Rousseau's Infallible General Will
Date Submitted: 10/07/2002 06:32:29
Category: / Social Sciences / Philosophy
Length: 5 pages (1440 words)
Category: / Social Sciences / Philosophy
Length: 5 pages (1440 words)
Why, according to Rousseau, is the general will always upright and tending to the public advantage? The central political concept in Jean--Jacques Rousseau's writings was his 'general will' theory; it dominates his work 'The Social Contract'. The general will in society may be coarsely defined as the existence of an objective common good; furthermore the state will express the general will through policies that pursue this common good. In The Social Contract Rousseau wrote 'The …
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…nd thus our own well-being. However, it seems unlikely that in a modern state citizens will automatically obey laws without any coercion or force even if the law is entirely in society's interest (e.g. wearing seatbelts). It is a vast oversimplification to assume that all conflicting political issues can be wholly resolved through compromise; where there are significant social cleavages it is not always possible to choose between two interests without oppressing one faction.
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