction between the state and the government. According to
him, the political community which is formed as a result of social agreement is called sovereign
or state. The government is formed to give practical form to the wishes of the sovereign.

In the words of Rousseau, "State dominion is powerful and supreme, while the
government is an organization formed between the sovereign state and the people, which
regulates their mutual relations, implements the law made by the sovereign and
maintains political and civil freedom." The job of the government is only to rule, the task
of making laws is of the sovereign legislature

Rousseau says that power can be transferred, but not will. And since sovereignty is another
name for general will, the people cannot hand over their sovereignty to others

Rousseau's statement that the people cannot give their sovereignty even to their
representatives is an attempt to prove the existence of the sovereignty of the people.
This shows that he is a supporter of direct democracy

Rousseau says that the sovereign being unlimited is also morally justified, because by
agreement, every citizen accepts the restrictions imposed by the society with his own will.
Rousseau also considers the sovereign to be the original source of all laws. He says that all the
laws of the state are made by the sovereign only. The sovereign expresses his will through law
and executes all his tasks. This means that only the people can make laws, not the
representative assembly or the executive. Thus, according to Rousseau, sovereignty is
inalienable, indivisible, infinite and unlimited
Classification of Government Rousseau talks of four types of government systems- monarchy,
aristocracy, democracy and mixed government. He has criticized democracy for practical
reasons. He was a strong opponent of representative democracy. Because the public is free
only during elections, the rest of the time it remains in a state of slavery. Rousseau writes that "If
it is a country of gods, then only its government system can be democratic. Such an excellent
government is not in accordance with the nature of humans." Rousseau also condemns
monarchy. According to him, monarchy has more flaws than democracy. Rousseau considers
aristocracy to be the best system of government among the three. He also divides aristocracy
into three categories- natural, hereditary and interpretive.

(Theory of General Will )

If Rousseau's contribution to the history of political thought is to be expressed in one word, then
his theory of 'general will' would be enough for this. Although this theory of Rousseau has been
quite controversial. There is hardly any other theory which has been so controversial. The
establishment of freedom was Rousseau's first desire, so the theory of general will is the result
of this desire. Rousseau, dissatisfied with the society of his time, has written that "Man was born
free, but he is bound by chains everywhere." Rousseau says that in this dependent society,
where there are restrictions on every freedom of man, there is no freedom beyond this.
There was a good natural state.
General will is the will of all citizens, when they wish for public welfare instead of their personal
interests. It is the voice of all for the welfare of all. In the words of Sabine, "General will is a
strange representation of society
Rousseau, while explaining the general will, writes that "In the contract of my general will, all
people hand over their all to the state. The interest of the state is the best interest of all the
citizens." Rousseau believes that ideal political life is possible only when all the citizens of the
community voluntarily participate actively in politics, because for the development of man, not
only society but also freedom is necessary. Therefore, Rousseau's main problem is how to
establish coordination between social power and personal freedom and how to make humans
independent instead of being subject to rule

( According to Rousseau every human being has two types of desires-)

The immediate will which is present in a man as a man and the second is the real will which is
present in a man as a citizen. He says that special will is personal, selfish, momentary and
temporary, while public will is eternal, prudent and in the interest of social welfare. It does not
express the momentary self-interest of a person, but the interest of his entire life and society. It
is the result of the intellectual thinking of the citizen. It is devoid of personal self-interest

Therefore, the fulfillment of immediate desire can give momentary satisfaction to a person, but
the entire society cannot get permanent happiness from it. On the contrary, real desire is a
means of permanent satisfaction, this is the expression of true freedom. In this, self-interest is
kept subordinate to 'public interest'. The criterion of real desire is the accomplishment of public
interest,
In the words of Rousseau, "The general will can be truly general only when its purpose and
essence are also general." He asks to give the executive and judicial powers to the government,
but leaves the legislative powers with the public. Rousseau says that the general will is general
from three points of view. First, because it arises on the basis of the desires of all the citizens.
Second, because from the point of view of area, it is applicable to all and third, because its goal
is public welfare. The general will determines the criterion of justice and injustice

Rousseau says that the state is a moral being. It has its own will, which is different from the sum
of the various wills of individuals. This will of the state is the general will. It is a mixture of the
best genuine wills of the citizens. The general will always fosters public interests. It is the
criterion of morality, because it determines justice and injustice. The more general the will, the
more just it is. Unanimity was necessary for the original creation of Rousseau's social contract,
but once the sovereignty of the general will is established, there is no need to repeat it again
and again.

Rousseau explains the difference between the concept of everyone's will and general will.
According to him, everyone's will is related to individual interests and general will is related to
public interests. He says that "the will of every person takes care of individual interests, due to
which it is only the sum of particular desires, but the general will takes care of only the public
interest."

In this way, the sum total of the wishes of all the members of the society can never be the
general will, because the wishes of all the members are a mixture of the individual and special
interests of the members, while the general will is related only to social interests.
Rousseau says that a sovereign power is necessary to maintain the unity, integrity and security
of the state and this power is the general will.
Rousseau is also opposed to the representation of the general will.

According to him, the executive, political parties and the parliament do not express the general
will, but express the special will. They have their own wishes, which are not only opposed to the
general will but are also fatal to it. Rousseau believes that the general will is moral. Its aim is
always public welfare. It is infallible, which never makes a mistake. Rousseau's general will
cannot be destroyed. It is never destroyed. Because it is sensible and moral. Therefore,
It is permanent, unchanging and pure.
(Rousseau's views on inequality)

In 1754, Rousseau again wrote another essay for all the competitions declared by the Academy.
He titled this essay 'Discourse on the Origin and Foundation of Inequality', in which he held
private property responsible for inequality. He criticized the practice of private property

He strongly attacked the rule of law and proved that the root cause of the inequality prevailing in
the society is the practice of 'private property', which is completely unnatural and unfair. In his
essay, he propounded that the state has originated for the protection of those people who have
made private property in the process of development of the society. In this context, he has
written that the first person who established his right over a piece of land and started saying that
this land is mine and other people foolishly accepted his statement was the real founder of civil
society." In this way, the emergence of personal property had far-reaching consequences. Along
with this, agriculture, family, social institutions were born, selfish tendencies of humans were
encouraged and a feeling of jealousy grew in humans. Thus, this essay of Rousseau was more
logical and relevant than his essay on 'Science and Art'. Rousseau's essay created such a stir in
the contemporary society based on economic inequality, which we can call the seeds of the
famous French Revolution. Rousseau not only explained the reason for the origin of inequality,
but also gave many suggestions for establishing equality to equalize inequality, one of the
suggestions was that equality can be established only by indirect efforts, like not by snatching
wealth from the rich, but by depriving them of the means of accumulating more wealth and by
creating more space for the beggars. Equality can be established not by building orphanages
and almshouses but by saving citizens from becoming beggars

(Conclusion)

The most important quality of the concept of 'general will' is that it provides a definite direction to
political efforts and presents an ideal towards which every democratic society should move

This idea of Rousseau was also adopted by Kant and Hegel. Like Rousseau, Kant has
considered general will as the basic source of law. Kant's good will, which is rational, prudent
and wishes for the welfare of all,
Rousseau established a state in which citizens can attain moral freedom. His concept that
freedom and rights can be attained
Rousseau's theory of general will has contributed not only to the theoretical history of political
philosophy but also to practical politics. Rousseau added fuel to the fire of the French
Revolution by declaring man to be innately free and by considering the public to be sovereign.

While Plato and Aristotle emphasized only on good governance and Locke only on
self-governance, Rousseau's theory of general will establishes a coordination between good
governance and self-governance, because if on one hand the general will emphasizes on public
interest, which is a characteristic of good governance, then on the other hand it is also the will of
the entire community, which is a characteristic of self-governance.
Ashish Bhardwaj
Mobile:+91 8920559690

(Practice Question)

1. Why did Rousseau propound the theory of social contract? Explain.

2. Mention Rousseau’s views on individual will and general will.

3. What is Rousseau's view on governance and democracy?

4. Critically evaluate Rousseau's views on inequality?