Making Citizens: Rousseau's Political Theory of Culture

Making Citizens Making Citizens Rousseau’s political theory of culture Zev M.Trachtenberg London and New York Fi...

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Making Citizens

Making Citizens

Rousseau’s political theory of culture

Zev M.Trachtenberg

London and New York

First published 1993 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2003. Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge Inc. 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 © 1993 Zev M.Trachtenberg All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Trachtenberg, Zev M. Making Citizens: Rousseau’s Political Theory of Culture I. Title 194 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Trachtenberg, Zev M. (Zev Matthew) Making citizens: Rousseau’s political theory of culture/ Zev M.Trachtenberg. p. cm. Revision of thesis (Ph.D.)—Columbia University. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 1712–1778—Contributions in political science. 2. Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 1712– 1778—Contributions in political culture. I. Title. JC179.R9T73 1993 320'.01'–dc20 92–33546 ISBN 0-203-02428-1 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-16062-2 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0-415-04063-9 (Print Edition)

For Tina

Contents

Acknowledgments Abbreviations for works cited

vii xi

Introduction—Political success and the general will The fundamental problem in politics The general will The commonality of the general will

1 2 7 15

1

An analysis of political failure The formulation problem The enforcement problem An overview of political failure

30 31 55 73

2

The state of nature The state of nature Nascent society

76 78 87

3

Society as Culmination The path to Society as it

4

Culture and political failure The cultural foundation of political authority The culture of society as it is

it is—and as it could be of nascent society society as it is could be

vii

104 104 112 123 144 145 150

viii

Contents

5

Culture and political success Geneva as society as it could be The circles Republican festivals The balls The political supervision of culture

175 176 179 193 200 205

6

Culture and legitimacy Legitimacy Applying Condorcet’s Theorem to Rousseau Rousseau’s voters Conclusion

211 213 222 230 243

Appendix I Moeurs as culture Appendix II Arrow’s Theorem Notes Bibliography Index

247 252 261 285 296

Acknowledgments

This book grew in three stages, and I would like to thank the friends and colleagues who assisted me at each. The book began as my doctoral dissertation, written at Columbia University. My committee consisted of Arthur Danto, Richard Kuhns, Charles Larmore, Gita May, and Andrzej Rapaczynski, whom I thank for their guidance of my initial research and writing, and for a genuinely enjoyable and instructive defense. I owe tremendous thanks to my friends Rebecca Berlow, Dare Clubb, Edward Harris, Mike Koessel, Dan Poor, Jay Rosen, Mark Rutherford, Pinchus Ben-Or, and James Walkup, for their support and advice during my doctoral work. I wish also to thank the Mrs Giles Whiting Foundation for its generous support as I completed the dissertation. After leaving Columbia I converted the dissertation into a form more suitable to a book. My work proceeded outside of an academic institution; thus the friends just mentioned served as an intellectual community I relied on more than ever. I must thank in particular Mike Koessel for his helpful comments on drafts, and for his invaluable guidance with my continuing research. I would also like to thank my employer during this period, the Constitutional Education Foundation, for giving me time free from the office in order to keep my philosophical work going. The book took its final form at the University of Oklahoma, and I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to the Philosophy Department there. The comments of the members of the department during a presentation of an earlier version of the final chapter were instrumental in enabling me to characterize what I take to be an internal flaw in Rousseau’s theory. In particular, James Hawthorne assisted me with the details of social choice ix

x

Acknowledgments

theory generally, and Condorcet’s Theorem specifically. Jim’s comments on drafts of the Introduction and Chapter 1 were invaluable. I wish to thank as well the members of our informal political philosophy reading group—Neera Badhwar and Edward Sankowski of the Philosophy Department, and Robert Cox, Richard Wells, and Susan Zlomke of the Political Science Department—for their extremely helpful discussion of draft material. Susan’s insightful criticisms, especially, showed me how to strengthen my defense of the realist conception of the general will. I am grateful as well to John Ireland, of the Modern Languages Department, for his suggestions on my translations. In addition I thank the University of Oklahoma Research Council for supporting the preparation of the index, and Richard Stoneman, Moira Taylor, and their co-workers at Routledge for their assistance in bringing this book into print. Finally, my deepest appreciation goes out to my parents for their unfailing encouragement and support. Appreciation, gratitude and thanks, however, are only the least of what I owe and offer Tina Kambour for her help, her forbearance, and her love, without which I could not have finished this project. Zev Trachtenberg February 1993

Abbreviations for works cited

I use the abbreviations listed below for Rousseau’s works. I indicate the translation I used together with a parallel citation (where there is a direct quotation) to a French text—generally the Pléiade Oeuvres complètes, except for the Letter to d’Alembert and the Essay on the Origin of Languages. I have taken the liberty of altering translations as I thought necessary, but never by more than a word or two. Where no translator is indicated the translations are my own—as are translations of secondary works published in French. Where practical I cite to paragraph number, otherwise to the page number in the translation, in line with the format shown. FRENCH EDITIONS D: GF: OC:

Ducros edition (1970) of the Essai sur l’origine des langues, cite to page. Garnier Flammarion edition (1967) of the Lettre à M. d’Alembert sur son article Genève, cite to page. Pléiade Oeuvres complètes (1959–69), cite to volume.page.

SPECIFIC WORKS C: CC:

Confessions, trans. Cohen (1953), cite to book, page/OC. Constitutional Project for Corsica, trans. Watkins (1986), cite to page/OC. DAS: Discourse on the Arts and Sciences (First Discourse), trans. Gourevitch (1986), cite to part.paragraph/OC. DI: Discourse on the Origin of Inequality (Second Discourse), trans. Gourevitch (1986), cite to part.paragraph/OC. xi

xii

Abbreviations for works cited

DPE: Discourse on Political Economy, trans. Cress (1987), cite to part, page/OC. E: Emile, trans. Bloom (1979), cite to book, page/OC. EL: Essay on the Origin of Languages, trans. Gourevitch (1986), cite to chapter.paragraph/D. FP: Fragments politiques (in OC, III), cite to section.entry, OC. GM: Geneva Manuscript, trans. J.Masters (1978), cite to book.chapter.paragraph/OC. GP: Considerations on the Government of Poland, trans. Watkins (1986), cite to chapter, page/OC. LdA: Letter to d’Alembert, trans. Bloom (1960), cite to page/GF. LM: Letters Written from the Mountain, cite to letter, OC. LR: Last Reply [to Bordes], trans. Gourevitch (1986), cite to paragraph/OC. NH: Julie, ou la Nouvelle Héloïse, cite to part.letter/OC. PN: Preface to Narcisse, trans. Gourevitch (1986), cite to paragraph/OC. RJ: Rousseau, Judge of Jean-Jacques, cite to dialogue, OC. SC: The Social Contract, trans. Watkins (1986), cite to book.chapter.paragraph/OC. SW: ‘That the state of war is born of society,’ cite to OC. ABBREVIATIONS FOR WORKS BY OTHER AUTHORS LT: ST: SL:

Locke (1983) ‘A letter concerning toleration,’ cite to page. Locke (1947) Second Treatise of Government, cite to chapter, paragraph. Montesquieu (1949) The Spirit of the Laws, cite to book.chapter.paragraph.

Introduction Political success and the general will

The idea of the social contract remains a dominant metaphor within political philosophy. As much as any philosopher, JeanJacques Rousseau is responsible for that dominance—responsible even, ironically, for some of the critical strategies that have been brought to bear against it. But more than any other philosopher, Rousseau attended to the role of culture in political life. The social contract can be effective, in his view, only to the extent that it is supported by a nexus of cultural institutions and practices: that aspect of life he denotes by the term moeurs.1 For, the effect of culture is to shape the fundamental attitudes individuals bring to political cooperation, in virtue of which their cooperative efforts will fail or succeed. If culture has the wrong characteristics it produces individuals whose dispositions make cooperation unstable and uncertain. But in the best case, culture produces individuals whose dispositions promote harmonious and effective collective action. Rousseau holds, in other words, that in the best case culture makes citizens. In general then, I shall argue that for Rousseau a society’s culture determines its prospects for political success. Political success is a concept I construct from an array of related notions Rousseau deploys in his analysis of political right in The Social Contract. I believe that it captures Rousseau’s implicit understanding of what it means for a society’s political institutions to achieve the goals set them by its members. The concept of political success is the key to my reading of Rousseau. Therefore I will begin with a detailed exposition of it, showing in this Introduction how it draws together concepts Rousseau himself uses explicitly. After defining political success I will go on, in Chapter 1, to identify the points at which culture intervenes in politics—by 1

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discussing the concept of political failure. We will see how different attitudes individuals can take regarding their self-interest can frustrate cooperation in a variety of ways. This analysis of failure will illuminate the attitude Rousseau believes is necessary for political success. In Chapters 2 and 3 I will take up Rousseau’s account of the evolution of human psychology. We shall consider how, on his theory, different forms of self-love emerge in tandem with the emergence of social life, and how they constitute the psychological mechanisms that underlie self-interest, and hence political failure or success. We shall see how, for Rousseau, there are two paths this dual evolution can take: toward the actual political failure of existing society, or toward the possible success of an ideal society Rousseau imagines. In Chapters 4 and 5 I shall present Rousseau’s visions of existing and ideal societies—in particular his descriptions of their respective cultures. We will see how, in the two cases, cultural institutions act on the members of society. Culture gives form to individuals’ self-love, thereby determining the attitudes they bring to political life. In actual society, Rousseau holds, culture contributes to political failure. But in Rousseau’s vision of ideal society, culture contributes to political success. However, as I will show in Chapter 6, Rousseau’s cultural ideal conflicts with an essential element of his conception of successful politics, his theory of legitimacy. Thus, we shall see, in the end Rousseau’s views of culture undercut the very conception of political success he frames them to serve. THE FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEM IN POLITICS The presumption of self-interestedness A society achieves political success when it discovers and implements a solution to what Rousseau calls the fundamental problem in politics. The fundamental problem stems from a dilemma that arises in the conceptual arena of the state of nature, namely that men 2 need the help of others to survive, but in helping others they put their own survival at risk. This dilemma could not be more profound, since the men who face it are interested above all else in their own survival. ‘Self-preservation is the first law of human nature, our first cares are those we owe ourselves’ (SC, I.ii.2/ I I I.352; see also E, I I, 97/ IV.329). As

Introduction

3

Nannerl Keohane puts it, ‘When we do something, we always find our own good in doing it, no matter how attenuated the connection with the self may be. This is central to Rousseau’s whole social theory’ (1980:436). Thus, in Rousseau’s view, men carry their overriding concern for well-being into society, which he holds could not persist were it not in harmony with men’s selfinterestedness. ‘When we act, we must always have a motive for acting, and this motive cannot be foreign to ourselves’ (Keohane 1980:435, quoting Rousseau’s letter of 4 October 1761). Therefore Rousseau promises, at the very beginning of The Social Contract, to ‘take men as they are’ and to ‘ally the obligations of law and right with the requirements of interest’ (SC, I.1/III.351). 3 As James Miller observes, The Social Contract ‘is thus a treatise specifically tailored to a modern audience of individuals with a modicum of reason and interests of their own. Its argument is designed to convince even a selfish man whose heart is closed to anything but the cold light of logic’ (1984:66). Thus, Rousseau assumes that men do not cooperate out of an altruistic desire to help others, but rather out of the self-interested recognition that their own survival puts them in need of others. Cooperative action is required to surmount the forces of nature: men’s ‘only means of self-preservation is to form by aggregation a sum of forces capable of overcoming all obstacles, to place these forces under common direction, and to make them act in concert’ (SC, I.vi.2/III.360). In The Social Contract Rousseau presumes that men are capable both of recognizing the need for cooperative action, and of successfully ‘acting in concert.’ As we shall see in Chapter 2, this capability is not ‘natural,’ but is itself the product of primitive forms of human interaction. Here we must observe that, on Rousseau’s view, from each individual’s perspective cooperation involves risk: ‘the force and liberty of each man being the primary instruments of his own self-preservation, how can he pledge them without harming himself and neglecting the care he owes his own person?’ (SC, I.vi.3/III.360). That is, by agreeing to act only in coordination with others, each individual risks his own survival. The agreement to help protect the interests of others confronts the individual with the hazard that his own interests will go unprotected by himself, or anyone else.

4

Making Citizens

The social contract Recast in political terms, the fundamental problem is ‘To find a form of association which defends and protects the person and property of each member with the whole force of the community, and where each, while joining with all the rest, still obeys no one but himself, and remains as free as before’ (SC, I.vi.3/III.360). Rousseau posits the social contract as the solution to the fundamental problem. The social contract creates a polity, which acts according to its general will. Stripped to its essentials the terms of the social contract are, ‘Each of us puts in common his person and all his powers under the supreme direction of the general will; and in our corporate capacity we receive each member as an indivisible part of the whole’ (SC, I.vi.8/III.361). Society as a whole, acting as a state, assumes control over the powers each individual would otherwise direct to protecting himself. Each agrees to place his powers at the disposal of the state, which, governed by the general will, in turn is dedicated to the survival of all. Thus, when the general will has been formulated and is being enforced there is established a situation in which the risk inherent in cooperation is eliminated: each person’s interests are protected, allowing him safely to contribute his efforts to helping others. Do the individuals Rousseau presents have good grounds for adopting the social contract? The terms of the fundamental problem refer to two sorts of interests these men have: an interest in survival, and an interest in freedom. Men initially confront the fundamental problem endowed with natural liberty—‘an unlimited right to everything [they] want and [are] capable of getting’ (SC, I.viii.2/III.364). From this standpoint one is free to pursue survival however one wants. But natural liberty is inherently deficient: the fundamental problem arises because human beings are not capable of getting everything they want, and their mere possession of what they do have is uncertain. For the sake of their interest in survival, then, men enter society. In society, men exchange natural liberty for civil liberty, which transforms uncertain possession into politically enforced ownership (SC, I.viii.2/ III.364). The social contract thus satisfies men’s interest in survival. But does it also satisfy their interest in freedom? From the perspective of the men facing the fundamental problem, is civil liberty an acceptable substitute for natural liberty?

Introduction

5

Rousseau’s individuals indeed have sufficient motivation to enter into the social contract he offers them. For, Rousseau insists, they do not thereby become dependent on other individuals. Rousseau’s abhorrence of dependency is profound: ‘in the relations between man and man the worst that can happen to one is to find himself at the other’s discretion’ (DI, II.37/III.181).4 However, he holds that men remain free of personal dependence under the social contract. ‘Each individual, by giving himself to all, gives himself to no one’ (SC, I.vi.7/III.361; see also I.vii.8, II.iv.8). That is, by submitting himself to the direction of the general will, each contractor submits to an impersonal sovereign, rather than any particular individual. In the sense relevant to Rousseau, each man is as free after entering the social contract as he was before: there is no individual to whose authority he must submit. 5 Thus, the interest the men facing the fundamental problem have in freedom is not compromised by the move from natural liberty to civil liberty. Given the ensured satisfaction of their interest in survival, these men have good reason to adopt the social contract. Autonomy In fact, Rousseau argues, the individuals who adopt the social contract get a better deal than they bargained for—better, even, than they could understand in advance. For, once they form society, men’s fundamental interests in survival and freedom evolve. Now Rousseau holds that, unlike other animals, men are capable of choosing whether or not to act on their impulses—in a metaphysical sense they have free will (DI, I.15/ I I I.141). In nature, men tend merely to act on impulse; their natural freedom consists merely in the absence of obstacles to their satisfaction. The situation changes as men enter society. ‘This passage from the natural to the civil state produces a very remarkable change in man, substituting justice for instinct as the guide to his conduct, and giving his actions the morality they previously lacked’ (SC, I.viii.1/III.364). Once in society, man’s ‘faculties are exercised and developed, his ideas are broadened, his sentiments ennobled and his whole soul elevated’ (ibid.). In virtue of their participation in society, men develop moral liberty: the full exercise of free will Rousseau associates with man’s ability not to follow his natural impulses. Moral liberty makes man ‘truly master of himself; for

6

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the impulse of mere appetite is slavery, and obedience to selfprescribed law is liberty’ (SC, I.viii.3/III.365). Thus, once they attain moral liberty, men’s interest in freedom will no longer be satisfied by the mere absence of restraint associated with natural liberty. Rather, as Andrew Levine puts it, men will seek autonomy: the positive freedom of self-legislation (1976:58). Their new interest in autonomy transforms men’s interest in survival. Men now reject the ‘slavery’ entailed by pursuing any and all of their wants. They recognize that their wants come and go; that some wants conflict with others; and that, not least because of conflicts with other men, the satisfaction of some immediate wants would lead to unwanted consequences in the future. Against the flux of their wants they develop a stable conception of their welfare: those wants that can reasonably be attained. Welfare, on this definition, is a proper subset of one’s wants: not every want is an element of one’s welfare, but every element of one’s welfare is a want. In light of a conception of welfare, survival becomes more than simple self-preservation. Part of what makes life valuable—what makes it worthwhile to survive— is precisely the ability to decide for oneself which of one’s wants should be satisfied. Thus, I do not claim that autonomous individuals are not self-interested, though their self-interest is indeed more moderate than that of the men who face the fundamental problem. I will present an account of different degrees of self-interest in Chapter 1. For now let us say that autonomous individuals’ self-interest focuses on their welfare: their autonomy consists, in part, in their ability to frame and then follow their own conceptions of what makes a good life. In advance of social life men could not fully anticipate or appreciate how society makes possible a richer, truly human life— hence this prospect is not the reason they enter into the social contract. Once in society, however, their situation changes. Rousseau’s account of the evolution of moral liberty must be read as an account of the transformation of the fundamental problem of politics. Social life, by which men ensure their survival and their freedom, expands the terms of the fundamental problem—so that men now require a form of association that offers them lives defined by their interests in welfare and autonomy. On the basis of social experience men can now understand that the social contract meets this requirement, hence they are now fully motivated to continue under it. Once the men about whom Rousseau writes have become

Introduction

7

socialized—and provided society does not (as it easily can) abuse them—he says they ‘ought unceasingly to bless the happy moment’ when they left nature (SC, I.viii.2/III.365). In particular, from the perspective of society, men are able to understand how their interests in welfare and autonomy are satisfied by the general will. Specifically, the adoption of the social contract ‘immediately produces an artificial and collective body, made up of as many members as there are voices in the assembly, and receiving from this same act its unity, its collective personality, its life and its will’ (SC, I.vi.9/III.361). Rousseau defines the general will as the will of this artificial and collective body, hence as an aggregate (in a sense to be spelled out below) of the wills of the parties to the contract. In contributing to the general will, each member of society contributes his conception of his own welfare. Because the general will satisfies his interest in welfare (as we shall see more fully below), each has reason to prescribe it as a law to himself. That is, if the general will satisfies an individual’s interest in welfare, it also satisfies his interest in autonomy. Conversely, if it satisfies the interest in autonomy, it also satisfies the interest in welfare—since no one would prescribe the general will as a law for himself unless he saw his own welfare in it. Therefore, by satisfying either the interest in welfare or the interest in autonomy, the general will satisfies the other. And by satisfying men’s most important interests, the general will solves the fundamental problem of politics. It follows that the general will is the key to political success; political success attends society’s first formulating and then enforcing its general will. Now my concern in this book is to demonstrate how, on Rousseau’s view, a society’s culture conditions its prospects for political success; specifically, I shall argue that for Rousseau culture either promotes or guards against specific sources of political failure. Political failure can readily be understood as the inability of a society to formulate or enforce its general will. We will, in Chapter 1, review a number of specific reasons why societies fail politically. We need first to analyze Rousseau’s concept of the general will more closely, to see precisely the ways failure can occur. THE GENERAL WILL In what sense, then, does the general will aggregate the wills of the individual members of society? Rousseau’s approach to this

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question, in particular his mathematical idiom, is notoriously difficult —indeed, some commentators have suggested it is simply unintelligible (see, e.g., Plamenatz (1963:393)—though for an ingenious interpretation see Carter (1980)). In my view, Rousseau’s theory is in fact quite powerful, if read sympathetically; thus I will suggest an interpretive framework that supports and connects his admittedly obscure dicta. Realism regarding the general will Two ideas are central to my interpretation of the general will. First, Rousseau distinguishes between the general will and the results of actual procedures societies use to determine what to do. Thus, if deliberations are corrupted by private interest, ‘the public resolution will be one thing and the general will another’ (DPE, 115/III.246). The general will, in other words, is not the policy decided on in public deliberation, but rather the policy that ought to be decided on in public deliberation. Rousseau himself sometimes obscures this distinction, by (carelessly) using the term ‘general will’ to refer to the outcome of public deliberation. Nonetheless, he holds a realist conception of the general will, in the sense that he holds that its content is a matter of fact and this fact is independent of any actual procedure a society might use to determine its general will. This realist conception is, in Levine’s words, ‘the cornerstone of Rousseau’s theory’—but, as he notes, in The Social Contract it is nowhere directly presented, much less argued for (1976:71, 65). In a moment we shall suggest an account, derived from Rousseau’s views, of what constitutes the fact of the matter regarding the general will. First let us note that to the extent that we think of the general will as an aggregation of individual wills, we must distinguish between the actual procedures (which are subject to error) that a society uses to discover its general will, and an ideal procedure that produces the general will by definition. It is one question—a question in which Rousseau takes great interest— to design the best possible voting system, the system that will produce an outcome that comes closest to the general will. But it is another question—the question with which Rousseau is most concerned—to define the relationship between the wills of the members of society and the policy society as a whole ought to follow. A perspicuous way to define this relationship—i.e. to say

Introduction

9

what is the general will—is in procedural terms: take the wills of the members of society, do the following things, and the result is the general will. But the procedural language is, in effect, metaphorical—the procedure expresses in a logical sense what makes the general will the collective choice of society. We shall return below to consider the procedural relation between individual wills and the general will. The general will aggregates wants The second idea central to my interpretive framework concerns the constituents of the fact of the matter regarding the general will. In my view, the ‘ingredients’ of the general will—the ‘material’ on which the procedure that defines the general will operates—are the individual members of society’s conceptions of their own welfare. Thus, since in the ideal sense just discussed welfare consists of some appropriately selected set of wants, the general will aggregates individuals’ wants. Let me anticipate an objection. In Book IV of The Social Contract, Rousseau says that when citizens gather to determine what is their general will, ‘each, when casting his vote, gives his opinion on this question’ (SC, IV.ii.8/III.441, my emphasis). This ‘epistemic’ conception of voting might be taken to ground a view contrary to mine, to the effect that Rousseau holds that the general will does not aggregate individuals’ wants, but their opinions as to what is best for society (see, e.g., Jones (1981:6–8); Grofman and Feld (1988)). I believe this contrary view misses the distinction between actual procedures for determining a social choice and the definition of the general will. Thus, Rousseau articulates this epistemic conception of voting in the context of a discussion of actual voting procedures designed to discover the general will, which is itself defined independently—a topic to which we will return in Chapter 6. Thus, the epistemic conception of voting is not an element of his definition of the general will, which (I claim) is constructed in terms of what people want. To grasp the centrality of wants in Rousseau’s conception of the general will we must examine the meaning of the phrase ‘what is best for society.’ How does Rousseau understand this notion? In the relevant sense, what is best for society is the common good; the common good is, by definition, what the general will seeks to attain. Thus, Rousseau holds, ‘the general will alone can direct the

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forces of the state in accordance with the purpose for which it was created, namely, the common good’ (SC, II.i.1/III.368). Now it is clear that Rousseau held a materialist conception of the common good. He does not regard the common good as the good of the community conceived as a transcendent entity apart from its members—he defines it specifically with reference to the good of individuals. ‘This moral being that you call public good [bonheur] is in itself a chimera: if the sentiment of well being is not in anyone it is nothing, and the family cannot be said to be flourishing when the children do not prosper’ (FP, VI.3, III.510).6 The common good, in other words, is a matter of the distribution of benefits among the members of society. But what counts as a benefit? I have in mind a neutral notion of benefit—an object or situation, a good or a service, that might improve human life. Rousseau was well aware of the extent to which the ‘sentiment of well being’ is relative to cultural norms (as expressed, for example, in public opinion). But we might wonder whether there is some single conception of a good life that determines whether some item truly is or is not a benefit. Rousseau hints that there may be such a standard. In introducing his doctrine of the Legislator, he raises the problem that at the earliest stage of its history a people may not be qualified to recognize its own good (SC, II.vi.10). That is, what the people want might not in fact be benefits. Were this Rousseau’s considered view, the general will could not aggregate wants, because it might then not aim at what is good. But note that Rousseau presents the discontinuity between wants and benefits as a problem for people who have just entered into political life—hence who have not yet acquired political experience. That is, these are individuals who have just traded natural liberty for civil liberty—but who have not yet developed moral liberty. It makes sense that their wants might yet interfere with their interests in survival and freedom. However, over time their interests mature, and they come to seek welfare and autonomy. In consequence, on the one hand, Rousseau implies they would develop the competence to rationally review their wants, and frame a conception of welfare that does in fact specify benefits. Speaking of the skills to be learned by a newly formed people, Rousseau argues that to close the gap between wants and benefits, individuals ‘must be obliged to bring their wills into conformity with their reason’ (SC, II.vi.8/III.380).7 The growth of moral liberty entails precisely the application of reason to wants.8

Introduction

11

On the other hand, the development of autonomy implies that each individual requires the freedom to pursue his own conception of his welfare—the set of wants he has decided defines a valuable life. An item that is forced on an autonomous individual, an item he does not want, simply would not count as a benefit. The emergence of autonomy creates a new standard of good: an item is good not in virtue of some single conception of a good life, but in virtue of its appearance in an autonomous individual’s conception of his own welfare. It follows, then, that the common good is that distribution of benefits that corresponds to what the members of society want, as elements of their welfare—we shall explore the nature of the correspondence further below. The general will, in turn, seeks to provide those benefits that are in the common good. Hence the general will is defined by an aggregation of the members of society’s wants. As autonomous individuals, the members of society would not accept the general will as their own if it did not reflect their welfare. But, by definition, an individual’s welfare resolves into wants. The ideal procedure that determines the general will, therefore, ultimately operates on wants of society’s members—this procedure shows how society takes account of individuals’ wants. Recall Rousseau’s promise to reconcile right and interest; the general will, conceived in terms of wants, shows the members of society what’s in it for them. Thus, it explains the structure of the individual’s commitment to society that underlies social cooperation. Reference to the members of society’s wants explains why the general will aims at their common good. Against this want-based conception of the general will it might be objected that Rousseau intends the general will to be something like the spirit of group solidarity, whereby the members of society just want what the society wants. We can interpret this objection two ways. It might mean, first, that the members of society define their welfare in conjunction with each other. But nothing in a want-based conception of the general will precludes the possibility that, in framing their conceptions of their welfare, autonomous individuals might select wants in light of social norms or the wants of other members of society. Just this possibility is at the heart of Rousseau’s theory of culture, as we shall see below. Second, the objection might mean that each member of society has a ‘second order’ want to the effect that he wants society’s wants to be fulfilled. But how will he know whether society’s wants are

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Making Citizens

fulfilled or not? The want-based conception of the general will specifies what it means for society’s wants to be fulfilled, so that individuals can take appropriate action to fulfill their second order want. The want-based conception thus offers a way out of the following bind: everyone in a group withholds a statement of his own preference out of deference to the group as a whole, and since there is no content to the group preference, the group does nothing. The realist and the want-based conceptions of the general will work hand-in-hand. For, the set of wants of the members of society fix the common good, at which the general will aims. The common good grounds the fact of the matter regarding the general will; only against this ground can we say an actual social policy succeeds or fails at identifying and attaining the general will. In an ideal sense, then, the content of the general will is given by the members of society’s conceptions of their own welfare. But if the general will is determined by the wants of individuals, we must now examine how it is so determined. What is the logical relation between the general will and individuals’ wants? How, that is, does Rousseau define the general will? Contrast between the general will and the will of all To elucidate the general will Rousseau draws a contrast between it and ‘the will of all.’ ‘There is often a great difference between the will of all and the general will; the latter looks only to the common interest, while the former looks to private interest, and is simply a sum of particular wills. But if you cancel out from these same wills all the mutually destructive pluses and minuses, the general will remains as the sum of the differences’ (SC, II.iii.2/III.371). Hilail Gildin points out that ‘the will of all’ is not a formal term for Rousseau, as is ‘the general will’ (1983:57). There are occasions when Rousseau uses the former expression synonymously with the latter. I will however use ‘the will of all’ in strict contrast to ‘the general will,’ in light of the distinction Rousseau presents here. The present passage is obviously quite condensed, and readers of Rousseau have offered a variety of ways to interpret it. The interpretation I shall develop takes the will of all and the general will to stand for contrasting ways in which a society might attempt to provide for its members’ welfare. In society, the provision of welfare is a collective enterprise—the actions of each are to be

Introduction

13

coordinated, in order to provide for the welfare of all. In order to proceed, society must define the collective welfare, i.e., that set of benefits that all will work jointly to achieve. The will of all and the general will are two alternative definitions. To define the collective welfare as the will of all is to say that society should provide for all the wants in each member of society’s conception of his own welfare. (In what follows, wants are to be understood in this sense—as elements of welfare.) To begin our discussion, let us assume that the goods available to the members of society are ‘divisible’ goods—that is goods that can be portioned out to individuals. I consider the case of ‘indivisible’ (or ‘public’) goods below. Determining the will of all involves the simple procedure of taking the ‘sum of particular wills’—that is, finding the amount of each available benefit sufficient to satisfy each member of society who wants it. In the simplest case, finding the will of all merely requires counting the number of individuals who want a portion of each available good. For example, Figure I.1 represents a society consisting of members A through I, who have (+) or do not have (-) wants for a set of goods g through g ; 1 10 the rows thus represent the ‘particular wills’ of society’s members.9

A B C D E F G H I

g 1 + + + + + + +

g 2 + + + + + +

g 3 + + + + -

g 4 + + + + + + -

g 5 + + + -

g 6 + + + -

g 7 + + + + + +

g 8 + + + + -

g 9 + + + + + + +

g 10 + + + + +

Figure I.1

The collective welfare conceived as the will of all would be defined as {7×g1, 6×g 2, 4×g3, 6×g4, 3×g5, 3×g 6, 6×g7, 4×g8, 7×g9, 5×g10}, where x×gn Symbolizes x unit of gn. On this conception, society is something like a waiter at a restaurant, taking its members’ orders from a menu of available choices.

14

Making Citizens

Rousseau’s analysis of compromise Rousseau implicitly criticizes the will of all on the grounds that it cannot serve as a reliable basis for social cooperation: he presumes that people will not cooperate to provide the collective welfare defined as the will of all. On our restaurant analogy, when dinner is over there is no guarantee that all the members of society will agree to split the check: the people who ate lightly will likely not want to subsidize those who had a big meal. Sustained cooperation requires that the will of all be transformed into the general will—by ‘cancelling out from [private wills] the mutually destructive pluses and minuses.’ This ‘cancelling out’ is the essence of the procedure Rousseau proposes to define the general will. But why is ‘cancelling out’ necessary to ensure cooperation? Rousseau assumes that no one would consent to assist another in pursuing the latter’s purely private interest in satisfying his own want. Rousseau insists that when members of society work to provide a benefit to all they do so because they include themselves among the ‘all’ (SC, II.iv.5); it follows that if someone did not see how a benefit would rebound to himself, that is if it were private to others, he would not be motivated to work to provide it. However, Rousseau cites the Marquis d’Argenson to explain how two parties with distinct interests could come to cooperate: ‘Each interest has different principles. The agreement of two particular interests is created by opposition to the interests of a third party’ (SC, II.iii.2, n./III.37l).10 To understand the process Rousseau has in mind, consider the following example (which is outside the context of society). Three individuals M, N, and O are in competition for the right to determine which types of five available types of goods all three will receive. Say each has an equal interest in procuring two types of goods: M wants all three individuals to receive g and g ; N 1 2 wants all three to receive g and g ; and O wants all three to 1 3 receive g and g . The interests of both M and N diverge entirely 4 5 from that of O; to that extent, they both have reason to cooperate to prevent O from winning the competition. But on what basis will M and N cooperate? Neither wants O’s interests to prevail because neither wants g or g . But on the same principle, neither M nor N 4 5 simply wants the other to win: M doesn’t want g and M doesn’t 3 want g . Thus, of course, M and N agree to cooperate to achieve 2 the good they want in common—g . That is, each sacrifices— 1

Introduction

15

‘cancels out’—the interest the other does not hold, in order to create a basis for cooperating against O. Now the problem at hand is to specify the collective welfare in such a way that all members of society will agree to cooperate to attain it. The lesson Rousseau draws from d’Argenson is that ‘the agreement of all interests is created by opposition to the interest of each individual’ (SC, II.iii.2, n./III.371). That is, society can come to an agreement on a definition of the collective welfare by generalizing the process of bargaining and compromise undertaken by M and N above: all members of society agree to oppose the interest of any one individual, basing their cooperation on the wants they hold in common. Accordingly, no one individual gets everything he wants, but every individual gets something he wants. The result of the bargain is the definition that elicits society-wide cooperation. But the general will is exactly that version of the collective welfare which all members of society can support. It follows that the procedure which, for Rousseau, defines the general will—the ‘cancelling out’ that distinguishes the general will from the will of all—is exactly the procedure of bargaining and compromise we have just surveyed. Rousseau does not, of course, suggest that this bargaining procedure is actually carried out. Rather, as suggested above, he speaks of the procedure metaphorically—in order to characterize the relation between the wants of the members of society and the general will. The general will is defined as the result of the hypothetical bargain that, given the wants that make up their welfare, would best satisfy the most members of society. THE COMMONALITY OF THE GENERAL WILL The hypothetical bargain that defines the general will has as its content the common good: the set of benefits that corresponds best to what the members of society want. The common good is the basis on which individuals engage in social cooperation; Rousseau expects people to cooperate only to satisfy wants that are common to them all, hence which each individual shares. But what precisely does Rousseau mean by common? What is the commonality of the common good? How does commonality motivate the members of society to cooperate to attain the collective welfare—hence to obey the general will? There is, of course, a normative meaning of the term ‘common good’, by which it is used to disparage ‘private good’

16

Making Citizens

or ‘factional interest.’ As we shall see in Chapter 6, Rousseau proposes cultural and educational schemes that, he holds, will produce citizens who will respond to the normative power of the phrase ‘the common good demands …’ with immediate action. But there is also a descriptive meaning of the term, a sense in which a claim that a policy or state of affairs is in the common good is true or false. What constitutes the fact of the matter regarding the common good? What gives the term its descriptive meaning? On the conception I shall now present—as a facet of my conception of the general will—the common good is determined by the structure of wants of the members of society. We can distinguish two senses of commonality, on the basis of a distinction Rousseau makes regarding the general will. For the general will truly to be the general will, he holds, it ‘must be general in its object as well as in its essence’ (SC, II.iv.5/III.373). We can interpret the difference between the ‘object’ and the ‘essence’ of the general will by analogy to the grammatical distinction between the indirect and direct objects of a verb. By way of illustration, take the word ‘will’ in the sense of bequeath, as for example in ‘Shakespeare willed his second best bed to his wife Anne.’ Here, the bed is the direct object and Anne is the indirect object of Shakespeare’s willing. In Rousseau’s terms, the direct object is the essence, and the indirect object is the object; hence, the bed is the essence and Anne is the object of Shakespeare’s will. The grammatical analogy grounds the following interpretation: we can take the object to be the beneficiary of the will’s action, while we can take the essence to be the benefit the will’s action will provide—though as we shall see the benefits Rousseau probably has in mind are not material objects, like beds, but rather conditions, such as rights granted by a law. Thus, in order to understand the commonality of the common good, and hence of the general will, we must understand the sense in which the general will’s object is common (let us call this the beneficiary sense of commonality), and the sense in which its essence is common (let us call this the benefit sense of commonality). Let us consider each sense more closely, in turn. The beneficiary sense of commonality It is not difficult to understand commonality in the beneficiary sense: Rousseau means simply that what the general will provides

Introduction

17

is available to everyone in society. ‘Every authentic act of the general will obliges or favours all the citizens equally’ (SC, II.iv.8/ I I I.374). In view of this requirement we can sharpen the distinction between the general will and the will of all. We consider these to be alternative definitions of the collective welfare society provides its members. The collective welfare, defined as the will of all, contains enough of each available good to satisfy those who want it. The will of all, in effect, regards society one individual at a time; it is a statement of which particular individuals get what benefit. For this reason, on Rousseau’s view, the will of all cannot but lack rectitude. By contrast, the general will regards the members of society collectively; it is a statement of what benefits are to be available to all individuals. (The question of which benefits these are is the focus of the benefit sense of commonality, and we will turn to it shortly.) The general will must ‘be applicable to all…it loses its natural rectitude when directed toward any individual and determinate object’ (SC, I I.iv.5/ 111.373).11 Thus, if the collective welfare is defined as the general will, it provides its benefits to each member of society, not specific individuals. In precise terms, Rousseau construes the benefits provided by the general will as opportunities. To illustrate his point, imagine that the general will establishes a race: the benefit is an opportunity to win a prize that, after all, only the winner will enjoy. The general will must provide opportunity to all, even if, after the opportunity is exercised, impersonal criteria dictate that specific individuals end up with unequal shares of goods. ‘The law may well provide that there will be privileges, but it cannot give those privileges to anyone by name’ (SC, II.vi.6/III.379). The commonality of the general will in this respect is quite straightforward: in so far as a good is not earmarked for specific individuals, but can be enjoyed by anyone in society, that good is common. The foregoing conception of the general will can be summarized by a concept drawn from economics, that of a public good. In his classic study of collective action Mancur Olson defines ‘a common, collective, or public good…as any good such that, if any person x in a group x ,…,x ,…,x consumes it, it i 1 i n cannot feasibly be withheld from the others in that group’ (1971:14). That is, if a public good is available at all, it is available to every member of society. The definition of public good can be

18

Making Citizens

further refined: in addition to not being excludable from any member of society, public goods are said to be ‘indivisible’, i.e. to be such that the consumption of a unit by one person does not decrease the supply available to others. By contrast, an item of food (for example) is a divisible, or private good, since once one person eats it it is unavailable to anyone else (Taylor 1987:5–6). The standard examples of public goods include goods like clean air, or national security—once provided, everyone can enjoy them. Social institutions that provide unequal amounts of goods to different individuals (for example a means-tested income support program) can also be public goods, provided they are available to anyone who meets certain impersonal criteria. The concept of public goods allows us to refine our understanding of the kind of benefits furnished by the general will—the benefits the general will aims to provide the members of society are public goods. What sort of public goods does the general will provide, on Rousseau’s view? It is possible to frame a coherent reading of The Social Contract according to which Rousseau understands society to establish institutions that provide its members with the material goods they need to survive. The occasion of the social contract is that men are unable to provide for their own survival in the state of nature. One interpretation holds that the obstacles in the state of nature to which Rousseau refers are other men; the problem the social contract is meant to solve is, on this view, the state of war that follows the development of society, as described in the Second Discourse (see, e.g., Althusser (1982:118); Derathé (OC, III. 1443, n. 1 to 360)). However, there is no mention of the state of war in The Social Contract itself, and the picture Rousseau presents is consistent with the notion—also taken from the Second Discourse—that as society emerges out of the state of nature, men develop new needs that can no longer be fulfilled by individual action. 12 Nature itself, which had previously offered everything needed for human survival, now becomes an obstacle to be overcome by collective action (DI, II.13). Thus, Rousseau wrote in the draft of The Social Contract—the so-called Geneva Manuscript—that ‘Man’s force is so proportioned to his natural needs and his primitive state that the slightest change in this state and increase in his needs make the assistance of his fellow men necessary’ (I.ii.2/ II I.281–2). The foregoing interpretation suggests that Rousseau holds that men form society in order to create an organization that guarantees a

Introduction

19

steady supply of the goods necessary to life. For example, on such a ‘communist’ reading of Rousseau, men might decide to farm or hunt collectively, and share what they produce among themselves. On the communist reading, that is, the general will would have society distribute private goods to individuals for their own consumption. Although such goods themselves could not count as public goods, the institutions that produced and distributed them would. Rousseau’s account of the emergence of metallurgy and agriculture in Part II of the Second Discourse is logically consistent with the possibility of communist production. But it is also true that Rousseau immediately goes on to assert that, as men emerged from the state of nature, individuals’ labor gave them private property rights to the crops they raised and the land they cultivated (DI, I I.24). 13 Rather than a communist mode of production, Rousseau seems to advocate a Lockian system of private production of goods, which are subsequently exchanged.14 A labor-based conception of property is by no means Rousseau’s only debt to Locke. Rousseau’s understanding of the social contract is manifestly shaped by Locke’s doctrine that ‘The great and chief end… of men’s uniting into common-wealths, and putting themselves under government, is the preservation of their property’ (ST, IX. 124). The influence of Locke on Rousseau is nowhere clearer than in the Discourse on Political Economy, where Rousseau echoes Locke explicitly: ‘Examine the motives that have brought men…to unite themselves more closely by means of civil societies. You will find no other motive than that of securing the goods, life and liberty of each member through the protection of all’ (DPE, I, 116/ I I I.248). Even the statement of the fundamental problem of politics in The Social Contract displays a Lockian heritage: the problem, recall, is ‘to find a form of association which defends and protects the person and property of each member’ (SC, I.vi.3/ III.360, my emphasis). Rousseau’s acceptance of the Lockian view of society shows he held that in entering into the social contract men seek to create an agency that protects their private efforts to provide the goods they need to live.15 The provision of social order is clearly as much a foundational problem for Rousseau as it was for Locke, and for Hobbes before them. ‘The first object that was proposed by men in their civil confederation was their mutual security’ (FP, III. 14, III.486). Thus, on this reading, men might decide to create a

20

Making Citizens

police force to prevent their property from being stolen. The degree of social order secured by the police would be a public good: if available to anyone it would be available to all. The general will, on this reading, does not have society distribute material objects, but rather creates a framework within which individuals could consume other, more tangible goods. The condition created by the framework would be an indivisible good: for example, the fact that one person ‘consumes’ public safety does not decrease the ‘amount’ of safety available. However, police protection is not the only public good Rousseau thinks society ought to provide. He also advocates schemes by which society will intervene in the economy—for example to regulate the exchange of privately produced goods—in order to promote public welfare. For example, Rousseau argues repeatedly that governments should act to keep inequality of wealth within certain bounds (see, e.g., SC, II.xi; DPE, II, 124/ III.258). He also proposes that the Corsicans adopt a system whereby private producers would register their surpluses and their unmet needs. Armed with this information, the government could regulate trade so that ‘each county would dispose of its surplus and satisfy its needs without deficiency or excess, and almost as conveniently as if the harvest were measured to its needs’ (CC, 307/III.923). Institutional arrangements of the type Rousseau has in mind are such that once in place, they work for everyone—the benefits they provide cannot be arbitrarily withheld from any member of society. Thus they are, in the beneficiary sense, common; the general will is common in the beneficiary sense when it provides for public goods. Now the nature of public goods is such as to generate a profound problem: if no one can be excluded, even those who do not contribute to the social effort of providing a public good will enjoy its benefits. Thus, public goods raise the possibility of ‘free riders.’ Rousseau was well aware of this danger, which we will consider as a source of political failure in Chapter 1. But here we must stress that the beneficiary sense only partially explains the commonality of the general will, as the following consideration makes clear. As we have noted, Rousseau claims that participation in a society governed by the general will is consistent with self-interest: ‘why do all constantly will the happiness of each, unless it is because there is no one who fails to appropriate the word “each” to himself, and to

Introduction

21

think of himself when voting for all?’ (SC, II.iv.5/III.373). In voting to provide a public good, an individual votes to provide a benefit which cannot be withheld from anyone—himself included. But the non-excludibility of a public good will appeal to a self-interested voter only if he in fact wants the benefits the public good provides— that is if it is an element in his conception of his own welfare. If he does not want these benefits, then Rousseau’s reasoning does not support the conclusion that a self-interested person would seek the public good anyway: he would not care who is the beneficiary of something he does not want. To complete the explanation of the general will’s consistency with self-interest we must complete the explanation of its commonality. That is, in addition to saying that the general will provides public goods, we must understand which particular public goods it provides. Let us therefore now take up the second sense of commonality, the sense that has to do with the benefit provided by the general will. The benefit sense of commonality With the benefit sense of commonality we return squarely to the question of the relation between the wants that constitute the welfare of the members of society and the general will. How do we determine, given individuals’ wants, what society should provide? As we noted above, we can express this relation in terms of a (metaphorical) procedure. Now at first glance, the benefit sense of commonality might seem obvious. Social cooperation occurs, Rousseau holds, when there is some number of goods everyone wants in common; this set is the basis for their cooperation. ‘If the opposition of private interests made the establishment of societies necessary, it is the agreement of those same interests that made it possible. It is what these several interests have in common that constitutes the social bond; and if there were no point on which all of them were in agreement, there could be no society’ (SC, II.i.l/ I I I.368). We could thus easily imagine a procedure for determining the content of the general will that instantiates this notion of commonality. We would simply survey the sets of goods the members of society seek to be provided through social cooperation.16 The set of goods in the intersection of these sets could then reasonably be called the common good, which the general will would direct the members of society’s joint efforts to achieve.17

22

Making Citizens

Commonality is not unanimity But as we saw above, in fact Rousseau endorses a more complex procedure for defining the general will. The inadequacy of the present simple procedure stems from a flaw in the conception of commonality as a matter of simple intersection. Figure I.2 represents the private wills of an indefinite number of people who can choose or reject an indefinite number of goods. In general, in this society, the i’th member wants every good except for g . i Intuitively it is clear that this society has a general will. But, strictly speaking, there is no good (neither a single good nor a subset of goods) that is common to all. A B C D E · ·

g 1 + + + + ·

g 2 + + + +

g 3 + + + +

g 4 + + + +

g 5 + + + + -

· · · · · ·

· · · · · ·

· · · · · ·

Figure 1.2

It follows that the common interest pursued by the general will cannot be defined only as the interests that are held by every member of society. The existence of any wants in the intersection of all private wills is sufficient for the existence of the common good— but it is not necessary. Unanimity is required only on the social contract itself, and those who vote against it simply do not become members of society (SC, I.v.3, IV.ii.5). It follows that those who have joined the contract have agreed to join in the effort to achieve the common good—even when the common good is not identical with their own interests. Rousseau concedes this point in a footnote: ‘For a will to be general it is not always necessary that it should be unanimous; but it is necessary that all the voices should be counted, for any formal exclusion breaks the generality’ (SC, II.ii.1, n./ III.369).18 That is, a set of goods can count as the common good even if not every member of society wants each good in the set—but only if society takes everyone’s wants into account in defining the general will.19 For Rousseau, then, the procedure that defines the general will must embody fairness, that is it must fully and equally consider the welfare of all the members of society; in this sense,

Introduction

23

Rousseau holds, the general will ‘proceeds from all’ (SC, II.iv.5/ III.373). This requirement is conceptual—it is a feature of the definition of the general will. But it has obvious implications for the construction of actual procedures for social decision making: they must count all citizens’ votes equally. There is, perhaps, something counterintuitive about a conception of commonality in which not everyone in a society need want something for it to count as a common good. Why would someone who does not want a certain good contribute his efforts to provide a benefit that will be enjoyed only by others? For example, Figure I.3 represents the wants of three individuals for and against three A B C

g1 + + -

g2 + +

g3 + +

Figure I.3

goods. It seems clear that the general will would provide for {g1, g2, g 3 }. But since (as Rousseau assumes) all the parties are selfinterested, why would A agree to work for g3, which will benefit others, but not himself? Likewise, why would B work for g2 and C work for g1? The answer, of course, lies in the recognition on the part of each individual that in working for the general will he participates in an exchange from which he himself will benefit. As we saw above, Rousseau conceives the general will in terms of a procedural metaphor of bargaining and compromise. He imagines that in a process of public deliberation, each member of society could reject his purely private will in favor of the general will.20 Thus, A could come to understand that in working for something he does not want, but which is desired by B and C, i.e. g3, he gains their efforts to attain g2 and g1, which they (respectively) do not want. And each member of the group recognizes that if he declines to support the provision of the good he does not want, the other members might likewise decline to support the provision of the goods he does want, and his enjoyment of them will be less certain than if all cooperated. All three individuals, that is, could strike a bargain from which each benefits; this hypothetical bargain specifies their common good, hence defines their general will.

24

Making Citizens

The bargaining that defines the general will can be conceived as a simple form of vote trading, often called logrolling: logrolling explains how in working for others, each individual also works for himself (SC, I I.iv.5). Now Rousseau does not, as do modern authors, understand logrolling in terms of wants of differing intensities.21 He would argue, I believe, that allowing individuals to take account of the intensities of their wants works against his conception of the common good. For, if an individual held a want for a given good with sufficient intensity, he might wish to hold that good back from the series of compromises necessary to sustain cooperation. As we shall see in Chapter 1, Rousseau can be interpreted to hold that factions emerge precisely around goods on which individuals hold intense wants, and thus on which they are unwilling to compromise. In order to find a basis for cooperation among all members of society, each must be willing to compromise on every issue—in keeping with the total alienation of rights to the community the members of society agree to in the formation of the social contract (SC, I.vi.6). Thus, Rousseau would hold, the hypothetical procedure that defines the general will should ignore the intensity of individuals’ wants, and consider only the pluses and minuses. Commonality as a matter of distribution of wants In conceiving of the general will as the result of a hypothetical bargain, we should note that in not every case is a bargain possible. We can imagine circumstances in which the wants of the members of society would leave them unwilling to cooperate with each other. In the situation represented in Figure I.4 we might again expect the general will to be {g , g , g }. However, it is not at all 1 2 3 clear that A would feel obliged to cooperate with B and C—what would be in it for him? In this case, the general will offers nothing to satisfy A’s conception of his own welfare, and from the standg 1 g2 g3 A - - B + + + C + + + Figure I.4

point of self-interest he has no reason to cooperate.

Introduction

25

Figure I.4 shows that commonality is not simply a matter of counting the wants for each good—commonality requires a certain distribution of wants for all available goods among all the members of society. Only if the members of society’s desires are such that they stand to gain with respect to some of their wants by bargaining with respect to others will society have a reliable basis for cooperation—and, we can say, will society have a genuinely common good. In Rousseau’s words, ‘that which generalizes the will is less the number of voices than the common interest that unites them’ (SC, II.iv.7/III.374). How can we characterize the distribution of wants required for there to be a common good, and therefore a general will? In a notoriously difficult passage Rousseau asserts that, if the deliberation between citizens on their collective welfare meets two conditions, ‘the general will would always result from the large number of small differences’ (SC, I I.iii.3/ I I I.371). Differences between what? The differences Rousseau has in mind are those between the members of society with respect to their wants for the available goods. As we shall see further in a moment, Rousseau holds that if many members of society differ with respect to few goods, they have a general will. The first condition Rousseau mentions holds that the members of society must be well-informed—in my view, about the wants in each other’s conception of welfare. The second holds that they may not have private communication. The communication individuals have must be public, that is available to society as a whole; this is a measure to impede the operation of factions, by requiring the members of society to bargain as individuals, with everyone else collectively. How then does the general will ‘result’ from the large number of small differences? If the two conditions are fulfilled, in their deliberations the members of society would strike a bargain over the set of goods that satisfied the widest range of individuals’ wants. Thus, this set of goods would sustain cooperation among everyone. That is, the general will ‘results’ in the procedural sense that when individuals’ wants fall into a certain pattern (a large number of small differences), then society’s members are able to strike a bargain that satisfies them all. This hypothetical bargain identifies the set of goods that constitutes the common good for society—given the specific distribution of wants among its members. The procedural metaphor of bargaining and

26

Making Citizens

compromise thus expresses the logical sense in which the general will aggregates individuals’ wants: the sense in which the general will ‘results’ from—is implicit in—the large number of small differences. In my view, then, with this formula—‘a large number of small differences’—Rousseau describes the pattern of wants that is the criterion of commonality in the benefit sense. Let us analyze what he means. The formula refers to differences between the members of society’s wants. The size of a difference between any two individuals can be measured by comparing their welfare profiles: it is simply the percentage of the total number of available goods on which their wants differ. This measure can range from 0 per cent (for individuals who have identical wants) to 100 per cent (for individuals who have different wants for every good); there will A B C D

g 1 + +

g 2 +

g 3 +

Figure I.5

be as many possible (non-0 per cent) sizes as the number of goods. For example, in Figure I.5, the size of the difference between A and B is 0 per cent, between B and C is 33 per cent, between C and D is 67 per cent, and between B and D is 100 per cent. Thus, Figure I.5 illustrates all possible sizes of the difference between two individuals where there are three goods. Note that a difference of 0 per cent is not really a difference—it means that the two individuals have the same wants. Thus we shall say that where there is no difference between two individuals the individuals have two token profiles of a single profile type. What then is the number of differences? The total number of differences is the number of pairs of individuals whose profiles are of distinct types. Thus, to count the total number of differences in a society, we would perform pair-wise comparisons between its members, and tally all those that yield differences of size greater than 0 per cent. In a society of n individuals the total possible number of differences is given by the expression n(n—1)/2—the number of combinations of n items taken two at a time. The

Introduction

27

society would contain exactly this many differences if each of its members had a profile of a distinct type (that is if there are n distinct token profiles, hence no differences of 0 per cent). However, Rousseau’s formula for the general will does not refer to the total number of differences, but rather to the number of differences that are small in size. Thus, the method for counting differences must keep track of the size of the difference found in each comparison between members of society. Such a method is easy to imagine. Say there are g available goods. We then will keep g+1 separate tallies—one for each possible difference size, plus one for the 0 per cent difference. Starting with the first member of society, we compare him with all the rest, one by one. After we determine the size of the difference between him and another individual, we increment the corresponding tally. After finishing with the first member, we start over with the second, comparing him with all that follow (excluding, of course, the first), and incrementing the appropriate tallies. We continue in this fashion until we have compared each member of society with all the others. At that point, the set of tallies contains the number of differences of each possible size. This set of numbers, on Rousseau’s theory, characterizes a society’s internal cohesion. When most of the differences that exist between society’s members are small in size, Rousseau holds, the society is sufficiently cohesive to support a general will. But his formula suggests three other cases—a large number of large differences, a small number of small differences, and a small number of large differences. As we shall see in Chapter 1, the first case represents a lack of cohesion so severe that social cooperation is not possible, and the second and third cases represent different degrees of faction. For now, let us illustrate what Rousseau has in mind by a large number of small differences. Consider the situation represented by Figure I.2, where there is a clear general will, even though there is no one good that everyone in society wants. Figure I.6 represents this situation, with the number of goods and members of society both fixed at 10. To determine the number and size of the differences in Figure I.6 we follow the method sketched out above: we compare A with B, then A with C, through A with J, then B with C, B with D, and so on. Since there are ten individuals in this society, there are 10(10-1)/2=45 possible differences. And since every pair of individuals differ in two out of ten places, every comparison

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Making Citizens

A B C D E F G H I J

g 1 – + + + + + + + + +

g 2 + – + + + + + + + +

g 3 + + + + + + + + +

g g 4 5 + + + + + + – + + – + + + + + + + + + +

g 6 + + + + + + + + +

g 7 + + + + + + + + +

g 8 + + + + + + + + +

g 9 + + + + + + + + +

g 10 + + + + + + + + + –

I.6 Figure

reveals a difference of 20 per cent in size. Thus, 100 per cent of the possible differences—a large number—are of only 20 per cent— a small size.22 That is, the society represented by Figure I.6 has a pattern of wants characterized by a large number of small differences. By the terms of Rousseau’s formula, therefore, it has a general will. We can conclude, then, that in its benefit sense commonality is a characteristic of a certain pattern of wants for available public goods among the members of society. A common good, and therefore the general will, exists when the pattern of wants is marked by a ‘large number of small differences’—that is, not by absolute uniformity, but by the members of society having slightly dissimilar welfare profiles.23 In virtue of the distribution of their wants, there is a set of goods—the common good—which individuals have sufficient motivation to cooperate with each other to attain. Each individual may not want everything that makes up the common good. But each recognizes that in cooperating with others on the goods they want but he does not, he gains their cooperation on the goods they do not want but he does. Thus Rousseau conceives of the general will as the result of a hypothetical bargain among the members of society regarding which goods they will collectively pursue. Because this bargain is determined by the given wants of society’s members, Rousseau’s theory makes sense of the notion that there is a fact of the matter regarding the general will. If there are a large number of small differences, Rousseau holds, there is a general will—the content of which is the set of goods on which the wants of the members of society allow them to cooperate.

Introduction

29

SUMMARY We are now in a position to grasp overall how the general will is able to fulfill its political function. Recall that Rousseau posits the general will as the solution to the fundamental problem of politics. To solve the fundamental problem, the general will must provide for the satisfaction of society’s members’ interests in survival and freedom, as these evolve into interests in welfare and autonomy. Rousseau claims that the general will accomplishes its task by aiming for the common good. The beneficiary sense of commonality explains how the general will provides for welfare: it furnishes public goods, that is goods that contribute to the welfare of all members of society. The benefit sense of commonality explains how the general will provides for autonomy: because the wants in each member of society’s conception of his own welfare are taken account of in the set of public goods to be offered, each accepts the general will as a selfprescribed law. The nature of the common good, as described in the two senses we have explored, is such that each member of society has reason to cooperate to attain it. The general will solves the fundamental problem when it seeks the common good; it is, thereby, the key to what I am calling political success. But merely seeking the common good is only a necessary condition of political success—it is not in itself sufficient. For, clearly, to succeed a society must in fact obtain the common good. An additional necessary condition for political success, then, is that society actually provide the goods that satisfy its members’ wants—that is that it implement its general will. These two necessary conditions are thus jointly sufficient for political success. But Rousseau was particularly concerned with ways successful politics might elude societies. We can thus reinterpret the two conditions for success—as specifications of how politics might fail. On the one hand, a society might not seek the common good; on the other, even if it seeks the common good it might not be able to provide it. Either situation destroys political success. Let us now turn, therefore, to Rousseau’s account of political failure.

Chapter 1

An analysis of political failure

A society achieves political success when it solves the fundamental problem of politics—when it provides for its members’ welfare and autonomy. In the Introduction I suggested that a society solves the problem when it successfully formulates and enforces its general will. A society fails politically, then, when the fundamental problem goes unsolved: if the general will is not formulated, or if formulated goes unenforced. In this chapter we shall interpret Rousseau’s view that the blame for political failure lies with the attitudes of society’s members. Specifically, we shall see, he is concerned with the attitudes individuals take toward their wants. As we have observed, Rousseau presumes that human beings are self-interested, that is that they seek to satisfy their wants. However, he conceives of different degrees of self-interest—different positions men can take regarding what counts as satisfaction. Men are capable of taking different positions toward their wants in virtue of the freedom of their wills. ‘Nature commands every animal, and the Beast obeys. Man experiences the same impression, but recognizes himself free to acquiesce or to resist’ (DI, II.16/III.141–42). Thus, the different forms of self-interest I shall describe can be conceived as different dispositions of the will. Rousseau treats of three different forms of self-interest, corresponding to the three forms of liberty (natural, civil, and moral) we surveyed in the Introduction. In this chapter 1 will explain different varieties of political failure, and the possibility of political success, in terms of these different forms of self-interest. Rousseau believes that rational self-interest undergirds political life; he holds that just political institutions would not survive if they violated men’s concern for their own utility (see SC, I.1/ III.351). In this chapter, therefore, I will approach self-interest in 30


31

an abstract way, as a matter of the rational pursuit of utility; I will not consider the actual psychological mechanisms that generate the three different forms. In Chapters 2 and 3 we will take up Rousseau’s ‘history of human nature,’ which accounts for the different forms of self-interest through the interplay of two sorts of self-love at work in actual human psychology. But the present more abstract analysis is crucial to understanding Rousseau’s political theory of culture. For, in Rousseau’s view, culture affects a society’s prospects of political failure or success by (among other things) shaping the attitudes toward wants that constitute individuals’ forms of self-interest. By surveying the pressure points at which individuals’ attitudes can lead to failure or preserve success, we will discover the aspects of political life on which, for Rousseau, culture has its most profound effect. THE FORMULATION PROBLEM The conception of political success developed in the Introduction entails a taxonomy of political failure. This taxonomy has two main branches: one to do with failures in formulation, the other with failures in enforcement. In the second part of this chapter (pp. 55–75) we will take up the prospect of failure due to the inability of society to enforce its general will. First, however, we shall address the prospect of failure due to the inability of society to formulate its general will. Broadly, society fails to solve the formulation problem when the wants of its members are such as not to support a general will. For convenience, let us distinguish between the general will and the ‘social choice.’ The social choice, we shall say, is the action society takes on the basis of its members’ wants. As we shall see in Chapter 6, Rousseau recommends the procedure of majority-rule voting for determining the social choice. In this chapter, however, we will not consider Rousseau’s views on how society arrives at a social choice, but rather treat the social choice abstractly as the actual social policy that corresponds to the members of society’s wants. Thus, depending on what the members of society in fact want, the social choice may or may not express a general will. Our analysis of the general will in the Introduction shows how to develop the taxonomy of failures in formulation. The good provided by the general will is the common good. Hence the two senses of commonality we specified point to two ways a society

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might fail to aim at the common good, and thereby fail to formulate the general will. On the one hand, society might fail in the beneficiary sense. If the members of society’s wants are not directed to public goods, aggregating them does not yield a general will. On the other hand, society might fail in the benefit sense—it might pursue the wrong set of public goods. Rousseau’s formula, whereby the general will results from a large number of small differences in individuals’ wants, points to three cases of failure in the benefit sense: where individuals’ wants are characterized (i) by a large number of large differences, (ii) by a small number of small differences, and (iii) by a small number of large differences. In the first case, as we shall see, society simply has no general will to formulate. The second and third cases are more complex—they result from the interference of faction. Here, while society has a general will, the presence of faction prevents the social choice from expressing the general will. Let us examine each of these instances of failure in formulation in turn—with a view towards finding what form of self-interest is at fault. Failure with respect to the beneficiary The case regarding the beneficiary condition is straightforward. The beneficiary sense of commonality holds that a good is common when it is available to everyone in society; we explicated this sense in terms of the concept of public goods. If the members of society’s wants are such that they are directed toward purely private goods, the aggregation of wants would not constitute a general will. Broadly speaking, the social choice corresponding to these wants would express the will of all: a statement of the set of benefits each member of society wants for himself, not of those benefits each would cooperate with all to provide to society as a whole. In this case, then, society could not formulate a general will. We can interpret this case as radical political failure—the failure to sustain true political cooperation. The logic of self-interest would ensure that in this circumstance free cooperation would be fragile and fleeting; only coincidentally would it serve everyone’s interest to work for the will of all. The only way society could hold together is through the exercise of power—if, for example, a dominant faction held the remainder of the population in servitude. A natural interpretation of faction therefore holds that


33

factions arise around certain ‘excludable’ goods which they seek to have society provide to their own members, but not to anyone else. As we shall see below, Rousseau offers a more sophisticated account of faction, which shows how they can organize around genuinely public goods as well. But let us pursue the present view, on which the social choice is determined by the dominant faction’s wants for itself. Clearly, in working to satisfy the faction’s wants the other members of society would not be free. This is political failure in the most basic sense that there is no general will: a social choice that provides purely private goods does not begin to solve the fundamental problem of politics. Either unstable cooperation would mean uncertain survival, or exploitation by a faction would obviously mean the end of freedom. Faced with these terms, no one would choose to enter into society.1 Thus, politics would fail because society would not even begin—or, once begun, a social choice that provided for purely private goods would be a sign of society’s dissolution (SC, IV.i.5). Selfishness What form of self-interest is responsible for the case where society fails to formulate a general will because its members’ wants are directed to an improper beneficiary? Consider that this case is, in effect, pre-social—it does not meet the condition of cooperation according to the social contract. Recall that in advance of the social contract men enjoy what Rousseau calls natural liberty: the right to all one wants and is capable of getting. Let us define a position of self-interest that corresponds to natural liberty—natural self-interest—that incorporates an attitude of selfishness regarding one’s wants. I construe selfishness as, at minimum, an attitude connecting one’s wants with one’s efforts, whereby one wishes that only one’s own wants be satisfied by one’s own efforts. I take this attitude to be consonant with the radical independence Rousseau attributes to men in the state of nature. With such an attitude an individual could not engage in cooperative projects enthusiastically, for fear that his efforts would contribute to someone else’s satisfaction. At most he would agree to contribute to provide the will of all, limiting his own efforts to his own wants. A stronger conception of selfishness might incorporate an attitude connecting one’s wants and the efforts of others. A strongly selfish individual would regard the benefits produced by others solely as

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Making Citizens

a means for his own satisfaction; he would not care about their wants. Such an attitude grounds exploitation, not cooperation. Within society, selfishness in the weaker sense would corrode society’s ability to act collectively; in the stronger sense, a group of selfish individuals operating in society might form a faction dedicated to corrupting the procedures for making social choices, so that society would come to provide benefits private to themselves. It is, however, more perspicuous to say that selfish individuals simply would not create society, because they would not be sufficiently motivated to enter into the social contract. But if men face the fundamental problem of politics from the position of natural liberty, how is it possible for them to adopt the social contract? Since selfishness is the form of self-interest that corresponds to natural liberty, would not these (selfish) individuals reject cooperation on terms that require them to work for others? Rousseau intimates that men’s interest in survival would force them to modify their selfishness. As we saw in the Introduction, individuals in nature grasp that their own efforts are unequal to their wants—situations arise where they need others’ help. Rousseau argues that even at a very primitive stage of development, men recognize the need to cooperate—they have a ‘crude idea of mutual engagements and of the advantage of fulfilling them’ (DI, II.9/III.166). That is, they are capable of recognizing the benefit to themselves of helping others. The experience of cooperation will eventually lead them to recognize that their selfishness is an obstacle to their own satisfaction. The reliable satisfaction of their wants thus constitutes a motive for men in nature to change their attitude about their efforts. 2 Individuals see that they themselves will benefit by helping others, hence they agree to enter into the stable cooperation established by the social contract. Socialized self-interest In abandoning selfishness, men in nature abandon the position of natural liberty, entering society and the position of civil liberty. Corresponding to civil liberty, therefore, is a new form of selfinterest—which I shall call socialized self-interest. Socialized selfinterest embodies an attitude of rational recognition that the small cost of contributing one’s efforts to others purchases the large benefit of reliable satisfaction through cooperation. ‘Then only is it


35

that the voice of duty takes the place of physical impulse, and law the place of appetite; and that man, who until then has thought only of himself, finds himself compelled to act on other principles, and to consult his reason before listening to his inclinations’ (SC, I.viii.1/ III.364). With this attitude, in so far as one seeks satisfaction of one’s wants from society, one conceives of them as wants for public goods. That is, one conceives of satisfaction in terms of social institutions that provide benefits to all. Take, for example, an individual who wanted an opportunity to walk by the river. In so far as he wanted society to satisfy this want, he would not conceive of satisfaction in terms of his private ownership of some stretch of land, but rather in terms of the creation of a public park. What specific wants would individuals seek from society through public goods? As we saw in the Introduction, the primary want Rousseau holds individuals seek from society is security of life and property; they conceive of satisfaction of this want in terms of the public good of law. But throughout his works Rousseau hints at a fairly broad, welfare-based conception of security—one that incorporates wants relevant to standard of living. For instance, in the Discourse on Political Economy he argues that ‘It is not enough to have citizens and to protect them; it is also necessary to give some thought to their subsistence. And seeing to the public needs is an obvious consequence of the general will’ (III, 127/III.262). Does it follow that wants for things we think of as strictly private—for example food or shelter—could be addressed to society, with a view toward establishing institutions that provide them to all? In fact, to understand Rousseau’s view we need not settle this question. For, on his view, that question could be answered only socially, in the process by which society formulates its general will (SC, I.vi.5–6,II.iv.9). Rousseau’s view that citizens alienate all their rights to the sovereign, which retains exclusive authority only over those aspects of life agreed to in the social contract, entails a general (illiberal) conception of the line between public and private, whereby that line is defined socially. Different societies might easily come to different decisions—on the basis of their members’ wants—as to which wants will be fulfilled by public goods, and which are to be pursued privately. Thus, to cite one of Rousseau’s favorite examples, in Sparta the citizens ate together in common mess halls (Plutarch 1932:56–58). Once society draws this line between public and private, socialized self-interest entails that, with respect to those

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Making Citizens

wants an individual can appropriately appeal to society to meet, the individual must seek satisfaction in the form of public goods. Failure with respect to the benefit Socialized self-interest motivates individuals to cooperate with one another, hence it enables them to participate in social life. In contrast to selfishness, socialized self-interest solves the beneficiary problem just discussed; it is, therefore, a necessary condition for formulating the general will. However, the elimination of selfishness is not enough to guarantee the formulation of the general will; socialized self-interest is not a sufficient condition. For we must now consider the implications of the other sense of commonality— commonality in the benefit sense. That is, we must now consider whether, in light of the members of society’s wants, the social choice provides the appropriate public goods. As we saw in the Introduction, Rousseau defines the general will in the benefit sense with the formula ‘a large number of small differences.’ But what if the members of society’s wants are characterized by a large number of large differences? What if the social choice expresses a small number of differences, either large or small in size? These would be cases of failure to formulate the general will in the benefit sense. Let us now take up these varieties of political failure, and learn how they follow from socialized self-interest. No common good Let us first consider the case of a large number of large differences. As we shall explain in a moment, this is again a case of a group of individuals who simply do not have a general will, hence who fail to find grounds for political cooperation. If society exists at all it has overcome this obstacle. Nonetheless it is valuable to take account of the possibility of a large number of large differences, to grasp the full range of Rousseau’s theory. Imagine, then, a group of individuals with widely divergent wants (presumed to be wants for public goods). Such a situation is illustrated in Figure 1.1. Following the method outlined in the Introduction, we can tally the number of differences of each possible size between the wants of the individuals in Figure 1.1. The graph in Figure 1.2 plots the results; the percentage at the top of each bar indicates


A B C D E F G H I J

g 1 – + + – + + – – + –

g 2 + – + – + – + + – –

g 3 – + – + + – + – + –

g 4 – – + – + – + + – +

g 5 + – – + – + + – + –

g 6 – + + – + – – + – +

g 7 + + – + – + – – + –

g 8 – + – + + – + – – +

g 9 + – + – – + – + – +

37

g 10 + + – – + – + – + –

Figure 1.1

Figure 1.2

that bar’s proportion of the total number of possible differences, given the number of individuals. As Figure 1.2 reveals, most of the differences (31 out of 45, or 69 per cent) are of size 50 per cent or greater. That is, most individuals differ from each other with respect to wants for more than half the available public goods. Thus, we can say, the society of Figure 1.1 is marked by a large number of large differences (see Introduction, note 22). The wide dissimilarity of wants means that there is no basis for cooperation between more than a handful of individuals on more than a handful of goods. For the group as a whole, that is, there is no common good,

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Making Citizens

hence no general will, regarding all ten goods (for the sake of this illustration I do not consider whether these individuals might have a general will with respect to some subset of g —g ). We 1 10 should note that the dispersal of desire is more fundamental to understanding the lack of a general will here than the fact that there are no majorities on any of the ten goods (each column has the same number of pluses and minuses). If, say, half the group had one welfare profile type and the other half had another there would likewise be no majorities—and indeed no general will—but the situation would be entirely different. In the latter case we would see a society riven by faction; in the present case we see a mere collection of individuals whose wants are such that they are incapable of collective action. Where there are, then, a large number of large differences it is impossible for society even to formulate a general will, and political success is out of the question. Indeed, in this situation Rousseau would hold that there can be no society: despite the willingness to cooperate consistent with socialized self-interest, the constellation of desires is such that there simply is no common good, hence no basis for cooperation. Although such a diversity of wants is a conceptual possibility given Rousseau’s definition of the general will, on his view this possibility would not, as a practical matter, ever be realized. For, Rousseau argues, a degree of convergence of desires is a precondition for sustaining political life—without it society simply would not happen. Thus, he holds, in their first steps toward political cooperation, early men were ‘united in moeurs and character, not by Rules or Laws, but by the same kind of life and foods’ (DI, II.15/III.169). Man’s organic nature of course dictates broad sorts of wants—for example for food and shelter. But men specify their wants more precisely as a result of communal life—they come to want certain kinds of cuisine and certain kinds of homes. A shared way of life produces similar wants, and the similarity of wants is the basis on which men cooperate. Coordinating wants is thus one contribution culture makes to maintaining political success.3 Faction However, the existence of the appropriate pattern of wants does not by itself solve the problem of formulating the general will.


39

Failure in the benefit sense will result if society has a general will, but none the less decides to pursue something other than the common good. Here we can say that the formulation problem involves an expression problem: although society has a formulated general will, it cannot formulate a social choice that expresses it. The source of this type of failure, in Rousseau’s view, is faction. Even where there is a general will, factions might arise and interfere in the process that formulates the social choice. Rousseau’s antipathy to faction springs from a wide variety of sources—including the political thought of antiquity, Renaissance republicanism, French moral tradition, and personal experience.4 His understanding of faction is a corollary of his conception of the general will, and involves his conception of self-interest. I will interpret Rousseau’s account of faction by showing a mechanism by which factions can be seen to distort the social choice, and then by analyzing the form of self-interest he holds responsible for the problem. First, however, I will discuss three notions I deploy to support my interpretation. Conceptual background Socialized self-interest To begin, since factions arise within society, let us presume that their members face their wants with socialized self-interest. We have touched on the idea that selfish individuals might create factions around wants for private goods above; as we saw, we can consider this case to be outside of truly political cooperation. But, on Rousseau’s view, faction is a problem even within political cooperation. Thus, we shall now consider the case where members of factions seek satisfaction in terms of public goods, hence where factions seek to satisfy their members through social institutions that can in principle benefit all members of society. Two patterns of wants Next, let us consider an implication of Rousseau’s realism regarding the general will. Say that society has a general will, and is free from faction. Rousseau presumes in this case that the social choice expresses the general will: that society actually seeks the common good. But now say that a faction gains control over society, and diverts the social choice from the common good to the goods the faction wants instead. ‘Does this mean that the general will is annihilated or corrupted? No, it is

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Making Citizens

always constant, unalterable and pure; but it is subordinated to other wills which prevail over it’ (SC, IV.i.6/III.438). The general will persists, that is, even though the social choice does not express it. How are we to explain the discrepancy between the two? What makes the social choice an incorrect statement of the general will? Recall that the general will is defined in terms of the members of society’s wants; it exists if these wants fit the pattern of a large number of small differences. But we can also interpret the social choice as expressing a pattern of wants.5 Thus, we can imagine a comparison between the sets of wants corresponding to the general will and the social choice. Since under the influence of factions the social choice does not express the general will, it follows that the wants corresponding to the social choice do not conform to the pattern appropriate to the general will. Instead, they conform to a different pattern, in which they do not have a large number of small differences. Intensity of wants Now realism regarding the general will implies that even in the presence of faction, the members of society collectively have wants that fit the proper pattern. How then, when factions distort the social choice, can the same individuals have wants that both do and do not fit the pattern of a large number of small differences? To interpret this possibility I wish to introduce the notion of intensity of wants into my interpretation of Rousseau’s theory. Although Rousseau does not himself employ this notion, I believe that it can be used in a way that is consistent with his views, and indeed adds depth to his accounts of faction and self-interest. In the Introduction I treated the pluses and minuses on individuals’ welfare profiles as equal in intensity. But Rousseau suggests a split within each individual, between his interest in himself alone and his interest in the good of society (SC, I.vii.7). We can, in my view, interpret this split in terms of intensity of want. For we can say that individuals might want something intensely that the general will would not provide, or want only weakly something that it would. Suppose then that an individual has more intense wants for one specific good than for others. He might therefore refuse to compromise with the rest of society regarding it—even if the general will could be defined in such a way that excluded this good. The fact that the general will would not reflect his intense want might motivate him to attempt to


41

influence society to provide for something other than the common good, that is to divert the social choice from the general will. Thus in the Introduction I suggested that if Rousseau were to admit the possibility of differing intensities he would none the less hold that each individual ought to regard all of his wants as equal in intensity (pp. 22–4). For, in order to strike the widest-ranging bargain possible in determining the common good, individuals must be willing to compromise on any of their wants. But we can now see how admitting variation in intensity can account for the members of society’s wants collectively both conforming and not conforming to the pattern of a large number of small differences. Say then that an individual has wants of varying intensities for the available goods. For the sake of simplicity, let us say that an intensity of 0 means an individual does not want a good, and let us consider only positive intensity—that is the strength of wants for goods, not against them. Figure 1.3a represents a sample welfare A

g 1 0

g 2 3

g 3 8

g 4 4

g 5 0

g 6 5

Figure 1.3a

profile that includes intensity. Now let us define the ‘underlying structure’ of a welfare profile as the structure of wants abstracted from intensity. We can represent the underlying structure by mapping zeros to minuses, and intensities greater than 0 to pluses. Thus, the underlying structure of A’s welfare profile is A

g g g g g g 1 2 3 4 5 6 – + + + – +

Figure 1.3b

represented in Figure 1.3b. For convenience we can call this A’s underlying profile, and the wants his underlying wants. Now let us say that each individual has an intensity threshold such that he will choose to sacrifice wants below it in order to satisfy wants at or above it. For example, the threshold for A may be 5—in this case he would seek to attain g3 and g6, and not seek to attain g1, g2, g4, or g5. Of course, even within the same society this threshold may be different for different individuals. Let us define the ‘effective structure’ of a welfare profile as the structure of wants on

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which an individual will act, given his intensity threshold. We can represent the effective structure by mapping intensities below the threshold to minuses, and intensities at or above the threshold to pluses. Thus, the effective structure of A’s profile—the ‘effective profile’ of his ‘effective wants’—is represented in Figure 1.3c. A

g g g g g g 1 2 3 4 5 6 – – + – – +

Figure 1.3c

Now, considering a whole society, we can see how wants can conform to two distinct patterns. We can interpret Rousseau’s presumption that the general will exists even in the presence of faction to mean that the underlying structure of society’s wants— that is the pattern of wants among the members of society’s underlying profiles—contains a large number of small differences. By contrast, the effective structure of society’s wants—that is among society’s members’ effective profiles—might fall into a pattern that is inappropriate for the general will. Looking at society as a whole, that is, and taking the intensity of the members of society’s wants into account, the effective structure of wants is likely to diverge from the underlying structure. Now the social choice expresses the effective structure of wants—these are the wants that motivate society’s members in their efforts to frame a collective decision. Thus, a discrepancy between the effective structure and the underlying structure entails that the social choice does not express the general will. Illustration of the development of faction We are now in a position to give an account of how individuals band together into a faction. Factions emerge when individuals organize around sets of goods for which they have wants above their intensity threshold—that is around goods for which they have effective wants. Individuals who share effective wants for the same public goods can come together, agreeing to set aside differences at the underlying level. 6 Thus, Rousseau holds, ‘the will of each of these associations becomes general with reference to its members, and particular with reference to the state’ (SC, II.iii.3/III.371–2; see also DPE, 115/III.246). Just as the general will is the welfare profile to be pursued by society as a whole,


43

members of factions can agree on a single welfare profile they will jointly pursue in the wider political process of determining a social choice. 7 Note that members of factions agree with respect to the effective structures of their own profiles, that is with respect to the wants they choose to pursue. Thus, they each have tokens of the same effective profile type. However, Rousseau presumes that differences between them remain with respect to the underlying structure of their welfare profiles; these are differences on wants unimportant to them, which they choose to ignore. That is, they have tokens of distinct underlying profile types. Despite these underlying differences, the members of a faction cooperate with each other in pursuit of their common effective profile. Rousseau condemns the members of factions because their cooperation does not extend to the rest of society: a faction faces the rest of society as a bloc, each member supporting the ‘party line.’ Thus, Rousseau holds, a faction masks out of the social choice the underlying structure of wants he attributes to its members. Let us trace the mechanism of faction in more detail. In his key passage on the subject (SC, I I.iii.3), Rousseau presents the problem of faction as unfolding in two stages—first a stage where there is a plurality of factions, and then a stage where there is one dominant faction. As we shall see, these two stages of faction correspond to the two remaining variants of the formula for the general will, where there are a small number of differences. To gain a schematic understanding of Rousseau’s account, let us examine the situation presented in Figures 1.4a, c, d. Figure 1.4a presents the underlying structure of wants for the society composed of individuals A-I for nine available public goods; let us take it as the starting point, before factions start to develop. Figure 1.4b graphs the number of differences of each possible size. It reveals that most differences (23 out of 36 possible, or 64 per cent) are less than 50 per cent—that is that there are a large number of small differences. Thus by Rousseau’s criterion the society of Table 1.4a has a general will. On the basis of the preponderance of pluses for each good, let us say that the general will would provide for all nine goods. Plurality of factions Let us now suppose that factions begin to emerge in the society of Figure 1.4a. To arrive at the first stage, where there is a plurality of factions, say that A, B, and C all have

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Making Citizens

A B C D E F G H I

g 1 + + + – + + + + –

g 2 + + + + + – + – +

g 3 + + + + – – – + +

g 4 + – + + + + – – –

g 5 – + + + + + – + +

g 6 – + – + + + + + –

g 7 + – + – + – + + +

g 8 – – + – + + + + +

g 9 + + – + – + + + +

Figure 1.4a The percentages at the top of each bar indicate the percentage of the total number of differences represented by the differences of the size.

Figure 1.4b

wants above their respective intensity thresholds for g 1, g 2, and g 3, but their wants for all the other goods are below their thresholds. If they were each aware of the others’ effective wants, they would see that they could come together as a group to pursue the goal of attaining these three goods.8 Thus the faction composed of A, B, and C would work as a bloc for g1, g 2, and g3, and against everything else. This factional goal is reflected in each individual’s effective profile—hence each individual’s


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effective profile would be tokens of a single type. Let us say that the situation just described regarding A—C and g 1–g 3 is mirrored with D—F for g4– g 6, and G—I for g 7–g 9. The conditions hold, then, for the emergence of two additional factions. Figure 1.4c thus illustrates the plurality stage of factions; it shows the effective profiles of A—I, hence the effective structure of the wants of the society as a whole. A B C D E F G H I

g + + + – – – – – –

g 2 + + + – – – – – –

g 3 + + + – – – – – –

g 4 – – – + + + – – –

g 5 – – – + + + – – –

g 6 – – – + + + – – –

g 7 – – – – – – + + +

g 8 – – – – – – + + +

g 9 – – – – – – + + +

Figure 1.4c

Now Rousseau holds that with factions ‘the differences become less numerous’ than with the general will (SC, I I.iii.3/ I I I.372). Abstracting for the moment from the question of the size of the differences (we will return to it below), we can tally the number of differences at the level both of token effective profiles and of effective profile types. In both cases, since there are nine individuals there are 9(9–1)/2=36 possible differences. In the general will, represented by Figure 1.4a, each individual has a distinct underlying profile type, hence there are thirty-six non-0 per cent differences. In Figure 1.4c, with respect to token profiles, the differences within a faction are obviously 0 per cent; each faction yields three such differences, for a total of nine. Comparing the members of each faction with the members of the other factions yields the remaining twenty-seven differences. Thus, in Figure 1.4c there are fewer token level differences than in the Figure 1.4a: an effect of faction is that there are fewer differences between individuals at the effective level (call them effective differences) than at the underlying level (call them underlying differences). However, Rousseau holds that in the presence of factions ‘it can no longer be said that there are as many voters as there are individuals, but only as many as there are associations’ (SC,

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II.iii.3/ III.371–2). Since factions vote as blocs, to characterize the situation of society we should compare the effective profile types associated with each faction. In Figure 1.4c there are three distinct profile types, hence there are 3(3–1)/2, or three effective differences between them—far fewer than the number of underlying differences in the general will. Thus we can say that the effect of faction is to reduce the number of type differences to a degree far below the number that is actually possible. This gap that opens up between the actual number of effective differences and possible number of underlying differences indicates, for Rousseau, that factions have so distorted the process of formulating the social choice that it cannot express the general will. The high degree of uniformity indicated by a small number of differences could not be attained, on his view, except through the intervention of faction. Dominant faction The ultimate danger Rousseau sees in faction is that one party might come to control society: the stage of plurality might give way to the stage of a dominant faction. To continue our illustration, the situation represented by Figure 1.3b would be frustrating to everyone, since it is reasonable to suppose that the social choice would not provide anyone with any desired goods. Thus we can imagine the factions reconfiguring—they might try to increase their strength through calculated bargains. Thus, in light of the underlying wants shown in Figure 1.4a, A, B, and C might offer D and E support on g4 in return for joining their faction, and G, H, and I might offer F support on g5 and g6 in return for joining theirs. Figure 1.4d represents the outcome. In Figure 1.4d there is a clear social choice (by majority rule) to provide certain goods—g –g However, g –g are chosen not by a 1 4. 1 4 consensus of all of society. Rather, Figure 1.4d illustrates the final development of faction: the stage where a dominant faction itself determines the social choice. The social choice is not the general will; rather, in Rousseau’s words, ‘the opinion which prevails is only a private opinion’ (SC, II.iii.3/III.372).9 Rousseau explains the situation as follows: ‘Finally, when one [faction] becomes large enough to prevail over all the rest, the result is no longer a sum of small differences, but one single difference’ (SC, II.iii.3/III.372). That single difference is the difference between the dominant faction and all other groups in society considered together. The


A B C D E F G H I

g 1 + + + + + – – – –

g 2 + + + + + – – – –

g 3 + + + + + – – – –

g 4 + + + + + – – – –

g 5 – – – – – + + + +

g 6 – – – – – + + + +

g 7 – – – – – + + + +

g 8 – – – – – + + + +

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g 9 – – – – – + + + +

Figure 1.4d

dominant faction has one effective profile type; for the sake of illustration say that all other groups coalesce around another. Only one difference exists between two distinct profile types. Thus, in the case of a dominant faction, the number of differences is as small as possible—hence is as far as possible from the pattern appropriate to the general will. 10 The condition of dominant faction, in other words, pushes the discrepancy between the social choice and the general will to the furthest extreme. Size of the differences Both a plurality of factions and a dominant faction produce a small numb er of effective differences—but what about the matter of size? The general will rests on a large number of small differences, and we have seen that a large number of large differences is a sign of a set of individuals whose wants are too diverse to sustain society. We might wonder, therefore, whether the effective differences (small in number) associated with faction are small or large in size. In fact, in the passage we have been interpreting (SC, II.iii.3), once Rousseau introduces factions, he no longer refers to the size of differences, but only to their number; he argues that the small number of differences shows that faction distorts the members of society’s effective wants away from their underlying general will. Thus, when considering possible solutions to the problem of faction, Rousseau suggests a means for preserving the largest possible number of effective differences (at both the type and token levels): If there are partial societies, their number must be multiplied and provision made against their inequality, as by Solon, Numa and Servius’ (SC, II.iii.4/III.372). 11

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However, we can distinguish the sizes of the differences associated with the plurality of factions case and the dominant faction case. With a dominant faction, it stands to reason that the size of the single effective difference between that faction’s profile and the profile of all other groups is large. Rousseau’s argument suggests a process of polarization—which the illustration above traces. To grow larger a faction would have to take account of at least some of the wants of prospective new members. It follows that those who do not join have little or nothing in common with the faction. Thus, in the illustration, the size of the difference (at both type and token levels) between the dominant and subordinate factions is 100 per cent. We can say, then, that in the case of a dominant faction there are a small number of large differences— directly contrary to the large number of small differences required for the general will. The case of a plurality of factions corresponds to the remaining permutation of Rousseau’s formula, that is a small number of small differences. The smallness of the differences in this case is relative to the largeness of the differences in the case of dominant faction, not to the standard of size that applies when the number of differences is large. Thus, in Figure 1.4c, the size of the non-0 per cent differences (at both type and token levels) is 67 per cent— bigger than 50 per cent, but much smaller than 100 per cent. It makes sense that a plurality of factions would produce smaller effective differences than a dominant faction. Each faction must seek a more or less distinct set of goods than any other, or they would merge. However, given a fixed number of available goods, the more distinct factions, the fewer the goods each must seek— otherwise they would begin to overlap on goods and lose their identity. Thus, any two factions will differ on the relatively small number of goods around which they are organized—but we can assume they will not differ on the goods that remain. It follows that, relative to the total number of goods, the size of the difference between the factions will be small—at least smaller than the complete opposition associated with a dominant faction. Factions and uniformity The foregoing account of the mechanism of faction explains how factions decrease the number of differences between the members of society’s effective profiles. Rousseau claims that if they are small in number, the differences ‘give a less general result’ (SC, III.iii.3/III.372). What precisely


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does Rousseau’s claim mean? On my reading, Rousseau is concerned about the discrepancy between the member of a faction’s effective and underlying profiles. Individuals join factions to pursue specific goals; to that end, they agree to submerge differences on less important issues in order to prevail on issues that are most important to them. Now Rousseau presumes that, abstracting from intensities, the distribution of underlying wants in a viable society (that is a society with a general will) is marked by a large number of small differences. He presumes, that is, that the members of society will agree for the most part—but not entirely. Rousseau presumes, in sum, that any individual’s own wants will differ by a small amount from the general will. Accordingly, Rousseau is suspicious of complete uniformity. He intuits that only agreements within factions to act in concert in spite of underlying disagreements on particular (but subordinate) issues could produce the degree of uniformity indicated by a small number of effective differences. Hence, ‘differences’ of 0 per cent between individuals are not really differences—they are a sign of faction. They indicate that the individuals have suppressed certain of their underlying wants in favor of a factional ‘party line.’ We can thus invoke the characteristic Rousseauan metaphor of transparency and opacity (see Starobinski (1988: Ch. 1); Chapter 4 below). Faction makes the social choice opaque: we cannot see through it to the general will. For, under conditions of faction the effective structure of wants that leads to the social choice does not reflect the full range of all the members of society’s underlying wants—hence, for Rousseau, the social choice lacks generality. Summary Let us summarize how, on Rousseau’s account, faction leads to political failure. Rousseau is concerned with groups of individuals who can sustain a general will; his criticism of faction presumes that factions emerge in societies whose members’ underlying wants conform to the pattern of a large number of small differences.12 Thus, he holds that the social choice produced by factions suppresses the underlying general will, which exists, but is not expressed. ‘Examine carefully what goes on in any deliberation and you will see that the general will is always for the common good; however, quite often there is a secret schism, a tacit confederation, which causes the natural disposition of the assembly to be lost sight of for the sake of private purposes’ (DPE, 115/ I I I.246–7). That is, at the underlying level, society has

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formulated its general will, which identifies that set of public goods—the common good—on which, given suitable bargains, everyone in society could agree. At least in principle, the general will could be expressed in a social choice. However, the members of society’s effective wants are such that they join factions; they make bargains among a small number of individuals, over a small number of intensely wanted goods. The social choice that results from these factional agreements, therefore, does not provide for the full range of goods that would satisfy the members of society’s underlying wants. The indication of this discrepancy is that the effective structure of wants in the presence of faction contains a small number of differences. Thus, in the presence of faction, when society formulates its social choice it fails to express its general will. Factions, therefore, render society incapable of solving the formulation problem. Faction and self-interest: private interest and civic virtue To conclude our discussion of faction, let us return to the question of self-interest. How, on Rousseau’s view, does the action of selfinterest explain the mechanism of faction? Faction is a social phenomenon, hence the form of self-interest at work is socialized self-interest, the attitude by which individuals conceive of their wants as satisfiable by public goods. But to understand this form of self-interest, we must first consider Rousseau’s argument that the experience of social life creates a division within individuals. In nature, men had considered only their own wants. In society, men continue to consider their own wants—but they have now to consider in addition the common good. To the extent that the common good coincides with their own wants, individuals would not experience any dissonance. However, as we noted above, Rousseau’s conception of the general will presumes that there is some difference between the common good and each individual’s welfare profile. Although this difference tends to be small, socialized individuals are confronted with two divergent appeals: their natural inclination to satisfy their own wants, and their responsibility to society. Rousseau presents this phenomenon by referring to the individual’s will: ‘each individual may, as a man, have a private will contrary to, or divergent from, the general will he has as a citizen’ (SC, I.vii.7/III.363). Note that ‘citizen’ is a


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term for Rousseau; it refers to individuals ‘as participants in the sovereign authority’ (SC, I.vi.9/ I I I.362). That is, Rousseau presumes that as citizens individuals to some extent or another internalize the general will—in virtue of the autonomy they develop in society, they are able to adopt the general will as their own. But against the internalized general will stands the private will individuals possess as a feature of human nature. Rousseau posits an inevitable tension between private will and general will; indeed, his writings can be broadly read as an attempt to chart the misery that grows out of the conflict between man and citizen.13 The conflict between man and citizen is reflected in a tension between two forms of self-interest. Recall that Rousseau holds that as men enter society, along with civil liberty they gain moral liberty (SC, I.viii.3). We can draw a contrast between the forms of self-interest associated with civil and moral liberty: socialized selfinterest and its concomitant, moral self-interest. Let us call socialized self-interest private interest; moral self-interest is what Rousseau calls civic virtue. Private interest and civic virtue have certain features in common. Both are, of course, forms of selfinterest, in that both reflect individuals’ wishes to satisfy their own desires; and both are socialized, in that both seek satisfaction through public goods. How then do they differ? With private interest, the attitude the individual takes toward his wants is one of identification: he regards his particular wants as constitutive of his sense of self. Thus, he accords his wants a privileged status: because they are his, he has a special commitment to satisfying them. With civic virtue, by contrast, the individual takes a detached attitude toward his wants. He does not attach special significance to his wants because they are his, but rather regards them as he does the wants of all other members of society: equal determinants of the general will. His commitment is to satisfying everyone; his own satisfaction follows from his receipt of the benefits provided by society. Thus, with civic virtue, the individual’s sense of identity is based on his identification with his society: the wants that constitute his sense of self are the wants countenanced by the general will. We will discuss the actual psychological mechanisms Rousseau believes produce private interest and civic virtue in Chapter 3. At this point we can interpret private interest and civic virtue abstractly, in terms of the intensity of individuals’ wants. Let us assume that as a feature of the diversity Rousseau expects among their real wants,

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the members of society have wants of differing intensities for different public goods. The intensity of a want is a phenomenological quality of an individual’s experience; it places the want closer to or farther from the self. Thus, individuals identify more strongly with more intense wants—they pursue them as a matter of self-fulfillment. Let us say, then, that private interest is the attitude toward wants that takes note of intensity, and seeks above all to satisfy wants at intensities above a certain threshold. Private interest, on this interpretation, is the attitude of the classical ‘economic man’: the attitude of utility maximization (Levine 1976:102). It is, after all, for the sake of maximizing utility that individuals enter into society, on Rousseau’s account; with private interest individuals have recognized that they receive the most reliable satisfaction through public goods. Thus, with private interest, socialized individuals continue to hold a strategy of maximization; hence they will seek those public goods they want in particular. The individual motivated by private interest will try to get from social cooperation the most satisfaction he can, where satisfaction is defined from his own point of view. On Rousseau’s theory private interest lies at the root of political failure. We shall see shortly that private interest accounts for the second source of political failure, the enforcement problem. Now we can see that private interest accounts for faction, thus causing failure to formulate the general will. As we saw in the illustration above, individuals who have wants for the same public goods above their respective intensity thresholds could come together in a faction, dedicated to a social choice that provides for these goods. Members of a faction, then, share a private interest in certain public goods, and gear their actions to attaining them. Rousseau argues that when an individual votes according to private interest, ‘instead of saying with his vote, “It is advantageous to the state,” he says, “It is advantageous to a certain individual or to a certain party that a certain proposal should be enacted”’ (SC, IV.i.6/I II.438). The advantage the individual seeks, for himself or for his faction, is the provision of the public goods for which he has effective wants. He does not care whether these goods are in fact part of the common good; he is unwilling to strike a bargain with everyone in society if it turns out that the bargain—the general will—excludes them. That is, under private interest, individuals think exclusively in terms of their own effective wants, and take no account of wants for anything else. As we saw, they therefore are motivated to conceal the full


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range of their wants, distorting the social choice so that it does not express the general will. Private interest is a given feature of human nature—it is a matter of reflex that individuals pursue their effective wants. Hence faction is a natural element of political life. In the Discourse on Political Economy Rousseau argues that every political society is composed of other smaller and different societies, each of which has its interests and maxims. But these societies, which everyone perceives (since they have an external and authorized form), are not the only ones really existing in the state. All the private individuals who are united by a common interest make up as many others, permanent or transitory, whose force is no less real for being less apparent. (DPE, 114–15/III.245–6) That is, individuals come together in various associations—some authorized by the state (for example the church) and others only ‘tacit’—as they discover convergences in their private interests. As Masters observes, ‘According to the “natural” ordering of wills, the individual follows his purely private self-interest rather than the common interest; by extension, he tends to follow the group interests closest to this particular will rather than the general will of the entire society’ (1968:388). That is, the facts of human nature are such that individuals have little personal motivation to treat all issues alike in the interest of striking the widest possible bargain. To the contrary, they obviously have a natural disposition to pursue those desires to which they have the strongest attachment. It makes perfect sense for individuals to join factions to pursue the goods that are most important to them. There is thus a tragic element in Rousseau’s political thought: men seem fated to political failure by their very nature (see SC, I II.x.1). However, Rousseau believes that the corrosive effects of private interest can be opposed—by civic virtue. The two coexist—though in unequal strengths—in socialized individuals. If the dominance of private interest generates the problems—with respect to both formulation and enforcement—in the way of political success, strengthening civic virtue offers the possibility of solutions. We will consider how civic virtue bears on the enforcement problem below. Now let us consider how civic virtue bears on the problem of faction. We explained the development of faction in terms of intensity of

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wants—with private interest, individuals seek to satisfy their effective wants by any means. In contrast to private interest, civic virtue incorporates an attitude whereby individuals abstract from the intensity of their wants. In effect, on this attitude, individuals look to the underlying structure of their wants; they regard their wants as simple pluses and minuses. With civic virtue, that is, individuals regard their wants in an impersonal manner: they do not act against them (civic virtue is a form of self-interest), but they do not allow the intensity of given wants to stimulate a commitment to them in particular.14 For, the individuals recognize that faction threatens to destabilize cooperation—hence poses a danger to their own long-term satisfaction. They see that their own interest lies in society’s ability to formulate the general will. This recognition motivates individuals to counteract their natural impulses to pursue their effective wants.15 It follows, then, that civically virtuous individuals are not motivated to join factions. They do not seek some goods over others; they seek the common good as a whole. They do not identify with some sub-group within society; they think of themselves as members of the entire community. Rousseau thus associates civic virtue with the autonomy that develops with moral liberty: in adopting an impersonal attitude toward their wants, individuals free themselves from the slavery of appetite (SC, I.viii.3). The civically virtuous individual reviews his wants against the standard of the general will, which serves as the law he imposes on himself. On the basis of the general will, he knows which of his own wants it is, after all, in his wider interest to pursue. It follows that civic virtue restrains the impulse to maximize utility—where utility is defined from the perspective of the individual. Instead civic virtue serves as an impulse to maximize the utility of society as a whole—by attaining the general will. Summary of the formulation problem Individuals in society, for Rousseau, are torn between two simultaneous appeals: the natural appeal of private interest they feel as men, and the moral appeal of civic virtue they feel as citizens. At stake in this struggle is nothing less than political success. To the extent that individuals are dominated by private interest they will enter into factions, preventing society from formulating the general will. To the extent that they act out of civic virtue, they will restrain their inclination to distort the social choice, so that society’s effort to identify its general will will be successful. Yet each form of self-


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interest is available from within the other. Individuals kept apart by private interest might yet be inspired by civic virtue to come together—but a society united under civic virtue lives always with the threat of the divisive effects of private interest. In general, Rousseau holds that a society’s culture plays a central role in striking the balance between private interest and civic virtue. Strong cultural institutions are required to instill civic virtue in the face of men’s natural inclination to satisfy their strongest wants. But institutions of the wrong sort will not simply permit but also reinforce private interest. We shall examine how cultural institutions shape selfinterest in Chapters 4 and 5. Now let us go on to consider the implications of the conflict between private interest and civic virtue for the second broad source of political failure—the problem of enforcing the general will. TH E EN FORCEM ENT PROBLEM Even if society solves the formulation problem—say by somehow avoiding the harm due to faction—it still faces the enforcement problem: the problem of putting its general will into effect. Enforcing the general will means, simply, that society organizes itself so that its members contribute their efforts toward providing the goods on which they have agreed. Solving the enforcement problem is necessary to political success; without a solution, of course, society would not actually attain the common good, hence would not solve the fundamental problem of politics. Rousseau calls our attention to two aspects of the enforcement problem. On the one hand, he observes that the institution society creates to enforce the general will, the government, might breach its duty and act against the common good. On the other hand, Rousseau notes that the members of society might seek to evade their obligations to join in the cooperative effort to provide the common good. The danger that government will fail to enforce the general will is a central concern of Book III of The Social Contract; Rousseau addresses this danger primarily through constitutional means. The danger that individuals might shirk their responsibilities Rousseau mentions explicitly only in passing. However, this danger springs from the source we have already blamed for the failure to formulate the general will—the form of self-interest we have called private interest. As we shall see, the alternative form of self-interest—civic virtue—would solve the enforcement problem by instilling in the members of society

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a desire to do their duty. Let us examine the two aspects of the enforcement problem more closely, starting with the problem with government. The threat of usurpation The logical necessity for government In agreeing to a social contract, a group of individuals create a new entity—the sovereign (SC, I.vi.9). Rousseau speaks of the general will as the will of the sovereign, and speaks of laws as acts of the general will (SC, II.vi.7). Laws are general by definition, on Rousseau’s view: ‘the law considers subjects collectively and actions abstractly, never an individual man or a particular action’ (SC, II.vi.6/III.379). We have, so far, discussed the general will in terms of public goods— goods that if available at all are available to everyone in society. We can, in this light, conceive laws to establish institutions charged with providing public goods. In particular, laws establish agencies to attend to various wants; they regulate individual behavior to provide for security; and they specify the contributions individuals must make toward meeting society’s costs.16 But the logic of sovereignty raises the question of who is eligible to enforce the general will. Enforcement is the responsibility of what Rousseau calls the executive power. ‘On the principles already established it is easy to see…that the executive power cannot belong to the general public…as Sovereign; for this power is made up exclusively of particular acts’ (SC, III.i.3/ III.395; see Masters (1968:335–8)). Instead, the sovereign, ‘whose acts can never be anything but laws’ (SC, III.i.3/III.396), requires a government to apply the law to specific individuals in specific situations. The business of government is particulars: in criminal cases, the government identifies, prosecutes, and punishes the particular individuals who violate the law; with respect to the provision of public goods, the government administers the benefits to the particular individuals who qualify for them. The government, then, is the body within the state charged with the task of administrating the law—that is enforcing the general will. But Rousseau insists that government ‘is absolutely nothing but a commission, an office in which the rulers, as mere officials of the sovereign, exercise in its name the power of which it has made them the depositaries’ (SC,


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III.i.6/III.396). Government, that is, commands the collective power forged by the social contract. The inevitable defect in the body politic The enforcement problem arises because as an entity distinct from the sovereign it serves, the government has its own distinct will, derived from the wills of the individuals who hold office. ‘If its members are to be capable of acting in concert and fulfilling the purpose for which it was established,’ Rousseau reasons, ‘it must have a particular identity, a feeling common to all its members, and a force and will of its own tending to its self-preservation’ (SC, III.i.20/III.399). Ideally, the will of the government is precisely to enforce the general will—but since the two wills are numerically distinct, they might easily diverge. Indeed, as Richard Fralin observes, Rousseau expects just such a divergence. ‘Far from being the mere instrument of the people, government as Rousseau describes it in Book II I is a semi-independent body possessed of a corporate will that tends to be more cohesive and therefore stronger than the general will whose servant it ostensibly is’ (1978:92). That is, Rousseau anticipates that the government will usurp the sovereign authority. Just as the particular will works unceasingly against the general will, so does the government make continuous efforts against the sovereign…. [T]he final result, sooner or later, must be for the [government] to oppress the sovereign and break the social compact. This is the inherent and inevitable defect which, from the birth of the body politic, tends without respite to destroy it, just as old age and death destroy the body of man. (SC, III.x.l/III.421) It is the ‘order of nature,’ Rousseau argues, that ‘wills become more active the more they are concentrated’ (SC, III.ii.7/III.401). A particular will (the will of a single individual) is more concentrated than the general will (the will of society as a whole). Thus, a particular will is more active than the general will—so that, for Rousseau, an individual will seek his own advantage more insistently than, and at the expense of, the advantage of society as a whole. As we saw in our discussion of faction, individuals are more disposed to act out of private interest than civic virtue. The logic of

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this opposition applies to the government. Since the government is a small body within the state its will is already more concentrated— hence more active—than the general will; it follows that the government is prone to attempt to exercise power according to its own private interest, rather than according to the law. As a consequence of human nature, in other words, the members of the government will seek to use the power granted them by the sovereign not to enforce the general will but instead to enforce the will of their particular group. In this situation we can conceive of the government as a dominant faction, which directs society to serve its private interest. Of course, usurpation by the government of the sovereignty constitutes catastrophic political failure. ‘If the [government] tries to make laws…order is succeeded by disorder,…and the state, being dissolved, falls thereby into despotism or anarchy’ (SC, III.i.9/ III.397). In either case, the members of society would lose the institutional means to enforce their general will. Once the government comes to oppose the sovereign, ‘there is no other corporate will to resist the will of the [government] by holding it in balance’ (SC, III.x.I/III.421). By ‘corporate will’ Rousseau means a group within society; since he believes there should be no ‘partial’ societies (i.e. factions), or alternatively many weak ones, no private interest will be strong enough to prevent the government from betraying its proper function. Thus, the government is easily able to coerce the members of society: it can force them to cooperate to attain something other than the common good. Rousseau’s constitutional theory thus faces the following dilemma. On the one hand, sovereignty can only be effective through the agency of a government. On the other, a government effective enough to enforce the general will will tend to usurp the sovereign authority. As Rousseau puts it, ‘The problem is to find a means of giving this subordinate group a place within the larger whole such that it will in no wise alter the general constitution while consolidating its own’ (SC, III.i.20/III.399). Now Rousseau does not, surprisingly, consider how to address the root of the problem— he offers no means for preventing the private interest of the members of the government from motivating usurpation. He does however observe in a fragment that that government is best whose members have the least personal interest contrary to that of the people, for such a duplicity of interest cannot fail to give


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rulers a particular will which frequently prevails over the general in their administration…. If the welfare of a people is an obstacle to the ambition of its rulers, the people cannot expect ever to be happy. (FP, III.8, III.484) Rousseau might well have in mind here Hume’s suggestion that the institutions of government be contrived specifically to harness the selfinterest of rulers to serve the common good.17 But Rousseau insists that the inevitable defect posed by the private interest of the members of the government cannot be remedied permanently. As a human creation, the state is bound to decay. However ‘it is within [men’s] power to prolong the life of the state as far as possible, by giving it the best constitution it is capable of having’ (SC, III.xi.2/III.424). In The Social Contract Rousseau argues that the best constitution establishes an effective popular check on the government. Citizen review of the government To preserve the members of society’s sovereign authority against the danger of usurpation by the government, Rousseau calls for periodic assemblies of the people, at which the sovereign would review the government’s performance. Rousseau acknowledges the unlikelihood of this proposal, while defending its conceptual possibility. ‘A people assembled, you will say, what a chimera!’ But, after recounting the practice of Roman assemblies, he claims that ‘the example of Rome alone is sufficient to settle the question; if we can show that a thing has existed, I think we are justified in concluding that it is possible’ (SC, III.xii.1, 5/III.425, 26). What would happen at the periodic assemblies? The opening of these assemblies, whose sole purpose is the maintenance of the social contract, should always be marked by two motions which can never be quashed, and are separately voted. The first is: ‘Does it please the sovereign to continue the present form of government?’ The second is: ‘Does it please the people to leave the administration of that government in the hands of those who are presently entrusted with it?’ (SC, III.xviii.6–8/III.435–6)

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In Hilail Gildin’s words, ‘At these assemblies the continued existence of the prevailing form of government as well as the continued exercise of executive authority on the part of those wielding it are called into question’ (1983:141). As Gildin observes, in the second vote the members of the sovereign take on a specific, though provisional, governmental function: they vote on the particular individuals who will constitute the ongoing administration (140). This is why it is not the sovereign but the people that chooses the members of the government. The sovereign determines the general matter of the form of government; but the appointment of individuals to specific offices is a particular matter. Thus, the people function momentarily as a democratic government when they elect the officers of whatever other form of government they might have chosen (SC, III.xvii). Rousseau’s support for elective aristocracy makes sense against the background of his granting assemblies the sweeping power to dismiss or retain the individuals who make up the government. Indeed, he holds an almost Madisonian view that through elections the people can restrain the power of the governing elite.18 Removal from office is a sanction the sovereign can apply to the government if it fails in its responsibility to enforce the general will. However, we must note that the constitutional check against the power of the government provided by the assemblies will work only if the members of the sovereign in fact care whether or not the government enforces the general will, and care with sufficient force to take action if it does not. As Fralin explains, Rousseau sees ‘the problem of maintaining legislative sovereignty as essentially one of maintaining the vitality of the popular will, of maintaining a high degree of civic consciousness or public spiritedness. Only a people devoted to the public interest can successfully resist the persistent efforts of the government to usurp the law-making power’ (1978:99). That is, to be reliable guardians of their constitution, the members of society must be motivated by civic virtue. We can thus again conceive of political success in terms of the tension between private interest and civic virtue. Specifically, the present aspect of the enforcement problem involves a struggle between the private interest of the government and the civic virtue of the members of the sovereign. Fralin argues that Rousseau’s well-known hostility to political representation is rooted in his belief that civic virtue suffers when citizens do not participate directly in the sovereign authority. ‘His real objection to representation is not the abstract notion that will cannot


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be represented but the conviction that the use of representatives dilutes the popular will and thus renders it impotent vis-à-vis the government’ (1978:100; for Rousseau’s argument see SC, III.xv). Certainly active political participation tends to be self-reinforcing. However, as Fralin acknowledges, Rousseau cannot appeal only to political institutions to engender the spirit that will make those institutions effective in the first place. As we shall see in Chapter 5, the production of civically virtuous individuals—citizens who are willing to fulfill their constitutional duties—is part of the task Rousseau assigns to the institutions of culture. However, as we shall see in Chapter 6, it is not clear that these institutions adequately prepare citizens for this task. The threat of free riding Free riding defined But the threat of usurpation by the government is only one of two aspects of the enforcement problem. The second reflects a threat to the very basis of social life—the cooperative effort to provide public goods. This threat is the phenomenon of free riding, which is a consequence of private interest. To understand the free rider problem let us imagine a society whose members, in the spirit of civic virtue, have managed to formulate a general will, but for whom the internal balance has then shifted in favor of private interest. In this case, the efforts of even a well-intentioned government to enforce the general will could be frustrated by the members of society themselves. For, the general will cannot be enforced if more than a small number of individuals refuse to contribute to the social effort to provide public goods—in broad terms, if too many individuals refuse to obey the law. But how could some measure become law—that is be an element of the general will—if most individuals did not think they would benefit from it? The answer, for Rousseau, follows from the form of self-interest at work. An individual dominated by private interest might recognize that he would benefit even more if everyone else obeys the law, and he does not. As Rousseau argues, His particular interest may speak to him quite differently from the common interest; his existence, being naturally absolute and independent, may make him envisage his debt to the common cause as a gratuitous contribution, the loss of which will be less

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harmful to others than the payment is burdensome to himself; and regarding the artificial person of the state as a fictitious being, because it is not a man, he would like to enjoy the rights of a citizen without fulfilling the duties of a subject. (SC, I.vii.7/III.363) That is, everyone in society might agree on what constitutes the common good, but then attempt to withhold their individual contributions from the effort to obtain it. The most salient example is the case of taxes. By the terms of the social contract, Rousseau holds, ‘each person at least tacitly obliges himself to be assessed for public needs’ (DPE, III, 132/III.270). However, while I might very much want society to tax its members in order to obtain various common benefits, at the same time I might attempt not to pay my own taxes in order to obtain my share of the benefits for free. As Rousseau remarks, from the perspective of private interest, ‘social laws are a yoke that each wants to impose on the other without having to bear himself (GM, I.ii.l0/III.284). The phenomenon of withholding contributions for public goods— free riding—poses an insidious threat of political failure. For, clearly, if enough members of society refuse to join in the collective activity of obtaining the benefits identified by the general will, society will lack the capacity to provide the common good. Society risks political failure if individuals are motivated to try to enjoy the benefits the general will provides without contributing toward their costs; as Rousseau notes, free riding is ‘an injustice which, if it became progressive, would be the ruin of the body politic’ (SC, I.vii.7/ III.363). But with private interest, individuals seek to maximize their satisfaction, hence it is rational for them to avoid contributing if they can. Thus, Rousseau observes, ‘in spite of their common interests there would be no assurance that [individual citizens] would fulfil their obligations unless means were found to guarantee their fidelity’ (SC, I.vii.6/III.363). Therefore, Rousseau concludes, society must employ a sanction to punish free riding. We will take up the question of the sanction in a moment; first let us examine more closely the relation between free riding and the nature of the general will. The logic of collective action The free rider problem raises the following troubling question: if the general will provides a benefit anyway, why is it in anyone’s self-


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interest to contribute to the effort of enforcement? Although Rousseau does not explicitly acknowledge this fact, the possibility of free riding follows logically from his conception of the general will. As we saw above, Rousseau insists that the general will provide for public goods. The nature of the social contract implies that ‘every act of sovereignty, that is to say every authentic act of the general will, obliges or favours all the citizens equally’ (SC, II.iv.8/III.374). An act of the general will is ‘equitable because it is common to all, [and] useful because it can have no other object than the general welfare’ (SC, II.iv.8/III.375). The general will, that is, directs that society provide public goods, goods that are available to everyone—including those people, i.e. free riders, who enjoy the benefits without helping to bear their cost. The very nature of the general will, that is, generates the free rider problem: if a good that society provides is available at all it is available to me whether or not I pay my share. It follows, as Rousseau observes, that individuals increase their own immediate benefits if they ride free: they gain the goods provided by the general will plus the savings from withholding their contributions. Thus, the general will is an invitation to individuals dominated by private interest to become free riders. The logic of public goods and free riding was formalized by Mancur Olson (1971). Free riding results, in Olson’s words, if an individual’s ‘own efforts will not have a noticeable effect on the situation of his organization, and he can enjoy any improvements brought about by others whether or not he has worked in support of his organization’ (16). The implication of the free rider problem, for Olson, is that a group will tend to procure less of a public good than the members of the group actually want, that is, less than is ‘optimal’ for that group. He argues that This tendency toward suboptimality is due to the fact that a collective good is, by definition, such that other individuals in the group cannot be kept from consuming it once any individual in the group has provided it for himself. Since an individual member thus gets only part of the benefit of any expenditure he makes to obtain more of the collective good, he will discontinue his purchase of the collective good before the optimal amount for the group as a whole has been obtained. In addition, the amounts of the collective good that a member of the group receives free from the other members will further reduce his incentive to provide more of that good at his own expense. Accordingly, the larger the

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group, the farther it will fall short of providing an optimal amount of a collective good. (35) Although it is not to our purpose to consider this issue fully, in Olson’s view the size of a group is a crucial factor in its ability to provide itself with collective goods.19 More important to us is Olson’s central point: in the absence of some organized incentive among all members of a group to procure some public good, for example a penalty for non-cooperation, the group will receive less of the good than its members want. Thus, in our terms, free riding leads to political failure, in the form of society’s failure to provide the goods stipulated by its general will. The Prisoner’s Dilemma Another way of representing the enforcement problem makes use of the game theoretic problem of the Prisoner’s Dilemma. The dilemma grows out of the following hypothetical situation. Two men have committed an armed robbery together, and are being held for questioning by the police. Each faces a sentence of ten to fifteen years in jail. As it stands, the DA does not have enough evidence to convict either suspect for the robbery; a robbery conviction requires a confession from one or both. However, if neither suspect says anything the DA can convict both on lesser charges, which carry a sentence of three to six years. The prisoners have two options: staying silent, or confessing. Say the DA interviews the two players separately, and offers the following deal. ‘If you confess and your partner doesn’t I will ask for the minimum sentence on the lesser charges for you, but demand the maximum on the armed robbery for him. If both of you confess, you will both receive the minimum for the robbery. But if you don’t confess you will certainly get the maximum on the lesser charges. But you must make your decision without consulting with your partner.’ The situation is represented by Figure 1.5 (the sentence for Prisoner A is the first of each pair). This shows that the best outcome for the two players collectively results when they both remain silent; in this case they collectively serve twelve years in jail. This collectively optimal outcome requires that they cooperate with each other (despite their inability to communicate) in the sense that they both refuse to give information to the DA. The


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Figure 1.5

worst collective outcome results when they both ‘defect’ from cooperation by both confessing; in this case their collective sentence is twenty years. However, if one cooperates and the other defects, they receive payoffs which are, respectively, the best and worst for them individually. If Prisoner A cooperates, then, he runs the risk that Prisoner B will defect, leaving him with the ‘sucker’s payoff of fifteen years in jail. If he defects, however, and Prisoner B cooperates, Prisoner A gets the best possible payoff of only three years. It makes sense for Prisoner A to defect, therefore, to avoid his worst outcome and perhaps to receive his best outcome. But what applies to Prisoner A applies also to Prisoner B. That is, it makes sense for both prisoners in Prisoner’s Dilemma to defect rather than cooperate. As Robert Axelrod (1984) puts it, ‘No matter what the other does, defection yields a higher payoff than cooperation. The dilemma is that if both defect, both do worse than if both had cooperated’ (7–8).20 In the situation the DA has constructed, each prisoner concludes it is to his advantage to confess—even though the two collectively would benefit more if each stayed silent. 21 Thus, the situation where both prisoners defect is called the ‘equilibrium’ of their situation. Collective action as a Prisoner’s Dilemma Russell Hardin shows how the Prisoner’s Dilemma can be used to illustrate the threat to the general will posed by free riding (1982:25–7).22 Hardin sets up a game that takes place within a society of ten individuals, between one member, ‘Individual,’ and ‘Collective,’ the remaining nine group members. At stake is a public good that returns a benefit worth twice its cost. Each member’s personal payoff is the benefit he receives minus his share of the cost. But because the good is a public good, if it is

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distributed at all it is distributed equally to all members of the society—whether or not they have contributed toward its cost. Individual must decide whether to cooperate with Collective, that is contribute his share of cost of the public good, or instead to defect, that is withhold his contribution. Figure 1.6a shows the payoffs for all the possible situations (Individual’s payoff is the first figure in each pair, the second figure is the payoff for each member of Collective).

Figure 1.6a

Suppose Individual cooperates with Collective, so that all ten members of society spend one unit of cost, yielding a benefit of twenty. This is divided equally yielding a benefit to each member of two units. The personal payoff to each member is therefore one unit. But if Individual becomes a free rider by defecting, that is by withholding his share while everyone else contributes, the total cost spent is nine units, yielding a total benefit of eighteen units. But since the general will provides for public goods, this total benefit is still divided equally among all the members of society, Individual included. Thus the per capita benefit is 1.8 units. For the members of Collective, the payoff—benefit minus the cost—is 0.8 unit: somewhat worse than if Individual had cooperated. But since Individual has no cost, his payoff is 1.8 units—much better than if he had cooperated. Now Rousseau observes that the free rider’s ‘share of the common misfortune is as nothing in comparison with the exclusive benefit he hopes to appropriate to himself (SC, IV.i.6/ I I I.438). In the present example, the common misfortune is that society provides only eighteen units of the public good rather than twenty units; Individual’s share in the misfortune is his loss of 0.2 unit. This is indeed far less than one unit he gains for himself by not contributing. What if Collective defects? If Individual contributes one unit on his own, everyone in society receives 0.2 unit—a net


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loss of 0.8 unit for Individual. Of course if both Individual and Collective defect, that is if no one contributes, then no one receives anything. Inspection of the payoffs in Figure 1.6a shows that Individual has an incentive to become a free rider. Whichever action Collective takes, Individual does better by withholding his own contribution. Like the DA’s prisoners, he will always gain more by defecting than by cooperating. What determines Collective’s move? Hardin argues, ‘Since it is individuals who decide on actions, and since each member of the group sees the [situation] from the vantage of Individual, we can assume that Collective’s strategy will finally be whatever Individual’s strategy is, irrespective of what Collective’s payoffs suggest’ (1982:26). That is, Collective’s action is determined by its members, who each would take Individual’s point of view. Since Individual defects, so does Collective. Thus Individual and Collective are in a prisoner’s dilemma: the equilibrium of their situation is the case where both parties defect. Hardin’s analysis is based on his assumption of ‘narrow rationality,’ which he takes to mean being ‘efficient in securing one’s self-interest’ (1982:10). The form of self-interest at play in narrow rationality is what we have called private interest—whereby individuals seek to maximize their own satisfaction. The assumption that all the individuals in the present situation— Individual and all the members of Collective—act out of private interest entails that the provision of public goods turns out to be a prisoner’s dilemma. With private interest every member of society tries to do as well as possible for himself, hence adopts the outlook of Individual, hence withholds his contribution, resulting in the worst situation for everyone. In the terms of our argument, a society of individuals motivated by private interest would be doomed to political failure because they would be incapable of enforcing their general will. The sanction Rousseau argues that society has at its disposal a solution to the free riding problem. As we noted above, he calls for a sanction: ‘In order, therefore, that the social compact may not be a meaningless formality, it includes the tacit agreement, which alone can give force to the rest, that anyone who refuses to obey

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the general will shall be forced to do so by the whole body’ (SC, I.vii.8/ III.364). Part of obeying the general will is, of course, contributing towards its cost. W.G.Runciman and A.K.Sen regard the sanction as the way out of the Prisoner’s Dilemma— they argue that the prisoners ‘would both be ready to appoint an agent who would see to it that neither of them [defected]’ (1965:556). But Runciman and Sen identify the sovereign as a third party; an agent who acts on behalf of the prisoners to enforce their cooperation. This conception of sovereignty is closer to Hobbes’s than Rousseau’s. For Hobbes, a group of individuals collectively agree to submit to a Sovereign in order to ensure that no one defects from cooperation. For Rousseau as well the Sovereign is empowered to enforce cooperation—but the Sovereign consists of the members of society themselves. Rousseau considered the fact that society as a whole enforces cooperation to be essential to political success: this fact ‘alone gives legitimacy to civil obligations, which otherwise would be absurd, tyrannical, and subject to the gravest abuses’ (SC, I.vii.8/ I I I.364). 23 Runciman and Sen miss this distinctive feature of Rousseau’s view, hence they do not address the difficulty we shall raise in a moment—that applying the sanction is itself a collective action problem. The sanction would enter into the potential free rider’s calculation of his private interest, providing an incentive to abide by the general will by imposing a cost on opting out. Rousseau’s view is echoed in Olson’s theory, which holds that all large groups require a sanction to survive. Just as a state cannot support itself by voluntary contributions,…neither can other large organizations support themselves without providing some sanction,… that will lead individuals to help bear the burdens of maintaining the organization’ (Olson 1971:15–16). 24 To illustrate how a sanction would transform the collective action situation, imagine that the society of Figure 1.6a discovers a system whereby anyone who withholds is denied any of the public good, which is thus shared only by those who contribute. Figure 1.6b shows the resulting payoffs. Given these payoffs Individual is motivated to contribute in any event—whether Collective contributes or withholds. But again, since Collective is made of individuals, it will take the same course as Individual—therefore Collective will contribute. Thus, given a sanction, the equilibrium of the situation has b oth parties contributing, that is cooperating to enforce


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Figure 1.6b

the general will. This analysis of the sanction casts a different light on Rousseau’s famous declaration that free riders must be ‘forced to be free’ (SC, I.vii.8/III.364). Standardly this sinister-sounding expression is interpreted to mean that violators of the law are made to obey laws they have themselves framed—the definition of autonomy (SC, I.viii.3). We will consider this issue further in Chapter 6. But for now we can note that, on the analysis of Figure 1.6b, Individual can be said to be ‘forced to be free’ simply by the logic of his own private interest. As we noted, Rousseau insists that the sanction be applied by society as a whole. In Figure 1.6b, cooperation is the equilibrium because the payoff for withholding has been eliminated. However, Collective must take some coordinated action to deprive Individual of his ill-gotten gains if he rides free. But that action is itself a collective action problem for Collective. How do we explain their acting together to enforce the sanction? Might not a member of Collective withhold his contribution from the effort to sanction Individual? Reference to sanctions, in other words, does not solve the collective action problem, but only reproduces it for a marginally smaller group. ‘The creation and maintenance of the sanction system entail the prior or concurrent solution of collective action problems’ (Taylor 1987:22; see also Coleman (1990:270 ff.) and Douglas (1986:27–8)). The existence of a sanction, therefore, can only explain how one or two errant individuals can be punished; it presumes as a backdrop the continuing enforcement of the general will. Thus, it would be circular to appeal to the sanction to explain how the general will is enforced—since the general will must be enforced for society to apply the sanction. Rousseau was indeed aware of a circle lurking in his view—thus he claims that for political life to begin, ‘the effect would have to become the cause’ (SC, II.vii.9/III.383). In the present discussion, the sanction is the effect of political cooperation, but it would be

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needed to get cooperation under way. As we shall see in Chapter 3, Rousseau argues for the necessity of a non-rational appeal—to religious awe—to get this cycle started. Civic virtue The foregoing attempt to explain the enforcement of the general will in terms of a sanction shared the conception of self-interest at work in Hardin’s analysis of the collective action problem: both assumed that the members of society are motivated by private interest. But, for Rousseau, private interest is the source of the problem—as long as men are motivated by private interest, they will be subject to political failure. The only prospect for political success, on his view, is if the members of society act out of civic virtue. Only then will they be able to enforce their general will collectively. How does civic virtue solve the enforcement problem? Let us reconsider the situation of Figure 1.6a, on the assumption that all the members of society are civically virtuous—and that they all know this fact about themselves. As we shall see, on this assumption the situation of Figure 1.6a turns out not to be a Prisoner’s Dilemma. Above we defined civic virtue as an impersonal attitude of detachment toward one’s own wants. With civic virtue individuals by no means seek to frustrate their own wants—but they do not accord them special significance above the wants of others. Thus, the civically virtuous individual is motivated not by considerations of personal advantage, but rather by a conception of himself as similar to others in society. This self-conception has two consequences for the civically virtuous individual’s approach to collective action—as we can see if we contrast the ways a privately interested individual and a civically virtuous individual would regard the payoff structure. The privately interested individual compares the payoffs for Individual in each column in the table: given an action by Collective, he seeks the action for Individual that will return the greater benefit. Thus he notes that he will always do 0.8 units better withholding than contributing. It follows, then, that the privately interested individual has no incentive to cooperate—his incentive is instead to ride free. By contrast, the civically virtuous individual compares the payoffs for Individual and Collective within each payoff pair. The first consequence of his conception of


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himself as similar to the other members of society is that he seeks outcomes in which everyone in society, himself included, does equally well. That is, he seeks outcomes in which his payoff as Individual is equal to the payoffs for the members of Collective— he maximizes his own benefits not at the expense of others but by maximizing the benefits of all, himself included. Thus, he does not seek to do better than others, as represented by the payoff pair in the lower left-hand box, where the free rider gets one unit more than anyone else. But neither is he altruistic—he does not act against his own interest by heroically contributing on his own, with the payoffs shown in the upper right-hand box. Rather, he is drawn to the upper left-hand box (if Collective contributes), and to the lower right-hand box (if Collective withholds), where his payoffs as Individual are the same as everyone else’s. Thus, the civically virtuous individual is disposed to do what everyone else does—the second consequence of his conception of himself as similar to the other members of society.25 Which choice, then, will he make—to contribute or withhold? His choice depends on the choice he expects Collective to make. How can he predict Collective’s move? On the assumption of similarity, Individual will conclude that everyone else will reach the same understanding of the situation that he does—hence, he can conclude that if he has reason to contribute then everyone has reason to contribute. His confidence that others will make the same choice, therefore, coupled with his maximizing impulse to have some benefit rather than none (as long as it is shared), gives him reason to contribute (though he has reason only if he is certain others will see the situation the same way he does, hence will contribute). But since every member of society reaches the same conclusion, it follows that Collective will also contribute. Therefore, on the assumption that everyone involved is civically virtuous, and knows each other to be civically virtuous, the situation is not a prisoner’s dilemma: the equilibrium of the situation is the case where all parties cooperate. My argument here follows the lines of Anatol Rapoport’s resolution of the Prisoner’s Dilemma: Instead of taking as the basis of calculations the question ‘Where am I better off?’ suppose each prisoner starts with the following basic assumption: ‘My partner is like me. Therefore he is likely to act like me. If I conclude that I should confess, he

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will probably also conclude the same. If I conclude that I should not confess, this is the way he probably thinks.’ (1960:175) That is, on the assumption of similarity, which Rapoport links with the Kantian categorical imperative (370, n. 51), each prisoner grasps the implications of the rules of the game. Thus, each realizes that under the full set of circumstances he will do better by cooperating—hence, there is no dilemma. The dilemma materializes when each prisoner seeks the best possible outcome for himself alone, whatever the other might do. We can observe, in this light, that an individual motivated by private interest must assume that he is dissimilar from everyone else. For, if he thought that everyone sought their own advantage, he would see that the outcome of the situation would be that he does not receive any benefits. In effect, private interest relies on civic virtue—as Rousseau puts it, the vicious man, who is dedicated to private interest, nonetheless loves virtue, unquestionably; but he loves it in others because he hopes to profit from it. He wants none of it for himself because it would be costly to him’ (LdA, 24/GF, 77–8). On the assumption, then, that it is common knowledge among the members of society that they are all motivated by civic virtue, we can conclude that they will indeed cooperate to enforce their general will. The enforcement problem, generated by private interest, can be solved by civic virtue. As we saw with the formulation problem, if its members are motivated by civic virtue, society will avoid political failure. But while civic virtue is possible, Rousseau admits that private interest is more likely. Private interest has immediate, personal appeal to individuals; civic virtue, which distances individuals from their own wants, must be nurtured. For Rousseau, where civic virtue is present, it is a product of culture—though, of course, culture can likewise exacerbate self-interestedness. Culture of the wrong sort creates self-interested individuals for whom free riding is inevitable, hence for whom successful political life is unattainable. But culture of the proper sort creates individuals who face political cooperation with a sense of membership in and loyalty to a group. On these conditions free riding will not pose the threat of political failure through failure to enforce the general will. For we can assume that the group that applies the sanction on one or two errant members is cohesive enough that we do not


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have to ask, as we did above, what guarantees that they can successfully take this collective action. A culture that instills civic virtue, in sum, promotes political success. AN OVERVIEW OF POLITICAL FAILURE Let us conclude with an overview of the varieties of political failure. In this chapter we have traced the taxonomy of political failure based on Rousseau’s conception of the general will. By understanding the obstacles society must overcome to avoid political failure, we gain a full understanding of the concept of political success. Figure 1.7 uses the taxonomy to represent the conceptual structure of political success as a series of forks on a path. Each fork represents a condition society must meet to attain success; in general, society’s ability to meet the condition is determined by the form of self-interest of its members. If a condition is not met, and society follows the left-hand fork, it fails in the manner indicated; if the condition is met, society must then face the next test. There are two broad stages in the whole procedure: the stage during which society attempts to formulate its general will, and then the stage during which society’s general will must be enforced. Political failure can occur at either stage—political success requires both the formulation and the enforcement of the general will. At Step 1, if individuals are motivated by selfishness, society will fail before it begins; such individuals could not enter into a social contract. To proceed, the individuals must have socialized self-interest. Socialized self-interest in the first instance is selfdirected, hence we have called it private interest. But socialized individuals have the potential for moral self-interest, which we have called civic virtue. The second step is not so much a matter of motivation as of the distribution of wants. If individuals’ wants diverge too widely there simply is no common good they can collectively pursue. Presuming, however, that their wants are marked by a large number of small differences, they face the test, at Step 3, of deciding on a social choice that aims at their common good. If, at Step 3, the members of society were motivated by private interest, they would break up into factions organized around particular intensely held wants. But if they were motivated by civic virtue they would bargain over all their wants, and would succeed at formulating a social choice that expresses their general will.

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Figure 1.7

At Step 4, the private interest of the members of the government might lead them to usurp the sovereign authority; a lack of civic virtue on the part of the citizens would prevent them from putting up a fight. But if the government carries out its mandate to enforce the general will, society faces a final test at Step 5. Here, individuals motivated by private interest would be tempted to become free riders, maximizing their personal


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satisfaction by evading their responsibility to aid in enforcing the general will. A handful of free riders could be restrained by the rest of society, who would impose a sanction. These individuals, we would have to assume, are themselves motivated by civic virtue—individuals who conceive of their best advantage in terms of maximizing the benefits shared by all of society. Civic virtue, that is, enables society to enforce the general will, hence reach the goal of political success. In sum, the dominant form of self-interest of its members determines a society’s ability to formulate, and then enforce, its general will. Its culture, in turn, determines the dominant form of self-interest of a society’s members. Thus, Rousseau holds, a society’s culture determines whether it will suffer political failure, or enjoy political success. For, he argues, their participation in culture shapes individuals’ wills: the cultural practices and institutions in which individuals are raised and live inculcate the fundamental attitude toward their wants that constitutes their motivational structure. This insight is hardly original to Rousseau; he acknowledged—indeed relished—his debt to ancient political thought. However, he provides a detailed theory to explain the link between culture and politics. We have seen, in this chapter, the lever with which culture affects political life: the self-interest of society’s members. We will, in Chapters 4 and 5, consider Rousseau’s account of how different sorts of cultural practices and institutions foster private interest or civic virtue. But first, to learn how it is possible that culture can have a political effect, we must explain the underlying processes by which culture gives specific form to man’s fundamental self-interest. What psychological mechanisms are at work? How is it possible for different forms of self-interest to develop? Underlying Rousseau’s theory is an account that holds human psychology to be plastic: an account that explains how human psychology changes in tandem with developments in social life. The foundation of his thinking about the political impact of culture, in other words, is an account of human nature, which asserts that human nature has a history. Thus, before we take up Rousseau’s political theory of culture, let us consider his history of human nature.

Chapter 2

The state of nature

In Chapter 1 we explored how different forms of self-interest— private interest and civic virtue—affect political life. We considered self-interest purely in terms of the attitude an individual takes toward his wants, since this attitude determines the manner in which he will try to maximize his satisfaction. That is, we considered self-interest in the abstract—apart from the psychological mechanisms that mold human motivation. Let us now begin to explore how, on Rousseau’s view, different forms of self-interest take shape, given the facts of human nature. Rousseau’s theory of human nature is developmental. Human nature, he holds, undergoes a fundamental transformation as human beings, whose original way of life is solitary, come to live together in societies. Indeed, by his own assessment, his work constituted the first true history of human nature.1 This history of human nature is spread out across Rousseau’s works. The central text is the Second Discourse, ‘On the Origin of Inequality.’ The Second Discourse is an account of the emergence of society out of the state of nature, and the attendant transformations in the constitution of individuals (see Lovejoy (1948)). Rousseau argues that man has changed in ways that are both causes and effects of changes in his social environment. It follows that the state of human nature and the concurrent state of society each reflect back images of the other. The images presented in the Second Discourse are fairly bleak—Rousseau’s purpose was to condemn what he felt was the worst of his own society’s ills, inequality. In other works, however, he offered a more hopeful view. Thus, in The Social Contract and the Discourse on Political Economy he shows what human nature could—indeed, would have to—be like to support a just political order. Again there is a correspondence between human 76

The state of nature

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nature and society. But here he projects a different path along which human nature could develop from its original state. Thus, Rousseau’s history of human nature embraces two accounts. On the one hand, he shows how man must have changed in the course of the development of society as it is—the domain of political failure. On the other, he shows how man would have to change in the course of development of society as it could be—the domain of political success. I will use the two expressions ‘society as it is’ and ‘society as it could be’ as terms to refer to these alternative destinations for man’s social evolution. The relation between the two accounts Rousseau offers is a complicated issue. Some readers have taken the accounts to be successive, that is, they have held that the good society could grow out of the ashes of society as it is. 2 However, I shall treat the first account as descriptive (if speculative), and the second as frankly normative—perhaps, Utopian. The normative account presents a possible alternative to actual society, hence functions as a standpoint from which actual society may be judged and criticized. In Jean Starobinski’s words, ‘Such a hypothetical society is not subject to the inevitable historical misfortune that condemned actual humanity

Figure 2.1

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to fall into an irrevocable state of corruption. It is, rather, an ideal model against which corrupt society can be judged’ (1988:30; see also Shklar (1985: Ch. 1) on Rousseau’s use of Utopian thought as a mode of social criticism). The two alternative paths for society—the ‘fall’ into actual society, and the possible ascent to ideal society—cover some of the same ground before they diverge. Figure 2.1 illustrates their basic relation, and the dominant forms of self-interest at each phase. The two paths have the same point of origin: the pre-social state of nature. And they run concurrently through the gradual development of nascent society, wherein people live communally, but without an established political structure. Nascent society begins with the golden age Rousseau describes in the Second Discourse, and continues, as a result of some ‘fatal accident,’ through the emergence of an economy based on the division of labor between farmers and manufacturers (II.18/III.171). The two accounts differ over what happens next. The descriptive account shows how nascent society breaks down into a state of war that ends only with the adoption of a fraudulent social contract. The normative account shows how the ideal society could develop out of nascent society under the guidance of a figure like the Legislator of The Social Contract. As human nature develops at each stage of social development there is a corresponding development of self-interest. The transition from nature to nascent society witnesses the shedding of selfishness and the emergence of socialized self-interest. The descriptive account traces the intensification of socialized self-interest into private interest. The normative account shows how it is possible for society to cultivate the alternative to private interest, civic virtue. In this chapter we shall trace the first part of the history, through the beginning of nascent society. In Chapter 3 we shall continue through the end of nascent society, and then go on to trace the diverging paths to society as it is and society as it could be. THE STATE OF NATURE The abstract individual The point of origin for Rousseau’s developmental account of the individual is the state of nature. The state of nature is, for Rousseau, a conceptual device—its status is frankly speculative. It

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is ‘a state which no longer exists, which perhaps never did exist, which probably never will exist’ (DI, Preface.4/ I I I.123). Its function in his theory is to reveal men shorn of their socially acquired characteristics. By his own account in the Confessions, in the Second Discourse Rousseau ‘dared to strip man’s nature naked,…and compar[ed] man as he had made himself with man as he is by nature [l’homme de l’homme avec l’homme naturel]’ (C, VIII, 362/ I.388). The state of nature is thus an imagined setting in which Rousseau places natural man. In the state of nature we see man ‘such as he must have issued from the hands of Nature’ (DI, I.2/ III.134). At this juncture men stand at the end of one process, and at the beginning of another. They have just been formed by the physical process of nature; Rousseau presumes that the human species evolved from something more primitive, but disclaims, on scientific grounds, the ability to recount the evolution in detail: ‘Comparative Anatomy has as yet made too little progress, the observations of Naturalists are as yet too uncertain to permit establishing the basis of a solid argument’ (DI, I.1/III.134). But the crucial point is that men have not yet begun to live in societies. Thus, they have not yet undergone any of the changes that will be wrought in human nature by social existence. Rousseau assumes, that is, that the initial creation of human nature takes place outside of any kind of social nexus—up to this stage of evolution, individuals have developed independently of one another. Although, as we shall soon see, Rousseau held that in succeeding rounds of development human nature is decisively influenced by other individuals and society as a whole, it is crucial to recognize that, for him, the zero point of evolution is non-social. In sum, he uses the state of nature to present human nature in its original condition: given by nature, unaltered by society. Rousseau’s conception of the individual thus begins with what is called abstract individualism. In the words of Steven Lukes, abstract individualism holds that the relevant features of individuals…whether these features are called instincts, faculties, needs, desires, rights, etc., are assumed as given, independently of a social context. This givenness of fixed and invariant human psychological features leads to an abstract conception of the individual who is seen as

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merely the bearer of those features, which determine his behavior, and specify his interests, needs and rights. (1973:73) Lukes points to Hobbes as the clearest exponent of abstract individualism, citing his remark that the elements of society are ‘men as if but even now sprung out of the earth, and suddenly, like mushrooms, come to full maturity, without all kind of engagement to each other’ (Lukes 1973:77).3 In Hobbes’s eye social life is indeed extrinsic to individuals. He argues against the traditional conception, handed down from antiquity, that man is social by nature. ‘They who shall more narrowly look into the causes for which men come together, and delight in each other’s company, shall easily find that this happens not because naturally it could happen no otherwise, but by accident…. We do not therefore by nature seek society for its own sake, but that we may receive some honour or profit from it; these we desire primarily, that secondarily’ (Hobbes 1991:111 (I,2)). Hobbes denies, that is, that human beings are innately social. Men come together only by accident, to satisfy urges that pre-exist any human intercourse. Thus Hobbes treats human nature as a given—as something fixed that individuals bring to their interactions with one another. The selfish and aggressive inhabitant of Hobbes’s state of nature exemplifies fixed human traits. Leviathan does not alter these traits, but merely holds them in check. In sum Hobbes conceives human nature in abstraction from society; his assignment of unpleasant characteristics to human beings in the state of nature reveals his belief that these characteristics are part of man’s natural endowment. Rousseau was highly critical of Hobbes’s depiction of human beings in the state of nature—to his eye Hobbes’s picture was not abstract enough. That is, Rousseau holds that Hobbes did not go far enough in stripping away socially given qualities from the inhabitants of the state of nature: Hobbes’s supposedly natural man is in fact replete with socially determined characteristics. With Hobbes his obvious target Rousseau argues that ‘The Philosophers who have examined the foundations of society have all felt the necessity of going back as far as the state of nature, but none of them has reached it…. All of them, continually speaking of need, greed, oppression, desires, and pride transferred to the state of Nature ideas they had taken from society; they spoke of Savage Man and depicted Civil Man’ (DI, Exordium.5/ III. 132).

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For instance, how could human beings even imagine what honor is, let alone desire it, if they had no stable relations with others? Rousseau intuits that Hobbes’s claim that men come together into society in order to gain honor involves a circle. Rousseau’s critique of Hobbes, in other words, is that he attributed to natural man qualities that are found only in social man. ‘Honor, interest, prejudice, vengeance, all the passions that make [natural man] defy perils and death, are far from him in the state of nature. It is only after having entered into society with other men that he resolves to attack another; and he does not become a soldier until after he has become a citizen’ (SW, III.601–2). Rousseau criticizes Locke on similar grounds. Locke holds that men and women naturally become mates for the purpose of rearing children. In his Notes to the Second Discourse, Rousseau quotes Locke’s argument from the Second Treatise. ‘“The end of society between Male and Female,” says this philosopher, “being not barely procreation, but the continuation of the species; this society ought to last, even after procreation, so long as is necessary to the nourishment and support of the young ones”’ (DI, Note XI I.1/ II I.214, citing Locke, ST, VI I.79). Rousseau holds that Locke is mistaken, because in assuming that primitive men and women could even remember each other from day to day he presumes too great a development of their mental capacities. Locke’s argument therefore collapses, and all of that Philosopher’s Dialectic has not protected him against the error Hobbes and others committed. They had to explain a fact of the state of Nature, that is to say of a state where men lived isolated, and where one particular man had no motive whatsoever to remain near some other particular man…; and it did not occur to them to transport themselves beyond the Centuries of Society, that is to say beyond those times when men have a reason to remain close to one another. (DI, NoteXII.7/III.218) Rousseau’s complaint—that his predecessors did not transport themselves beyond the Centuries of Society—is, in effect, that they were not successful in their attempt to abstract human nature from society. He insists that the process of abstraction be carried even farther. Although he is modest in his evaluation of his own success, he clearly believes his criticism of previous thinkers is

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decisive. ‘Let my Readers therefore not imagine that I dare flatter myself with having seen what seems to me so difficult to see. I have initiated some arguments; I have hazarded some conjectures, less in the hope of resolving the question than with the intention of elucidating it and reducing it to its true state’ (DI, Preface.4/ III. 123). In its true state the question is concerned with the nature of the completely abstract individual: human nature as it exists apart from any social experience. Rousseau’s assessment of his own work is that he has clearly enunciated the criterion of adequacy for his theory of human nature: it must reach back to pre-social humanity, that is it must be fully abstract. The conjecture Rousseau hazards is indeed highly abstract. He resolves human nature into two basic principles: self-preservation and pity. Disregarding all the scientific books that only teach us to see men as they have made themselves, and meditating on the first and simplest operations of the human Soul, I believe I perceive in it two principles prior to reason, of which one interests us intensely in our well-being and our self-preservation, and the other inspires in us a natural repugnance at seeing any sentient Being, and especially any being like ourselves, perish or suffer. (DI, Preface.9/III.125–6) It is not important for us whether Rousseau is correct to believe he has winnowed out the truly non-social elements in human nature. For our purposes it is sufficient to recognize that the instinct for self-preservation and pity are the ingredients of the psychological picture Rousseau offers of life in the state of nature. 4 Let us examine these two principles in turn. Amour de soi Rousseau refers to the instinct for self-preservation as amour de soi; this is ‘a natural sentiment which inclines every animal to attend to its self-preservation’ (DI, Note XV.1/III.219). That is, Rousseau explains the impulse it is universally accepted all creatures have for survival in terms of a psychological motive: self-love. Amour de soi is one of two forms of self-love; the other is amour propre, which is standardly translated as vanity. Because these terms are fundamental to Rousseau’s theory, and they make a distinction

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difficult to render easily into English, I will leave them untranslated. We will consider amour propre more fully below; for now, we can note that it is based on comparisons one person makes between himself and others—an ability lacking in the state of nature. For Rousseau, ‘in our primitive state, in the genuine state of nature, Vanity does not exist; For since every individual human being views himself as the only Spectator to observe him,…it is not possible that a sentiment which originates in comparisons he is not capable of making, could spring up in his soul’ (DI, Note XV.2/III.219). Thus, Rousseau concludes, the only form of self-love present in the state of nature is amour de soi. As Allan Bloom observes, ‘Rousseau, instead of opposing love of self to love of others, opposes two kinds of self-love, a good and bad form. Thus without abandoning the view of modern political philosophy that man is primarily concerned with himself— particularly his own preservation—he is enabled to avoid Hobbes’ conclusion that men, as a result of their selfishness, are necessarily in competition with one another’ (Notes to E, 484, n. 17). That is, Rousseau rebuts the view that the instinct for self-preservation— self-love—would prompt individuals to attack one another. He denies Hobbes’s view that human beings are innately aggressive by denying the argument that self-love motivates aggression. Hobbes’s mistake was to overestimate what would be needed for self-preservation in the state of nature: he has ‘improperly included in Savage man’s care for his preservation the need to satisfy a multitude of passions that are the product of Society and have made Laws necessary’ (DI, I.35/III.153). Amour de soi, by contrast, motivates the indifference to one another that makes life in the state of nature asocial. For, amour de soi constitutes a form of emotional autonomy—each individual is his own source of self-worth. A person characterized by amour de soi has no motive for looking beyond himself: ‘His soul, which nothing stirs, yields itself wholly to the sentiment of its present existence’ (DI, I.21/ III.144). Amour de soi is not, according to Rousseau, completely left behind when man emerges from the state of nature. It is an enduring element of human nature, present in every individual from birth. In Emile, which is concerned with the individual’s development in society, Rousseau still maintains that amour de soi is directed towards self-preservation. ‘Our passions are the principal instruments of our preservation…. The source of our passions, the origin and principle of all the others, the only

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one born with man and which never leaves him so long as he lives is amour de soi—a primitive, innate passion, which is anterior to every other, and of which all others are only modifications’ (E, IV, 212–13/ IV.490–91). The main modification of amour de soi Rousseau has in mind is amour propre, the engendering of which is concurrent with man’s emergence out of the state of nature. Thus, as we shall see below, though amour de soi persists through the evolution of human nature, it persists in an evolved form. Pity The second fundamental principle at work in human nature is pity. Pity is coeval with amour de soi; they are ‘the first and simplest operations of the human Soul’ (DI, Preface.9/III.125). Despite natural man’s solitary existence, he is not totally incapable of feeling for other human beings. Rousseau maintains that amour de soi is balanced by pity, which ‘having been given to man in order under certain circumstances to soften the ferociousness of his amour propre, or of the desire for self-preservation prior to the birth of that love [that is, of amour de soi], tempers his ardor for wellbeing with an innate repugnance to see his kind suffer’ (DI, I.36/ III.154). In fact Rousseau extends the range of pity to all sentient beings, deducing that ‘if I am obliged not to harm another being like myself, it is less because that being is rational than because it is sentient; a quality which, since it is common to beast and man, must at least give the beast the right not to be uselessly maltreated by man’ (DI, Preface. 10/III.128). But the circumstances in which pity operates against self-love are those where one’s own preservation is not immediately threatened: ‘it is pity which will keep any sturdy Savage from robbing a weak child or an infirm old man of his hard-won subsistence if he hopes he can find his own elsewhere’ (DI, I.38/III.156). Rousseau explains pity as a form of immediate imaginative identification with another sentient creature: ‘commiseration is nothing but a sentiment that puts us in the place of him who suffers’ (DI, I.37/ I I I.155; see also E, IV, 223/ IV.505). Commentators have observed an inconsistency in Rousseau’s view on this point.5 Pity involves an act of imagination: ‘Pity, although natural to man’s heart, would remain forever inactive without imagination to set it in motion’ (EL, 9.2/D, 93). Yet Rousseau declares the faculty of imagination to be beyond the abilities of

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natural man; it is developed only in social life (DI, I.21). Thus pity ought not to be possible in the state of nature. Rousseau seems to have been aware of this problem; he insists that commiseration is ‘obscure and lively in Savage man, developed but weak in Civil man’ (DI, I.37/ III.155). That is, although civil man’s powers of imagination are stronger, natural man has a more immediate and effective sense of identification with another creature’s suffering. Rousseau introduces pity in the context of his argument against Hobbes—he claims that in asserting that man is naturally ferocious, Hobbes has ignored the action of pity in preventing human b eings from gratuitously injuring each other. On Hobbes’s view, nothing would prevent individuals’ efforts at selfpreservation from destroying humanity as a species. ‘Who can imagine without trembling the insane system of the natural war of each against all? What an extraordinary animal, who would believe his good is attached to the destruction of his entire species! And who can conceive that this species, so monstrous and so detestable, could last even two generations?’ (SW, III.611). Pity accounts for the survival of the species in the face of individuals’ efforts at self-preservation: ‘pity is a natural sentiment which, by moderating in every individual the activity of amour de soi, contributes to the mutual preservation of the entire species’ (DI, I.38/ III.156). Rousseau thus uses pity to explain why human beings in the state of nature do not kill each other off—it substitutes in Rousseau’s theory for the sentiment of sociability. The belief that human beings are endowed with a disposition towards social existence was firmly rooted in the natural law tradition Rousseau knew and criticized (see Derathé (1970:142–51)). Rousseau denied that sociability was part of humanity’s natural constitution: it is ‘clear from how little care Nature has taken to bring Men together through mutual needs…how little it prepared their Sociability, and how little of its own it has contributed to all that men have done to establish the bonds of Sociability’ (DI, I.33/III.151). Masters argues that Rousseau’s rejection of sociability is grounded in his attempt to approach his subject scientifically: ‘natural sociability is unnecessary—and thus scientifically undesirable—as an assumption; since some animal species preserve themselves without social cooperation, there is no need to postulate from the outset that sociability is indispensable to human survival’ (1968:143).

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Though pity, like sociability, serves to explain the survival of the species, the two function in an entirely different way. As Victor Goldschmidt argues, sociability pushes men toward each other, enjoining them to aggregate and unite; it makes them feel the inconvenience and misery of solitude and teaches them these two complementary truths: 1) society is absolutely necessary to man; and 2) man is constitutionally well-suited to society. Pity, by contrast, maintains solitude and isolation: it only appears in action at the moment of a meeting or a confrontation; yet it must be added that it does nothing to provoke one or the other. (1974:340, citing Burlamaqui) That is, sociability acts to preserve the species by bringing people together, by making them feel a need for each other. By contrast, pity presumes that people will not normally encounter one another; it achieves the same result of preserving the species by ensuring that such encounters as do occur are generally peaceful. For Rousseau, then, amour de soi and pity are what remain when the traits due to social existence are abstracted away from peoplethese are the characteristics of abstract individuals. Rousseau insists that the state of nature is populated with these abstract individuals: men whose only feelings are an elemental love of self, and a reluctance to injure others. Rousseau could not maintain his commitment to abstract individualism within the state of nature without adopting the view that pity is an innate—that is pre-social—psychological attribute. For, pity is necessary to fill the theoretical gap left by the denial of natural sociability: it ensures that Rousseau’s theory accounts for the survival of man in the state of nature beyond two generations. Amour de soi, restrained by pity, underlies the form of selfinterest found in nature—selfishness. Rousseau conceives of man, like other animals, as ‘nothing but an ingenious machine to which nature has given senses in order to wind itself up and, to a point, protect itself against everything that tends to destroy or disturb it’ (DI, I.15/I I I.141). Rousseau adds that man is unique among animals in that ‘the human machine…contributes to his operations in his capacity as free agent’ (ibid.). However, Rousseau holds that in nature man’s will is simply a response to immediate stimuli. ‘Savage Man…will then begin with purely animal functions: to

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perceive and to sense will be his first state, which he will have in common with all animals. To will and not to will, to desire and to fear, will be the first and almost the only operations of his soul’ (DI, I.18/III.142–3). Thus, under amour de soi the relation between an individual’s efforts and wants is, so to speak, a closed system: he responds only to his immediate physical wants, and only with the amount of effort required to satisfy them. Hence, in general, he could not conceive having his efforts result in someone else’s satisfaction. Pity constitutes an apparent exception to selfishness; natural man will extend himself to alleviate another’s suffering. But, Rousseau holds, such cases are unusual—and in them natural man responds to the other’s wants because he feels them as if they were his own. That is, in acting out of pity, natural man acts as if he were acting for himself. Natural man, therefore, is selfish: he regards his own efforts solely in terms of his own wants. It is true that Rousseau argues that pity inspires ‘natural goodness,’ defined by the maxim ‘Do your good with the least possible harm to others’ (DI, I.38/III.156). But though natural man exemplifies natural goodness, it is not inconsistent to call him selfish also. For natural goodness does not require men to extend themselves to each other, merely that they do not act maliciously. We can conclude that they are thus psychologically incapable of the ongoing compromises necessary to political cooperation; by definition, natural man is not yet prepared for society. NASCENT SOCIETY Rousseau explicitly counters Hobbes’s view on the constitution of human psychology in the state of nature: the presence of pity makes the state of nature generally peaceful, not a state of war. And Rousseau explicitly declares Hobbes’s conception of primitive men to be insufficiently abstract: he holds that the aggressive pursuit of honor and profit are the products, not the conditions, of social life. Implicit in Rousseau’s attack on Hobbes is a belief that is fundamental to his entire project: the belief that human nature is mutable. Rousseau argues that Hobbes imagines men in the state of nature to be the same as men of his own time—that is, Hobbes holds that men have not, in their most fundamental characteristics, changed in the intervening ages. Indeed, implicit in Hobbes’s projection of the current constitution of human nature into the

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past is the denial of the possibility that human nature can vary. The root flaw in Hobbes’s theory, for Rousseau, is that Hobbes believes human nature to be fixed, a given that remains unchanged through all the changing conditions of human life. In Rousseau’s view, of course, human nature changes in ways that correspond to changes in the conditions of human life. Indeed men start out as abstract individuals—in the state of nature. In the state of nature men are the products of purely natural processes: their psychological characteristics are not the result of their relations with others. While the state of nature persists, men have only limited contacts with others, and their psychology remains the same. However, Rousseau allows for the gradual evolution of human nature. Over the course of time, the conditions of life change—specifically, men come together to live in societies. There is a corresponding change in men’s psychology, changes which in turn reinforce the process of socialization. Social life transforms human nature, creating a different kind of creature than existed previously. The changes wrought by social life are precisely what Rousseau intends to chart in his history of human nature. Let us now take up that history at its second phase—the phase Rousseau describes as nascent society. This is the period in which man emerges from the state of nature, but does not yet enter civil society. Thus, it in turn issues into a moment of opportunity in human history: the point from which humanity can either fall into the degradation of contemporary society or follow the path to the ideal society of Rousseau’s political imagination. The growth of human psychology during this epoch is therefore of particular importance—more so even than is the psychology found in the state of nature. For, men of this period are, properly speaking, the material out of which civil society is constituted. Man in the state of nature is incapable of society; he must therefore evolve before society—good or bad—can appear. This evolution must produce socialized self-interest, in virtue of which men are able to cooperate. Thus, it must bring into being the underlying psychological trait that permits them to live in society—amour propre. Let us now consider what changes in human life are responsible for stimulating amour propre, and thereby for leading man into nascent society. In Chapter 3 we will continue the story by tracing the developments that take man through the end of nascent society into civil society proper.

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The establishment of families Rousseau sees the crucial shift in man’s way of life arriving with the creation of fixed shelters. ‘Ceasing to fall asleep underneath the first tree or to withdraw into Caves, they found they could use hard, sharp stones as hatchets to cut wood, dig up earth, and make huts of branches which it later occurred to them to daub with clay and mud’ (DI, II.11/III.167). With the invention of tools and the construction of dwellings, men leave their natural condition. As Joel Schwartz observes, ‘The invention of the permanent habitation is itself a departure from the state of nature. A dwelling cannot strictly speaking be deemed natural, because it is not truly necessary; humans previously did without them’ (1984:24). We must note that the construction of permanent dwellings presumes a mental capacity Rousseau explicitly denies to man in the state of nature: foresight. No one would go to the trouble of constructing a dwelling without some idea of future benefit. Thus, the first step out of the state of nature is predicated on the growth of man’s mental capacity, at least to the extent that he can envision the future. Rousseau does not explain just how man’s intellect improves; he assumes it as the result of an imperceptible process of development that he covers in a flash (DI, II.10). Rousseau cites as a consequence of man’s settling in fixed dwellings the establishment of family life. In reviewing his criticism of Locke above, we noted that Rousseau denies that men live together in families in the state of nature. He held that humans do not take lifelong mates, nor do children remain with their mothers beyond the time they can survive on their own (DI, I.25/ III. 147). However, the way of life that centers on living in dwellings prompts a change in man’s psychology. ‘The first developments of the heart were the effect of a new situation that brought husbands and Wives, Fathers and Children together in a common dwelling; the habit of living together gave rise to the sweetest sentiments known to man, conjugal love and Paternal love. Each family became a small Society, all the better united as mutual attachment and freedom were its only bonds’ (DI, II.12/ III.168).6 That is, men now experience feelings that simply did not occur in the state of nature. These feelings spark a change in behavior—people come to prefer life in family groups to their previous solitary existence. We will shortly consider other psychological changes that stem

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from the establishment of fixed dwellings. Let us first make a brief observation regarding Rousseau’s views of the family. Rousseau’s introduction of the family into human history is, to say the least, quite abrupt. In his account of the construction of huts he does not claim that they were built by family groups—as reasonable as this may seem—presumably because he wants to claim that families are the result, not the cause, of living in dwellings. Yet he casually mentions that a man who possessed a hut would not try to appropriate his neighbor’s, because ‘he could not get hold of it without risking a very lively fight with the family that occupied it’ (DI, II.11/III.167). That is, Rousseau apparently presumes that family life would follow immediately after the construction of dwellings—but he does not explain why the solitary individuals of the state of nature would suddenly agree to live under the same roof long enough for the sweet sentiments of family love to take hold. A plausible explanation might be that men gradually learned that there are times when even selfishness is served by cooperating with others. Rousseau argues that natural man is capable of occasional cooperative enterprises, like a deer hunt, when he would unite with others ‘in a herd, or at most in some kind of free association that obligated no one and lasted only as long as the transitory need that had formed it’ (DI, II.8/III.166). We might imagine that constructing a dwelling could be one such cooperative project. Thus, dwellings would be initially occupied by a group of people whose ties were loose: each stayed in the hut only to fulfill his own desire for shelter. Once the group had spent time together, however, their motivations might change, as they began to experience family feeling. In particular, stable mating pairs of men and women could emerge, resulting in cohesive families. However, Rousseau eschews any such explanation, instead stipulating that family life would immediately and naturally evolve along the lines he suggests. These lines involve the assumption that men and women—who had lived identically in the state of nature—would now live differently. ‘Women became more sedentary and grew accustomed to looking after the Hut and Children, while the man went in quest of the common subsistence’ (DI, II. 12/III.168). Feminist critics have argued that the arbitrary quality of Rousseau’s account of the family, and the differing roles it assigns to men and women, are symptoms of his underlying sexism. As Susan Moller Okin puts it,

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This division of labor, of course, meant that the entire female half of the species was no longer self-sufficient, and since it had been this very self-sufficiency which had been the guarantee of the freedom and equality that characterized the original state of nature, one might expect, though one will not find, some commentary on the inequality which has thus been established…. The important thing to note at this point is that the assumption of patriarchy is not remarked on by Rousseau as constituting an inequality between two adult human beings. Clearly the human inequality with whose origins the discourse is concerned is solely the inequality between one male and another. (1979:113)7 I will not address more fully Rousseau’s (standardly derogatory) views of women, nor his commitment to the patriarchal nuclear family structure.8 It is enough to note that his assumption that the patriarchal family is inevitable in man’s progress out of the state of nature is redolent of the same error he attributes to Locke and Hobbes. He claims that they fail to reach the state of nature because they merely project backwards in time features of human psychology that are the product of social life. Yet Rousseau seems to have nonetheless failed in the same way as did Locke and Hobbes. Schwartz notes that, for Rousseau, ‘there can be natural responses to what are strictly speaking unnatural situations. The family is an example of such a natural response’ (1984:24). Thus, for Rousseau, despite its absence from the state of nature, the patriarchal family is natural—it is an automatic response to living in dwellings. That is, Rousseau posits as natural a family structure that is, as has been widely argued, a socially constructed norm. These criticisms of Rousseau granted, we can assess the importance of the construction of fixed dwellings within the terms of his theory. Dwellings are the physical condition of a distinctively human way of life. In Masters’ words, ‘the epoch between the formation of the first families with a fixed residence and the invention of the civilizing arts is the decisive period in Rousseau’s analysis of human evolution. It is in this period that the human animal becomes recognizably a man’ (1968:167). That is, a transformed human nature is the product of the psychological changes that follow on the change in man’s way of life. The

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construction of dwellings initiates the period in which man acquires the characteristics necessary to the eventual formation of civil society. The initial psychological consequence of living indoors with family members is an increased ability to engage in group action. ‘As a result of their slightly softer life, both Sexes also began to lose something of their ferociousness and vigor; but while each [individual] separately grew less fit to fight wild beasts, in exchange it became easier to assemble to resist them in common’ (DI, II.12/ III.168). That is, the experience of living with others softens individuals’ reluctance to cooperation with others. What is the nature of this reluctance? Rousseau’s doctrine of pity implies that it cannot be a natural ferociousness towards other people; the ferociousness he speaks of is directed towards wild b easts. Instead, the reluctance stems from natural man’s domination by amour de soi, which accounts for his thoroughgoing selfishness. The effect of family life is to prevent selfishness from interfering with cooperative action. This does not demand a lessening of selfinterest, since (in Rousseau’s example) the self-interest of each in fighting off a wild beast is certainly satisfied when the group as a whole joins the effort. Rather, it involves a change in attitude, whereby each recognizes that his self-interest is more reliably served by group action than by action on his own. Family life renders each individual psychically capable of depending on others to contribute to his own self-interest. Indeed, its sweet feelings prompt action which is not purely selfish but is motivated by a commitment to other individuals. As part of the division of labor between the sexes, ‘the man went in quest of the common subsistence’ (DI, II. 12/III.168, emphasis added). That is, the man labors not only for himself, as he would have in the state of nature, but for his family as a whole. Thus, family life involves a change in the form of self-interest: the transition from selfishness toward socialized self-interest. This development in the form of self-interest is linked to man’s psychological development. It is a result of the sweet feelings of family life, and initially is limited to the family unit. Any further changes in human nature are conditioned on the initial changes due to family life. Man’s continued development requires regular contact with others; this is possible only because men have taken the first steps towards sociability in the family.

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Amour propre The most important psychological development that follows on increased human interaction is the emergence of amour propre. Amour propre is, indeed, the principal legacy passed down from nascent society. As we saw above, Rousseau defines amour propre in tandem with amour de soi; both are forms of self-love. However, while the innocent concern each individual has for his own preservation in amour de soi is indifferent to others, the vanity that constitutes amour propre generates an insidious dependence on others as the source of the individual’s own self-esteem. Rousseau defines amour propre as ‘only a relative sentiment, factitious, and born in society, which inclines every individual to set greater store by himself than by anyone else’ (DI, Note XV.1/III.219).9 Amour propre cannot exist in the state of nature, Rousseau argues, because it requires the ability to make comparisons between the self and others; such comparisons are beyond the mental capacities of natural man. Only after men have come out of the state of nature, have at once developed their mental powers and begun to live together, can they apply their new-found powers of comparison to each other and thereby experience amour propre. The opposition between amour de soi and amour propre was not original to Rousseau; it had been treated by previous authors in the French moral tradition. Rousseau interprets in an original manner a distinction which is in the tradition of the moralists from Montaigne to Vauvenarges. In particular, the degradation of the self is found in Jansenist psychology: in the innocence of the state of nature man can love himself without sin because this love is oriented and enlightened by the love of God. In the state of sin, in the eclipse of the love of God, man turns infinite need to his profit; he loves only himself, without measure: ‘everything for the self.’ (Robert Osmont, Introduction to RJ, I.lxvi)10 In drawing the opposition between amour de soi and amour propre to the heart of his philosophy, Rousseau emphasizes that amour propre is a corruption of amour de soi, resulting from man’s social form of life. In Osmont’s words, for Rousseau ‘sin is included in social life’ (ibid.). Rousseau himself addresses the question of the transformation of amour de soi into amour propre quite directly.

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If you ask me the origin of this disposition to compare oneself with others, which changes a natural and good passion into another passion which is factitious and bad, I will tell you that it comes from social relations, the progress of ideas, and the culture of the spirit. As long as one is occupied with only absolute needs, one is content to seek that which is truly useful to us; one barely gives others an idle glance. But as society grows tighter through the bond of mutual needs, as the spirit extends, exerts and enlightens itself, it takes on more activity, it encompasses more objects, grasps more relations, examines, compares; and in these frequent comparisons it forgets neither itself nor its fellows, nor the place it claims among them. From the moment one has begun to compare himself with others in this way one can no longer stop, and the heart henceforth no longer knows how to occupy itself except by denigrating everyone else. (RJ, II, I.806) That is, social interaction stimulates intellectual development—but a developed intellect transforms amour de soi into amour propre. Let us trace this process in greater detail. The development of amour propre is foreshadowed, at the close of the state of nature, when man assumes superiority over other animals. A very primitive intellectual development is sparked by his interactions with other beings. ‘The relations which we express by the words great, small, strong, weak, fast, slow, fearful, bold, and other such ideas, compared as need required and almost without thinking about it, finally produced in him some sort of reflection, or rather a mechanical prudence’ (DI, II.5/III.165). These basic mental skills enable man to gain control over animals; the distinction he draws between himself and other animals is his first important comparison. ‘That is how his first look at himself aroused the first movement of pride [orgueil] in him; that is how, while he was as yet scarcely able to discriminate ranks, and considered himself in the first rank as a species, he was from afar preparing to claim first rank as an individual’ (DI, II.6/III.166). Rousseau says orgueil and not amour propre here, because at this point man’s mental development is embryonic. Nonetheless, Rousseau identifies a pattern which, as he indicates, will later be repeated. The repetition of the pattern comes when individuals compare themselves with each other. Such comparisons are inevitable. Rousseau argues that ‘men, who until now had roamed in the

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Woods, having become more settled, gradually come together, unite in various troops, and finally in every region form a particular Nation’ (DI, II.15/III.169). Once families take up fixed abode close to each other, young men and women are drawn together by sexual desire. The making of comparisons follows, in turn, from their sexual needs. ‘Young people of the opposite sex live in adjoining Huts, the transient dealings demanded by Nature soon lead to others that are no less sweet and, as a result of mutual visits, are more permanent. They grow accustomed to attend to different objects and to make comparisons; imperceptibly they acquire ideas of merit and beauty which produce sentiments of preference’ (ibid.). Comparisons, that is, make people aware of differences among themselves, and with the awareness of difference comes the awareness of inequality. ‘The handsomest, the strongest, the most skillful, or the most eloquent came to be the most highly regarded’ (DI, II.16/III.169). But the experience of preferring others quickly generates the desire to be preferred. With this development arrives amour propre. Rousseau regards amour propre as a degenerate form of self-love because, unlike amour de soi, it is a form of dependency. Each natural man is himself the source of his own amour de soi—he is emotionally self-sufficient. With amour propre, however, love of the self is dependent on others: its satisfaction is out of one’s own control. Rousseau imagines a primal scene, which marks the point on the path to social life beyond which man cannot turn back. It became customary to gather in front of the Huts or around a large Tree: song and dance, true children of love and leisure, become the amusement or rather the occupation of idle men and women gathered together. Everyone began to look at everyone else and to wish to be looked at himself, and public esteem acquired a value. (DI, II.16/III.169)11 Amour propre thus enters human life at the most primitive stage of social life, creating a new need which can be satisfied only by other people. Ultimately, Rousseau believes, amour propre makes social life inescapable. For Rousseau, in sum, sexual desire gives way to love, which gives way to amour propre, which intensifies man’s transformation into a social being. Sexual desire impels individuals to seek each

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other out—but indiscriminately, and without creating lasting attachments. Love, by contrast, results when individuals distinguish between the objects of their desires, and come to have preferences. Amour propre appears when preference is inverted into the desire to be preferred. It is at this point, on Rousseau’s account, that individuals take full cognizance of others. This is the moment the individual becomes a social being in a psychological sense. Previously, other people barely impinged on his world; now, his emotional life demands the presence of others. ‘As soon as man has need of a companion, he is no longer an isolated being. His heart is no longer alone. All his relations with his species, all the affections of his soul are born with this one’ (E, IV, 214/ IV.493). In Goldschmidt’s words, ‘Finally it is love, in its elementary structure as the consciousness of self, of choice, and of exclusion, that lays down the fundamental relations that, after being transformed and generalized, determine all of social life’ (1974:447). Perfectibility The growth of amour propre is the stimulus for what Rousseau describes as the distinctively human characteristic—the faculty of perfectibility. Perfectibility is ‘a faculty which, with the aid of circumstances, successively develops all the others, and resides in us in the species as well as in the individual’ (DI, I.17/III.142).12 Thus, although man steps forth from the hands of nature with barely any mental capacities above will, desire, and fear, he is capable of acquiring new capacities as circumstances demand. Masters argues that perfectibility is man’s means of survival: ‘If man has an instinct, it is the instinct to perfect himself insofar as is necessary for self-preservation’ (1968:149). For example, even in the state of nature men quickly learn to use simple weapons, and wear the skins of animals they have killed. Indeed, the range of skills Rousseau attributes even to natural man shows that he imagined natural man to be highly adaptable. On Rousseau’s view, man’s mental capacities flourish in virtue of the existence of a gap between desire and satisfaction—they are developed in order to overcome frustration. The condition of natural man is enviable precisely because it is free of frustration: ‘Savage man desires only the things he knows, and knows only the things the possession of which is in his power or easy to achieve’

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(DI, Note XI/III.214). As a result, natural man’s circumstances are such as to inhibit the perfection of his reason. However, as man emerges from the state of nature he develops new needs. In particular, for Rousseau, the intensified interactions between the sexes makes sexual desire infinitely more complex. Sexuality is no longer a matter of purely physical desire; people ‘acquire ideas of merit and of beauty which produce sentiments of preference’ (DI, II.15/III.169). In other words, passions develop that are based on ideas; the fulfillment of these passions is correspondingly difficult. Thus, the circumstances of man as he emerges from the state of nature are such as to stimulate increasing sophistication—he must develop his mental powers to accommodate his new needs, especially his need to be esteemed by others. The perfection of man’s intellectual capacities is thus concurrent with the growth of amour propre—indeed the two phenomena are mutually reinforcing. Perfectibility can be seen at work in the development of language. Rousseau believed that language was absent in the state of nature, and thus in the state of nature man’s power of reason remained latent: ‘how much could men perfect and enlighten one another…without knowing and speaking with one another?’ (DI, I.23/ I I I.146). Language enters the scene only as man’s circumstances change, and once it is present it itself becomes part of the changed circumstances that prompt even further intellectual growth. In the Second Discourse Rousseau argues that the establishment of families in fixed dwellings gives the initial impetus to language use. In the Essay on the Origin of Languages Rousseau traces the emergence of language in greater detail. ‘The earth nourishes men; but after the first needs have dispersed them, other needs unite them, and it is only then that they speak and cause others to speak about them’ (EL, IX.24/D, 109–11). The first needs are the physical desires experienced in the state of nature; these each man can satisfy on his own. But eventually men are thrown together. Exigencies of nature, for example disasters or harsh climates, force men to cooperate to survive. But then they come to enjoy each others’ company. ‘Around a common hearth people gather, feast, dance; the sweet bonds of familiarity imperceptibly draw man to his kind, and on this rustic hearth burns the sacred fire that introduces the first sentiments of humanity into men’s hearts’ (E L, IX.29/ D, 115). These new needs, for help in survival, and then for company, serve to unite men, and prod the growth of language.

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As in the Second Discourse, in the Essay Rousseau pays particular attention to the role of sexual attraction in the development of language. Rousseau presumes that the scarcity of water in arid regions forces cooperation among the inhabitants, and ‘such must have been the origin of societies and of languages in warm lands’ (EL, IX.34/D, 123). But he goes on to describe how, through the meetings of young people at wells or watering holes, language develops beyond a simple organ for cooperative behavior. Here the first ties between families were established; here the first meetings between the sexes took place. Young girls came to fetch water for the household, young men came to water their herds. Here eyes accustomed from childhood to [see] always the same objects began to see sweeter ones. The heart was moved by them and, swayed by an unfamiliar attraction, it grew less savage and felt the pleasure of not being alone…. Beneath old oaks, conquerors of years, spirited young people gradually forgot their ferociousness; little by little they tamed one another; in striving to make themselves understood, they learned to make themselves intelligible. (EL, IX.35/D, 123) Language, that is, develops as a means to satisfy a new need. This need is not the simple gratification of a physical desire but the desire to be understood. Language is the response to a new situation, in which more subtle—tame—emotions call forth man’s ability to refine and articulate his thoughts. The similarity of this scene around the well to the scene Rousseau describes in the Second Discourse as the setting for the emergence of amour propre is striking—down to the presence of a tree at the center (cf. DI, II.16). In both cases young men and women, drawn together by sexual attraction, for the first time encounter strangers. Although the two accounts stress the emergence of different phenomena, their closeness indicates the interrelatedness of the contributions of amour propre and language to human development in Rousseau’s view. Both are outgrowths of human association, but in turn both strengthen the bonds that keep men together. In that process, both rely on improved human understanding but in turn prompt men to develop their intellectual capacities even further. The specific link between amour propre and mental development

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is, as we noted above, comparison. Increased human interaction sparks individuals to make comparisons between people, leading quickly to amour propre. But the ability to make comparisons is also the key to intellectual improvement. Reflection is born of the comparison of ideas, and it is their variety that leads us to compare them. Whoever sees only a single object has no occasion to make comparisons. Whoever sees only a small number, and always the same ones from childhood on, still does not compare them, because the habit of seeing them deprives him of the attention required to examine them; but as a new object strikes us, we want to know it, and we look for relations between it and the objects we do know; that is how we learn to observe what we see before us, and how what is foreign to us leads us to examine what touches us. (EL, IX.3/D, 93–4) A single set of circumstances, in other words, both gives birth to amour propre and triggers perfectibility. In general, Rousseau argues, ‘It is in mutual frequentation that [man] develops the most sublime faculties and that he shows the excellence of his nature’ (FP, II.8, III.477). The doctrine of perfectibility manifestly presumes that human nature is mutable; it holds that men’s fundamental concerns and abilities change over time. Further, the intimate link Rousseau draws between perfectibility and amour propre reinforces his position that the agency of change for human nature is human association. Amour propre brings men together, because they now depend on one another for their self-esteem—the pursuit of which sparks the evolution of their capacities. Rousseau’s conception of human nature in nascent society has moved beyond abstract individualism. Human nature is revealed to be not a given, independent of social relations—instead, it is the resultant of the interactions between men through which society comes into being. In the state of nature, where human interaction is at a minimum, human nature has certain minimal characteristics— amour de soi and pity. But as men come to interact more and more consistently, human nature evolves—the core addition is amour propre, followed by reason, language use, and our more developed passions.

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The golden age Thus the constant in human nature, for Rousseau, is its plasticity— its susceptibility to change. That human nature did not change during the state of nature is a matter of contingent fact—the conditions of life were such as not to activate amour propre and perfectibility. Once the conditions of life changed, however, the process of evolution got under way, and human nature began to take its present shape. Because there is a correspondence between the state of human nature and the state of society, for Rousseau, it is possible to deduce the outline of social life at a given stage of human development. On the basis of man’s initial psychological developments beyond his natural state, then, what will be the general tenor of relations between men in nascent society? Let us observe first that, on Rousseau’s view, in nascent society men share a similar way of life. As we noted in Chapter 1, Rousseau argues that the families who come out of their isolation in the state of nature to form larger groups are ‘united in moeurs and character, not by rules or Laws, but by the same kind of life and foods, and the influence of a shared Climate’ (DI, II. 15/ III. 169). As an adherent to Montesquieu’s views on the influence of climate on politics (see SC, III.viii; SL, XIV), Rousseau regards men’s way of life as a response to their environment, hence he imagines that individuals subject to the same environment will develop a similar way of life. This primitive cultural similarity, in turn, forms the basis of social life: men are able to live together, and indeed to cooperate (to the limited extent that they do), because they want more or less the same things. Rousseau presumes that throughout nascent society men would maintain their cultural similarity; indeed, as we shall see below, he holds that as society develops further it will be held together by culture. Against the backdrop of the shared way of life in nascent society, however, Rousseau points out the disruptive quality of amour propre. As soon as men had begun to appreciate one another and the idea of regard had taken shape in their mind, everyone claimed a right to it, and one no longer could with impunity fail to show it toward anyone. From this arose the first duties of civility even among savages, and from it any intentional wrong became an affront because, together with the harm resulting

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from the injury, the offended party saw in it contempt for his person, often more unbearable than the harm itself. Thus everyone punishing the contempt shown him in a manner proportionate to the stock he set by himself, vengeance became terrible, and men bloodthirsty and cruel. (DI, II.17/III.170) Rousseau argues that by this time ‘natural pity had already undergone some modification,’ allowing one man to cause another’s suffering (DI, II.18/III.171). But pity has lessened in force, not disappeared. Men are not wantonly sadistic—they are only violent in response to what they take to be an injury to themselves. Although, as we shall see in a moment, Rousseau holds that violence would be fairly rare in nascent society, it is clear he holds that the social existence demanded by amour propre is not uniformly harmonious. The need that brings men together at the same time generates resentment; yet the resentment can only be assuaged within the social group. The social situation thus contains the seeds of conflict. The danger is exacerbated by the fact that nascent society lacks laws. It is a social, but not a civil arrangement: people live together, but without a formal political constitution. In Rousseau’s nascent society, therefore, as in the state of nature of Hobbes and Locke, each individual is responsible for the enforcing of his own rights. The result is a social condition whose order is maintained by mutual terror: ‘punishments had to become more severe in proportion as the opportunities to offend became more frequent, and…the terror of vengeance had to take the place of the Laws’ restraint’ (DI, II.18/ III.170). Nonetheless, Rousseau considers the beginning of nascent society to have been the true golden age of man’s existence. ‘This period in the development of human faculties, occupying a just mean between the indolence of the primitive state and the petulant activity of our amour propre, must have been the happiest and the longest-lasting epoch’ (DI, II.18/III. 171).13 This stage of nascent society is brought to a close only by ‘some fatal accident’; otherwise it would go on indefinitely (ibid.). For, it allows a psychological equilibrium—between amour propre and the primitive indolence of amour de soi—such that men have no internal motivation to change their way of life. Perfectibility has operated

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sufficiently to raise men out of the animal-like condition of the state of nature, yet it has not gone so far as to render amour propre pathological. Men have the conveniences that they lacked, and also the sweet feelings of family life. But amour propre has not (yet) made men feel that their satisfaction is so completely in the hands of others that they will never be happy. Although at its outset nascent society may not, indeed, have been completely peaceful, in Rousseau’s view it was not troubling: the contentment it offers its inhabitants gives it stability. Thus, though nascent society is marred by occasional episodes of violence, it is by no means the state of war imagined by both Hobbes and Locke. For Rousseau, as we shall see in the next chapter, war is not the precursor of social life but its result. In nascent society, Rousseau argues, ‘quarrels were so rare, and mutual assistance so frequent, that this free commerce had to produce much more benevolence than hate; a disposition that, joined to the sentiment of commiseration and pity naturally imprinted on every heart, had to make settled men live peacefully in a herd’ (FP, II.6, III.476). That is, conflicts generated by amour propre would be rare, and in any event their negative effect on the life of nascent society would be counteracted by a stronger positive influence. For, free interaction between people would result in instances of mutual assistance, which in turn would generate feelings of benevolence. Benevolence would join with natural pity to ensure peaceful group life; natural pity is supplemented by a feeling which springs from men’s recognition of the advantages of living with others. Whereas pity alone, as we saw above, merely inhibits people from harming each other but does not draw them together, benevolence can serve as a force of social attraction. But note that Rousseau is not introducing a natural sentiment of sociability here; benevolence is a product of initial social experience—it is one of the new elements in human nature that result from social life. The psychological developments that lead men into nascent society constitute the materials of socialized self-interest. The circumstances that call forth benevolence encourage men to adopt an attitude which loosens the connection between their efforts and their own wants (or wants they imaginatively experience as their own through pity). In virtue of this new attitude, men are now capable of genuine cooperation: they have sufficient intellectual development, are drawn together in groups, and are aware that

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they stand to gain by helping others. Still, Rousseau stresses that benevolence is a response to circumstances of pressing need; at this stage of nascent society, socialized self-interest has not yet become a positive motivation to live cooperatively. At the outset of nascent society man stands only at the threshold of large-scale organized cooperation. But, Rousseau holds, until they crossed that threshold men ‘applied themselves only to tasks a single individual could perform, and to arts that did not require the collaboration of several hands’ (DI, II.19/III.171). Thus, the picture Rousseau has in mind, drawn from early observations of indigenous cultures, is one of very simple handicrafts, for example men ‘sewing their clothes of skins with thorns or fish bones’ (DI, II.19/III.171). While he imagines that some cooperation would occur at this stage of human development, he imagines that such cooperative ventures would be short-term, and would leave no lasting social structure beyond small villages of nuclear families: at this stage men ‘enjoy the gentleness of independent dealings with one another’ (ibid.). Socialized self-interest has been formed, but it has not yet been fully activated. However, as we shall see in Chapter 3, nascent society continues to a second stage, which witnesses the institution of permanently organized, society-wide division of labor. At the beginning of nascent society man is prepared to cooperate, though he is not daily confronted with the necessity of participating in cooperative enterprises. The omnipresence of cooperation, for Rousseau, comes during the next phase of human history.

Chapter 3

Society as it is— and as it could be

So far we have traced the emergence of man from the state of nature into nascent society. At the core of this process is an evolution of human nature: man’s original constitution as a solitary creature marked by amour de soi is supplanted by his need, due to amour propre, for other people. These two basic configurations of self-love account for the general character of human interactions in the two epochs. In the state of nature there are no stable associations; man’s selfishness makes cooperation impossible. In nascent society there are more regular contacts between people: they live in families, which are grouped together in primitive villages, and there are recurring (if infrequent) instances of cooperation which leave a psychological trace in feelings of benevolence. The psychological developments at the beginning of nascent society thus construct socialized self-interest; the experience of living in nascent society activates it. The period of nascent society, therefore, has the effect of preparing man for the next phase of social evolution—either to the unpleasant reality Rousseau criticized throughout his works or to the ideal he offers in The Social Contract and elsewhere. In this chapter we will trace the development of human nature through the culmination of nascent society, and then review the distinct forms it takes along the divergent paths to society as it is and society as it could be. CULMINATION OF NASCENT SOCIETY Division of labor How, then, does society develop during its nascent stage? On 104

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Rousseau’s view, nascent society could have persisted in its original form indefinitely. In that situation men enjoyed a balance between amour de soi and amour propre, hence there was no psychological incentive for them to change their way of life. This way of life was communal, but did not involve highly organized, persisting cooperative enterprises. Men were capable of cooperation, but it had not yet occurred to them to coordinate their daily efforts to survive. Indeed, Rousseau holds that the golden age of early nascent society abruptly vanishes with the introduction of wide-scale cooperation. ‘The moment one man needed the help of another; as soon as it was found to be useful for one to have provisions for two, equality disappeared, property appeared, work became necessary, and the vast forests changed into smiling Fields that had to be watered with the sweat of men, and where slavery and misery were soon seen to sprout and grow together with the harvests’ (DI, II.19/III.171). The cooperation Rousseau has in mind here involves more than one man helping another; he envisions a society-wide division of labor, between manufacturing and agriculture. Speaking of the leap out of nascent society he argues that ‘Metallurgy and agriculture were the two arts the invention of which brought about this great revolution. For the Poet it is gold and silver; but for the Philosopher it is iron and wheat that civilized men’ (DI, II.20/ I I I.171). 1 Now Rousseau believes that the development of agriculture is readily explainable: ‘its principle was known long before its practice was established, and it is scarcely possible that men constantly engaged in drawing their subsistence from trees and plants, would not fairly soon have the idea of how Nature proceeds in the generation of plants’ (DI, II.22/III.172). However, through the beginning of nascent society agriculture remained latent: in the state of nature men took nourishment directly from nature as hunter-gatherers, and in nascent society they engaged in very primitive cultivation around their huts. Rousseau argues that under the conditions that obtain through the beginning of nascent society men have no need of, hence do not possess, the mental ability required for agriculture—the ability to plan for the future. ‘In order to devote oneself to this occupation and sow fields, one has to be resigned to lose something at first for the sake of gaining a great deal subsequently; a precaution that is very alien to the turn of mind of Savage man’ (DI, II.22/III. 173). This lack of foresight is also the condition that keeps socialized self-

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interest dormant. Communal life affords occasions for mutual assistance, in response to immediate needs. But without foresight men cannot fully grasp the ongoing advantages they would enjoy from sustained cooperation. The intellectual advances that allow men to envision the future stimulate the awakening of socialized self-interest, so that men come to see the future advantages of sharing their efforts with others. However, Rousseau does not explain how men take the crucial step of gaining foresight; he simply presumes it must have been taken before the development of agriculture. For, agriculture is made possible by the other art Rousseau speaks of—metallurgy. The discovery of metallurgy is the ‘fatal accident’ that carries men forward into the second stage of nascent society. Rousseau imagines ‘that some extraordinary event, such as a Volcano throwing up molten metal, will have given its Witnesses the idea of imitating this operation of Nature’ (DI, II.21/ II I.172). But Rousseau acknowledges that metallurgy requires a capacity for planning that is beyond the skills of men at the start of nascent society. Those who first undertook the complex processes of mining and smelting ‘must also be assumed to have had a good deal of courage and foresight to undertake such strenuous labor and to anticipate so far in advance the advantages they might derive from it; which really only accords with minds already more skilled than these must have been’ (ibid.). The apparent circularity of Rousseau’s account here reflects his belief that the origin of social life is at some level inexplicable: for men to be able to enter into social cooperation, they must have capacities they could only gain through social life.2 But men do indeed acquire foresight, Rousseau holds, and are able to discover metallurgy. Rousseau observes that the men who begin to spend their time working with metal are no longer able to feed themselves—they must rely on the surplus created by others. This need for a surplus of food is the stimulus for agriculture, and more broadly, for an economy built on division of labor. The invention of the other arts was therefore necessary to force Mankind to attend to the art of agriculture. As soon as men were needed to melt and forge iron, others were needed to feed them. The more the number of workers increased, the fewer hands were engaged in providing for the common subsistence, without there being fewer mouths to consume it; and as some


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had to have foods in exchange for their iron, the others finally discovered the secret of using iron to increase foods. Thus arose on the one hand plowing and agriculture, and on the other the art of working metals and multiplying their uses. (DI, II.23/III.173) That is, the accidental discovery of metallurgy leads to a broad division of labor between metal workers and farmers. Their activities complement each other: iron plows make agriculture more productive, freeing more people to make more plows, and other products as well. The division of labor entails relations of exchange between different sectors of this simple economy. Rousseau is thinking of the society as a whole, and of the economy—the division of labor and relations of exchange—as its means of subsistence.3 From this perspective, the operation of the economy is a matter of society-wide cooperation: each member of the economy cooperates with everyone else by performing his specific task, and then exchanging his products for the products of others. Rousseau argues that through economic life men develop the idea of property. He follows Locke in asserting that ‘it is impossible to conceive the idea of nascent property in any other way than in terms of manual labor: for it is not clear what more than his labor man can put into things he has not made, in order to appropriate them’ (DI, II.24/III.173). Thus, the man who cultivates a field claims the produce as his property under natural law; eventually his claim to property extends to the land itself.4 Rousseau indicates that, to begin, everyone would have some property, hence everyone would develop a simple conception of justice: ‘as men began to extend their views to the future and all saw that they had some goods to lose, there was no one who did not have to fear reprisals against himself for wrongs he might do to another’ (DI, 11.24/ III.173). This notion of rightful possession is one of the most important legacies of nascent society; Rousseau also follows Locke in asserting that property is the foundation of civil society. In virtue of their participation in a network of exchange, over time individuals with different abilities come to acquire differing amounts of property. ‘The stronger did more work; the more skillful used his to better advantage; the more ingenious found ways to shorten the work; the Ploughman had greater need of iron, or the smith greater need of wheat, and by working equally, the one earned much while the other had trouble staying alive’

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(DI, II.25/III.174). That is, the economy rewards differing abilities with unequal amounts of property. Rousseau’s argument bears an obvious resemblance to Locke’s account of the development of inequality of wealth through exchange. For Locke, of course, such inequality is justified by men’s ‘tacit consent’ to the use of money as a store of value (ST, V.50); Rousseau agrees that the use of money facilitates the growth of inequality (FP, VII.2, III.519–24).5 The emergence of economic inequality creates, for Rousseau, a boundary zone between nascent society and civil society—the time during which the conditions of human life undergo another change. Indeed, the two different forms of civil society Rousseau imagines can be interpreted as two responses to the prospect of inequality. The state of war that leads to society as it is pits rich against poor, and society as it could be is premised on the social commitment to maintaining relative equality—as we shall see below. First, however, let us consider the psychology of the individuals who make the transition from nascent to civil society. Human nature at the end of nascent society Rousseau treats the establishment of the division of labor and relations of exchange as the crucial step toward the realization of human potential. Further details of human progress—in manufacturing, in intellect, and in economic stratification—are conceptually unproblematic, once economic interdependence is in place. For, economic cooperation entails regular contact with other people, and regular contact with others, as we noted in Chapter 2, is the catalyst for the faculty of perfectibility. During the last stage of nascent society, Rousseau holds, the interactions with others that individuals experience in the economy bring perfectibility to its climax. ‘In thinking only of providing for his needs, man acquires through his commerce with his fellows, along with the knowledge that must make him enlightened, the sentiments that must make him happy. In a word, it is only in becoming social that be becomes a moral being, a rational animal, the king of the other animals, and the image of God on Earth’ (FP, II.8, III.477).6 What, then, is the psychology of fully socialized man? The economic interdependence that governs social life during the second stage of nascent society constitutes a fundamental transformation in the conditions of human survival. An individual’s survival is no longer a matter of his taking something


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from nature, but instead of finding a place in the nexus of economic relations with others. Rousseau argues this point explicitly in Emile, adopting the perspective of an individual confronting an organized economy. A man who wanted to regard himself as an isolated being, not depending at all on anything and sufficient unto himself, could only be miserable. It would even be impossible for him to subsist. For, finding the whole earth covered with thine and mine and having nothing belonging to him except his body, where would he get his necessities? By leaving the state of nature, we force our fellows to leave it, too. No one can remain when it is impossible to live there, for the first law of nature is the care of preserving oneself. (III, 193/IV.467) The growth of society, then, imposes a new requirement on individual psychology. Rousseau presents the division of labor and economic exchange as a collective development—they constitute a way a society can increase its total productive capacity. But at the same time they present a radically new way of life to the individuals who are society’s members. In particular, they are now faced with the necessity of cooperating with others in large-scale collective actions. The degree of cooperation required to maintain an economy would be impossible in the state of nature: solitary men would be averse to the regular contact economic life demands. Men at that stage are selfish: they will only help another person out of pity. Regular cooperation is made possible by the long process of psychological development that brings man into nascent society—from which point men are at least psychologically able to participate in cooperative ventures. Once they gain the foresight needed to draw them out of their independent efforts to survive, they come to make their livings by organizing an economy. That is, over the course of nascent society socialized selfinterest becomes fully active. Men can fully grasp the future, hence can understand the future benefits of their present efforts on behalf of others. Let us compare man at the end of nascent society with man in the state of nature—the theoretical abstract individual we considered above. Abstract individualism is the conception of human nature according to which individuals’ basic characteristics

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are a given, independent of their interactions in society. On this view society serves merely to provide (or deny) individuals satisfaction of their pre-defined desires; abstract individuals are not altered in any essential sense by their interactions with one another. Rousseau criticized Hobbes and Locke for, in effect, not making the men they placed in the state of nature abstract enough. Thus, we interpreted Rousseau’s project in describing natural man as an attempt to perform a more complete abstraction of human nature from social influences than was achieved by his predecessors. However, we can now see that Rousseau performs the abstraction by which he arrives at natural man in the interest of framing a non-abstract conception of human nature. He distinguishes, therefore, between ‘l’homme nature’ and ‘l’homme de l’homme’—natural man and man as he has made himself (C, VIII, 362/ I.388). This latter, non-abstract conception is the consequence of Rousseau’s theory that amour propre makes men need the esteem of others. In the state of nature amour de soi makes men emotionally autonomous; the need for the esteem of others only enters as people come to live in groups. Under amour propre, that is, men are no longer abstract individuals; they act in ways they think will garner esteem from the other members of their society. As nascent society progresses, the hold of amour propre on human psychology grows more and more complete. For, as we noted above, the circumstances of an organized economy, in which men have constant occasion to compare themselves with one another, intensify amour propre. By the end of nascent society, Rousseau holds, human nature is such that man will take on characteristics determined by the society in which he lives; having left the state of nature man becomes more and more a social creation. Nascent society prepares him to enter civil society proper. It follows, therefore, that the two versions of civil society Rousseau describes—society as it is and society as it could be—will produce two different sorts of social man. There is another aspect of social life that, according to Rousseau, contributes to human nature’s mutability: the transformation of needs. During nascent society, he argues, men’s needs begin to be shaped by social existence. In this new state, with a simple and solitary life, very limited needs, and the implements they had invented to provide for


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them, men enjoyed a great deal of leisure which they used to acquire several sorts of conveniences unknown to their Fathers; and that was the first yoke which, without thinking of it, they imposed on themselves, and the first source of evils they prepared for their Descendants; for not only did they, in this way continue to weaken body and mind, but since these conveniences, by becoming habitual, had almost entirely ceased to be enjoyable, and at the same time had degenerated into true needs, it became much more cruel to be deprived of them than to possess them was sweet, and men were unhappy to lose them without being happy to possess them. (DI, II.13/III.168) Nascent society, that is, gives rise to new needs. In the state of nature man’s needs were few—he needed only the minimum to keep himself alive. The conveniences invented in nascent society raise him above bare subsistence—and are therefore, strictly, unnecessary. However, they gradually become things he relies on, and he gradually loses the hardiness that, in the state of nature, had enabled him to survive without them. Eventually, then, they are experienced not as pleasurable luxuries but as quotidian necessities. In this process, Rousseau argues, individuals change not merely themselves, but also their descendants. For, they pass their new dependencies on to their children; this is the yoke Rousseau mentions. The transmission is not genetic but cultural: what is changed is these people’s way of life. But since, by this stage, children are being raised within families that maintain a way of life—and families troop together according to the similarity in their ways of life—from the moment they are born, children experience these new needs as needs pure and simple. From nascent society forward, therefore, individuals have the specific needs they do because of their membership in a specific social group. The creation of new needs accelerates as nascent society draws to a close. The development of the economy fosters interdependence, as people come to cooperate for their mutual survival. But the very efficiency of economic progress contributes to the erosion of man’s independence. For, the division of labor intensifies the production of ‘conveniences,’ which soon come to be experienced as true needs. In a word, as nascent society develops, the baseline of what constitutes survival rises. 7 In the

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process, things that from an earlier perspective were superfluous become transformed by social life into necessities. At the end of nascent society, Rousseau holds, ‘man, who had previously been free and independent, is now so to speak subjugated by a multitude of new needs to the whole of Nature’ (DI, I I.27/ III.174–5). Thus, in my view, the end of nascent society is the moment Rousseau identifies as the occasion for the institution of the social contract. 8 In the Geneva Manuscript he frames the fundamental problem to be solved by the institution of the state explicitly in terms of the growth of man’s needs. ‘As soon as man’s needs exceed his faculties and the objects of his desire expand and multiply, he must either remain eternally unhappy or seek a new form of being from which he can draw the resources he no longer finds in himself’ (GM, I.iii.2/III.289; see also I.ii.2). If men miss the moment, the mechanisms at work in nascent society will go too far, leading to the state of war and society as it is. But if men adopt the social contract in time, while inequality is within moderate bounds, they should succeed at creating society as it could be. Let us consider these two cases in turn. THE PATH TO SOCIETY AS IT IS The state of war In the Second Discourse Rousseau is concerned to explain the origins of the inequality that pervades contemporary society; his account of man’s passage from the state of nature through nascent society thus points toward society as it is. As we shall see later (pp. 123– 8), we can deduce that the account of the creation of society as it could be, primarily found in The Social Contract, veers off from the account in the Second Discourse at the end of nascent society—just after the appearance of inequality. But what happens to prevent social evolution from actually taking that fork? What condemns man to follow the path to society as it is instead? Rousseau argues that the processes at work by the end of nascent society lead to a horrible state of war, which is resolved by the fraudulent social contract that institutes society as it is. War results because amour propre spurs men on to seek more property; increased inequality produces a division between rich and poor; and finally rich and


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poor come into open conflict. Let us trace this progression in more detail. By the end of nascent society man has become motivated by amour propre; he derives his own self-esteem from the esteem in which he is held by others. At the same time, his participation in the economy has given him the experience of dependence on others: ‘rich, he needs their services; poor, he needs their help, and moderate means do not enable him to do without them’ (DI, II.27/ I I I.175). Rousseau argues that amour propre responds to the experience of dependence not with the desire to become independent (which is impossible for amour propre), but rather with the desire to exercise power over others. ‘Finally, consuming ambition, the ardent desire to raise one’s fortune less out of genuine need than in order to place oneself above others, instills in all men a black inclination to harm one another’ (ibid.). Thus men are motivated to seek more economic power—to become as rich as possible, for the sake of the control of others wealth brings. At the same time, Rousseau implies, amour propre replaces natural pity with a disposition to harm others: rather than identifying with others’ suffering, men now relish it as proof of their own good fortune. The continuing pursuit of wealth leads to conditions of scarcity. Initially, in Lockian fashion, men claim property out of a common stock. But eventually the common stock is exhausted, putting men in direct conflict with each other. ‘Once inheritances had increased in number and size to the point where they covered all the land and all adjoined one another, men could no longer aggrandize themselves except at one another’s expense’ (DI, I I.28/ I I I.175). Rousseau notes that some men—out of weakness or indolence—would not have acquired any property from the common stock; once land becomes scarce, the poor must either work for or steal from the rich. The rich employ some of the poor to seize the property—and employees—of neighboring estates. Others of the poor become robbers, seizing whatever property they could manage. Neither side feels any restraint, since amour propre has stifled pity. Nothing, that is, holds back the outbreak of mayhem. Thus, as the most powerful or the most miserable claimed, on the basis of their strength or of their needs, a kind of right to another’s goods, equivalent, according to them, to the right of

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property, the breakdown of equality was followed by the most frightful disorder…. A perpetual conflict arose between the right of the stronger and the right of the first occupant, which ended only in fights and murders. Nascent Society gave way to the most horrible state of war. (DI, II.29/III.176) Rousseau’s account is clearly directed against Hobbes: the state of war is not man’s natural state, but the result of eons of human development. It cannot exist in advance of society because it is the product of social interaction. ‘Hobbes’s mistake, therefore, is not that he established the state of war among men who are independent and have become sociable, but that he supposed this state natural to the species and gave it as the cause of the vices of which it is the effect’ (GM, I.ii. 17/III.288). Precisely because the combatants are socialized men they do not have the option of fleeing each other and, so to speak, retreating back into the state of nature. Rousseau argues that since men ‘were already accustomed to a thousand comforts that forced them to stay together, dispersion was no longer as easy as in the first times when, no one needing anyone but himself, everyone made his decision without waiting for anyone else’s consent’ (DI, Note XVII/III.222). That is, as we have seen, social existence has raised the baseline of what individuals need to survive—these are the ‘thousand comforts’ of which Rousseau speaks. The effective transformation of human nature through the increase in needs forces men to maintain the economic system which produces their necessities. The state of war should thus be understood as comprising conflict over control of the benefits of the economy. The war does not lead to the evaporation of society because the prize of the war is the wealth which social life makes possible—and which, owing to the evolution of human nature, individuals regard as necessary. At issue, therefore, in the state of war is property. Note that the idea of a right to property becomes available at the end of nascent society, once men have begun to cultivate land. But the war brings out a variety of competing justifications for property—Rousseau himself endorses the ‘right of the first occupant,’ but the rich pose against it the ‘right of the stronger’ and the poor pose a right based on need. In addition to the violence of the state of war, that is, Rousseau envisions ideological confusion over the basis of property rights.


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The fraudulent social contract Clearly the violence that constitutes the state of war is a danger to the economic system that produces society’s wealth. This danger is felt most acutely by the rich, that is those who benefit most from economic inequality. ‘The rich, above all, must soon have sensed how disadvantageous to them was a perpetual war of which they alone bore the full cost, and in which everyone risked his life while only some also risked goods’ (DI, II.30/ III.176). Thus, the rich have a strong interest in bringing the war to an end, in order to preserve their advantages. This is the motive behind the establishment of laws and government— characterized by the spokesman for the rich as ‘“regulations of Justice and of peace to which all are obliged to conform, which favor no one, and which in a way make up for the vagaries of fortune by subjecting the powerful and the weak alike to mutual duties’” (DI, II.31/III.177). The institution of the state ends the state of war, by establishing legal rights to property and a mechanism which enforces these rights. Each person agrees not to plunder his neighbor, but instead contributes to a central authority that guards the property rights of all. Thus the rich man institutes a social contract—he founds civil society, which enforces the rights of the citizens through law. But this version of the social contract is fraudulent. In an argument Rousseau declares to be specious, the rich man presents government as a corrective to the Vagaries of fortune’ which have mysteriously made some people powerful and some people weak (DI, I I.31/ I I I.177). But in advance of the institution of government, power is simply a matter of wealth—the powerful are the rich and the weak are the poor (DI, II.35 (point 2)/III.179). There is therefore nothing mysterious to Rousseau about the unequal distribution of wealth. It rests on usurpation: the rich know that their holdings are ‘based on a precarious and abusive right, and that…they had been acquired solely by force’ (DI, II.30/ III. 176). But the rich man’s speech passes over the question of the justification of property altogether: he proposes simply to take the existing distribution as given. Thus, Rousseau holds, the rich man’s selfless rhetoric suppresses the fact that the rich claim their property by right of the strongest—a right the rich man knows is illegitimate. Rousseau declares that the rich man’s intent is to give his adversaries (the poor) ‘other maxims…and different

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institutions, as favorable to himself as natural Right was contrary to him’ (DI, I I.30/ I I I.177). Hence the fraud: by eliding the question of justification of property, the rich man ‘transformed a skillful usurpation into an irrevocable right’ (DI, II.33/ III.178). Masters observes that ‘what Rousseau calls the “specious reasons” of the rich are those he himself gives as the foundation of legitimate political regimes in the Social Contract’ (1968:182). He refers to Rousseau’s remark at SC, I.ix.8/ I I I.367: the social contract ‘substitutes moral and legal equality for such physical inequalities as nature may have created among men.’ Why are the reasons specious in one case and (presumably) valid in the other? The legitimate social contract genuinely protects men who are put at a disadvantage by nature: society guarantees weak men title to their property against the predations of the strong. But the rich man’s promise to ‘make up for the vagaries of fortune by subjecting the powerful and the weak alike to equal duties’ (DI, II.31/ III.177) only seems to refer to natural inequalities. As we noted above, at the time of the rich man’s speech, power and weakness are not matters of natural differences in strength or intellect—they are simply matters of wealth (see DI, II.35). Thus, the rich man presents the inequality of wealth produced by the economy as a natural fact, which will be offset by legal equality. Of course Rousseau holds that legal equality does not adequately compensate for extreme inequality of property: ‘Under bad governments, this equality is merely apparent and illusory; it serves only to maintain the poor man in his poverty, and the rich man in his usurpation’ (SC, I.ix.8.n./III.367). That is, starting from a preexisting disadvantage, the poor will never regain any substantive equality with the rich: their legal equality determines what Rousseau takes to be their unequal destinies. Thus, as we shall see below, Rousseau holds that the legitimate social contract can be instituted only if inequality of property is not too pronounced. Finally, because it is silent on the justification of property, the fraudulent social contract imposes a false resolution on the ideological confusion that attends the state of war. It does not settle the issue of ultimate justification, but rather pushes it out of consideration: all that now matters is the positive rights granted by society. Rousseau regards this arrangement as fraudulent because, in the event, society begins with a distribution of property that cannot be sanctioned under natural law. The de jure rights of rich and poor are de facto unequal—and the government established by


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the fraudulent contract is no more than an instrument designed to preserve the rich man’s advantage. Society as it is The closing pages of the Second Discourse recount the fate of the society instituted by the fraudulent social contract. Rousseau’s purpose is to provide a critical explanation of how society devolved into its present state as a whirlpool of domination and corruption. We shall further examine his vision of contemporary life in Chapter 4, when we consider the cultural institutions of society as it is in detail. For now, let us see how society as it is exemplifies political failure. Political failure Rousseau argues that although the fraudulent social contract establishes civil society, at the outset men lacked the experience to govern themselves collectively. ‘The Political state always remained imperfect because it was almost the product of chance and, having begun badly, time revealed its defects and suggested remedies but could never repair the vices of the Constitution’ (DI, I I.36/ I I I.180). The primary vice of the constitution is its basis in inequality. However, experience reveals another flaw, namely ‘how easily violators could escape conviction or punishment for wrongs of which the Public alone was to be both witness and judge’ (ibid.). That is, early political life would be crippled by free riding; individuals could violate the law with impunity. After time, therefore, men recognize the need for a central authority charged with enforcing the law, that is the need for a government. The members of society agree to entrust specific ‘magistrates’ with the power to sanction individuals who do not obey the law. What form would government take? In general, Rousseau argues, ‘The different forms of Governments owe their origin to the greater or lesser differences between individuals at the time of Institution’ (DI, II.47/III.186). A government instituted among men who are more or less equal would be democratic in form. However, the fraudulent social contract appears at a time of inequality, at the urging of a small number of rich men who seek to preserve their power. Thus government under the fraudulent social contract would begin, Rousseau holds, as a monarchy or

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aristocracy. Initially offices are elective, with preference given according to age. However, the need to frequently replace elders gives rise to political chaos: ‘intrigues arose, factions were formed, the parties became embittered, civil Wars flared up’ (DI, II.48/ III.187). At this moment, ambitious rulers exploit the unrest; they claim title to their offices and make them hereditary. The rich, that is, eventually seize dominion over society. The members of society, according to Rousseau, are more interested in preserving their property than their liberty, hence they accept this new state of affairs: they ‘consented to let their servitude increase in order to secure their tranquility’ (ibid.). In sum, Rousseau argues that inequality drives a historical process leading from the end of nascent society to the fraudulent social contract, through the creation of government, and ending with despotism. ‘If we follow the progress of inequality through these different revolutions, we will find that the establishment of the Law and Right of property was its first term; the institution of Magistracy, the second; the conversion of legitimate into arbitrary power the third and last’ (DI, I I.49/ III.187). As we noted in Chapter 1 (pp. 57–9), Rousseau posits a tendency in any government to usurp its authority. In the case of society as it is, that tendency is overpowering; founded on inequality, society as it is must suffer political failure. For, inequality breeds turmoil, and turmoil invites the crushing order imposed by despotism, which ‘finally succeed[s] in trampling Laws and People underfoot, and establishing itself on the ruins of the Republic’ (DI, II.55/ III.191). Indeed, Rousseau holds, with despotism politics fails so catastrophically that it undoes civil society altogether, placing man in a perverse double of the state of nature. ‘The Contract of Government is so utterly dissolved by Despotism, that the Despot is Master only as long as he is the stronger…. Force alone maintains him, force alone overthrows him; thus everything happens in accordance with the Natural order’ (DI, II.56/III.191). Amour propre Rousseau presents despotism as the political manifestation of amour propre. In tandem with the political process that leads to the failure of society as it is, in the time after nascent society amour propre intensifies its grip on human psychology. We noted above that the state of war is sparked by amour propre, which drives men to gain


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more property than their neighbors. Once the war has been settled by the fraudulent social contract, and governments established, amour propre assumes even greater importance. On the one hand, it motivates the rulers to usurp their (originally elective) offices, and ultimately makes them find satisfaction only in domination. On the other hand, one of the consequences of the institution of government is the strengthening of the amour propre of ordinary citizens. Honors accorded the governors stimulates the amour propre of the rest of society, who seek honors for themselves: ‘political distinctions necessarily introduce civil distinctions’ (DI, II.51/ I II.188). Thus, the institution of government exacerbates the increasing power of amour propre due to social life as such. ‘Even without the Government’s intervention, inequality of credit and authority becomes inevitable among Private Individuals as soon as, united in one Society, they are forced to compare themselves one with the other, and to take the differences they find into account in the constant use they have to make of one another’ (DI, II.52/III. 188–9). In Rousseau’s view, amour propre generates the social chaos that is the prelude to despotism. Social life comes to be pervaded by individuals’ attempts to gain self-esteem by gaining the esteem of others. Amour propre engenders competition: to enjoy preference one must be preferred over someone else; indeed the fact of being more preferred than someone else comes to be what makes being preferred enjoyable. In the Second Discourse Rousseau only hints at the consequences; if it were the place for more details, he says, he would indicate how much this universal desire for reputation, honors, and preferment which consumes us all, stimulates talents and strengths and sets them off against one another, how much it excites and multiplies the passions and, in making all men competitors, rivals, or rather enemies, how many reverses, how many successes, how many catastrophes of every kind it causes daily by leading so many Contenders to enter the same lists. (DI, II.52/III.189) Thus, for Rousseau, amour propre is ultimately a source of frustration: ‘amour propre…is never content and never could be, because this sentiment, preferring ourselves to others, also demands others to prefer us to themselves, which is impossible’ (E, IV, 213–14/IV.493). Each person needs others to whom he can

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feel superior, but rejects their reciprocal needs towards him. Amour propre is both a force of attraction, pulling people into society, and a force of repulsion, fomenting social strife. Finally, the stress it creates destroys social order, opening the door to the utter political failure of despotism. Private interest As we observed in Chapter 2, the emergence of amour propre at the beginning of nascent society is the condition for the emergence of socialized self-interest. In the first stage of nascent society socialized self-interest remains latent; it is actualized during the second stage, as men come to engage in wide-scale cooperative enterprises. In this chapter we have seen that participating in ongoing cooperation, which brings men into steady contact with one another, intensifies amour propre. What is the effect of the intensification of amour propre on the form of self-interest? In my view, the developments we have traced transform socialized selfinterest into private interest. In Chapter 1 we defined private interest as the attitude of utility maximization, based on one’s identification with one’s wants. That is, the individual accords a special status to his own wants; because they are his he regards them as especially (if not exclusively) deserving of satisfaction. This preference for the self above others is characteristic of amour propre. (With amour de soi the self is not preferred above others because the individual barely grasps that others exist.) Indeed, with amour propre the individual’s preference for himself is so profound that he tries to become the most preferred by others as well. In general, amour propre is stronger than private interest, in that Rousseau suggests that it drives individuals to conceive their advantage precisely in terms of others’ disadvantage. But my claim is not that private interest is identical to amour propre. Amour propre is a complex structure of consciousness that characterizes a whole way of being; private interest is an abstract attitude that figures in a narrow account of rational action. Rather, I claim that the abstract account of political life in terms of rationality and self-interest can be placed in the context of a richer account of human psychology—rational agency can be recognized as an aspect of human action broadly construed. Certainly Rousseau intends his description of amour propre to convey the


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feelings of alienation men experience living in society as it is. Still, we can focus solely on one dimension of the psychology of the men Rousseau describes, their attitude toward their wants, and deduce that along the dimension of self-interest, amour propre would manifest itself as private interest. Thus, to see how the strengthening of amour propre would transform socialized self-interest into private interest, consider amour propre’s effect on pity. We noted that during the period after the close of nascent society—when inequality began to worsen, setting the stage for the state of war—amour propre quashes the natural reflex to pity others’ suffering; in fact, men come to wish to impose suffering on others in order to elevate themselves. Before this time, pity served as an internal restraint on selfinterest—on both the selfishness of the state of nature and the socialized self-interest developing during nascent society. As we noted, the first appearance of amour propre weakens pity—thus, Rousseau holds, men will violently avenge insults to their honor. With the onset of the state of war pity has been completely stifled. Individuals feel no internal brake on their impulses to satisfy their wants; now that they care about their status, they are not content to leave others alone. That is, they now seek to maximize their satisfaction, in whatever way possible—their form of self-interest is now private interest. We must emphasize that private interest grows out of socialized self-interest, that is that with private interest men conceive of satisfying their wants through cooperation with others. Thus, we should note that amour propre can be satisfied only through a collective action, by which others cooperate to grant the individual esteem. But, under amour propre the individual does not approach cooperation with the appropriate attitude. For, of course, he seeks esteem for himself alone; he does not regard esteem as a good to be shared with everyone else. It follows, then, as Rousseau emphasizes, that private interest has a corrupting effect on social cooperation. The individual motivated by private interest ‘constantly has to try to interest [others] in his fate and to make them find their own profit, in deed or in appearance, in working for his: which makes him knavish and artful with some, imperious and harsh with the rest, and places him under the necessity of abusing all those he needs if he cannot get them to fear him and does not find it in his interest to serve them usefully’ (DI, 11.27/ I I I.175). Cooperation, that is, is no longer mutual, but

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exploitative: men enter into cooperation seeking ways to avoid making their fair contribution. Private interest runs like a thread through the events that lead to society as it is. At the end of nascent society Rousseau observes that men have become greedy: greed leads them into the state of war, and their greed leads the multitude to be taken in by the fraudulent social contract (DI, I I.29, 32). The fraudulent social contract is, of course, the triumph of the private interest of the rich. They construct an institution that provides the public good of security, from which they derive unfair benefit. The rulers who usurp their offices come to look at society from the standpoint of private interest—they regard themselves ‘as the proprietors of the State…, [they] call their Fellow-Citizens their Slaves, [they] number them like Cattle among the things that belonged to them’ (DI, I I.48/ I I I.187). And, Rousseau argues, the rulers could not succeed in usurping their offices unless private interest makes the mass of people complicitous: seizing power is easy ‘among ambitious and pusillanimous souls, always ready to risk their fortune, and almost equally ready to dominate or serve according to whether it proves favorable or adverse to them’ (DI, I I.51/ I I I.188). Finally, under despotism, society is ruled solely by the despot’s private interest: ‘the Subjects no longer [have] any other Law than the Master’s will, nor the Master any other rule than his passions’ (DI, I I.56/I II.191). 9 At every turn, Rousseau holds, private interest pushes men along into the deepening political failure of society as it is. In sum, by the time men arrive at society as it is, amour propre holds sway over human nature. ‘Sociable man, always outside himself, is capable of living only in the opinion of others and, so to speak, derives the sentiment of his own existence solely from their judgement’ (DI, II.57/III. 193). Under amour propre man is drawn into society, since he needs others to flatter his self-esteem. But at the same time amour propre condemns society to political failure. It propels the growth of inequality, and engenders rampant competition and social disorder. Thus, Rousseau argues, men who cooperate out of amour propre ironically find themselves on a course toward the perversion of cooperation: in stages, from the fraudulent social contract to the imposition of despotism, individuals’ contributions to cooperative enterprises increasingly support others, and decreasingly support themselves. From the


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analytic perspective of Chapter 1, political failure is inevitable for society as it is, because its members are motivated by private interest—the form of rational self-interest spawned by amour propre. Rousseau’s lesson regarding society as it is, therefore, is clear. Despite the necessity of amour propre for social life, a society organized around amour propre alone cannot enjoy successful politics. Instead, successful political life requires that the members of society not be dominated by a single form of self-love. As we shall now go on to see, political success requires individuals for whom amour propre is combined with amour de soi. SOCIETY AS IT COULD BE As we noted in Chapter 2, some readers have interpreted the chaos Rousseau describes at the end of the Second Discourse as the prelude to a revolution, which would bring forth the just polity of The Social Contract. The Second Discourse does offer some support for this view—Rousseau says that the succession from the fraudulent social contract to the institution of government leads to despotism, ‘until new revolutions either dissolve the Government entirely or bring it closer to legitimate establishment’ (DI, III.49/ III. 187). In my view, however, the society described in The Social Contract is better understood not as a successor but as an alternative to the society described in the Second Discourse. The Social Contract does not begin where the Second Discourse leaves off, but instead diverges from it roughly in the middle—at the end of nascent society. Thus, we might say that The Social Contract projects society as it could have been—if history had not happened as it did. Just as human nature evolves in tandem with the development of society as it is, Rousseau projects an alternative evolution of human nature corresponding to the development of society as it could be. As do the two visions of social development, the two visions of the transformation of human nature share the same beginning, but then diverge to arrive at different outcomes. At each phase, the changes in men’s psychological make up lead to changes in the form of self-interest that motivates their actions. In the beginning, during the state of nature, human nature is dominated by amour de soi, and men act selfishly. During nascent society, human nature undergoes a change, as men become increasingly subject to amour propre, and socialized self-interest becomes increasingly active. At this point the two paths split.

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During the development of society as it is, amour propre comes to control human psychology, and men are motivated by private interest. But the development of society as it could be modifies amour propre—and amour de soi as well—in a way, as we shall see shortly, that creates civic virtue. First, however, we must review the conditions of human life at the point where the two accounts part ways. The moment of the social contract Rousseau does not explicitly link the account of The Social Contract with the account of the Second Discourse. Nonetheless, he did insist that his political writings constituted a unified whole.10 On what basis, then, can we coordinate the narratives in the two works? My effort is guided by four considerations. Background considerations The state of nature First, in The Social Contract Rousseau introduces his subject as follows: ‘Let us assume that men have reached the point where the obstacles to their self-preservation in the state of nature are too great to be overcome by the forces each individual is capable of exerting to maintain himself in that state. This original state can then no longer continue; and the human race would perish if it did not change its mode of existence’ (SC, I.vi.l/III.360). What does Rousseau mean by the state of nature here? He cannot mean the original pre-social state of nature, since men in that state are incapable of joining together. Instead Rousseau must have in mind the phase of nascent society that succeeds the state of nature, since only by this time have men acquired the social skills that enable them to collaborate. In the present passage, therefore, Rousseau follows Hobbes and Locke by contrasting nature not with society in general but with civil society—society under laws. Rousseau points to the moment when the new needs created through social existence become so strong that men could no longer survive outside of society. At this moment, which occurs during nascent society, the die is cast: men have committed themselves and their descendants to a socialized mode of life.


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Economic surplus The second consideration stems from Rousseau’s recognition that the creation of a government requires an economic surplus beyond what is needed for bare survival. ‘In all the governments of the world, the public person consumes without producing. Where does it get the substance it consumes? From the labour of its members…. From this it follows that the civil state can subsist only in so far as the product of men’s labour is greater than their needs’ (SC, III.vii.2/III.414). As we saw above, men accumulate property beyond subsistence only after the discovery of metallurgy and creation of agriculture. The division of labor and exchange of goods between farmers and manufacturers generates a surplus. Hence, government is possible only after the development of an economy—that is no earlier than the second stage of nascent society. Economic inequality However, the economic capacity to produce surplus goods raises the specter of inequality. As we saw above, Rousseau holds that the emergence of economic inequality provokes the state of war, and thus leads on to society as it is. The third consideration has to do, therefore, with Rousseau’s position on inequality. It would be natural to expect him to hold that society as it could be must be founded under conditions of strict equality. Indeed, he asserts that equality is one of two principles that constitute ‘the greatest good of all, which ought to be the object of any system of legislation’ (SC, II.xi.l/III.391). But equality is not an absolute requirement; it is subordinate to the other principle, liberty, which ‘cannot subsist without it’ (ibid.; see Levine (1976:188–92)). Thus, Rousseau goes on to argue, With regard to equality, we must not take this word to mean that degrees of power and wealth are exactly the same; but that, so far as power is concerned, it is not great enough to permit men to resort to violence, and is never exercised otherwise than by virtue of rank and law; and that, so far as wealth is concerned, no citizen is rich enough to be able to buy another, and none so poor as to be forced to sell himself. (SC, II.xi.2/III.391–2)

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That is, Rousseau countenances a degree of inequality—provided it does not lead to social disorder. But, as he admits, the economy tends to increase inequality beyond the appropriate bounds. Therefore he holds that one function of the state in society as it could be is to moderate the tendency toward inequality through regulation (SC, II.xi.3).11 Indeed, Rousseau argues, the just state itself must contribute to inequality through the rewards it makes to its citizens. ‘Distributive justice would be at odds with the rigorous equality of the state of Nature, even if it were practicable in civil society; and as all the members of the State owe it services proportionate to their talents and strengths, the Citizens ought, in their turn, to be differentiated and favored in proportion to their services’ (DI, Note XIX/III.222). Now Rousseau does suggest that the equality obtaining at the beginning of economic cooperation in the second stage of nascent society conceivably could be preserved, by counteracting the natural differences between individuals. ‘Things could have remained equal in this state if talents had been equal and if, for example, the use of iron and the consumption of foods had always been exactly balanced; but this proportion, which nothing maintained, was soon upset’ (DI, II.25/III.174). But this remark should not be read as a wish for draconian intervention in social life to maintain equality of talent and balanced exchange. As we have just seen, Rousseau does not require or expect absolute equality. Indeed he fully accepts the existence of natural differences between individuals; natural (or ‘physical’) inequality ‘consists in differences of age, health, strengths of Body, and qualities of Mind or of Soul’ (DI, Exordium.2/III.131). These natural differences can lead to legitimate economic inequality: by applying their natural advantages to their work in the economy, individuals earn unequal amounts of property. But a social contract that granted legal rights to property at this initial unequal distribution would not be unjustified on Rousseau’s view: ‘moral inequality, authorized by positive right alone, is [only] contrary to Natural Right whenever it is not directly proportional to Physical inequality’ (DI, II.58/III.193–4). That is, Rousseau presumes that, at least initially, economic inequality could be a direct result of natural inequality, hence could be legitimate.


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Mental development The final consideration is that the initial emergence of economic inequality marks the time when man’s capabilities are fully realized. Before inequality has emerged, Rousseau implies, man is not fully ready for civil society. Only afterward does man become a creature in whom Rousseau’s readers can recognize themselves: only then, Rousseau holds, ‘are all our faculties developed, memory and imagination brought into play, amour propre interested, reason become active, and the mind almost at the limit of the perfection of which it is capable’ (DI, II.27/III.174). The decisive moment In my view, therefore, the moment of the social contract comes just at the point where economic cooperation first generates inequality of property. It is at this moment, the very end of nascent society, that the narrative of The Social Contract intersects the narrative of the Second Discourse. At this moment surplus goods exist to support a state, and individuals have the intellectual competence to comprehend the advantage of entering into the social contract. At this moment men have the ability, gained from their participation in the economy, to coordinate their activities toward common goals—they are able, as Rousseau demands in The Social Contract, ‘to form by aggregation a sum offerees capable of overcoming all obstacles, to place these forces under common direction, and to make them act in concert’ (SC, I.vi.2/III.360). And, at this moment, they have an interest in joining an association which, as Rousseau describes the society formed by the social contract, ‘defends and protects the person and property of each member with the whole force of the community’ (SC, I.vi.3/ III.360), and which creates property rights, where before men had mere possession (SC, I.ix.6). For, on the one hand, at the emergence of inequality all have some property and all understand what property means (DI, II.24). And, on the other, men will benefit from a society marked by moderate inequality: Rousseau holds that ‘the social state is advantageous to men only in so far as they all have something and no one has too much’ (SC, This moment, therefore—the moment of the appearance of inequality—is the key moment in history for Rousseau. It is the fork in the road: mankind has in fact travelled on toward the

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political failure of society as it is, but it could have travelled on toward the political success of society as it could be. What is the character of social life at the moment of the social contract? Rousseau considers this issue by asking at what moment in its history a people is ready for legislation. What people, then, is fit for legislation? One which, although already united by some common bonds of origin, interest or convention, has not yet borne the true yoke of laws; one which has no customs and no deeply-rooted superstitions;…one whose individual members can all know one another…; one which is neither rich nor poor, and can be sufficient unto itself; one, finally, which combines the firmness of an old people with the docility of a new one. (SC, II.x.5/III.390–1) As we shall see just below, Rousseau here describes a people who have already entered into the social contract, thereby forming a state, but who have not yet adopted laws. And the paradoxical air of this long passage contributes a Utopian quality to Rousseau’s theory: it might seem that the conditions for implementing the social contract are such that they obtain nowhere. Nonetheless, in my view, Rousseau’s criteria are met at the very end of nascent society. Economically, nascent society is above subsistence level, but only produces a surplus large enough to result in moderately unequal distribution. The people that have just accepted the social contract have the characteristics of both youth and age. They are a people, rather than a mere collection of individuals. They have ‘common bonds of origin, interest or convention’ which unite them into a society—a group of people whose activities are coordinated toward jointly held goals. Thus, we can observe, they are motivated by socialized self-interest—but they do not yet manifest private interest. Although they live together, their lack of customs means they have not settled finally on a distinctive, common culture. They are capable of cooperation, but still follow more or less independent lives. Hence at its conclusion nascent society is both firm and docile: its inhabitants form a coherent group, poised to adopt specific customs and laws. Rousseau holds that the specific customs and laws that take hold will determine the success of the evolution from nascent society to society as it could be. Thus, he argues, the


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evolution of society as it could be requires the intervention of a wise lawgiver—his famous doctrine of the Legislator. 2. The Legislator Let us assume, then, that at the very end of nascent society individuals institute the social contract. On Rousseau’s view, agreeing to the contract is just the first step into civil society: ‘By the social compact we have given life and being to the body politic; we must now, by legislation, give it movement and will’ (SC, II.vi. 1/ III.378). That is, once established, the state must be made active through a system of law. But here Rousseau recognizes a paradox. On the one hand, laws should be made by the members of society. ‘The people subject to the laws should be their author’ (SC, II.vi. 10/III.380). On the other hand, however, in advance of political experience, the people are not competent to devise a system of law to meet their needs. The members of nascent society understand how to cooperate within the economy, thus they grasp the value of cooperation well enough to be motivated to adopt the social contract. But in nascent society each individual participates in economic life for his own benefit. Thus Rousseau presumes that nascent society does not prepare individuals to think of themselves collectively; they cannot, given their particular economic and geographical circumstances, identify the details of their common good. Hence, Rousseau asks, ‘How can a blind multitude, which often does not know what it wants, since it rarely knows what is good for it, by itself execute so great and difficult a project as a system of legislation?’ (SC, II.vi. 10/III.380). Rousseau resolves the paradox by introducing the Legislator: an extraordinary figure possessed of near divine authority who drafts a code of law for the people to adopt. Rousseau bases his doctrine of the Legislator on the classical figure of the lawgiver drawn from ancient thought—primarily Plato and Plutarch, and from Machiavelli.12 Note that the Legislator arrives on the scene after the institution of the social contract: the need for the Legislator arises precisely because the body politic requires his wisdom to determine its laws.13 As Gildin puts it, ‘Acknowledging the need for a legislator means acknowledging the need for political wisdom of a very high order at least some time if there is to be any hope of founding sound political societies’ (1983:68). The lack of proper laws, that is, would arrest the development of society as it could

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be; the intercession of the Legislator is required to create the conditions for political success. Following Montesquieu, Rousseau argues that part of the Legislator’s political wisdom is his ability to fashion laws that suit the society for which he legislates. The ‘general objects of every good legislative system must be modified in each country with reference to the local situation and the character of the inhabitants; and it is with reference to these conditions that we must assign to each people a particular legislative system which, though it may not be intrinsically the best, is best for the state for which it is intended’ (SC, II.xi.4/III.392).14 Rousseau mentions three types of codified legislation: constitutional law, civil law, and criminal law (SC, II.xii). The task of the Legislator is thus to tailor these classes of laws to the given society’s particular circumstances. In The Social Contract Rousseau considers closely only constitutional law. However, we are primarily concerned with a fourth type of law Rousseau also mentions: the law of custom. In addition to these three types of law there is a fourth, the most important of all, which is graven not in marble or bronze, but in the hearts of the citizens; which forms the real constitution of the state…. I am speaking of moeurs, customs and, above all, of public opinion, a factor unknown to our political theorists, but on which the success of all the rest depends; a factor with which the great legislator is secretly concerned when he seems to be thinking only of particular regulations; for the latter are only the soffit of the arch, while moeurs, though of slower growth, are in the end its unshakable keystone. (SC, II.xii.5/III.394) That is, the Legislator’s underlying concern—his most fundamental activity—is to establish the proper sorts of moeurs. This is why, of course, Rousseau stipulates that to be able to receive law a society can have no firmly established customs: the way must be clear for the Legislator to institute customs that support the codified laws. But why does Rousseau insist on the necessity of proper moeurs? What can moeurs do that the codified law cannot? Rousseau claims that the law of moeurs ‘imperceptibly substitutes the force of habit for that of authority’ (ibid.). That is, moeurs serve a psychological function: through internal conditioning they shape people’s disposition to obey the law. In Chapters 4 and 5 we will examine how the moeurs of both


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society as it is and society as it could be contribute to their respective political failure and success. Now, however, let us consider the general psychological effect Rousseau intends for the moeurs instilled by the Legislator—that is, let us consider Rousseau’s conception of human nature in society as it could be. The transformation of human nature On Rousseau’s view, the Legislator faces a nearly impossible task. ‘What makes the work of legislation difficult is not so much the things that have to be created as the things that have to be destroyed; and what makes it so rarely successful is the impossibility of finding natural simplicity joined with social needs’ (SC, II.x.5/III.391). But, as we saw above, Rousseau holds that at the moment of the social contract there are no strong pre-existing customs to be destroyed—in respect of moeurs the Legislator’s project is not to destroy but to create. The act of destruction is instead directed at the impossibility Rousseau mentions in this context: what makes legislation difficult is the impossibility of combining the simplicity men have in the state of nature and the needs men have when living in society. For legislation to succeed, something in these ingredients—natural simplicity and social dependency—must be destroyed. Specifically, the Legislator must remove whatever it is that makes their combination impossible. Precisely why is it impossible to combine natural simplicity and social dependency? The tension between them is elucidated by Rousseau’s claim that the Legislator must be prepared to transform human nature. Anyone who ventures to create institutions for a people must feel himself capable, so to speak, of changing human nature, transforming each individual, who in himself is a perfect and isolated whole, into part of a larger whole from which this same individual in a sense receives his life and being; he must feel capable of changing the constitution of man in order to strengthen it, and of replacing the physical and independent existence we have all received from nature with a partial and corporate existence. In short, he must deprive man of his own powers to give him powers which are foreign to him, and which he cannot use without the help of others. (SC,II.vi3/III.381-2)15

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The Legislator, that is, must render individuals incomplete. Their natural simplicity rests on their isolated wholeness: Rousseau values primitive life for its self-reliance. Individuals’ social dependency rests on their participation in a larger whole: men in society rely on each other—as members of an economic system—to survive. It is therefore manifestly paradoxical to try to combine simplicity and dependency: in Rousseau’s lexicon the two terms are contradictory. Indeed, he suggests that ‘The subjecting of man to law is a problem in politics which I liken to that of the squaring of the circle in geometry’ (GP, I, 161–2/III.955). It seems, therefore, that simplicity must give way to dependency; the transformation of human nature apparently involves the destruction of individuals’ natural independence. As Rousseau phrases it in Emile, ‘Good social institutions are those that best know how to denature man’ (I, 40/IV.249). At the same time, however, natural simplicity must be preserved. Precisely, Rousseau claims that the impossibility of combining simplicity and dependency tends to make legislation unsuccessful. It follows that successful legislation requires that the Legislator discover a way to reconfigure simplicity, so that it can be combined with dependency. For, the right sort of simplicity can restrain what Rousseau considers to be the wrong sort of dependency— dependency on particular individuals.16 The evils of society as it is stem from various forms of personal dependence—in the form of amour propre, or of the mutual dependence of rich and poor. Thus, as much as must natural simplicity, social dependency must be reconfigured. The transformation of human nature the Legislator must effect is not, therefore, simply the destruction of independence; rather, he must reconfigure the elements of human psychology, in order to produce a stable balance between them. In the terms of Rousseau’s psychology, natural simplicity and social dependency correspond to amour de soi and amour propre. These two forms of self-love can be seen as the psychological correlates of the physical conditions of individual survival. When individuals are able to survive on their own they are characterized by amour de soi; when they rely on others they are characterized by amour propre. The problem faced by the Legislator can be restated, then, as follows. The Legislator must penetrate the insularity of amour de soi, so that individuals will be psychologically capable of interacting with each other. But he must also control the growth of


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amour propre, so that individuals are not caught up in a frenzy of invidious comparisons. That is, he must strike a balance between the social interdependence fostered by amour propre and the emotional autonomy consonant with amour de soi, so that each serves to check the excesses of the other.17 Rousseau imagines that the proper balance between amour de soi and amour propre can be struck by redirecting both forms of self-love, from the self to society as a whole. On the one hand, in the picture Rousseau paints, the nurturative power of amour de soi is drawn out over the whole community, so that the community becomes, so to speak, the psychic base from which an individual confronts the world. That is, the individual derives the sense of his own existence from the fact of his membership in the community: he identifies himself as a citizen. Although he is no longer completely emotionally autonomous—his sense of self comes from the outside— he is not therefore under the sway of amour propre. Rather he looks to the community as a whole and not to particular individuals for his sense of worth—his dependence is not personal, but social.18 On the other hand, the community as a whole becomes the object of the pride generated by amour propre, which is thereby redeemed from the destructive role it plays in society as it is. That is, one’s amour propre is directed toward oneself not as an individual but as a member of one’s community. On Rousseau’s view, that is, in society as it could be the evolution of human nature integrates amour de soi and amour propre, allowing individuals to enjoy at once the peace of the state of nature and the advantages of society. Patriotism The integration of amour de soi and amour propre Rousseau envisions does not suppose a curtailment of men’s emotions. Rather it entails a deflection: love of the self is transformed into love of country, that is into the emotion of patriotism. Rousseau conceives a form of patriotism that rests on a psychological foundation of transfigured self-love. He argues that if people are trained early enough never to consider their selves except through their relations with the body of the state, and not to perceive their own existence except as part of the state’s existence, they will eventually come to identify themselves in some way with this larger whole, to feel themselves to be

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members of the country, to love it with that exquisite sentiment that every isolated man feels only for himself, to elevate their soul perpetually toward this great object, and thus to transform into a sublime virtue that dangerous disposition from which arises all our vices. (DPE, II, 125/III.259–60) As we shall see in a moment, the sublime virtue Rousseau mentions is civic virtue. The exquisite sentiment that every isolated man feels only for himself is, of course, amour de soi. Amour propre is that dangerous disposition from which arises all our vices—‘the hateful and irascible passions are born of amour propre’ (E, IV, 214/ IV.493). Thus, in Rousseau’s view, the integration of amour de soi and amour propre we discussed above is accomplished through patriotism: the psychic energy of self-love is cathected to a worthy object, the country. Commentators standardly note that patriotism transforms amour propre (see, e.g., Shklar (1985:21); Gauthier (1980:83–5)). But it is crucial to recognize that patriotism must draw on amour de soi as well as amour propre. Both forms of self-love would inhibit the formation of the proper emotional relation between individuals and the state: amour propre by fomenting disruptive rivalries between individuals, and amour de soi by serving as a non-social source of well-being which might disengage individuals from social cooperation. Thus, both forms of self-love must be redirected, by means of patriotism, to the community as a whole. Rousseau does not provide an explanation of the psychological process which redirects self-love into patriotism. However, we can refer to his account of pity to see what he must have had in mind. As we saw in Chapter 2, Rousseau defines pity as an identification with another, which leads one to experience the other’s suffering as one’s own. Hence, in nature, men are disposed not to cause suffering—indeed, to aid those sufferers they happen to encounter. We noted that Rousseau seems to be aware of a flaw in his view: identification involves imagination—literally, imagining oneself to be the other—but in natural man the faculty of imagination is undeveloped. By contrast, in civil man the faculty of imagination is well-developed, but Rousseau insists that civil man’s amour propre serves to stifle natural pity. In society as it could be, however, men are capable of feeling pity without interference. As a result of their social experience their mental faculties have developed fully. But, since inequality is minimal, amour propre is not unduly excited.


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Thus, men have the imaginative ability to project themselves outward, but not be thrown back inward by amour propre. Now in Emile Rousseau argues that his pupil’s ability to identify imaginatively with others will be stimulated if he is offered ‘objects on which the expansive force of his heart can act—objects which swell the heart, which extend it to other beings, which make it find itself everywhere outside of itself’ (E, IV, 223/IV.506). Rousseau regards the country as just such an object.19 Rousseau presumes that men conceive of their country in terms of the individuals who make it up.20 When thinking about their country, therefore, men project themselves outward, identifying with their fellow citizens. Their shared identity as members of a single society allows each to imagine himself in the place of each other. This process of imaginative identification produces a moi commun: men come to subsume their own identities under the common identity of the community. In Rousseau’s words, the psychological process takes man’s ‘absolute existence from him in order to give him a relative one and transport[s] the I into the common unity, with the result that each individual believes himself no longer one but a part of the unity and no longer feels except within the whole’ (E, I, 40/ IV.249; see Manuel (1978)). A result of the imaginative identification with others is that selflove extends outward to become love of country: men extend to their fellow citizens their own amour de soi. Ultimately, for the patriotic individual, the moi commun becomes the self that is the object of amour de soi: the patriot loves his country ‘with that exquisite sentiment that every isolated man feels only for himself.’ The patriot thinks of himself as a member of his community, and derives the same sense of comforting wholeness from his membership as natural man does from himself. The psychological effect of amour de soi, in other words, is achieved by patriotism. So much for amour de soi; how does patriotism achieve the effect of amour propre? In Rousseau’s view amour propre is a fact of life; society is impossible without it, and in society its appearance is inevitable. Thus in Emile he acknowledges that his efforts will not prevent the appearance of amour propre in his pupil. ‘These dangerous passions will, I am told, be born sooner or later in spite of us. I do not deny it’ (IV, 226/IV.510). The problem he faces therefore is to satisfy the needs of amour propre while avoiding its socially damaging effects. Rousseau shows that patriotism addresses the problem at two levels.

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To begin, Rousseau distinguishes between two forms of amour propre: vanity and pride. ‘Opinion which lays great store by frivolous objects produces vanity; but that which lights on objects intrinsically great and beautiful produces pride’ (CC, 326/ III.938). Again, for Rousseau the country is a truly estimable object—hence it can serve as a source of pride, which ‘consists in deriving self-esteem from truly estimable goods’ (ibid.). But pride is more than the sense of membership, derived from amour de soi, we just considered. As a form of amour propre it is a feeling of relative advantage, based on comparisons with others. The patriot’s pride makes him feel special, in virtue of his membership in his society. He derives pleasure from comparisons between himself and others—where the others are members of other communities. Rousseau thus argues that individuals should feel attached only to their own society, rather than feel equally at home in any society. Rousseau was squarely anti-cosmopolitan; he held, in Gauthier’s words, that ‘our fellows are not all humankind, but the members of a particular community—our fellow citizens’ (1980:84).21 Although this form of amour propre might well serve to foster rivalries between societies, Rousseau argues that within a given society it fosters unity. Patriotic amour propre, in other words, transforms the preference for oneself over others into preference for one’s country over other countries. Rousseau holds that patriotic pride of citizenship has a further effect on amour propre. Because men regard their country as special, their amour propre drives them to seek its approval. That is, rather than seeking self-esteem from other individuals, they seek it from their country as a whole. Rousseau regards this phenomenon as a powerful lever on human behavior, one which can be used to condition men to act in ways that benefit society. As we shall see at length in Chapter 5, Rousseau endorses a variety of cultural practices that reward socially valuable behavior. In general, he argues that society can exploit the amour propre of its members, by recognizing and honoring activities that are socially useful. The competition amour propre inspires between individuals is thus transformed from a danger, which poses the threat of economic inequality, to a source of increased service on behalf of the state. As Shklar notes, patriotism ‘redirects amour-propre from pursuing personal exploitation to positive public enterprises’ (1985:19; see also Gauthier (1980:85)). Patriots, then, are men whose amour propre has been socialized—they feel a general pride at being


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members of their society, which they view as the source of the special esteem they seek for themselves. Civic virtue The convergence of amour de soi and amour propre into patriotism, Rousseau argues, produces civic virtue. Love of country is a ‘sweet and lively sentiment,’ that ‘in joining the force of amour propre and all the beauty of virtue’ becomes ‘the most heroic of all the passions’ (DPE, II, 121/III.255). Rousseau thus provides a psychological foundation for the conception of civic virtue articulated by Montesquieu, who defined civic virtue as love of country. Montesquieu’s conception of civic virtue rests on his distinction between the ‘nature’ and ‘principle’ of different sorts of governments. The nature of government is determined by the distribution of sovereign power: in republican government power is held by all the citizens (a democracy), or some group of citizens (an aristocracy); in a monarchy a single person rules according to laws; and in a despotism a single person rules arbitrarily (SL, II, esp. 1.1). Montesquieu explains the difference between the nature and principle of government as follows: ‘the former is that by which it is constituted, the latter that by which it is made to act. One is its particular structure, and the other the human passions which set it in motion’ (SL, III. 1.2). The principle of government, in other words, is the dominant structure of motivation among the citizens, according to which they act in ways appropriate to their political institutions.22 Montesquieu argues that the principles of monarchy and despotism are, respectively, honor and fear. However, we need only consider the principle of the republican form of government, which is (civic) virtue. Montesquieu defines civic virtue ‘as the love of the laws and of our country. As such love requires a constant preference of public to private interest, it is the source of all private virtues; for they are nothing more than this very preference itself (SL, IV.5.2; see also V.2.1).23 Rousseau’s definition follows the same lines—but with a crucial modification. ‘Do we want people to be virtuous? Let us begin by making them love their country’ (DPE, II, 122/III.255). Patriotism, that is, provides the emotional foundation of civic virtue—and as we have just seen, for Rousseau, love of country is a transform of love of self. However, Rousseau casts his definition of civic virtue itself not in

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terms of interest but in terms of the will: it is the ‘conformity of the private to the general will’ (DPE, II, 119/III.252). That is, Rousseau conceives of civic virtue as a matter of motivation. As Patrick Riley notes, ‘Much of the time, Rousseau speaks not of the common good but of a tension between particular will and general will and of reconciling these wills. Indeed, the whole concept of political virtue is entirely tied up with this reconciliation of wills’(1982:113). How are we to understand this reconciliation of wills? How, specifically, does patriotism constitute civic virtue? We must address these questions at two levels. For, while Rousseau certainly holds that society is bound together by affective ties, he nonetheless maintains that it would not persist if it violated rational self-interest. We are, therefore, in the same position as when we considered amour propre and private interest (pp. 120–2) above. We must connect Rousseau’s broad psychological view to a theory of rational cooperation. From the former perspective, civic virtue is an aspect of the passion of patriotism, explained in terms of amour de soi and amour propre. From the latter perspective, we can interpret the reconciliation of wills as a matter of the attitude the individual takes toward his wants. That is, we can regard civic virtue as we defined it in Chapter 1: a form of self-interest by which an individual attaches no special significance to his own wants simply because they are his. Let us now go on to consider how patriotism, robustly conceived as a complex psychological whole, underlies the attitude toward wants that, as we saw, provides a rational account of the general will.24 Civic virtue and love of country Rousseau argues that ‘love of country is the most effective [means of instilling civic virtue], for…every man is virtuous when his private will is in conformity with the general will in all things, and we willingly want what is wanted by the people we love’ (DPE, II, 121/III.254). That is, Rousseau holds that patriotism entails love for the other members of society, and out of love for them the patriot wants what they want because they want it. The patriot is willing to modify his own wants in light of his knowledge of what society wants. What society wants is, of course, the general will— the set of benefits on which all the members of society can agree. Thus, the patriot is not committed to his own wants because they


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are his; rather, he commits himself to the set of wants specified by the general will. In broad outline, then, Rousseau’s conception of patriotism supports the conception of civic virtue we developed in Chapter 1. Within that outline, there are several specific points at which both conceptions meet. Patriotism and self-interest First, recall that, in Chapter 1, we defined civic virtue as a form of self-interest. Given its basis in self-love, it is perhaps not surprising that, on Rousseau’s conception, patriotism is at bottom selfinterested. Let us consider what sustains an individual’s love for his country. In the Discourse on Political Economy Rousseau argues that the state is responsible for the welfare of its citizens. ‘Is it not the commitment of the body of the nation to provide for the maintenance of the humblest of its members with as much care as for that of all others? And is the welfare of a citizen any the less the common cause than the welfare of the entire state?’ (DPE, II, 122/ III.256). That is, Rousseau holds, the general will must encompass at least certain minimal wants of each member of society. But, to the extent that each member of society sees every other acting in his interest, Rousseau argues, he will respond with love. ‘Those from whom one expects good or ill by their inner disposition, by their will—those we see acting freely for us or against us—inspire in us sentiments similar to those they manifest toward us. We seek what serves us, but we love what wants to serve us’ (E, IV, 213/III.492). Thus, as a beneficiary of the general will, each member of society feels love for his fellow citizens—that is, is patriotic. Rousseau insists, that is, that in the background of the individual’s feelings of patriotism is the continuing satisfaction of his own wants. As Joshua Cohen puts it, ‘a willingness to advance the interest of others develops together with the recognition that others aim to advance our interests’ (1986b: 294). Amour de soi and civic virtue Now while patriotism rests on a foundation of self-interest, its two components—amour de soi and amour propre—frame the attitudes the patriotic individual takes toward his wants. As we saw above, the patriot’s amour de soi applies to his whole society, so that the self he loves is a moi commun. His moi commun makes him identify with his

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fellow citizens; therefore, he conceives of himself as similar to them—in two respects. On the one hand, Rousseau argues that a society’s culture should form the wants of the citizens, so that everyone wants more or less the same things. ‘It is national institutions which shape the genius, the character, the tastes and the moeurs of a people; which give it an individuality of its own’ (GP, III, 168/III.960). The individuality of the people as a whole entails the relative uniformity of the particular citizens of whom it is constituted; indeed, Rousseau presumes that patriotism is possible only when individuals are similar with respect to their wants. On the other hand, there is a more abstract respect in which the patriot regards himself as similar to his fellow citizens. His identification with them leads him to place equal weight on the satisfaction of their wants as on the satisfaction of his own. ‘Love of men derived from love of self is the principle of human justice. The summation of all morality is given by the Gospel in its summation of the law’ (E, IV, 235, n./IV.423). That is, Rousseau interprets Jesus’s injunction to love one’s neighbor as oneself (Mark 12:31) to mean that one should extend the preference one naturally feels for oneself to others. In the private education of Emile Rousseau trains his pupil to extend his self-love to all humanity (IV, 253/ I I I.548). Public education, however, extends self-love only to one’s fellow citizens: ‘It seems that the sentiment of humanity evaporates and weakens in being extended over the entire world…. Interest and commiseration must somehow be limited and restrained to be active…[and] this inclination in us can be useful only to those with whom we have to live’ (DPE, II, 121/III.254).25 It follows, that is, from the patriot’s commiseration with the other members of society that he regards all the members of society’s wants—his included—as equally deserving of satisfaction. Thus, the patriot will adopt an attitude toward his own wants that corresponds to civic virtue as defined in Chapter 1. The civically virtuous individual regards his wants as on a par with the wants of every other member of society—everyone’s wants all have an equal share in constituting the common good. The civically virtuous individual, that is, approaches cooperation from a perspective of the moi commun: he is disposed to practice acts that contribute to the greatest good (GM, II.iv.13). When there is a discrepancy between his own private wants and the good of society as a whole, he habitually chooses to satisfy the wants of his moi commun. For, he recognizes both


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that the long-term prospects for satisfying his own wants are based on the efficacy of the general will, and that the efficacy of the general will (both its formulation and enforcement) are best ensured if every member of society (himself included) distances himself from his own wants. The aspect of patriotism based on amour de soi motivates individuals to disregard the intensities of their particular wants; to seek equal amounts of satisfaction for all members of society; to cooperate with others in collective actions—in sum, to take the stance that, see Ch. 1, makes possible political success. Amour propre and civic virtue Finally, as we saw in the previous section, the aspect of patriotism based on amour propre has two effects: it makes individuals feel pride of membership in their society, and stimulates them to seek honor by performing socially useful services. This aspect of patriotism also grounds the attitude toward one’s wants that defines civic virtue. For, both its effects motivate the individual to maximize not his own utility exclusively but the utility of society as a whole: the patriotic individual conceives of his own self-interest in terms of the general interest of the community. As Gildin puts it, men of civic virtue are ‘public-spirited citizens who habitually seek their interest as part of the public interest and who do not seek it at the expense of the common good’ (1983:70). On the one hand, since the patriot’s amour propre is satisfied by comparisons between his country and others, it follows that efforts to increase his own private utility that did not at the same time increase the utility of the rest of society would not satisfy his amour propre. Thus, on the other hand, the patriot is inspired to perform deeds to increase society’s utility—with the result that his amour propre is satisfied by the honor he receives. In Rousseau’s words, the patriot ‘would seek his happiness in that of others,’ (DPE, II, 122/III.255). Again, that is, patriotism sustains civic virtue: it channels the force of amour propre to motivate individuals to subordinate their wants to the general will. Patriotism and the Legislator We can see, therefore, that the patriotic individual is civically virtuous in the sense we defined in Chapter 1. The psychological dynamic behind patriotism—that is the reconciliation of amour de soi and amour propre through the displacement of self-love on to the country—dictates the attitude toward wants characteristic of the civically virtuous form

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of self-interest. However, we should note that Rousseau does not explain how patriotism comes into being. Once it is in place, it has the effects we have just surveyed. But what process transforms individuals whose self-love is directed toward themselves into patriots? 26 Rousseau’s conception, it seems, is circular: it presumes that men are patriotic in order to explain how self-love can be made to extend out to the country. For example, his claim that children could be trained to attach their amour de soi and amour propre to their country presumes the patriotism of the adults who are their teachers. Although Rousseau did not address the question of initiating patriotism specifically, as we have noted he did acknowledge the apparent circularity of his account of the initiation of political life generally. ‘For a new-born people to be able to appreciate sound political principles, and to follow the fundamental rules of political necessity, the effect would have to become the cause; the social consciousness to be created by the new institutions would have to preside over the establishment of those same institutions; and men, before laws existed, would have to be as the laws themselves should make them’ (SC, II.vii.9/III.383).27 Thus, in order for society to function in ways that inspire patriotism in its members, its members would have to be patriotic enough to serve their society. Specifically, for the members of society to love each other, they must see each other act with the intention of benefiting each other—that is they must all act in accordance with the general will. But why would they act in accordance with the general will if they were not already patriotic? Rousseau’s answer, his way of breaking the circle, is part of his doctrine of the Legislator. He argues that the Legislator cannot rationally persuade a newly formed people of the advantage of living by law—since the people are simply not capable, in advance of political experience, of understanding how obeying the law works to their benefit. Although social life could not persist if it violated rational selfinterest, men are not yet capable of grasping a rational explanation of why they should not follow their private interest, but rather become civically virtuous. ‘That is why the founding fathers of nations have always had to resort to divine intervention, and to honour the gods for their own wisdom,…in order to compel by divine authority those whom human prudence could not move’ (SC, II.vii.10–11/III.383–4; see Chapter 6, pp. 238–43). The Legislator, so to speak, primes the pump of political life through the emotion of awe. The raw power of awe forces men to detach themselves from their own wants. Awestruck, they obey the law, and thereby work for the common good. Once they have done


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so, they notice the benefits they provide each other, and thereby come to feel love for one another. Their love for their fellow citizens constitutes patriotism. With the appearance of patriotism the cycle can continue on its own: the psychological changes have been made that create civic virtue, and allow for political success. This vision of the work of the Legislator reveals Rousseau’s vision of society as it could be. To achieve society as it could be, human nature has to evolve from its state in nascent society, but along different lines than it follows to arrive at society as it is. Instead of being overcome by amour propre, human nature in society as it could be is the result of a melding of amour propre and amour de soi, with the country serving as the object of both forms of self-love. Patriotic men are motivated by civic virtue—hence they do not pursue their own private ends in isolation, but cooperate in pursuit of ends they hold in common. This is the grand transformation of human nature Rousseau assigns to the Legislator. The Legislator exploits the plasticity of human psychology, including the ability of men to change the attitudes they take toward their wants, to mold human nature into a form consonant with successful political cooperation. In this chapter we have completed Rousseau’s history of human nature. We have seen how, as society develops, man’s psychology can come to be dominated by amour propre, or alternatively can reconcile amour propre with amour de soi in patriotism. The former case represents the path to society as it is, and reveals the psychological mechanism beneath private interest. The latter case represents society as it could be, and shows how men can become civically virtuous. This genealogical approach explains, given the facts of human nature, the psychological bases of political failure and political success. It therefore sets the stage for the final element of Rousseau’s theory of the political role of culture. That is Rousseau’s account of the social mechanisms— cultural practices and institutions—which act on individuals, shaping the direction of their self-love. The next two chapters, therefore, take up Rousseau’s theory of culture. In Chapter 4 we shall see how the culture of society as it is reinforces amour propre, and thus contributes to political failure. In Chapter 5 we shall consider the culture of society as it could be, which fosters political success.

Chapter 4

Culture and political failure

In Chapters 2 and 3 we surveyed Rousseau’s history of human nature. This history falls into four broad phases. First is the state of nature, where men are dominated by amour de soi, hence are psychologically incapable of social interaction. Second is nascent society, where men begin to experience amour propre, hence develop the needs and skills required for social existence. The third and fourth phases represent alternative paths towards full-scale society, along which evolve different constellations of these two main forms of self-love. The third represents the path that mankind has taken, into society as it is, where men are dominated by amour propre. The fourth represents the path men could have taken (but have not) into society as it could be, where amour de soi and amour propre are reconfigured into patriotism. Rousseau’s history of human nature illustrates his assertion that once men enter into society, human psychology is no longer a given fact of nature, but a product of social interaction. The cultural practices and institutions-what Rousseau calls the moeurs— of society shape men’s fundamental motivations and attitudes. Rousseau holds that moeurs penetrate the soul and direct the will (F P, XVI.6, I I I.555; see Appendix I). It follows that the inhabitants of society as it is and society as it could be are very different kinds of people. Imagine how an inhabitant of one realm would fare in the other—a man at home in society as it could be would be crushed by the injustices of society as it is, and a master of society as it is would have to be ‘forced to be free’ in society as it could be. Thus, treating the Swiss cities as examples of society as it could be, Rousseau declares that ‘Cromwell would have been put to forced labor by the People of Berne, and the Duc de Beaufort imprisoned by the Genevans’ (SC, IV.i.3/III.438). 144


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The respective political failure and success of these two versions of society stem from the differences between the inhabitants of the two realms. Their domination by amour propre concentrates the motivations of the inhabitants of society as it is on their own private interest; they will join factions or become free riders at the earliest opportunity. By contrast, the patriotism of the inhabitants of society as it could be ensures that, out of civic virtue, they will cooperate to formulate and enforce the general will. Rousseau’s political theory of culture, therefore, links society’s political fortunes to its cultural life via the psychology of its members. In this chapter and the next we shall examine in detail how the cultures of society as it is and society as it could be promote their respective political failure and success. Let us begin, however, with a closer review of Rousseau’s conception of the relation between culture and politics. THE CULTURAL FOUNDATION OF POLITICAL AUTHORITY The roots of Rousseau’s understanding of the political function of culture can be seen in his Discourse on Science and Art, or First Discourse. The occasion for the discourse was the competition sponsored by the Academy of Dijon in 1750, for an essay on the question ‘Whether the restoration of the Sciences and Arts has contributed to the purification of moeurs.’ Rousseau outraged his contemporaries—and made his reputation—by arguing the opposite of what he acknowledged to be common sense. Instead of defending what would have been an obvious claim that the improvement of moeurs was a natural effect of Enlightenment, Rousseau attacked Enlightenment, for its corrupting influence on collective life. Specifically, he blames advances in certain cultural fields—the sciences, letters, and the arts—for a more general cultural decline. The First Discourse anticipates many of the positions Rousseau would flesh out in later works, in light of which its somewhat compressed argument can be interpreted. Likewise, in the First Discourse Rousseau does not articulate his views on politics— though what he says there is consonant with his later works in political theory. Thus, we must read the passages in the First Discourse that deal with the effect of Enlightenment on political life with some care, in order to learn how they contribute to

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Rousseau’s account of how cultural life can be politically damaging. Culture and domination Early on in the First Discourse Rousseau declares that cultural activities have a valuable political function. In the second paragraph of Part I he states that the positive contribution of the arts to political life is that they bind people together into a community, enabling political relations to take hold. During the Renaissance, Rousseau argues, ‘the major advantage of commerce with the muses began to be felt, namely of rendering men more sociable by inspiring in them the desire to please one another with works worthy of their mutual approval’ (DAS, 1.8/III.6). Although in this early statement of his view he does not use the term, it is clear that the profit from commerce with the muses is the mutual satisfaction of amour propre, through which the internal bonds within communities are strengthened. Rousseau cites this process with favor: the stimulation of sociability by amour propre is the ‘major advantage’ of the revival of the arts, which, he acknowledges, has brought Europe out of the ‘Barbarism of the first ages’ into which it had relapsed. Over the course of the very next paragraph, however, Rousseau’s tone changes. The mind has its needs, as has the body. The latter make up the foundations of society, the former make for its being agreeable. While the Government and the Laws see to the safety and the well-being of men assembled, the Sciences, Letters, and Arts, less despotic and perhaps more powerful, spread garlands of flowers over the iron chains with which they are laden, throttle in them the sentiment of that original freedom for which they seemed born, make them love their slavery, and fashion them into what is called civilized Peoples [Peuples polices]. Need raised up Thrones; the Sciences and Arts have made them strong. Earthly powers, love talents and protect those who cultivate them! (DAS, I.9/III.6–7, my emphasis) With this passage Rousseau posits a historical process, by the end of which his initial evaluation of culture is reversed. At the outset, culture helps bring people together, enabling political life to begin.


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Government and law serve a worthy end: they ensure the safety and well-being of assembled men, in response to their physical needs; so far Rousseau approves of culture’s political effects. However, political cooperation entails a loss of freedom—hence Rousseau speaks of assembled men as laden with chains.1 In the meantime culture continues to develop, in response to men’s mental needs. Cultural practices—the sciences, letters, and arts— make social life agreeable, even with its constraints: in Rousseau’s ironic image, they spread garlands of flowers over the iron chains of political life. Men have already traded their freedom for security; the effect of culture is that their original freedom is no longer missed. At this stage men are said to be civilized—they form peuples policés, where policé is understood not only as cultured but as subject to regulation by political authority. Here Rousseau’s appraisal of culture has reversed: no longer the valuable source of sociability, it makes people willingly accept their slavery. Culture, that is, becomes an adjunct to political domination. In Rousseau’s view culture strengthens political authority—but indirectly. Political relations are established to satisfy the physical needs of men assembled in society. Cultural development makes men enjoy social life—hence makes them more willing subjects of government. ‘Princes always view with pleasure the dissemination among their subjects of a taste for the agreeable Arts and for superfluities which entail no export of monies. For besides thus nurturing in them that pettiness of soul so suited to servitude, they well know that all the needs which a People imposes on itself are so many chains which it assumes’ (DAS, I.9, n./ I I I.7). Developments within the cultural sphere work to the advantage of those in power, by leading men to accept whatever is needed to maintain the comforts social life provides. Thus, for Rousseau, people who contribute to cultural life thereby—though perhaps unwittingly—contribute to political domination. Rousseau makes his point sarcastically, by reminding the ‘Earthly Powers’ of the value to them of cultural producers. On the surface the work of those who cultivate talents may seem irrelevant to politics; in fact, for Rousseau, their work makes people all the easier to rule. 2

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Politically supervised culture Rousseau’s ironic call to Earthly Powers at the beginning of the First Discourse is balanced by a serious plea to kings in the work’s closing paragraphs. Let Kings, therefore, not disdain admitting into their councils the people most capable of counseling them well: let them reject the old prejudice invented by the pride of the Great, that the art of leading Peoples is more difficult than that of enlightening them; as if it were easier to move men to act well of their own accord than to compel them to do so by force. Let learned men of the first rank find honorable asylum in their courts. (DAS, II.59/III.29–30) At the beginning and again at the end of the First Discourse, that is, Rousseau raises the issue of the sponsorship of cultural activities by political authority. But we should note immediately the difference in tone between the two cases: Rousseau’s plea to kings to take advice from scholars lacks the derisive quality of his suggestion to Earthly Powers to give protection to the talented.3 And there are enormous differences between the two situations Rousseau envisions. First, Rousseau calls on kings to take counsel from ‘learned men.’ His paradigm is Bacon, who was both a philosopher and Lord Chancellor of England. By contrast, Rousseau’s cynical recommendation to Earthly Powers is to protect those who cultivate talents. The context makes clear that the talents he has in mind are artistic: they are the source of the ‘agreeable Arts,’ and lead to the production of ‘superfluities’ (DAS, I.9, n./ I I I.7). What, in Rousseau’s view, do these two kinds of beneficiaries of political patronage contribute to society? Learned men are assigned the task of enlightening the king’s subjects—for the purpose of moving them to act well of their own accord. Rousseau’s phrase anticipates his description of the task faced by the Legislator in The Social Contract— to ‘compel without violence and persuade without convincing’ (SC, II.vii./III.383). The job of wise men at court is to help fashion a culture that teaches the people civic virtue. By contrast, those who cultivate their talents thereby cultivate the taste of their countrymen— making them experience more and more ‘superfluities’ as needs. The cultural effect of patronage of artists is that the people become


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more dependent and hence less free. In sum, Rousseau commends the political effectiveness of a culture led by wisdom, and condemns the political effects of a culture dominated by art. Thus, second, Rousseau’s plea to kings posits an active partnership with wise men. As we noted above, the Earthly Powers do no more than enable artists to work freely. The political effects of artists’ cultural activities are not intended—they are merely exploited by those in power. In the case of wisdom, by contrast, Rousseau bemoans the separation between political authority and cultural practice. ‘As long as power remains by itself on one side, [and] enlightenment and wisdom by themselves on the other… Peoples will continue to be base, corrupt, and wretched’ (DAS, II.59/III.30). His proposal, clearly, is that kings act to close this gap, by enacting the proposals of the learned—he hopes to see Virtue, science, and authority, animated by a noble emulation and working in concert for the felicity of Mankind’ (DAS, I I.59/ I I I.30). Thus, Rousseau endorses a case of the political coordination of a cultural practice: since political authorities have the power to enact their suggestions on how to motivate the people ‘to act well of their own accord,’ he proposes that scholars serve political authorities. The Platonic influence on Rousseau is obvious; the difference is that Plato calls for a philosopher king, while Rousseau speaks of the king’s philosopher. Finally, then, Rousseau’s plea to kings is a mode of criticism of the status quo. If cultural activities and political authority were already in close harmony, he would not need to make the proposal he does. In fact they are not. His remark to Earthly Powers is a bitter acknowledgment of the way things are. The situation that actually obtains is that the unsupervised growth of the arts has made it easier for Earthly Powers to rule over peuples polices. It would be better if cultural activities were coordinated with political authority—but that simply is not the case.4 Rousseau’s suggestion conforms to a structure in his thinking we have encountered already: the pairing of an account of existing problems with a vision of an idealized alternative. That is, the remark to Earthly Powers is made in recognition of society as it is, while the plea to kings looks towards society as it could be. These two moments in the First Discourse correspond to the two visions of culture we have identified in Rousseau’s political theory: that culture can contribute to political success or can lead to political failure. Cultural achievements are necessary to reap the

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benefits of political relations—but in gaining the happiness of political existence people become slaves. Rousseau thus at once celebrates cultural achievements and condemns the threat they pose; he sees that the agency of culture can produce society as it could be or society as it is. We can now begin to understand the factors Rousseau thinks distinguishes the two cases. He sees hope when culture is coordinated with political authority to influence the people in politically worthwhile ways. We shall examine his conception of politically beneficial culture in the next chapter. In the remainder of this chapter we shall examine Rousseau’s analysis of culture that is politically dangerous: culture that centers on art, and is politically unsupervised. THE CULTURE OF SOCIETY AS IT IS Rousseau distinguishes between different elements within the sphere of culture. On the one hand, he points to what we might call high culture: the sciences, arts, and letters. These specific activities are the province of specialized producers—‘men of letters’—and are clearly identifiable. On the other hand, he speaks of the typical forms of behavior in society—moeurs. Moeurs include what we might call popular or low culture—the activities by which people entertain themselves. But they also include the way people live and interact. Thus, moeurs are (by definition) not the work of specialists, but of everyone in society—and the activities by which they are constituted do not stand out from one another, but instead are woven together into a fabric of behavior (see Appendix I). Rousseau presumes in the First Discourse that the high cultural activities exemplified by the Enlightenment have a profound influence on the more generalized matrix of cultural life constituted by moeurs. For most of the discourse he declares what he takes to be the evident effects of the sciences, arts, and letters on moeurs; he does not explain in detail the mechanism by which these effects are caused. However, as we shall see, in this early effort he does intuit the process at work, which his later writings would explain at length: the action of amour propre.


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Opacity What, then, are the effects on moeurs that Rousseau attributes to the sciences, arts, and letters? We will consider three counts in Rousseau’s general indictment of the culture of society as it is. The first count is that the sciences, arts, and letters cut appearances loose from reality. He sarcastically charges ‘peuples polices’ to cultivate the sciences, arts, and letters: ‘Happy slaves, you owe them the delicate and refined taste on which you pride yourselves; the sweet character and urbane moeurs which make for such engaging and easy relations among you; in a word, the appearances of all the virtues without having a one’ (DAS, I.9/III.7). Enlightenment urbanity is thus a mask, for Rousseau, concealing a reality marked by ‘competition and rivalry on the one hand, conflict of interests on the other, and always the hidden desire to profit at another’s expense’ (DI, II.27/III.175). These ills appear as nascent society gives way to the state of war, and continue into society as it is. Looking back to the golden age, Rousseau bemoans the current state of moeurs with a conjectural contrast: ‘How sweet it would be to live among us if the outward countenance were always the image of the heart’s dispositions’ (DAS, I.11/III.7). At present, he implies, outer appearances do not reliably reflect inner thoughts or feelings: we cannot see through each other, hence we cannot truly know what others are thinking. Rousseau points to this barrier between minds as a source of human alienation—and yearns for the comfort that would come if men could depend on each other’s behavior to reveal their true intentions. Jean Starobinski (1988) places this contrast—between, as he calls them, opacity and transparency—at the center of Rousseau’s thought. Starobinski reminds us that Rousseau’s denunciation of deceptive appearance was scarcely an original enterprise. ‘That appearances are deceiving was hardly a novel theme in 1748…. The antithesis between appearance and reality belonged to common parlance: the idea had become a cliché’ (3–4). However, Rousseau was able to reenergize the well-worn dichotomy—by offering an historicized account of its applicability to moeurs. Rousseau explains the opacity of Enlightenment moeurs by looking back to a past marked by transparency: Before Art had fashioned our manners and taught our passions to speak in ready-made terms, our moeurs were rustic but

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natural; and differences in conduct conveyed differences of character at first glance. Human nature was, at bottom, no better; but men found their security in how easily they saw through one another. (DAS, I.12/III.8) Rousseau thus valorizes the past for its transparency: because men could see through each other they knew who posed a danger and who did not. He associates transparency with ‘natural’ moeurs—and then goes on to contrast ‘natural’ with ‘conventional.’ In this idealized past men grasped each other’s characters immediately, through an act of sympathetic understanding of each other’s behavior.5 In his Essay on the Origin of Languages Rousseau argues that early language has just this quality. The primitive function of language is to express passion. ‘If the first language still existed, …in its mechanical aspect it would have to answer to its primary aim and convey to the ear as well as to the understanding the almost inescapable impressions of passion seeking to communicate itself (E L, 4.2/ D, 51). That is, there is a direct, unmediated connection between the expression and the passion that is expressed—the cry is not a sign but a symptom of the feeling. Courtesy Rousseau posits a process that destroys the transparency of the past and introduces the opacity that dominates the present. Over time, he argues, the arts serve to codify behavior. Thus, today, subtler inquiries and a more refined taste have reduced the Art of pleasing to principles, a vile and deceiving uniformity reigns in our moeurs, and all minds seem to have been cast in the same mold: constantly politeness demands, propriety commands; constantly one follows custom, never one’s own genius. (DAS, I.13/III.8) Recall that Rousseau describes as the ‘major advantage’ of the arts their ability to render ‘men more sociable by inspiring in them the desire to please one another’ (DAS, I.8/III.8). An immediate result of this desire is courtesy: the interactions between men become pleasant, and social life becomes easier. In Rousseau’s view the progress of the arts formalizes courtesy into etiquette. Now social


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actions have meaning not as direct expressions of feeling but as signs, mediated by a conventionalized system of behavior. The force of propriety limits expression to the available vocabulary of acceptable conduct. Thus, Rousseau holds, moeurs become uniform: One no longer dares to appear what one is; and under this perpetual constraint, the men who make up the herd that is called society will, when placed in similar circumstances, all act in similar ways unless more powerful motives incline them differently. (DAS, I.13/III.8) As a result of its uniformity, however, courteous behavior is opaque. Because everyone acts alike, ‘One will thus never really know with whom one is dealing’ (ibid.). The opacity of moeurs makes life dangerous. ‘What a train of vices must attend upon such uncertainty…. Suspicions, offenses, fears, coolness, reserve, hatred, betrayal will constantly hide beneath this uniform and deceitful veil of politeness’ (DAS, I.14/III.8–9).6 Hence, while the behavior sanctioned by etiquette is outwardly courteous, that is pleasing to others, it often conceals the desire to exploit or injure other people. Once it becomes a sign, a bit of behavior is no longer a certain indication of the feeling it conventionally signifies. The transformation of behavior from expression to sign opens a gap that enables men to deceive one another. Men can now sever the sign from its referent: they can act as if they had a feeling they do not in fact have. In a word, they can lie. Thus, for Rousseau, Enlightenment condemns us to permanent wariness: the reality behind urbane moeurs forces us to regard each other with distrust. Amour propre The Second Discourse provides a psychological account of why moeurs become opaque. As we saw in Chapters 2 and 3, Rousseau traces the changes in human psychology that are coincident with the growth of society as it is—specifically, the conversion of self-love from amour de soi to amour propre. Amour propre—by which one’s selfesteem is based on the esteem one receives from others—has an explosive force on human relations; for Rousseau it opens the gulf between appearance and reality. Society fosters perfectibility,

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which activates the traits that gain esteem—mind, beauty, strength or skill. ‘Since these are the only qualities that could attract regard, one soon had to have them or to affect them; for one’s own advantage one had to seem other than one in fact was. To be and to appear became two entirely different things, and from this distinction arose ostentatious display, deceitful cunning, and all the vices that follow in their train’ (DI, II.27/III.174). That is, for Rousseau, the desire for esteem leads people to behave for other people—to do things specifically in order to win their admiration. The actions people take are thus geared toward the appearances they create. In so far as esteem is rewarded on the basis of appearances, the appearances become more important than the actual qualities of mind or genuine abilities they ordinarily represent. To men dominated by amour propre, the prospect of esteem by others becomes their single, overpowering motivation. Amour propre induces them to usurp appearances, severing the connections between appearances and underlying realities. This rupture destroys the original transparency between men, replacing it with the present condition of opacity. How can we combine the First and Second Discourse accounts of opacity? The former is based on the conventionality of behavior, the latter on the desire to seem more impressive than one is. But we should immediately note that the earlier work anticipates the concept of amour propre. As we have remarked, the First Discourse holds that the advantage of the arts is that they inspire men to please one another: they make men seek each others’ approval. Amour propre is thus the source of courtesy. Rousseau here again follows Montesquieu, who holds that ‘politeness…arises from a desire of distinguishing ourselves. It is pride that renders us polite; we are flattered with being taken notice of for behavior that shows we are not of a mean condition’ (SL, IV.2.12).7 But Rousseau goes on to argue that the transition from courtesy to etiquette is the result of men’s continuing experience of the arts. He holds that as men become more refined they take less and less pleasure in spontaneous interactions, and instead are concerned that their exchanges conform to the principles of good taste, which are promulgated through artistic presentations. This concern is again a result of amour propre. Men conform to the rules of good taste because they believe that by so doing they will impress others—they learn from the arts how to solicit the esteem they seek. Finally, then, the codified system of behavior that makes


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opacity possible is attributable to amour propre. Amour propre motivates men to take on deceptive appearances, and determines which appearances men prefer to take on. Rousseau’s criticism of amour propre helps explain the antifeminism he displays throughout his political writings. He sees amour propre as a threat to political success. But he also sees women as beings inherently imbued with amour propre. The long discussion of women in Emile, leading up to the introduction of Sophie, repeatedly articulates the view that women must define themselves through the opinions of others. Rousseau argues that the relative weakness of women makes them dependent on men for their survival. Speaking explicitly as a male Rousseau concludes that women depend on our sentiments, on the value we set on their merit, on the importance we attach to their charms and their virtues. By the very law of nature women are at the mercy of men’s judgments, as much for their own sake as for that of their children. It is not enough that they be estimable; they must be esteemed. It is not enough for them to be pretty; they must please. It is not enough for them to be temperate; they must be recognized as such. Their honor is not only in their conduct but in their reputation…. When a woman acts well, she has accomplished only half of her task, and what is thought of her is no less important than what she actually is. (E, V, 364/IV.702) In Rousseau’s view, that is, women are constrained to seek out the approval of others, in particular of men. Their natural condition is to gauge the success of their accomplishments by the impressions they make. In a word, Rousseau posits amour propre as the natural and persisting basis of female psychology (see Marshall (1988:140–1)). Women can esteem themselves only if they enjoy the esteem of the men on whom they depend. The association Rousseau draws between women and amour propre helps explain why he attacks what he sees as the female influence in contemporary moeurs. For example, in the First Discourse Rousseau complains that ‘men have sacrificed their taste to the Tyrants of their freedom’ (II.44/III.21), and in the Letter to d’Alembert he grumbles that ‘unable to make themselves into men, the women make us into women’ (100/GF, 195–6). What he accepts as natural and appropriate for women is anathema for political life—which, of

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course, is the exclusive province of men. The fear Rousseau expresses, that the culture of society as it is allows the domination of men by women, is attributable to the fear (among others, no doubt) that men will come to be dominated by amour propre. That, as we have seen, is a political fear. In other words, the vehemence of Rousseau’s comments on women can be understood to reflect the political meaning he ascribes to amour propre. The political danger of opacity The presence of opacity is an indication, for Rousseau, of the ineffectiveness of the general will—hence of the impossibility of successful politics. The general will requires the existence of a common good, that is a communality of interest among the members of society. But the presence of opacity proves that the members of society’s interests diverge: men deceive each other, Rousseau maintains, in order to survive in the face of conflicting interests. In society as it is, he argues, We must take care never to let ourselves be seen such as we are: because for every two men whose interests coincide, perhaps a hundred thousand oppose them, and the only way to succeed is either to deceive or to ruin all those people. That is the fatal source of the violence, the betrayals, the deceits and all the horrors necessarily required by a state of affairs in which everyone pretends to be working for the others’ profit or reputation, while only seeking to raise his own above them and at their expense. (PN, 28/II.968–9) That is, the members of society as it is are motivated by private interest, hence seek to fulfill their own wants above all else. They acknowledge the necessity to cooperate to attain public goods—but they attempt to exploit the social effort to attain only those goods they want, or to obtain more than their fair share. Opacity—the ability to conceal one’s true motives—is clearly a useful talent in the struggle to serve one’s own interests at the expense of others. Thus, opacity constitutes a threat to the formulation of the general will. As we noted in Chapter 1, Rousseau uses the vocabulary of concealment and disguise to describe the work of factions in the waning days of the state:


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‘guided by secret motives, no one thinks as a citizen any more than as if the state had never existed; and under the guise of laws are enacted iniquitous decrees whose only purpose is to further private interests’ (SC, IV.i.5/ I I I.438). To Rousseau factions represent political activity conducted behind a screen, out of the sight of the community as a whole. In his conception, members of a faction are opaque to their fellow citizens: they appear outwardly to support the general will, but their inner, hidden purpose is to further the interests of their party. That is, they present an appearance of civic virtue, but then they act out of private interest. Opacity also threatens the enforcement of the general will. For, it is essential to free riding—where individuals claim benefits from society but withhold their contributions to it. Clearly, the free rider can succeed only if his disposition to avoid supporting the decisions of the general will goes unnoticed. Indeed, as we saw in our review of Olson’s theory of collective action in Chapter 1, the noticeability of an individual’s actions within a group is a crucial determinant of whether the group can successfully provide itself with a collective good. In Chapter 5 we shall examine several schemes Rousseau proposes to combat opacity by increasing the visibility of the members of society’s actions to one another. For now we should stress that the fear Rousseau expresses with his concern for opacity has to do with attitudes as much as with actions. That is, his concern does not end with the thought of actions taking place out of the public eye—he is perhaps even more concerned by the invisibility of the attitudes that motivate such actions. The free rider exploits opacity by appearing to be civically virtuous, while in fact his hidden private interestedness motivates his decision to withhold his contribution to the general will. In Rousseau’s view, therefore, opacity is associated with the motivational structure of private interest. ‘Private interest… teaches everyone to adorn vice with the mask of virtue’ (E, IV, 314–15/IV.636). The connection can be seen in the genesis of opacity out of amour propre. As soon as a man compares himself to others he necessarily becomes their enemy. For, each wanting in his heart to be the strongest, the happiest, the richest, cannot help but regard as a secret enemy whomever, having the same project himself, becomes an obstacle to his accomplishment. Here is the primitive and radical contradiction which makes social

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affections nothing but appearance, and it is only for the sake of preferring ourselves to others for certain that we pretend to prefer them to ourselves. (FP, II.10, III.478) Comparisons generate amour propre, and amour propre encourages attitudes inimical to social cooperation: it teaches people to elevate their own satisfaction above all else. Thus, the culture of amour propre inculcates private interest. But at the same time, amour propre encourages men to conceal their inner life; the culture of amour propre fosters opacity. Opacity, it follows, is an adjunct to private interest—it aids individuals as they pursue their particular wants. Of special concern to Rousseau is that in virtue of opacity, individuals can disguise the structure of their motivations. They can seek their own exclusive satisfaction shielded by a mask of concern for the common good. It is in this sense that opacity constitutes an insidious danger to successful politics: opacity enables individuals to hide private interest behind the appearance of civic virtue. Luxury A second count in Rousseau’s indictment of Enlightenment is that Enlightenment culture is corrupted by luxury. Certain evils, Rousseau declares, ‘follow in the wake of the Letters and Arts. One of these is luxury, born, like they, of men’s idleness and vanity. Luxury is seldom found without the sciences and the arts, and they are never found without it’ (DAS, I.41/III.19). Luxury, that is, is the all but inevitable concomitant of cultural advancement—it accompanies those forces that make Enlightenment culture enlightened. The issue of luxury is one in which political, economic and cultural considerations meet head on. For, at issue is the political effect of a particular subset of moeurs: the moeurs of the rich. In examining the question of luxury, Rousseau is examining the effect on society overall of a cultural practice of the dominant social class. Rousseau’s political assessment of luxury is based on two levels of analysis: he examines the attraction of luxurious objects, and he considers the luxury’s economic effects. We shall take these up in turn.


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Luxury and theatre In the Discourse on Political Economy Rousseau catalogs livery servants, carriages, mirrors, chandeliers and furnishings, fabrics and gilding, courtyards and gardens of large homes, public entertainment of all kinds, and the idle professions of buffoonery, singing and acting as ‘that group of objects of luxury, amusement and idleness that catch everyone’s eye and that can scarcely be hidden, since their whole purpose is to be on display, and they would be useless if they should fail to be seen’ (DPE, III, 137/ III.276). Luxury is not primarily a matter of comfort, in other words, but of display. Objects of luxury do not, so to speak, function inward, to please their owners directly. Instead these objects function outward: owners of luxurious objects are pleased by the fact that other people notice their possessions. For this reason, Rousseau associates luxury with theatre. It is not simply that theatre is a sign of luxury—that it is patronized by the rich. Rousseau also sees a deeper, more intrinsic connection. For theatre is, of course, inherently a matter of display.8 Rousseau scathingly criticizes actors and actresses for making a profession of displaying themselves to others—indeed, he claims that they lose their own identities in the performances they create. ‘An actor on the stage, displaying other sentiments than his own, saying only what he is made to say, often representing a chimerical being, annihilates himself, as it were, and is lost in his hero’ (LdA, 81/GF, 165). An analogous effect takes place with theatre’s spectators, Rousseau argues. In the Letter to d’Alembert, he imagines what would happen if theatre were introduced into Geneva—which, as we shall see in Chapter 5, serves Rousseau as an exemplar of ideal culture. Theatrical performances would become a social event, at which the citizens of the town—particularly young men and women—would come for the purpose of displaying themselves to one another. Rousseau cites ‘the exposition of the ladies and the maidens all tricked out in their very best and put on display in the boxes’ and ‘the affluence of the handsome young who will come to show themselves off as consequences of theatre (LdA, 111/GF, 211). Thus theatre brings luxury in its train: people will want to imitate the ways of life they see on stage, and more particularly, theatre provides occasions for people to try to impress each other by their dress and manner. In the Letter Rousseau cites luxurious display as one of the disadvantageous consequences of bringing

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theatre to a small mountain village. ‘The wives of the Mountaineers, going first to see and then to be seen, will want to be dressed and dressed with distinction…. Out of this will soon emerge a competition in dress which will ruin the husbands, will perhaps win them over, and which will find countless new ways to get around the sumptuary laws’ (63/GF, 138). As with actors, the result of their self-display is that theatregoers lose themselves in their new roles. Rousseau is certain that the new activities surrounding theatregoing ‘will soon put the agreeable life of Paris and the fine airs of France in the place of our old simplicity’ (LdA, 111/GF, 212). But how is it that theatre induces luxurious moeurs, annihilating the moeurs that precede them? The answer, for Rousseau, is in the phenomenon of amour propre, which forges the link between theatre and luxury. Under the influence of amour propre, men derive selfesteem from the opinions in which they are held by others. Amour propre thus substitutes appearance for reality: it drives men to pretend to be what they are not in order to garner others’ esteem. Indeed, the language of theatre offers a readymade vocabulary to describe men’s predicament when ruled by amour propre. Men perform for one another, they appear behind masks, they play roles. In a word, amour propre theatricalizes human life. Luxury, in this light, is like a stage-prop: luxurious objects have no value in themselves, but only for their effect on an audience of other people. Their value, that is, is that they are attractive to others—they make others take notice when we display ourselves. They are an aid to the theatricalized activity of self-display, motivated by amour propre. The social institution of theatre will help spread luxury simply by providing stimuli to amour propre. The theatre is the place where society holds up models to its members, in the form of plays and players; these display luxury to the spectators. And the theatre is the place where the members of society have the opportunity for self-display; by their appearance at theatrical performances the spectators display luxury to each other. Theatre and virtue In general, then, Rousseau argues that, because it stimulates their amour propre, theatre tends to encourage the members of society to seek after luxury. But, we might ask, why cannot theatre present worthy examples, so that their amour propre encourages citizens to


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become virtuous? Rousseau explicitly attacks this view in the Letter. ‘The theatre, I am told, directed as it can and ought to be, makes virtue loveable and vice odious. What? Before there were dramas, were not virtuous men loved, were not the vicious hated, and are these sentiments feebler in the places that lack a theatre?’ (LdA, 22/ G F, 75). With respect to virtue, that is, theatre is at best superfluous. ‘The source of the concern which attaches us to what is decent and which inspires us with aversion for evil is in us and not in the plays. There is no art for producing this concern, but only for taking advantage of it’ (LdA, 23/GF, 76, my emphasis). That is, no play can make virtue appealing to its audience. People have an inborn love of the ‘morally beautiful’ which playwrights exploit; if people lack this sense no play can instill it in them (ibid., n. 1). The relevant question, however, is not whether we merely admire the moral beauty of certain actions—it is whether we act morally. For Rousseau it is not enough merely to like the hero; ‘what is important is to act consistently with one’s principles and to imitate the people whom one esteems’ (LdA, 24/G F, 77). (Esteems for the right reason, of course—Rousseau has in mind the case of a spectator’s response to a virtuous hero.) But there is a gap between esteem and imitation, forced open by self-interest. The heart of man is always right concerning that which has no personal relation to himself. In the quarrels at which we are purely spectators, we immediately take the side of justice, and there is no act of viciousness which does not give us a lively sentiment of indignation so long as we receive no profit from it. But when our interest is involved, our sentiments are soon corrupted. And it is only then that we prefer the evil which is useful to us to the good that nature makes us love. (ibid.) Theatre does nothing to close this gap; indeed, its structure makes theatre exacerbate the situation. For in theatre the audience can only be pure spectators. A feature of theatrical performances is that the spectators take no profit from the outcome of a play; their interests are not at stake. Indeed the extent of the audience’s imaginative involvement in a play may be dependent on the fact of disinterestedness: ‘the heart is more readily touched by feigned ills than real ones’ because our emotions ‘are pure and without mixture of anxiety for ourselves’ (LdA, 25/GF, 78–9). We must

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speak, then, of another gap, between the imaginary world of the play and the real world of the audience. This gap might afford the spectators the emotional safety needed to respond to the moral dilemmas of the characters. It is easy—too easy—to be moved by grand moral sentiments in the theatre: nothing of our own is at stake, hence we have no hidden motive which interferes with our admiration of what is right. Thus, within the theatre, the gap opened up between the world of the play and the real world aligns with the gap between esteem and imitation. We might admire a character in a play—but this does not guarantee an improvement in our actions. The question is whether our esteem for him during the performance leads us to imitate him in our world. But in our world—the arena for our actions—we are enmeshed in the web of our interests. The force of our interests counteracts the force of the esteem we feel for the hero; the desire to imitate the hero does not survive the lowering of the curtain and the raising of the lights. The fragility of this desire is a necessary fact of its genesis: at its birth it is sheltered from the corrosive effect of interest because it is born in the imaginary realm of the stage. Rousseau, then, is concerned that theatre inculcates a purely aesthetic relation to morality. By nature we take pleasure in seeing moral actions done; theatre gives us that pleasure without demanding that we ourselves do anything. In the theatre, morality becomes an object of pleasurable contemplation. Reduced to its beauty, morality is stripped of the component of praxis which makes it genuine. ‘In giving our tears to these fictions, [we feel] we have satisfied all the rights of humanity without having to give anything more of ourselves; whereas unfortunate people in person would require attention from us, relief, consolation, and work, which would involve us in their pains and would require at least the sacrifice of our indolence, from all of which we are quite content to be exempt’ (LdA, 25/GF, 79). In David Marshall’s words, ‘Theatre is dangerous for Rousseau because it teaches people how to avoid sympathy’ (1988:148). Thus, as Benjamin Barber observes, ‘Rousseau would have found nothing surprising in Broadway audiences who, after applauding the sentiments of black plays…rush anxiously from the theater into waiting taxis, buses and limousines that will protect them from and take them out of an inner city peopled with real-life equivalents of the struggling characters they have just finished cheering’ (1982:9).


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Rousseau’s concern, then, is that theatre can become a substitute for morality: we feel we have acted morally because we have understood and approved of the moral of a play. But, of course, in the theatre we precisely avoid the difficulties that accompany moral action—the gritty reality of doing good. We need not confront the competing claims of morality and our own interests. Nor do we become personally involved with those we help; characters in a play do not confront us with their needs. How, then, can its defenders claim that theatre inculcates virtue in its audience? Actual moral situations are complicated; morality in the theatre is deceptively simple. The structure of theatrical performance in principle insulates the audience from the most important dilemma of actual moral life—the dilemma between our desires to act virtuously and to serve our own private interests. This dilemma is exactly what the audience needs most to learn how to resolve. But, Rousseau argues, theatre enables men to feel as if they have resolved it without in fact acting virtuously: while at the theatre ‘the sterile interest [spectators] take in virtue serves only to satisfy [their] amour propre without obliging [them] to practice it’ (LdA, 57/GF, 128). Thus, Rousseau sarcastically asks whether the aesthetic relation we have to morality in the theatre might obviate the imperative we feel to act morally in the world: In the final accounting, when a man has gone to admire fine actions in stories and to cry for imaginary miseries, what more can be asked of him? Is he not satisfied with himself? Does he not applaud his fine soul? Has he not acquitted himself of all that he owes to virtue by the homage which he has just rendered it? What more could one want of him? That he practice it himself? He has no role to play; he is no actor. (LdA, 25/GF, 79) That is, people emerge from the theatre with the feeling that their responsibilities have been fulfilled; nothing remains for them to do. Ironically, moral aesthetics allows for ‘moral catharsis’: the theatre purges its spectators not of their passions but of their sense of responsibility. Rousseau intuits a danger here—that theatre might grant its spectators a kind of tacit permission to pursue private interest at the expense of society as a whole—that is to become free riders. The phenomenon of ‘moral catharsis’ can relieve the free rider of any residual moral feeling that might serve

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as a brake on his private interest; the emotional power of theatre might allow him to deceive himself about his failure to act out of civic virtue. For, the structure of theatrical perception models the free rider’s relation to the state: he takes pleasure in civically virtuous actions without having to perform any. ‘What then does he go to see at the theatre? Precisely what he wants to find everywhere: lessons of virtue for the public, from which he excepts himself, and people sacrificing everything to their duty while nothing is exacted from him’ (LdA, 24/GF, 78). In sum, Rousseau argues that by its very nature theatre concentrates private interest. The circumstances of theatrical performance—which involves the display of the actors to the audience, and the audience to itself—stimulates amour propre, and makes the members of society seek to elevate themselves above others through the ostentatious pursuit of luxury. At the same time, the exercise of the imagination that takes place in the theatre allows spectators to experience civic virtue vicariously, soothing their consciences as they act out of private interest in their actual lives. Thus, in Rousseau’s eye, theatre is the paradigm of the culture of society as it is. Luxury and inequality The second level of Rousseau’s analysis of luxury examines the link between luxury as a cultural phenomenon and the political economy of society as it is. Specifically, for Rousseau, luxury is the manifestation in culture of the underlying inequality in society’s distribution of wealth. The economic division between rich and poor gives rise to cultural differences. ‘As long there are rich people, they will want to distinguish themselves from poor people’ (DPE, III, 137/III.277). Objects of luxury serve this purpose: they are signs by which the rich mark their status. It is as status symbols that objects of luxury have value to their owners. Rousseau maintains that the rich take pleasure in their possessions only because others—the poor—are deprived of them (DI, II.52/ I I I.189). Thus, luxurious moeurs have this inner economic meaning: they reveal the fact—and consequences of—inequality. Rousseau’s views on luxury owe much to Montesquieu. In The Spirit of the Laws Montesquieu identifies the connection between luxury and inequality. ‘Luxury is ever in proportion to the inequality of fortunes. If the riches of a state are equally divided


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there will be no luxury; for it is founded merely on the conveniences acquired by the labor of others’ (SL, VI I. 1.1). Luxury, that is, is a matter of distribution of the products of labor. The rich have luxuries because they own the objects produced by the poor who work for them. Without inequality, Montesquieu intimates, each person would himself enjoy the conveniences his labor acquires. Luxury is thus a sign, for Montesquieu, of the economic relations between rich and poor. Indeed, defenders of luxury justified it by its economic function. Rousseau restates this defense of luxury in a rebuttal to an objection to the First Discourse. ‘Luxury is necessary in large States; it does them more good than harm: it serves to keep idle Citizens busy, and to provide bread for the poor’ (LR, 22/III.77). That is, on this view, the institution of luxury provides a means of subsistence to the poor, since it offers opportunities to the poor to be employed by the rich. Montesquieu argues that this economic mechanism is seen most clearly in monarchies. ‘As riches, by the very constitution of monarchies, are unequally divided, there is an absolute necessity for luxury. Were the rich not to be lavish, the poor would starve’ (SL, VII.4.2). But, he goes on, the poor get back only what they have produced in the first place. ‘The augmentation of private wealth is owing to its having deprived one part of the citizens of their necessary support; this must therefore be restored to them’ (ibid.). Rousseau incorporates Montesquieu’s arguments into his own attack on luxury. ‘Luxury may be needed to provide bread for the poor: but if there were no luxury, there would be no poor’ (LR, 34/III.79). He goes on to observe that money spent on luxuries does not benefit all the poor equally. ‘For every hundred paupers whom luxury feeds in our cities, it causes a hundred thousand to perish in our countryside: the money that passes between the hands of the rich and the Artists to provide for their superfluities, is lost for the Husbandman’s subsistence; and he is without a suit of clothing just because they must have piping on theirs’ (ibid., n.). Rousseau, that is, concurs that luxury is an economic mechanism for redistributing wealth—but he holds that this redistribution takes place in an inequitable fashion. Thus, for Rousseau, luxury is not simply a sign of inequality; it is also an aspect of an economic process that makes existing inequality more severe. Rousseau’s criticism of luxury thus illustrates his political interpretation of culture. He looks at moeurs—at the way people

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live—and sees their political meaning. ‘Our dishes require gravies; that is why so many sick people lack broth. We have to have liquors on our tables; that is why the peasant drinks only water. We have to have powder for our wigs; that is why so many poor people have no bread’ (ibid.). Luxury both is an effect of and has an effect on inequality. It follows, on Rousseau’s view, that luxury represents the threat inequality poses to political success. As we saw in Chapter 3, beyond a moderate level, economic inequality forecloses society’s prospect for successful politics. Inequality, we observed, is the background condition of the fraudulent social contract, foisted by the rich on the poor, which in turn sets in motion a train of developments in which government becomes increasingly arbitrary and unjust, culminating in violent despotism. Throughout this whole succession of forms of government Rousseau detects the presence of inequality (DI, II.53). The politics of society as it is cannot succeed, Rousseau intimates, because they are tainted by their corrupt origin: their actual function is not to formulate and enforce the general will but to serve the particular interests of the rich. Extreme inequality, that is, condemns society to political failure. Precisely why is inequality so damaging to political life, in Rousseau’s view? As regards the rich, inequality subverts the authority of the general will. In the Letter to d’Alembert he argues that inequality will lead to the usurpation of sovereign authority by the rich. In a democracy, in which the subjects and the sovereign are only the same men considered in different relations, as soon as the smaller number wins out in riches over the greater number, the state must perish or change its form’ (LdA, 115/GF, 218). That is, political equality cannot be sustained in the absence of substantial economic equality: the rich minority would not submit to the political rule of the poor majority, over whom they exercise economic power. ‘Never in a monarchy can the opulence of an individual put him above the prince; but in a republic, it can easily put him above the laws. Then the government no longer has force, and the rich are always the true sovereign’ (LdA, 115/GF, 218).9 In this case, the de facto sovereignty of the rich stands behind the merely apparent de jure sovereignty of the people. In effect, that is, the rich constitute a dominant faction—a small group within the state that organizes around some particular wants, and puts those wants in place of the general will. Rousseau takes it to be inevitable that the rich will coalesce into a faction that will seek


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control over the government—indeed, as we saw in Chapter 3, in the Second Discourse he presents government itself as the creation of the rich, designed to protect their advantages Just as Rousseau is concerned that inequality will enable the rich to seize political power, he is also concerned that it will disaffect the poor from political life altogether. Inequality will destroy civic virtue—the attitude that disposes citizens to cooperate in the formation and enforcement of the general will. As we saw in Chapter 3, the patriotic feelings that ground civic virtue are, at bottom, self-interested—people love their country because their country provides for the satisfaction of their wants. It is through ‘show[ing] itself as the common mother of all citizens’ that a country gains its citizens’ love (DPE, II, 123/III.258). It follows, for Rousseau, that where the state does not guarantee a minimum standard of living to all its citizens, civic virtue will not take root. This is the situation under conditions of inequality: the poor are abandoned to their fate, and consequently never develop the love of country that grounds civic virtue. ‘The greatest evil is already done when there are poor people to defend and rich ones to keep in check. It is only at intermediate levels of wealth that the full force of the laws is exerted’ (DPE, II, 124/III.258). That is, the rich insolently flaunt the law because they know they can get away with it, and the poor have never developed the disposition to obey the law that attends civic virtue. In order to protect civic virtue, therefore, the government must take steps to prevent inequality from arising. Rousseau follows Montesquieu in arguing that the government must regulate exchanges of property to preserve equality, thereby preserving the love of country that constitutes civic virtue. To preserve equality, Montesquieu holds, ‘it is absolutely necessary there should be some regulation in respect to women’s dowries, donations, successions, testamentary settlements, and all other forms of contracting. For were we once allowed to dispose of our property to whom and how we pleased, the will of each individual would disturb the order of the fundamental law’ (SL, V.5.3). Rousseau shares the belief that restraints on individuals’ economic freedom are necessary to inspire civic virtue among members of the community at large. ‘It is one of the most important items of business for the government to prevent extreme inequality of fortunes, not by appropriating treasures from their owner, but by denying everyone the means of acquiring them, and not by

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building hospitals for the poor but by protecting citizens from becoming poor’ (DPE, II, 124/III.258).10 If the government fails to maintain relative equality, as happens in society as it is, the cultural and economic conditions that promote inequality will by the same process destroy the community’s ability to act collectively. Men unequally distributed over the territory and crowded into one place while other areas are underpopulated; arts of pleasure and pure industry favored over useful and demanding crafts;…finally, venality pushed to such excess that esteem is measured in gold coins and the virtues themselves are sold for money; such are the most readily apparent causes of opulence and poverty, of the substitution of private interest for the public interest, of the mutual hatred of the citizens, of their indifference to the common cause, of the corruption of the people, and of the enfeebling of all of governmental power. (DPE, II, 124/III.258–9) Rousseau sounds his familiar litany of the evils of society as it is associated with extreme economic inequality—urbanization, luxury, greed: causes of the attitudinal changes that render political cooperation impossible. These changes annihilate the possibility of civic virtue, the basis for successful politics, and instead inculcate private interest, the source of political failure. The structure of social esteem The last count in Rousseau’s indictment of the moeurs of society as it is we shall consider is that society as it is bestows honors on the wrong people, for the wrong reasons. Rousseau points to ‘the distinction of talents and the disparagement of the virtues’ as the most dangerous consequence of Enlightenment (DAS, I I.53/ III.25). His fundamental claim is that the dispensation of social esteem is the primary mechanism by which culture conditions political life. As we shall see, it is the mechanism which channels the power of individuals’ amour propre in a socially damaging—or useful—direction. As we saw in Chapter 2, Rousseau places amour propre at the very root of social life. As people come together into communities they begin to crave the esteem of others. To gain esteem, therefore,


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people will acquire (or feign) qualities others admire. Because people will become what is esteemed by the other members of society, we can grasp the general character of society by knowing what society generally honors. Thus Rousseau argues throughout his works that the power of public opinion stems from the decisive influence of amour propre on men’s behavior. ‘The arbiters of a people’s opinion are also arbiters of its actions’ (CC, 326/III.937). The members of society, therefore, will seek to gain those qualities that rank high in public opinion. The esteem given to artists Now although the term does not appear in the First Discourse, that work describes the action of amour propre, and anticipates Rousseau’s later analyses. Speaking specifically of cultural productions Rousseau notes that ‘Every Artist wants to be applauded. His contemporaries’ praise is the most precious portion of his reward’ (DAS, I I.44/ I I I.20). To say that artists are motivated by their contemporaries’ praise is, of course, to say that they are motivated by amour propre. It follows, for Rousseau, that their amour propre will lead artists to create works calculated to garner praise. Thus, Rousseau reasons, artists will create works they know conform to the public taste. Artists have more than a psychological reason to mold their work to the public taste, however. Pleasing the public is an economic necessity as well. In the Letter to d’Alembert Rousseau notes that ‘An author who would brave the general taste would soon write for himself alone’ (LdA, 19/GF, 69). In order to survive, therefore, artists must produce work that matches the taste of their audience. In sum, artists’ selflove and self-interest guarantee that the supply of cultural productions will conform to the standards held by the public. It follows that if the standards held by the public are low, artists will be constrained to create inferior work. Rousseau holds that precisely this situation obtains in society as it is. How, he asks, will an artist obtain praise if he has the misfortune to be born among a People and at a time when the Learned, having become fashionable, have placed frivolous youths in the position of setting the tone?… He will lower his genius to the level of his century, and compose popular works that are admired during his lifetime….

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…If, by chance, someone among the men of extraordinary talents were steadfast of soul, and refused to yield to the genius of his century and to debase himself by puerile productions, woe betide him! He will die in poverty and oblivion. (DAS, II.44–5/III.21) Rousseau cites the painters Carle and Pierre, and the sculptor Pigal as ‘extraordinary talents’ who are forced to prostitute their abilities by creating lascivious images, or else give up working altogether.11 That society honors ‘puerile productions’ is damaging in two ways. On the one hand society generates a debased culture because it rewards the amour propre of artists who produce debased work. And on the other, it frustrates possible sources of renewal: those few virtuous citizens who might make truly valuable contributions. ‘The wise man does not run after fortune; but he is not insensitive to glory; and when he sees it so badly distributed, his virtue, which a little emulation would have animated and turned to the advantage of society, languishes and dies in misery and oblivion’ (DAS, II.54/III.26). Note that Rousseau suggests amour propre is not necessarily the enemy of virtue. ‘Amour propre is a useful but dangerous instrument’ (E, IV, 244/III.536); as we shall see in Chapter 5, he does suggest circumstances in which amour propre is used to encourage virtuous behavior. However, by not rewarding the amour propre of virtuous men, society as it is effectively eliminates virtue. Rousseau condemns Enlightenment culture for imposing a hierarchy of values by which honor is given to men talented in the sciences and arts over men who perform, in his view, more genuinely useful services to society. ‘We have Physicists, Geometricians, Chemists, Astronomers, Poets, Musicians, Painters; we no longer have citizens’ (DAS, II.54/ III.26).12 By what criterion does Rousseau classify inferior work? How does he identify puerile productions? At the root of his argument here is a distinction he draws between the agreeable and the useful: he attributes the decline of virtue to ‘the preference for the agreeable over the useful talents’ (DAS, II.54/III.26). Rousseau’s distinction hearkens back to the ancient recognition of the dichotomy in function of the arts—to delight and to instruct. The agreeable talents are the talents to create works that give pleasure to the individuals who can afford to buy them. The useful talents,


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by contrast, are the talents to create works that serve the community as a whole. The useful talents are linked to civic virtue: they spring from a selfless concern for others’ well-being, rather than a selfish attempt to gain esteem for oneself. Rousseau’s concern is that in teaching people to appreciate the pleasures of cultural life—the pleasures to be gained from the Sciences, Arts, and Letters—Enlightenment implicitly teaches people to devalue the useful services to society due to civic virtue. The shift in value from virtue to talent is amplified by the action of amour propre, resulting in the dissolution of virtue altogether. In the Preface to his play Narcissus Rousseau declares that ‘A taste for letters, philosophy, and the fine arts destroys the love of our primary duties and of true glory. Once talents preempt the honors owed to virtue, everyone wants to be an agreeable man, and no one cares to be a good man’ (21/II.966).13 The esteem given to the wealthy Talent is not the only source of esteem that Rousseau cites as socially damaging. As we saw in our discussion of luxury above, Rousseau is also deeply troubled by the esteem enjoyed by the wealthy. Again, the action of amour propre ensures that if the moeurs of a society value luxury, then all men will pursue wealth—hence will act out of private interest instead of civic virtue. The effect of luxury, that is, is a clear example of the effect bad moeurs can have on political life. There are two distinguishable strains within Rousseau’s criticism here. On the one hand, the psychological mechanism of amour propre works to distribute the dominant cultural value throughout all of society. In the Considerations on the Government of Poland, Rousseau writes that ‘As long as luxury reigns among the great, cupidity will reign in all hearts. The object of public admiration and the desires of private individuals will always be the same; and if one must be rich in order to shine, to be rich will always be the dominant passion. This is a great source of corruption, which must be diminished as much as possible’ (GP, III, 174/III.964–5). That is, if esteem is given to the rich, in virtue of the luxurious display they make toward others, then everyone will seek out riches. On the other hand, esteem for the wealthy is dangerous because, as this basic value spreads throughout society, it displaces

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other values which people simply jettison. If the values it displaces are politically beneficial, so much the worse for society. In a reply to a critic of the First Discourse Rousseau argues that Luxury corrupts everything, the rich who enjoy it, and the wretched who covet it. To wear lace ruffles, an embroidered coat, and carry an enameled snuffbox, cannot be said to be an evil in itself. But it is a very great evil to put any stock by such trifles, to regard as happy the people that wears them, and so devote to the acquisition of such things the time and effort which every human being owes to nobler objects. (‘Observations’, 52/III.51) As he asks in the First Discourse itself, ‘what will become of virtue when one has to get rich at all costs?’ (DAS, II.41/III.19). The virtue that is at risk from the pursuit of wealth is, of course, civic virtue. Montesquieu argues that, in the context of a democracy, the relative economic equality on which civic virtue rests requires that the citizens love frugality. Since every individual ought here to enjoy the same happiness and the same advantages, they should consequently taste the same pleasures and form the same hopes, which cannot be expected but from a general frugality…. The love of frugality limits the desire of having to the study of procuring necessaries to our family, and superfluities to our country. Riches give a power which a citizen cannot use for himself, for then he would no longer be equal. They likewise procure pleasures which he ought not to enjoy, because these would be also repugnant to the equality. (SL, V.3.2, 5)14 As an object of esteem, therefore, luxury is inimical to civic virtue. It turns individuals away from their communities, toward their own personal satisfactions. Montesquieu argues that ‘In proportion as luxury gains ground in a republic, the minds of the people are turned towards their particular interests. Those who are allowed only what is necessary have nothing but their own reputation and their country’s glory in view. But a soul depraved by luxury has many other desires, and soon becomes an enemy to the laws that confine it’ (SL, VII.2.3).


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Montesquieu’s argument helps us understand the danger Rousseau thinks obtains when wealth becomes a source of social esteem. Rousseau points to amour propre to explain how the love of wealth spreads through society. If some people are admired for the luxurious objects they possess, Rousseau fears, soon everyone will want to become wealthy in order to be admired as well. But in seeking wealth, individuals abandon their commitment to society as a whole. On the one hand, the desire for wealth implies the desire for inequality: I want to have more than others. And on the other, it implies a reliance on the private satisfaction of desire: I want my wealth so that I can fulfill my own wants without having to share with others. But the desire to gain esteem through wealth can be satisfied only at the expense of the other members of society. That is, it leads individuals to be motivated by private interest. Thus, for Rousseau, if wealth becomes the source of social esteem, civic virtue becomes impossible. For a society dedicated to the pursuit of wealth, in sum, political failure is inevitable. SUMMARY Rousseau holds that the culture of society as it is invites political failure by cultivating amour propre. In effect, amour propre models political failure: it disposes people to pursue their own particular wants, at the expense of the general will. Under amour propre the individual’s sole interest in other people is in what they can do for him—give him esteem. However, he will withhold esteem for others, whom he regards as threats to his own preeminence. Under amour propre, that is, the individual exploits the community as a whole to extract a benefit not available to all: in willing it for himself the individual does not thereby will it for everyone. Thus, the moeurs of society as it is promote political failure because, in line with the process we traced in Chapter 3 (pp. 112–23), they energize private interest. Daily life in society as it is gives free rein to—indeed amplifies—the effects of amour propre. All the lessons society as it is teaches its members have this unifying theme: each individual’s interests can be achieved only at the expense of the interests of others. What remedy does Rousseau see for the damages wrought by the cultural manifestations of amour propre? We can discern two very different responses to the problem he diagnoses. In practical

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terms, he is in fact prepared to live with the symptoms of cultural decline he so vehemently denounces—for fear that the real alternatives might be far worse. Thus, although he derides learning in the First Discourse, he does not propose the burning of libraries. Rather, he holds that once initially corrupted by Enlightenment, a society needs the Arts and Sciences to keep from getting worse. ‘My opinion…is to keep and even carefully support Academies, Colleges, Universities, Libraries, Spectacles and all the other amusements that might to some extent distract men’s wickedness, and prevent them from spending their idleness in more dangerous pursuits’ (PN, 36/II.972)). Nonetheless Rousseau does propose an alternative to the culture of society as it. But this alternative must be understood as an ideal, offered to illustrate the principles on which he has based his criticism. The alternative is the culture of society as it could be. In society as it could be amour propre is redeemed. As we shall now go on to see, the moeurs and cultural institutions of society as it could be harness amour propre in ways that instill civic virtue, thus promoting political success.

Chapter 5

Culture and political success

In society as it is, Rousseau argues, cultural practices feed political failure. In actual society moeurs exacerbate amour propre, thereby shaping individuals whose private interest prevents them from cooperating in collective action. In order to illuminate the political failings of society as it is, Rousseau posits an ideal society—a normative standard against which actual society can be measured. Rousseau structures this ideal—society as it could be—around the requirements for political success. In particular, he recognizes that certain cultural conditions must obtain in order for the general will to be formulated and enforced. The culture of society as it could be thus functions to create citizens: individuals who are civically virtuous, hence for whom cooperation in collective action is a matter of course. As we saw in Chapter 3, Rousseau holds that society as it could be arises through the reconfiguration of self-love—amour de soi as well as amour propre-into patriotism. If love of self (in the form of amour propre) is the primary motivation in society as it is, Rousseau regards love of country as the primary motivation in society as it could be. For, patriotic individuals come to conceive their selfinterest, indeed their self-identity, in terms of the community as a whole. This is, of course, the emotional foundation for civic virtue. Therefore the central task of the culture of society as it could be is to channel self-love continuously into patriotism, thereby creating civically virtuous individuals. We shall now review some of the ways Rousseau believes culture can accomplish this task. Our discussion of the moeurs of society as it could be will show how, for Rousseau, the possibility of political success rests on a cultural foundation. 175

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GENEVA AS SOCIETY AS IT COULD BE In The Social Contract Rousseau presents an abstract picture of society as it could be; he is concerned there with the purely political dimension of the ideal society. Although he notes the importance of moeurs to the political success of society as it could be (they are the ‘unshakable keystone’ that hold together the edifice of the laws (SC, II.xii.5)), he says little about the details of cultural life. However, in his descriptions of his native city of Geneva, Rousseau provides a fuller picture of his political ideal. Dedicating the Second Discourse to the magistrates of Geneva he writes, ‘In looking for the best maxims which good sense might dictate regarding the constitution of a government, I was… struck to see them implemented in yours’ (DI, Dedication.1/ III. 111).1 Rousseau did indeed come to express a more sober view of the politics of his native city, in Letters Written from the Mountain. But this work appeared some eight years after the Second Discourse (and six years after the Letter to d’Alembert, with which this chapter will be largely concerned). In this chapter, therefore, I will deal with the earlier writings, in which he represents Geneva as society as it could be. For, Rousseau’s interest in Geneva goes beyond its constitution. He offers his readers a living city, with a full and distinctive culture. Indeed, Geneva’s culture is an integral component of its overall political identity. In other words, for Rousseau, Geneva exemplifies the cultural life of society as it could be. To study Rousseau’s conception of culture as it could be, then, let us survey his account of the culture of Geneva.2 Rousseau touches on this topic throughout his writings; we shall focus on his most sustained treatment, in the Letter to d’Alembert. Rousseau wrote the Letter to d’Alembert in response to d’Alembert’s 1757 Encyclopedic article on Geneva. Apparently at Voltaire’s insistence, d’Alembert had inserted a passage suggesting that Geneva would be improved by the establishment of a theatre. Voltaire had gone to live in the outskirts of Geneva in 1755, and produced his plays privately; he hoped to persuade the city to permit a theatre so that he could have public productions (Barras 1933:258 ff.). Rousseau was adamant in his objection to this proposal. 3 He regarded it as a call for the encroachment of Enlightenment depravity on a preserve of cultural purity. Thus he argued—successfully, in fact—that Geneva should maintain its prohibition against theatre. The theatre symbolized Paris for


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Rousseau, and if Geneva represented society as it could be in his thought, Paris epitomized society as it is. Hence, Rousseau’s arguments against theatre invoked the opposition between his cultural ideal and his grim description of cultural actuality. We learn more precisely what is good about Geneva by observing how it is different from Paris—and how theatre would subvert these differences by fostering Parisian moeurs within Genevan culture. Moeurs and public opinion By what mechanism would theatre infect the Genevan cultural environment? Rousseau claims that theatre would distort Genevan culture through its impact on public opinion. ‘One of the inevitable effects of a theatre established in a town [such as Geneva] will be to change our maxims, or, if you please, our prejudices and our public opinions, which will necessarily change our moeurs for others, better or worse I do not yet say, but assuredly less appropriate to our constitution’ (LdA, 74/GF, 154). Rousseau regards public opinion as a powerful lever on culture— due to the influence of amour propre. By what means can the government get a hold on moeurs? I answer that it is by public opinion. If our habits in retirement are born of our own sentiments, in society they are born of others’ opinions. When we do not live in ourselves but in others, it is their judgements which guide everything. Nothing appears good or desirable to individuals which the public has not judged to be such, and the only happiness which most men know is to be esteemed happy. (LdA, 67/GF, 144; cf. SC, IV.vii) Rousseau holds, that is, that changes in the patterns of behavior that constitute moeurs will follow from changes in the broadly held attitudes that constitute public opinion. ‘Whoever concerns himself with instituting a people ought to know how to direct opinion, and thereby to govern the passions of men’ (GP, III, 175/III.965–6). Theatre, he argues, will alter public opinion, thereby altering moeurs—and, he tries to show, thereby upsetting the existing fit between Geneva’s culture and political system. But, we should note, elsewhere in the Letter to d’Alembert Rousseau explicitly repudiates the common wisdom that theatre can

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affect culture in virtue of changing public opinion. ‘Opinion does not depend on the theatre, since, rather than giving the law to the public, the theatre receives the law from it’ (LdA, 22/GF, 75; see also 19/69). Here the situation is precisely reversed: theatre does not lead public opinion but follows it. 4 To reconcile this apparent contradiction, we must attend to the contexts in which Rousseau makes these inconsistent claims. A sentence in the middle of the Letter to d’Alembert reveals how Rousseau segments his argument. He distinguishes between ‘effects of theatre, which are relative to what is performed, [and] others no less necessary which relate directly to the stage and to the persons who perform’ (LdA, 57/GF, 128–9). The former effects are due to the content of theatrical performances, whereas the latter are effects of theatre considered as a social institution. Rousseau adopts two perspectives organized around these two aspects of theatre—its content and its institutional status. Theatre as a cultural institution To Rousseau’s mind theatre’s cultural impact is different when viewed from the two perspectives: when theatre is considered from the content side it follows rather than leads public opinion, but when considered as an institution it leads rather than follows. We shall pass over his arguments about the content of theatre—since, it turns out, he holds that in the final analysis, the institutional effect is stronger than the effect due to content. For while the effect of the content of plays is subject to ‘countless modifications which reduce it to practically nothing,’ the effect of theatre as an institution ‘is a real, constant one which returns every day and must finally prevail’ (LdA, 65/GF, 140–1). It is unclear what Rousseau believes ‘modifies’ the content effects; likely candidates are the vagaries of performance, differences in the strengths of individuals’ imaginations, and countervailing influences, among others. But the source of the potency of theatre as an institution is unambiguous. The decisive influence of theatre is due to the brute fact of its presence. As an institution theatre becomes part of the daily round of activities within the culture—part of how the members of the society lead their lives. What happens when theatre has a place in the nexus of ordinary social activities? In Paris—the model of society as it is—theatre serves the useful social function of steering people away from vice. The problem Rousseau cites is that Parisians have too much leisure. Paris


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is ‘full of scheming, idle people…whose imagination, depraved by sloth, inactivity, the love of pleasure, and great needs, engenders only monsters and inspires only crimes’ (LdA, 58/GF, 130, my emphasis). This excess of free time itself depraves the imagination, and leads to criminal behavior. Note that Rousseau harbors a profound suspicion of imagination. On the one hand, as we have seen, imagination activates the pity that is naturally present in our hearts. On the other, by contrast, it stimulates our desires beyond our capacity to satisfy them, frustrating any possibility of happiness (E, II, 80–1/IV.304). As Jacques Derrida observes, ‘Escaping all real and exterior influence, the imagination, faculty of signs and appearances, perverts itself. It is the subject of perversion’ (1976:185). To rein in their imaginations, therefore, people’s time must be organized; they require an institutional arrangement by which their time can be spent harmlessly. Theatre is a solution to this problem for society as it is: it is a safe amusement, sanctioned by the authorities, ‘in order to deprive individuals of the temptation of seeking more dangerous ones. Since preventing them from occupying themselves is to prevent them from doing harm, two hours a day stolen from the activity of vice prevents the twelfth part of the crimes that would be committed’ (LdA, 59/GF, 131; see also PN, 37). In any event, Rousseau holds, only people with time on their hands would have any desire—or need—to attend the theatre. ‘It is discontent with one’s self, the burden of idleness, the neglect of simple and natural tastes, that makes foreign amusement so necessary’ (LdA, 16/GF, 66, my emphasis). For the degraded culture of society as it is, therefore, theatre serves the valuable function of preventing culture from degrading even further. Theatre is useful in Paris, therefore, since ‘in a land where honest folk and good moeurs no longer count, it would still be preferable to live among scoundrels than among bandits’ (PN, 36/II.972). THE CIRCLES Whereas Parisians’ leisure is better squandered on theatre than any of the available alternatives, Genevans have more profitable ways of using their time. In Geneva—the model of society as it could be—people’s time is highly organized. The citizens are extremely industrious: ‘everyone is busy, everyone is moving, everyone is about his work and his affairs’ (LdA, 93/GF, 184). ‘Its use of time’ is one of ‘the treasures of Geneva’ Rousseau argues;

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thus theatre, ‘an amusement of the idle, in taking from us both time and money, will truly double our loss’ (LdA, 93/GF, 185). But further, the Genevans’ leisure time is structured by their participation in ‘circles’. These circles are societies of twelve to fifteen persons who rent comfortable quarters which they provide with furniture and the necessary store at common expense. Every afternoon all the associates whose affairs or pleasures do not retain them elsewhere go to these quarters. They meet and there each gives himself without restraint to the amusements of his taste; they gamble, chat, read, drink and smoke…. The women and girls, for their part, meet in societies at one another’s homes. The object of this meeting is to provide the occasion for a little social card-playing, refreshments, and, as can be imagined, inexhaustible gossiping. (LdA, 99/GF, 193–4) Rousseau holds that the circles provide Genevans with a way to spend their leisure time which is beneficial in a positive sense. In contrast to the theatre in Paris, which merely diverts people from worse activities, the circles in Geneva constitute a cultural practice through which people contribute to the political success of their city. Let us look more closely at the value Rousseau attributes to the circles. The circles provide ‘the daily amusements of the Genevan townspeople. Not unendowed with pleasure and gaiety, these amusements have something simple and innocent which suits republican moeurs’ (LdA, 99–100/GF, 194, my emphasis). That is, Rousseau sees a correspondence: between the Genevans’ day-today social interactions and their political institutions. We may discern here two cultural requirements that Rousseau holds to be structurally necessary for the preservation of society as it could be. The first requirement is that organized opportunities for personal interaction will emerge in the city. ‘The citizens of the same state, the inhabitants of the same city, are not anchorites, they could not always live alone and separated’ (LdA, 108/GF, 206–7). It is a fact of social life, in other words, that people will spontaneously develop cultural institutions which enable them to meet and spend time together. Indeed, Rousseau criticizes theatre on precisely this point. ‘People think they come together in the theatre, and it is there that they are isolated. It is there that they go


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to forget their friends, neighbors, and relations in order to concern themselves with fables’ (LdA, 16–17/GF, 66). The circles provide for a genuine coming together between friends and neighbors— they are examples of actual communities, contrasted with the pseudo-community offered by theatre. The second requirement is that the cultural institutions which bring people together should do so in a way that supports the political institutions of the city. ‘There is no well-constituted state in which practices are not to be found which are linked to the form of government and which help to preserve it’ (LdA, 98/GF, 192). 5 The sign of a flourishing state is that the cultural institutions that people form for the pleasure of each other’s company are at the same time politically beneficial. How do the circles meet these requirements? Let us consider the men’s and women’s circles separately—for, as we will see below, Rousseau argues that while one of the great disadvantages of theatre is that it brings the sexes together, one of the great advantages of the circles is that they keep the sexes apart. The men’s circles To see how Geneva is served by the men’s circles let us review their genealogy, as provided by Rousseau. The circles grew up around the annual exercises of the popular militia, which brought the men of the city together in a martial spirit. Associations formed which were, in effect, drinking clubs in taverns. However, the civil strife that afflicted Geneva in the early part of the eighteenth century forced a change on the circles: ‘Our civic discords, during which the necessity of affairs obliged us to meet more often and to deliberate coldly and calmly, caused these tumultuous societies to be changed into more decent associations’ (LdA, 99/GF, 193).6 That is, the circles took their present form through the struggles of the citizens to govern themselves; they are, in Rousseau’s view, institutions of popular sovereignty. Rousseau argues that the men’s circles function to cultivate their members’ civic virtue. He cites three ways they accomplish this task. First, the circles are bound together by ties of friendship— their members share amusements with one another and enjoy each other’s company. Thus, in their circles men experience the love of their fellow citizens that constitutes patriotism. Second, in the circles men practice the language of citizenship. They ‘can devote

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themselves to grave and serious discourse without fear of ridicule. They dare to speak of country and virtue without passing for windbags’ (LdA, 105/GF, 202). Their conversation improves their ability to apply reason to politics: ‘They do not humor one another in dispute; each feeling himself attacked by all the forces of his adversary, is obliged to use all his own to defend himself; it is thus that the mind gains precision and vigor’ (LdA, 105/GF, 202). Finally, men in their circles seek invigorating exercise outdoors. That is, the circles provide the opportunity for physical training, which men require as members of the militia. Thus, the circles provide for the affective attachments, cognitive abilities, and physical vigor characteristic of civically virtuous individuals. ‘In a word, these decent and innocent institutions combine everything which can contribute to making friends, citizens, and soldiers out of the same men, and, in consequence, everything which is most appropriate to a free people’ (LdA, 105/ GF, 203). Although we shall address the issue of the sexual segregation imposed by the circles more generally below, we should note here that, for Rousseau, the three dimensions of the men’s circles’ function—making friends, citizens, and soldiers—each require the absence of women. Regarding friendship, Rousseau cannot conceive of how women might take part in the camaraderie of the men’s circles. Women’s natural place is in the home, where her sexuality is focused on her husband. Outside the home, her sexuality would define her relations with men: ‘a woman outside of her home loses her greatest luster, and, despoiled of her real ornaments, she displays herself indecently. If she has a husband, what is she seeking among men? If she does not, how can she expose herself to putting off, by an immodest bearing, he who might be tempted to become her husband?’ (LdA, 88/GF, 176). Were women and men to belong to the same circle, sexuality would make friendship between them impossible. Regarding citizenship, the presence of women would force men to dilute the standards of their discourse. Women’s concerns are inherently personal (indeed sexual) rather than public; thus men would have to ‘lower their ideas to the range of women and clothe reason in gallantry,’ and they would learn to speak in a ‘studied style with which the two sexes mutually seduce one another and familiarize themselves in all propriety with vice’ (LdA, 105/GF, 202–3). Finally, regarding physical vigor, Rousseau argues that women are sedentary and homebound by nature (LdA, 101–2/GF,


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197). Thus, the presence of women would prevent a man from following his inclination to be active, making him restless and enervated.7 For Rousseau, in sum, the cultivation of civic virtue among men demands that they be shielded from women. As James Miller notes, it is important that the men’s circles conduct their business in the open: ‘because these circles are open to public scrutiny, their existence forestalls the formation of secret cabals and factions that might imperil the patrie’ (1984:34). The circles allow for companionship—and civic participation—without permitting the organization of private interest into factions. There are many of them, none more powerful than any other. Thus, the circles meet the strictures Rousseau establishes against faction in The Social Contract: although, ideally, ‘there should be no partial society in the state,’ he allows that ‘if there are partial societies, their number must be multiplied and provision made against their inequality’ (SC, II.iii.4/III.372). Members of a circle do not discuss politics in order to formulate and pursue a private interest—rather they exercise, as it were, their civic virtue, by exploring questions of the common good. In Richard Fralin’s words, for Rousseau the circles ‘were not partisan organizations for furthering the political program of the bourgeoisie but rather civic associations in which one learned how to be a good citizen’ (1978:64). The openness and order that mark the men’s circles, therefore, are appropriate to the ideal political life Rousseau polemically attributes to Geneva. ‘Of all the kinds of relations which can bring individuals together in a city like our own, the circles form incontestably the most reasonable, the most decent, and the least dangerous ones, because they neither wish nor are able to be hidden, because they are public and permitted, because order and rule prevail in them’ (LdA, 108/GF, 207). The openness of the circles—the fact that their activities are not hidden—is particularly important. Rousseau acknowledges that the amusements pursued in the circles, for example drinking and gossiping, can be carried to excess. But he goes to some length to extenuate such faults, in general blaming individuals rather than the institution itself (LdA, 110/GF, 210). And, as he notes in the case of gambling, the circles facilitate the monitoring of potentially dangerous activities by the police. The circles, that is, allow for the surveillance of the activities they organize. They are, to use Jean Starobinski’s term, transparent. The loss of transparency between individuals is a sign of the descent into society as it is—men exploit the opacity of

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appearances to further their own private interests, and factions try to hide their private interests behind an opaque facade. By insisting on the transparency of the circles, Rousseau forestalls the objection that his support of circles is inconsistent with his attack on factions. Rather than posing the threat of division, however, the men’s circles support Geneva’s political institutions by providing men an opportunity to discuss civic affairs freely. The circles are valuable to Geneva because they prepare the men for their participation in political activity. The women’s circles How do the women’s circles support Genevan politics? Since women have no place in the public realm, the circles do not prepare them for direct political participation. But the women’s circles do have a feature in common with the men’s: just as the transparency of the men’s circles facilitates surveillance of their activities, the women’s circles serve a surveillance function over society at large. ‘One can easily understand that the anecdotes of a little city do not escape these feminine meetings; it can also be believed that the absent husbands are hardly spared; and no pretty and sought-after woman has an easy time of it in her neighbor’s circle’ (LdA, 106/GF, 203). Rousseau does not take women’s gossiping to be a failing, however, since it serves as a restraint on misconduct. ‘Which is better,’ Rousseau asks, that a ‘woman criticize the disorder of her neighbor or that she imitate it?’ (LdA, 106/G F, 204). The circles thus serve to enforce a public standard of behavior, by observing and calling attention to deviations from it. Through their circles women keep their eyes on their neighbors, and bring indiscretions into the public realm through gossip. In this way, the circles become a deterrent against violations against public opinion: ‘How many public scandals are prevented for fear of these severe observers? They almost perform the function of censors in our city’ (LdA, 106/ GF, 204). 8 Rousseau acknowledges the unpalatability of gossip by, so to speak, protesting too much that the benefits of ‘the cackle’ of the women’s circles outweigh its disadvantages. And he admits that gossip can easily go too far, to become malicious slander. However, he proclaims his trust that the good character of Genevan women will restrain gossip within the bounds of truth:


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‘Although the Genevans tell rather easily what they know and sometimes what they conjecture, they are really disgusted by calumny, and they will never be heard to make accusations against another that they believe to be false’ (LdA, 106/GF, 204). Thus, Rousseau argues, the circles will never produce the excesses of the ‘infamous informers’ of corrupt imperial Rome. Noticeability But just why does Rousseau go to such lengths to extenuate the gossip of the women’s circles? Precisely because he recognizes its underlying social function. The surveillance the women’s circles carry out over conduct is a means of enforcing cultural norms: of restraining behavior within limits of propriety.9 More generally, it is a means of monitoring participation in collective action. Recall our discussion of Mancur Olson’s logic of collective action in Chapter 1. Olson argued that the free rider problem was a consequence of the nature of public goods. Public goods are, by definition, available to all members of a group whether or not they contribute to their cost—and free riders are those who benefit from the public good without making a contribution. In a group of sufficient size, any one member’s failure to contribute will only marginally lessen the group’s ability to provide the good. Hence the free rider’s failure to contribute will not be noticed, and he can gain the benefits provided by the group without cost. The idea of noticeability grounds Olson’s definition of a ‘latent group’—a group which will not, in the absence of some sanction, supply itself with a collective good. ‘In a large group in which no single individual’s contribution makes a perceptible difference to the group as a whole, or the burden or benefit of any single member of the group, it is certain that a collective good will not be provided unless there is coercion or some outside inducements that will lead the members of the large group to act in their common interest’ (Olson 1971:44–5, my emphasis). The outside inducements Olson mentions are called ‘selective incentives’; we shall return to them below. For now let us observe that latency depends less on size than on noticeability. The success of a group at providing itself with a public good ‘depends on whether the individual actions of any one or more members in a group are noticeable to any other individuals in the group’ (Olson 1971:45, my emphasis). It follows

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that free riders depend on the unnoticeability of their actions to the other members of the group. Of course, it is usually easier to hide a failure to contribute in a large group than in a small one. For this reason Olson suggests that groups enhance noticeability by, for example, making public the names of those members who do and do not contribute. Publicity counteracts the effects of size on noticeability, ‘thus ensuring that the group effort would not collapse from imperfect knowledge. I therefore define “noticeability” in terms of the degree of knowledge, and the institutional arrangements, that actually exist in any given group’ (Olson 1971:45–6, n. 67). Noticeability, then, is a function of information. The free rider exploits his group’s lack of channels of information, through which the fact of his not contributing could be made known. The presence of institutional arrangements which make the actions of group members noticeable to one another counteract free riding and contribute to the success of collective action. Uniformity of moeurs We can begin to understand, therefore, why Rousseau approves of the women’s circles: they are, in Olson’s terms, an institutional arrangement that enhances noticeability. But what collective action do the women’s circles protect? Who are the free riders they notice and sanction? Rousseau implies that the women’s circles enforce a general standard of social propriety. The women’s circles are, in effect, organs of public opinion: in their gossip, the women articulate the judgments of what constitutes publicly acceptable conduct. We noted above that Rousseau draws a connection between public opinion and moeurs—he presumes that people will do what is publicly judged to be valuable. Since the women’s circles act to maintain public opinion, by articulating and applying the social norms of proper behavior, it follows that they enforce a uniformity of moeurs. Thus, the collective action they protect is the maintenance of moeurs across society, and free riders are individuals who act otherwise than as moeurs demand. The women’s circles contribute to the political success of Geneva, therefore, by calling attention to violations of moeurs. Why is it important for moeurs to remain uniform, on Rousseau’s view? In so far as Genevan moeurs are uniquely fitted


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to the city’s political life, Rousseau regards deviations from them as threats to the city’s political integrity. But in addition to the value of Geneva’s moeurs in particular, Rousseau attributes a value to cultural uniformity in general. Now we noted in Chapter 4 that Rousseau condemns the uniformity of the moeurs of society as it is—the uniform veil of courtesy enables men to lie to one another. But it is not uniformity as such he condemns—he apparently presumes that the moeurs of society as it could be would not serve as a mask behind which individuals can hide. His underlying consideration, rather is that, as we noted in Chapters 2 and 3, uniformity of moeurs is the fundamental basis for human association. Rousseau holds that society is initially created by people who shared the same culture: men leave the state of nature and enter into groups on the basis of a shared way of life (DI, II.15). Then, at the moment of the social contract, the secret function of the Legislator is to support the constitutional laws he establishes with appropriate customs (SC, II.xii.5). In sum, on Rousseau’s view, uniformity of moeurs is essential to successful political life. Our analysis of the general will in Chapter 1 sheds light on the importance of uniform moeurs. As we saw, on Rousseau’s view society can have a general will—because a common good exists—if the wants of society’s members fit the pattern of a large number of small differences. On this pattern individuals can differ relatively slightly in their wants, though broadly speaking their wants are similar. Now Rousseau holds that a society’s moeurs help shape the wants of its members. Thus, when moeurs are uniform, the members of society’s wants will be (more or less) uniform as well. It follows, then, that if a society has uniform moeurs, the structure of its members’ wants is such as to support a common good. That is, on Rousseau’s view, the possibility of society’s having a general will rests on the uniformity of its moeurs.10 Note that, if the differences between individuals’ wants are too great, that is if there is a large number of large differences, the members of society would have no basis on which to cooperate, and there would be no general will. Thus, Rousseau argues, a large state cannot be well governed: ‘the same laws cannot suit so many diverse provinces with different moeurs’ (SC, II.ix.3/ III.387). Small states, by contrast, permit uniform moeurs; indeed, its small size is central to Geneva’s suitability as Rousseau’s political ideal. In general, smallness contributes to uniformity of moeurs in virtue

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of the inverse correlation between size and noticeability: the smaller the state, the more noticeable are its citizens’ actions to each other. In small cities…individuals, always in the public eye, are born censors of one another’ (LdA, 59/GF, 131; see also GP, V, 182/III.970). Rousseau presumes that when people constantly see each other’s actions, they will tend to conform to accepted standards—that is to follow their society’s moeurs. In sum, then, society as it could be must be small in size; otherwise it would lack the mechanism needed to ensure that its moeurs remain uniform. The political basis of sexual segregation The women’s circles thus complement the men’s circles. As Rousseau requires of cultural institutions in well-constituted states, both serve functions that help preserve the form of government of Geneva. The men’s circles prepare their members for the duties of citizenship, while the women’s circles apply the power of propriety to enforce Genevan moeurs. But, as we noted above, for the circles to exemplify cultural functions essential to society as it could be, it is essential that the sexes be separated. Rousseau affirms this point emphatically in the Letter to d’Alembert. ‘Let us follow the indications of nature, let us consult the good of society; we shall find that the two sexes ought to come together sometimes and to live separated ordinarily’ (LdA, 100/GF, 195). The advantage of sexual segregation, to Rousseau’s mind, is that men will therefore not devote themselves to pleasing women— avoiding the risk of becoming themselves effeminate in the process. If men and women become too intimate, Rousseau worries, ‘this weaker sex, not in the position to take on our way of life, which is too hard for it, forces us to take on its way, too soft for us; and no longer wishing to tolerate separation, unable to make themselves into men, the women make us into women’ (LdA, 100/ GF, 195–6). As we noted in the last chapter, Rousseau regards the feminization of men as a political danger: manly vigor is a necessary component of a republican way of life. ‘Whether a monarch governs men or women ought to be rather indifferent to him, provided that he be obeyed; but in a republic, men are needed’ (LdA, 100–1/GF, 196). Specifically, women are dangerous because, as we saw, they embody uncontrolled amour propre. Women’s domination by amour propre renders them incapable of


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civic virtue. As Joel Schwartz (1984) argues, Rousseau—following Machiavelli—holds civic virtue to be an essentially masculine trait, and its opposite to be a trait of femininity. Just as Rousseau links masculinity with the capacity courageously to risk one’s life in defense of others dependent on one, so does he associate effeminacy with the cowardly, self-interested, and calculating concern with one’s own welfare alone’ (66). 11 Uncontrolled amour propre, that is, produces private interest, hence is antithetical to civic virtue—it looks at others as instruments of one’s own fulfillment, rather than looking at one’s own fulfillment as a matter of cooperating with others. Thus, Rousseau seeks to preserve masculine civic virtue from corruption by feminine amour propre by keeping men and women apart, in their own social groups. Indeed, men are able to discuss civic affairs in their circles seriously only because their amour propre is not at stake as it would be if they spoke in front of women. At the root of Rousseau’s insistence on the separation of men and women, therefore, is the fear that men will become infected with amour propre, at the cost of their civic virtue. Given his doctrine of sexual segregation, how does Rousseau conceive the family? If Rousseau’s conception of the men’s circles as institutions that inculcate civic virtue entails that the men must be separated from women, it follows that the circles constitute a partial alternative to Genevan family life. Although ‘the Genevan is a steady sort and likes to live [specifically, eat] with his family’ (LdA, 99/GF, 194), it is clear that men spend most of their leisure time outside their homes. ‘Such is…the plan of nature, which gives different tastes to the two sexes, so that they live apart and each in his way’ (LdA, 107/G F, 205). 12 Family, that is, makes up only a limited ingredient of the Genevan man’s life. In this respect, the circles ‘preserve some image of ancient moeurs’ (LdA, 104/G F, 202). For, Rousseau notes, men in ancient times spent most of their lives outside the home, away from women. ‘There was no common place of assembly for the two sexes; they did not pass the day together’ (LdA, 89/GF, 177; see also 101/196). Rousseau thus presents family and circle as distinct and separate aspects of the Genevan man’s existence, and he holds that it is in the circles, hence outside the family, that Genevan men acquire the skills and attitudes that make up civic virtue. However, in Emile Rousseau argues that family life is indeed the foundation of patriotism. He refers to Plato’s doctrine in

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Republic V that male and female guardians be treated equally as that subversion of the sweetest sentiments of nature, sacrificed to an artificial sentiment which can only be maintained by them—as though there were no need for a natural base on which to form conventional ties; as though the love of one’s nearest were not the principle of the love one owes the state; as though it were not by means of the small fatherland which is the family that the heart attaches itself to the large one; as though it were not the good son, the good husband, and the good father who make the good citizen! (E, V, 363/IV.700) That is, in Emile Rousseau holds that men’s love of country grows out of the love they feel for their families.13 But we must bear in mind the context he announces for that work. That context is society as it is. At the outset Rousseau declares that the words ‘fatherland’ and ‘citizen’ ‘should be effaced from modern languages,’ because they no longer have any meaning (E, I, 40/ IV.250). That is, contemporary society falls short of the ideal, which Rousseau holds was exemplified in antiquity.14 Thus, he proposes to show how to educate the natural man to face the vicissitudes of actual society (E, I, 41–2/IV.251–3). Within society as it is, therefore, Rousseau holds that family life grounds civic virtue. Thus, in Emile he exhorts his pupil to accept the duties of citizenship, even though no existing country meets the criteria of society as it could be (E, V, 473–4/IV.858). Indeed, he imagines that as a family Emile and Sophie can serve as a focus for the rebirth of a rural community, devastated by the ill effects of cities (E, V, 474/IV.859). By contrast, however, in society as it could be, family life threatens to distract men from their civic duties. ‘He who in the civil order wants to preserve the primacy of the sentiments of nature does not know what he wants. Always in contradiction with himself, always floating between his inclinations and his duties, he will never be man or citizen’ (E, I, 40/ IV.249– 50). 15 Thus, Rousseau holds up as examples of civic virtue individuals who suppress their natural affections in favor of their love of country—the Roman counsel Junius Brutus, who had his children executed for treason (LR, 54–6/III.88–9), and a Spartan woman who, on hearing her five sons have been killed in battle, gives thanks because the Spartans won (E, I, 40/IV.249). In the


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context of society as it could be, that is, Rousseau regards the family as a source of emotional attachments that civic virtue must overcome. Now as Pierre Burgelin observes, Rousseau’s Genevans are more human than his ancient paradigms of civic virtue (OC, IV.1298, n. 3 to 249). Thus, the claims of family life are strongerand the circles are only an ‘image’ of ancient moeurs. Nonetheless, Rousseau does not present the family as the source of Genevans’ civic virtue. Rather, Genevans’ families serve to support their civic virtue. In the Dedication of the Second Discourse Rousseau admonishes Genevan women ‘to assert the rights of the Heart and of Nature on behalf of duty and virtue’ (20/III.120, my emphasis). Duty and virtue are primary, that is—and these values Genevan men learn in their circles. Rousseau insists, therefore, that Genevan women subordinate their rights as wives to their husbands’ requirements as citizens. Presumably, this subordination would include acquiescing in their husbands’ participation in the circles, even were the circles to demand as much time and loyalty as the family itself.16 In the ideal society, therefore, family life is not eliminated, but it gives way to the institutions that are directly responsible for instilling civic virtue. The replacement of the circles by theatre Let us conclude this discussion of the circles by taking note of what Rousseau imagines would become of them if theatre were introduced into Geneva. His prediction is unequivocal: ‘The moment there is drama, goodbye to the circles!’ (LdA, 99–100/ GF, 194). A theatre would be a rival institution to the institution of the circles, competing for Genevans’ leisure time. But, quite simply, there is not enough time in the day for both. If a theatre were established, the Genevans ‘could not possibly divide themselves among so many amusements; the hour of the theatre, being that of the circles, will cause them to dissolve’ (LdA, 111/GF, 211). That is, the new institution would prove more attractive than the old, which would wither away. It follows that the way the Genevans structure their time would change: they would now have an entirely new pattern of activities. Why does Rousseau regard the replacement of the circles by a theatre as such a threat? A theatre would offer the people of Geneva a new institution through which they would come

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together. Going to the theatre would engender new practices—but ones which Rousseau does not believe would help preserve the government of the city. What practices are generated by the theatre as a social institution? The two sexes meeting daily in the same place; the groups which will be formed for going there; the ways of life that they will see depicted in the theatre, which they will be eager to imitate; the exposition of the ladies and maidens all tricked out in their best and put on display in the boxes as though they were in the window of a shop waiting for buyers; the affluence of the handsome young who will come to show themselves off, for their part, and who will soon find it much nicer to caper in the theatre than to exercise on the Plain-Palais; the little suppers with women which will be arranged on leaving, even if they are only with the actresses. (LdA, 111/GF, 211–12) Theatre, in sum, would devastate the cultural practices—the circles—that are appropriate to society as it could be, replacing them with the cultural hallmarks of society as it is. First on Rousseau’s list is the mixing of the sexes: he laments that, by funnelling the sexes together into a single cultural institution, theatre will inevitably promote interactions between men and women. And, as we saw in the last chapter, theatre will stimulate an explosion of amour propre, by encouraging the audience to display itself to itself. These two strands join together in the feminization of Genevan men—who now prefer ‘capering’ with women over military exercise. The transformation from the culture of the circles to the culture of theatre would, Rousseau argues, have political consequences: ‘all of this will soon put the agreeable life of Paris and the fine airs of France in the place of our old simplicity; and I rather doubt that Parisians in Geneva will long preserve the taste for our government’ (LdA, 111/GF, 212). The experience of going to the theatre has a peculiarly corrosive effect on society as it could be. For, as Rousseau describes it, the experience of going to the theatre recapitulates the birth of society itself. As we saw in Chapter 2, men’s passage into nascent society is marked by a highly theatrical moment: ‘It became customary to gather in front of the Huts or around a large Tree: song and dance, true children of love and leisure, became the


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amusement or rather the occupation of idle men and women gathered together. Everyone began to look at everyone else and to wish to be looked at himself, and public esteem acquired a value’ (DI, I I. 16/ I I I.169). The mixing of the sexes, idleness, the encouragement of amour propre—just what Rousseau fears from the introduction of theatre into Geneva—are all here, at the beginning of social life. Thus, theatre represents for Rousseau the primitive force of amour propre—which cannot but appeal to Genevans, in virtue of their being socialized human beings (see Marshall (1988:137–9)). The danger theatre poses is thus that it strips away the control over amour propre imposed by Genevan culture, taking the citizens back to the ur-moment in the evolution of society. From there they return, as members not of society as it could be but of society as it is. But Rousseau concedes that it is not enough simply to ban theatre. The power he admits it exercises shows he believes that the element in human psychology to which it appeals—amour propre—is present even in society as it could be. Thus, Rousseau proposes cultural institutions that satisfy citizens’ amour propre, without the socially destructive consequences he associates with theatre. In this respect Rousseau assumes the role of the Legislator he sketched out in The Social Contract (see Rosenberg (1989:26–7)). Rousseau assigns to the Legislator the task of transforming human nature, in particular redirecting amour propre from the self to society. Crucial to the Legislator’s task, Rousseau observes, is the establishment of appropriate moeurs—they are ‘a factor with which the great Legislator is secretly concerned when he seems to be thinking only of particular regulations’ (SC, I I.xii.5/ I I I.394). Thus, in the Letter to d’Alembert, Rousseau does not simply defend Geneva’s existing cultural practices, he also suggests new ones. As we shall now go on to see, these serve as beneficial alternatives to theatre, which harness amour propre for the good of the city. REPUBLICAN FESTIVALS Rousseau acknowledges that theatre addresses a genuine and legitimate human need: the need for spectacle. His objection to theatre in Geneva is not that people should be unexposed to spectacle—but that the specific kind of spectacle theatre provides is dangerous. He therefore encourages cultural practices that would satisfy the need for spectacle in a way that is socially useful.

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‘Ought there to be no spectacles in a republic? On the contrary, there ought to be many…. We [the Genevans] already have many of these public festivals; let us have even more; I will be only the more charmed for it’ (LdA, 125/GF, 232–3).17 The existing festivals to which Rousseau refers are military reviews; he suggests that these be replicated, to honor other abilities. Why should we not do to make ourselves active and robust what we do to become skilled in the use of arms? Has the republic less need of workers than of soldiers? Why should we not found, on the model of the military prizes, other prizes for… the various bodily exercises. Why should we not animate our boatmen by contests on the lake? Could there be a spectacle in the world more brilliant than seeing, on this vast and superb body of water, hundreds of boats, elegantly equipped? (LdA, 127/GF, 235) Such festivals serve a complex function for the city, according to Rousseau. They afford the basic pleasure of human association— what primitive men and women discovered around the tree in nascent society, and what the Genevans need as ‘non-anchorites.’ And they offer the pleasure gained from the sights and sounds of the activities at hand.18 That is, the festivals are amusements. But as amusements, Rousseau holds festivals must be justified by their utility: ‘amusements are necessary to man, [but] every useless amusement is an evil for a being whose life is so short and whose time is so precious’ (LdA, 16/GF, 65). Rousseau indicts theatre for being a useless amusement; he goes on to explain the utility of the amusements provided by festivals in terms of their support for social unity, and for social order. Festivals and social unity The festivals Rousseau envisages for Geneva unite the entire community. The normally phlegmatic Genevans joyfully embrace one another as fellow citizens. During the festivals ‘the people are lively, gay, and tender; their hearts are then in their eyes as they are always on their lips; they seek to communicate their joy and their pleasures…. All the societies constitute but one, all become


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common to all. It is almost a matter of indifference at which table one seats oneself (LdA, 127/G F, 235–6). That is, within the congregation that forms to enjoy the spectacle, day-to-day social differences—including membership in different circles—are (almost) forgotten. The picture is similar to that Rousseau paints in the Nouvelle Héloïse, with his description of the festival of the wine harvest at Clarens. There again social distinctions are set aside— everyone from master to day-worker to servant sits at the same table and is served ‘without exclusion, without preference’ (NH, V.vii/II.608). In the Genevan festivals social identities melt into transparency—citizens see each other’s hearts in their eyes, and are moved to express their own feelings in return. What is left is the commonality: the shared identity of being Genevan. In Rousseau’s view, the festivals express the people’s autonomy: just as the Genevans rule themselves, they entertain themselves through their own activities. Thus, they follow his imperative: ‘Let the spectators become a spectacle to themselves; make them actors themselves’ (LdA, 126/GF, 234). Starobinski notes the affinity between Rousseau’s vision of festivals and his political theory of the general will. Public pleasure is the lyrical aspect of the general will, as it appears when it dresses in its Sunday best…. The festival expresses, in the ‘existential’ realm of emotion, what the Social Contract formulates in the theoretical realm of law. In the rapture of public joy every man is both actor and spectator. Similarly, after the social contract has been signed the citizen enjoys a dual status: he…both wills the law and obeys it. (1988:96–7; see also Vernes (1978:108)) But there is also a psychological dimension to Rousseau’s imperative to dissolve the distinction between actors and spectators. Rousseau attacks this distinction in order to strengthen the citizens’ group solidarity. The purpose of making the spectators into a spectacle for themselves is to transform each person’s sense of identity—so that each person comes to identify himself with his fellow citizens, as a member of the city. In Rousseau’s words, ‘each sees and loves himself in the others so that all will be better united’ (LdA, 126/GF, 234, my emphasis). As we saw in Chapter 3, Rousseau considers the projection of self-love on to others as a way of dissolving the emotional autonomy

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associated with amour de soi into the emotional reliance on others associated with amour propre. The effect achieved by the festivals is thus the melding of amour de soi and amour propre into a form of selflove whereby each person conceives of and values himself as a member of his community. 19 That is, the festivals imbue the citizens with patriotism, hence with civic virtue. Festivals and social order In contrast to their fostering a sense of social unity, however, Rousseau also holds that the utility of festivals is in their ability to preserve social order, by reinforcing social differences. Rousseau argues that ‘The disposition of the state is only good and solid when, each feeling in his place, the private forces are united and co-operate for the public good…. Do you then want to make a people active and laborious? Give them festivals, offer them amusements which make them like their stations and prevent them from craving for a sweeter one’ (LdA, 126, n./GF, 234). Rousseau’s support for class distinctions Rousseau’s view is clearly inspired by Plato’s definition of justice in Book IV of the Republic: ‘The proper functioning of the moneymakers, the helpers, and the guardians, each doing his own work in the state,…would be justice and would render the city just’ (434c).20 Now Rousseau frequently expresses his hostility toward class distinctions. For example, he advises the Corsicans to complete the work of destroying their nobility, begun by the Genoese (CC, 287/ I I I.908). However at other times he acknowledges the need to sustain class distinctions that have been woven by history into the social fabric. Thus, he accepts the class system in Poland, because their long period of suppression would make it difficult for the common people to make good use of freedom (G P, VI). Specifically regarding Geneva, although he sympathized with the aspirations of the bourgeoisie, Rousseau accepted the basic aristocratic structure of the Genevan constitution, which he conceived as an elective aristocracy (see DI, Dedication.11). Note that Rousseau supports elective as opposed to hereditary aristocracy: the former is the best and the latter the worst form of government (SC, III.v.4). Thus, for Rousseau, class distinctions as such are not out of place in society as it could be,


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as long as membership in classes is determined by impersonal criteria. As he argues in The Social Contract, ‘the law may create several classes of citizens, and even lay down qualifications for membership, but it cannot designate any particular individual for admission to them’ (II.vi.6/ III.379). At first glance, Rousseau’s support for class distinctions appears to contradict his call for social unity: above we saw how festivals dissolve rank and station; now they work to preserve them. But Rousseau believes that the mixing of social classes that occurs at the festivals makes the system of class differentiation palatable to the common citizens. For, after all, the festivals are extraordinary events, when ordinary social relations are set aside—temporarily. The festivals are spectacular representations of underlying social unity, in which, so to speak, the Genevans momentarily drop their social roles and see each other as members of a single cast, performing the civic drama. But the purpose of this moment is simply to refresh and renew their commitment to the ongoing production of the surface of Geneva’s social life—and their differentiated roles in it. Thus, in the Nouvelle Héloïse, after the wine harvest and its moments of (apparent) equality the actual hierarchy in force at Clarens is reestablished (see Starobinski (1988:97–101)). Like the feast of fools, when masters and servants trade places for a day, the festivals might be said to release resentment among the lower classes so that they acquiesce in their positions the rest of the year.21 Amour propre and selective incentives Rousseau also indicates how the festivals make Genevans ‘like their stations’ in a positive way: the city can honor the various trades and professions by establishing public prizes for the winners of appropriate competitions. Rousseau specifically mentions this prospect for the boatmen, who could be ‘animated’ by races on Lake Geneva. But he imagines it to be possible for all workers. ‘Peoples will be industrious when work is honoured; and it always depends on the government to make it so. When esteem and authority are within the reach of the citizens, they will try to attain them’ (CC (fragments), 328/ I I I.940). Establishing prizes for competitions that make work the focus of a civic spectacle is the means for honoring working people; the result will be that the

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citizens will come to view their work as a means for gaining esteem, and increase their efforts. Rousseau’s scheme here is again to harness the force of amour propre. We saw in Chapter 4 that amour propre makes people pursue wealth because the wealthy are honored by society as it is. His plan, then, is to turn the same psychological force to the service of society as it could be. Public spectacles offer citizens the opportunity to be publicly acclaimed—for activities that are socially useful. The spectacle, as the word suggests, renders the fact of social utility visible. The spectators see the victor win the race—and, equally important for Rousseau, see the ceremony in which he is honored: all the competitors in the boat races Rousseau proposes serve ‘as a cortege for the victor returning in triumph to receive his well-earned prize’ (LdA, 127/GF, 235). Indeed, visibility is essential to the bestowal of honor, since the person honored must be distinguished in some way from everyone else. As we noted, the hallmark of luxurious objects is their visibility; they are tokens by which the rich call attention to themselves. But Rousseau suggests that visible signs—prizes, ceremonies, and especially insignia and medals—can instead be used to honor and thereby encourage worthy services. If other attractive objects [than objects of luxury], if signs of rank, distinguished men in official position, those who were merely rich would be deprived of them; hidden ambitions would naturally seek out these honorable distinctions, that is to say distinctions of merit and virtue, if they were the only road to success’ (GP, III, 174/III.964–5). Although it is clear that Rousseau has amour propre in mind here it is not clear that he also has in mind the kind of transfiguration of it that dissolves the individual’s sense of self into a moi commun. For, prizes appeal straightforwardly to citizens’ private interest. As such, they constitute the so-called ‘selective incentives’ that, as we noted above, Olson argues can be applied to mobilize members of a latent group to contribute toward collective goods. Selective incentives can be positive or negative: a sanction is a negative incentive, while some extra benefit provided to contributors is positive. Olson cites social status and acceptance as positive incentives (1971:60–3); thus Rousseau’s proposal for the establishment of public honors can be interpreted as offering social approbation as an incentive to contribute toward the provision of the public good of a fully productive and well-ordered society.


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We should note that selective incentives take the structure of private interest for granted: they provide costs or benefits to be factored into a rational calculation of interest. But as we saw in Chapter 1, private interest might motivate an individual to become a free rider. Selective incentives work with the free rider’s private interest. They do not try to avoid the danger inherent in private interest by transforming it into civic virtue, but rather leave private interest intact. This is a problem Rousseau seems not to have considered. He presumes that by rewarding the appropriate behavior, society will encourage its citizens to adopt virtuous dispositions. ‘I should wish that, by honours and public rewards, all the patriotic virtues should be glorified’ (GP, III, 170/ III.962). He reasons that visible signs of honor will stimulate amour propre— and that people will want the acclaim that attaches to the symbol. Thus, Rousseau proposes to exploit the structure of private interest to stimulate civic virtue. The difficulty in Rousseau’s position is illuminated by a comparison to Montesquieu. Montesquieu holds that while virtue is the ‘principle’ of republics, specifically democracies, monarchies can subsist without it. However, he argues, monarchies employ honor to gain the effect of virtue. Honor, that is, the prejudice of every person and rank, supplies the place of political virtue…and is everywhere her representative: here it is capable of inspiring the most glorious actions, and, joined with the force of laws, may lead us to the end of government as well as virtue itself. Hence in well-regulated monarchies, they are almost all good subjects, and very few good men; for to be a good man, a good intention is necessary, and we should love our country, not so much on our own account, as out of regard to the community. (SL, III.6.1–2) Montesquieu sees, in other words, that honors might purchase virtuous actions, but not virtuous intentions—they produce the effect of virtue, but not virtue itself. Honors create a mercenary spirit: citizens who will do the right thing, if the price is right. But, if individuals are virtuous contingently—that is if on every occasion they weigh the value of the honor gained by acting selflessly—at any moment the incentive might prove too weak to prevent apparently virtuous citizens from becoming free riders. Satisfying

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individuals’ private interest, in sum, only strengthens private interest—it cannot instill civic virtue. However, Rousseau does not recognize the dilemma involved in using private interest to motivate civic virtue. He simply assumes that the recipients of awards will understand that they are being honored for subsuming their own interests into the interest of society as a whole. Rousseau believes, therefore, that if their amour propre is gratified by having their contributions recognized, individuals will become conditioned to contribute to society.22 As we shall see in Chapter 6, Rousseau believes that this process must begin early; it is the core of his plan for public education. In general, then, he holds that society can take advantage of individuals’ desires for esteem by publicly honoring useful service. The pleasure individuals gain from gratifying their amour propre in this manner leads to an internalization of the desire to contribute— leads, that is, to civic virtue. THE BALLS The full range of Rousseau’s thoughts on the culture of Geneva come together in his plan for balls for the marriageable young, offered near the end of the Letter to d’Alembert. Rousseau proposes that the Genevans’ practice of private dancing parties during the wintertime be expanded, creating another form of public spectacle. After dismissing puritanical complaints about gatherings of young men and women for dancing, he wistfully imagines how the parties could be institutionalized to serve political ends. Far from blaming such simple entertainments, I wish they were publicly authorized and that all private disorder were anticipated by converting them into solemn and periodic balls, open without distinction to the marriageable young. I wish that a magistrate, named by the council, would not think it beneath him to preside at these balls. I wish that the fathers and mothers would attend to watch over their children, as witnesses of their grace and their skill, of the applause they may have merited, and thus to enjoy the sweetest spectacle that can move a paternal heart. I wish that in general all married women be admitted [as spectators, but not permitted to dance]; for to what decent purpose could they thus show themselves off in public? I wish that in the hall there be formed a comfortable and


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honorable section for the old people of both sexes who, having already given citizens to the country, would now see their grandchildren prepare themselves to become citizens. I wish that no one enter or leave without saluting this box…. I wish that every year, at the last ball, the young girl, who during the preceding one has comported herself most decently, most modestly, and has most pleased everyone in the judgment of the members of the box, be honored with a crown from the hand of the Lord Commissioner [i.e. the presiding magistrate] and with the title Queen of the Ball, which she will bear throughout the year. (LdA, 129–30/GF, 238–40) Visibility In this lengthy wish Rousseau encapsulates his conception of the culture of society as it could be. Because society as it could be and society as it is are alternative descendants of nascent society, to understand the balls we must consider them within a triad of cultural practices—we must see the balls and theatre as alternative outgrowths of the primitive dances before a tree. In nascent society young men and women are drawn together by sexual attraction; at first they dance and sing spontaneously—then later in order to gain the esteem of others. Erotic impulses leading inevitably to amour propre: these are the elements present as society is born—and which remain present as society develops. In the culture of society as it is, exemplified by theatre, these elements have developed unchecked. The sexes mix freely, allowing uncontrolled amour propre to infect all, with disastrous consequences. Rousseau’s wish for the balls is a wish to control those elements—to create a cultural institution that manages what is inevitable—for the benefit of Geneva’s political life.23 ‘From the bosom of joy and pleasures’ provided by the balls, Rousseau imagines, ‘would be born the preservation, the concord, and the prosperity of the republic’ (LdA, 131/GF, 242). At the outset, we should note that just as the competitions and prizes of the other Genevan festivals make workers happy with their stations, the balls make it easier for young people to accept the sexual segregation enforced by the circles. ‘Each sex would devote itself more patiently in the intervals [between balls] to occupations and pleasures which are fitting to it, and would be more easily consoled for being deprived of the continual company

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of the other’ (LdA, 130/GF, 141). The balls thus complement the circles—and, in the rhetorical context of the Letter to d’Alembert, can be interpreted as an attempt to salvage them. Theatre is a genuine threat to the circles because, despite the ‘naturalness’ Rousseau claims for sexual segregation, he acknowledges that people— especially young people—need opportunities to present themselves to one another. The balls provide this opportunity, in a way that reinforces the effects of the circles rather than destroying them. For, as spectacles, the balls provide opportunities for surveillance, ensuring that the meetings between the sexes are conducted in line with social norms. That is, the balls provide a transparent setting for meetings between the sexes, meetings which nature makes inevitable. Thus the balls render visible what would otherwise be hidden, and therefore dangerous. ‘For the permitted pleasures…youth is denied are substituted more dangerous ones. Private meetings adroitly concerted take the place of public gatherings. By dint of hiding themselves as if they were guilty, they are tempted to become so’ (LdA, 129/GF, 238). Youthful sexuality can be better controlled by making it visible, Rousseau argues, than by an inevitably futile attempt to prohibit it outright. But despite Rousseau’s disingenuous claim that they ‘would bring the people together not so much for a public spectacle as for the gathering of a big family’ (LdA, 131/GF, 242), the balls are indeed an alternative form of theatre. They are, like theatre, occasions for seeing and being seen (Marshall 1988:160 ff.). But they embody a complex structure of regards. The young people have come to see each other—to ‘show themselves off, with the charms and the faults they might possess, to the people whose interest it is to know them well before being obliged to love them’ (LdA, 128/G F, 237). The decency of this exchange of selfpresentations is guaranteed by the fact that it is itself an object of sight—for the parents, who at once take pleasure in their children’s attractiveness and also enforce a standard of propriety. The dancers internalize the gaze of their spectators: ‘the eyes of the public are constantly open and upon them, forcing them to be reserved, modest, and to watch over themselves most carefully’ (ibid.). Observing the dancing are the elders in their special box. The elders must judge which of the young women has most pleased tout le monde—hence they must watch the dancers, and watch the parents watching the dancers. But the elders are themselves an element in the spectacle, since everyone else must


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take notice of them when entering or leaving the hall. Finally, the entire proceedings are overseen by the representative of political authority, the magistrate. He is there to be seen, so that the participants know that he in turn can see—his presence ‘maintains everyone in the respect that they ought to have for the laws, moeurs, and propriety, even in the midst of joy and pleasure’ (Ld A, 129, n. 1/GF, 238).24 Unlike theatre, however, with its rigid separation of actor and spectator, at the balls the roles of actor and spectator are fluid and shifting. Everyone is at once spectator and part of the spectacle (with the exception of married women, who are spectators only). In contrast to the isolation imposed by theatre (LdA, 16/GF, 66), at the balls people participate with their friends and family to become, as a community, an entertainment for themselves. The balls have the character Rousseau values in civic spectacles—‘the various ranks of society will be carefully distinguished, but…the whole people will participate equally’ (GP, III, 172/III.963). The whole people participate in an enactment of the relations of social power that ground their moeurs. The lines of sight we just traced mark the intersecting lines of social authority: parents exercise responsibility for their children’s behavior by watching over them; the visibility and the privileged spectatorship accorded the elders indicates their claim to special respect; and the presence of the magistrate symbolizes the ultimate predominance of the state. Harnessing amour propre The balls make clear that vision is not just a metaphor for power for Rousseau, but an actual modality of social regulation.25 For visibility is linked to amour propre. This connection is made clear in Rousseau’s authoritative definition of amour propre, in the Second Discourse. ‘In our primitive state, in the genuine state of nature, Amour propre does not exist; For, since every individual human being views himself as the only Spectator to observe him…it is not possible that a sentiment which originates in comparisons he is not capable of making, could spring up in his soul’ (DI, n. XV/ III.219, my emphasis). The consciousness of being seen triggers amour propre, since it admits the possibility of being judged by someone else: to be seen is to have one’s actions subject to approval or disapproval. Outside the state of nature, within the setting of society, individuals are enmeshed in a web of

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interlocking gazes; hence amour propre exercises a pervasive, elemental hold on human psychology, as the primary determinant of behavior. Thus it is crucial to note that, at the balls, the gaze before which everyone performs is structured, but not simply hierarchical: like the sovereign created by the social contract, it is constituted by the entire community. Stimulated by the eyes of their fellow citizens, in other words, amour propre will make individuals want to please their communities. This desire to please applies particularly to the unmarried women, who would win the (no doubt) coveted crown of Queen of the Ball by gaining the most approval of others.26 As we noted in Chapter 4, Rousseau regards women as especially subject to amour propre; he therefore proposes to exploit its motivational power over them within the special, organized setting of the balls. Each woman would act out in public the destiny Rousseau assigns her: to be devoted to appearance. ‘It is important that she be modest, attentive, reserved, and that she give evidence of her virtue to the eyes of others as well as to her own conscience…. There follows from these principles…a new motive of duty and propriety which prescribes to women the most scrupulous attention to their conduct, their manners, and their bearing’ (E, V, 361–2/ IV.698, my emphasis). 27 The paradoxical quality attached to the display of modesty is compounded by the fact that the balls permit behavior by women which in every other context is anathema to Rousseau: public appearance. Ordinarily, as we observed above, a woman ought not present herself outside the home. ‘Whatever she may do, one feels that in public she is not in her place’ (LdA, 88/GF, 176). But the balls are a special kind of public setting, where, overseen by parents and elders, young women make a display of—and are rewarded for—their modesty. The crown of the Queen of the Ball—like the prizes awarded at other Genevan festivals—establishes what is estimable for women in Genevan society. Rousseau relies on amour propre to make young Genevan women want to become what their society esteems. Rousseau thus holds that the balls exploit amour propre in the interest of society as it could be.28 The balls institutionalize and legitimate the desire for esteem that enters human life at the birth of society. In nascent society, ‘the one who sang or danced the best …came to be the most highly regarded, and this was the first step at once toward inequality and vice’ (DI, II.16/III.169). That first


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step towards society as it is can be diverted, however, if the development of amour propre is harnessed. Harnessing amour propre involves stimulating it under controlled circumstances, so that it can be directed towards appropriate objects. The balls work in just this way. They create a situation specifically designed to stimulate amour propre: the participants enter into a network of gazes, seeking out the approval of others for their seemly behavior. In being rewarded for proper actions, Rousseau implies, the Genevans will not be tempted to act badly; by having their amour propre satisfied in a controlled manner, they need not seek to satisfy it in ways that are socially damaging. The balls, in sum, exemplify the festivals Rousseau recommends for Geneva. They are, indeed, a paradigm for the cultural institutions of society as it could be. On Rousseau’s theory, culture affects political life by providing practices and institutions that exploit visibility to excite amour propre—with the result that people willingly live up to the expectations of their societies. In society as it could be, culture promotes political success by promulgating society’s expectation that its citizens act virtuously. THE POLITICAL SUPERVISION OF CULTURE Spectacle as a political resource David Marshall argues that the balls reveal Rousseau’s commitment to an ominous form of state-controlled theatricality. ‘At the same time he represents Utopian festivals with a rhetoric of liberty, Rousseau presents a scenario for the return of repression’ (1988:162). Marshall highlights the paradox that Rousseau builds into the balls precisely the qualities which lead him to reject theatre: ‘the ball represented by Rousseau has virtually all of the ingredients of the theatre and theatrical society the Lettre is supposed to condemn…. This may be Geneva but it is certainly not the state of nature’ (161). But Marshall misconstrues the place of Geneva in Rousseau’s political imagination. Geneva is not ‘a modern day state of nature’ (142)29—it is rather a model of society as it could be. Thus there is no inconsistency in Rousseau’s attempt to prescribe a theatricalized culture for Geneva. He is not thereby wrenching the city out of the state of nature (which, as a city, it could not be in), but rather inoculating it against a worse form of theatricalized culture—the culture of society as it is.

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Marshall observes that Rousseau envisions a struggle for control over theatricality between the theatre and the state. ‘Rousseau calls upon Genevans to prohibit the establishment of a theatre in their city not because he rejects all forms of theatrical relations and all manifestations of amour-propre; rather, theatre is rejected because it would rival the surveillance, policing, and manipulation of amour-propre that serve the state’ (1988:164, my emphasis).30 This is correct: Rousseau does want to preserve the resources of theatricality for the uses he himself has outlined. But Marshall’s tone misleadingly suggests that ‘the state’ imposes its own distinct ends on the people of the city. Rousseau’s vision may be rigid, and even dangerously naive, but it is not undemocratic. In his idealized vision of Geneva, sovereignty rested ultimately with the people (DI, Dedication.11). Thus, by assumption, the state served by the manipulation of amour propre is the ideal political community of society as it could be. The moeurs that are maintained by cultural institutions like the festivals are not imposed on society by the government; they are the moeurs that already exist in the community. Rousseau indeed holds that society as it could be requires a political institution to uphold its moeurs. In The Social Contract, that institution is the censorship. But, he is clear, the censorship is meant to serve society as it could be, not dictate to it. Just as the law is the means whereby the general will declares itself, the censorship is the means of declaring the judgment of the people. Public opinion is a species of law which the censor administers, and which he, like the prince [i.e. the government], merely applies in specific cases. Thus the censorial body, far from being the arbiter of the opinion of the people, is merely its enunciator; and as soon as it departs from that opinion, its decisions are null and void. (SC, IV.vii.l–2/III.458) Recall that Rousseau sees an unbreakable link between moeurs and public opinion—public opinion is one of the ‘instruments with which the moeurs of a people can be acted upon’ (LdA, 22/GF, 74). As we saw above, the strength of this link is explained by the power of amour propre. Rousseau insists that ‘it is useless to distinguish the moeurs of a nation from the objects of its esteem’ (SC, IV.vii.3/III.458)—and amour propre motivates people to do


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what is estimable. However, it is impossible to compel people to esteem one thing over another; neither ‘laws nor punishments’ are effective instruments for directing public opinion (LdA, 67/ GF, 144). Thus, Rousseau argues, ‘since public opinion is not subject to constraint, there should be no trace of coercion in the body set up to represent it’ (SC, IV.vii.7/III.459). As he puts it in the conclusion of a passage from the Letter he cites in his discussion of the censorship, ‘Opinion, queen of the world, is not subject to the power of kings; they are themselves her first slaves’ (LdA, 73–4/ GF, 154). That the censor cannot coerce public opinion does not entail, for Rousseau, that society ought not take an active role in regulating culture. Rather, cultural regulation must be carried out subtly—for the purpose of preserving existing opinions. Cultural authorities are thus in a position with respect to preserving existing moeurs similar to that of the Legislator with respect to instituting new ones. The Legislator ‘cannot employ either force or argument, [but] must necessarily have recourse to another species of authority, one which can compel without violence and persuade without convincing’ (SC, II.vii.9/III.383). Judith Shklar remarks on the Legislator’s use of spectacle to achieve his purposes: he ‘has only one means at his disposal: illusion and stage management,’ which he uses to create ‘festivals, ceremonies and…other simple and striking ways of structuring the environment to press new feelings upon the populace’ (1985:157–8). In general, then, spectacle, with its appeal to amour propre, is the means by which society compels its citizens without violence and persuades without convincing them. Rousseau assigns to the culture of society as it could be the responsibility for including spectacles which reinforce moeurs.31 Such spectacles are, of course, exemplified by the festivals Rousseau envisions for Geneva. Culture as inoculation In Chapter 4 (pp. 146–50) we saw that in the First Discourse Rousseau advocates the political supervision of culture. He argues that unsupervised culture contributes to the political domination present in society as it is—this is why he ironically calls on ‘Earthly Powers’ to let artists flourish. By contrast he concludes the First Discourse with a plea to kings to engage wise men to supervise culture, in order to inculcate civic virtue among the people. By

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directly controlling the forces of Enlightenment, that is, political authorities can forestall the dangerous consequences these forces might cause on their own, and also exploit them to the advantage of society. Rousseau’s praise for Academies is based on that insight. Eternal foresight, by placing medicinal herbs next to various noxious plants and the antidote into the very substance of the bites of a number of injurious animals, has taught Sovereigns, who are its ministers, to imitate its wisdom. By following its example [Louis XIV] drew from the very bosom of the sciences and arts, the sources of a thousand aberrations, those famous societies that are charged with the dangerous trust of human knowledge at the same time as they are charged with the sacred trust of moeurs. (DAS, II.55/III.26) Rousseau argues, in other words, that Academies, chartered by the king and maintained by royal authority, can control the forces of Enlightenment—which, as we saw he believes, would otherwise be responsible for the decline of moeurs. In a word, science and art can be legitimated, when conducted under the auspices of a legitimate institution. We should note that Rousseau relies on amour propre to make this plan work. The prestige of the Academies makes intellectuals want to belong to them. By conditioning membership on ‘useful works and irreproachable moeurs’ (DAS, II.56/III.26), they can induce moral probity in unruly intellectuals. With his praise for the Academies Rousseau establishes a pattern that recurs throughout his work: the creation, by politically legitimate authority, of an institution or social practice designed to direct and put to good use a phenomenon that left on its own can wreak havoc. He engages the medical imagery of poison and antidote to capture the duality of such phenomena: a substance might be dangerous to men who do not know how to use it, but wise men recognize how it can be administered carefully, to cure the problems it causes.32 This pattern of poison/ antidote is by no means tied to the monarchical politics of the First Discourse—we find it in Rousseau’s later, democratic theory. For example, in the Geneva Manuscript Rousseau declares ‘let us attempt to draw from the ill itself the remedy that should cure it. Let us use new associations to correct, if possible the defect of the general


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association’ (G M, I.ii.18/ I I I.288). The defect of the ‘general association’—the abstract collectivity of all human beings—is that individuals’ self-interest leads them to exploit each other, leading to the failures in collective action we explored in Chapter 1. Each new association is a legitimate polity organized by the social contract—in which each individual’s self-interest is aligned with the good of all that society’s members. In other words, self-interest is the dangerous force that can be made to serve the communal good—when it is transformed by a legitimate institution into civic virtue. As we have seen, Rousseau’s proposals for the culture of society as it could be conform to the same paradigm: they refine the poison into a cure. The festivals of Geneva exemplify politically supervised cultural institutions. The dangerous force the festivals are designed to control is, of course, amour propre. Civic spectacles are legitimate institutional arrangements designed to convert the danger into a benefit. The spectacles thus legitimize amour propre, transforming it from a threat into a source of civic virtue required for political success. On the one hand, they make individuals experience their self-love in terms of their membership in the community, thus strengthening their ties to society. And on the other they gratify the citizen’s need for public esteem, in a way that induces everyone to work hard at their own given tasks. The festivals of Geneva contribute to social cohesion and social order—hence to the political success of Rousseau’s ideal society. Therefore, in Rousseau’s conception, essential to the political success of society as it could be is a politically supervised culture, whose function is to control amour propre. ‘Everyone wants to be admired. This is the secret and final goal of men’s actions—it is only their methods that vary. Now, which methods they choose depends on the cleverness of the Legislator. Peoples plainly see the end, but it is up to him to show them the way’ (FP, V.3, III.503; see Viroli (1988:198)). Amour propre is a fact of social life; it is up to political authority to direct it to proper ends.33 Left on its own, amour propre fosters private interest, which as we saw in Chapter 1 leads to political failure. Legitimized amour propre, by contrast, fosters civic virtue, which promotes political success by encouraging social cooperation. The political success of society as it could be, that is, depends on the exploitation of amour propre that cultural institutions organize.

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The culture of society as it could be, in sum, contributes to political success by applying the motivational power of amour propre to forestall socially disruptive behavior, and to encourage people to cooperate. Thus the resources of culture, specifically, its ability to guide public opinion through spectacle, are an essential component of politics. Indeed, they are so crucial to political life that Rousseau’s vision of society as it could be has no place for their independent employment outside the oversight of a censorship. Rousseau’s purpose for the political supervision of culture is to ensure that the power of culture is applied in beneficial ways. Within the ideal context of society as it could be, the political function of culture—to ground political success—justifies its political control.

Chapter 6

Culture and legitimacy

In Chapter 5 we sketched out Rousseau’s cultural ideal, embodied in the culture of Geneva. As we saw, Rousseau assigns to the culture of society as it could be the responsibility of harnessing citizens’ amour propre, so that they come to want to behave in ways that are socially beneficial. Now from his own time forward many readers have found Rousseau’s views—including his conception of ideal culture—extremely distasteful. Rousseau’s theory, to be sure, has few of the hallmarks of liberalism; it lacks a respect for what Michael Walzer calls the art of separation (1984). Indeed, contemporary readers have seen in Rousseau the precursor of twentieth-century totalitarianism, by way of the excesses of the French Revolution; this reading is associated with J.L.Talmon (1960: Ch. 3; see also Crocker (1968:115–31)). Talmon’s approach exemplifies an external criticism. Note, for example, his criticism of Rousseau’s conception of sovereignty: ‘Exercise of sovereignty is not conceived [by Rousseau] as the interplay of interests, the balancing of views, all equally deserving a hearing’ (44). The argument here is that Rousseau fails to hold the conception of sovereignty Talmon himself prefers; in general, Talmon rejects Rousseau’s model for political life on the basis of the massive discrepancies between it and liberal values. An alternative reading looks past the illiberal quality of Rousseau’s views in order to interpret his overall project. Ernst Cassirer argues that Kant saw Rousseau’s project as critical. ‘What value could the Rousseauian distinction between an homme de la nature and an homme de l’homme possess for [Kant]? In this distinction he saw neither an historical description of mankind’s 211

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course of development nor an evolutionary hypothesis. He saw in it rather a contribution to ethical and social criticism, a discrimination of true and false values’ (1963:20). Along similar lines, Judith Shklar (1985) places Rousseau squarely in the tradition of Utopian speculation. The force of Utopian writing, for Shklar, was critical, but not prescriptive. ‘The object of all [utopias] was never to set up a perfect community, but simply to bring moral judgement to bear on the social misery to which men have so unnecessarily reduced themselves…. Utopia was neither in space nor in time. It was designed solely to induce moral recognition in the reader’ (2). In my view the critical impulse is indeed central to Rousseau’s social speculation. The purpose of describing society as it could be is to present a possible but counterfactual present, which helps us further understand the failings of society as it is. As Shklar puts it, ‘Utopia was Rousseau’s way of exposing the prevalent degradation…. The contrast between the probable and possible was what [Rousseau’s] Utopias were meant to show. As such they illuminated the misery of mankind’s actual situation’ (1985:127). In particular, Rousseau’s views on culture share the Utopian tenor Shklar identifies. The import of his cultural theory is critical—he wants to show how culture contributes to the prevalent degradation. Thus, as Shklar suggests, the culture of Rousseau’s political Utopia should not be interpreted as constituting a practical proposal. Rather, it exemplifies conceptually the beneficial political function Rousseau believes culture can serve. The culture of society as it could be is an exercise in political imagination: he imagines how culture might possibly contribute to a just political order. Thereby he purports to show the mechanism by which actual culture does damage to politics—he shows how far short actual culture falls from the role it could play. Rousseau conceives of an ideal culture, that is, in order to comprehend more fully what is wrong with the culture that exists. But to describe Rousseau’s project as critical does not excuse us from the task of objecting to the objectionable elements in his theory. For, even if we regard his account of the culture of society as it could be as a critical device, we must evaluate the conceptual coherence of the standard that account propounds. Rousseau’s theory of the impact of culture on politics has a normative component; we can certainly consider whether we ourselves would choose to live under the norms he recommends. However, in my


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view, we must offer a stronger response to Rousseau than simply rejecting his normative position—admittedly a natural reaction. Rather, we do better to offer an internal criticism. That is, our objection to Rousseau will be more powerful if we can show that his theory is internally inconsistent—specifically, that his cultural ideal conflicts with other views to which he is committed. In this chapter I shall follow this strategy: I will argue that, ultimately, Rousseau’s conception of ideal culture works against his conception of political success. For, I shall show, his ideal culture is inconsistent with his theory of legitimacy. LEGITIMACY Legitimacy and freedom Rousseau introduces The Social Contract as an attempt to explain the legitimacy of political authority. ‘Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains…. How did this change take place? I do not know. What can render it legitimate? I believe I can answer this question’ (SC, I.i.l/III.352). For Rousseau legitimacy is a matter of liberty. As we saw in the Introduction, liberty lies at the root of the fundamental problem of politics: he states that ‘in relation to [his] subject’—i.e. legitimacy—the fundamental problem ‘may be expressed in the following terms: To find a form of association …where each, while joining with all the rest obeys no one but himself, and remains as free as before’ (SC, I.vi.3/III.360). In a legitimate political association each individual can be compelled to take certain actions, but no individual acts against his own will. Thus, the question of legitimacy for Rousseau is the question of reconciling individual autonomy with binding social cooperation. Rousseau believes that this reconciliation is the hallmark of society as it could be, which he offers as the conceptual exemplar of successful political life. Society as it could be, in other words, exemplifies legitimacy. The essence of Rousseau’s answer to the question of legitimacy is that the ‘chains’ of political obligation are legitimate when they are self-imposed through participation in the social contract. For, in this case, they represent a more truly human form of freedom than the natural liberty with which all men are born. Natural liberty entitles man ‘to everything he wants and is capable of getting’ (SC, I.viii.2/ I I I.364). But, Rousseau argues, ‘the impulse of mere

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appetite is slavery, and obedience to self-imposed law is liberty’ (SC, I.viii.3/III.365). Specifically, obedience to self-imposed law is ‘moral liberty, which alone makes [man] truly master of himself (ibid.). Moral liberty, or autonomy, makes men in this qualitative sense more free under the social contract than they were in nature. The fact that men gain freedom in committing themselves to obey an authority they themselves create is the source of that authority’s legitimacy. Under the social contract each member of society ‘puts in common his person and all his powers under the direction of the general will’ (SC, I.vi.8/ I I I.361). How does the general will contribute to legitimacy? Rousseau argues that the nature of the general will explains why the members of society are motivated to impose a law on themselves, and hence attain the autonomy that grounds legitimacy. As we saw in the Introduction, the general will can be conceived as a bargain struck among society’s members on what set of public goods they ought collectively to provide. The fact that every individual can benefit from the public goods society provides makes each recognize that the general will represents his own self-interest: Rousseau holds that social ties are effective precisely because ‘in fulfilling them, we cannot work for others without also working for ourselves’ (SC, II.iv.5/III.373). Hence each member of society has a very good reason—self-interest—to will actions for himself that the general will dictates as laws for society. Thus, Rousseau concludes, ‘it is possible to be at once free and subject to law, since the laws are merely registrations of our will’ (SC, II.vi.7/III.379). As ‘registrations of will’ laws are selfimposed rules, hence actions taken in conformity with laws are taken autonomously. Therefore, a society whose laws correctly express the general will is legitimate. It follows that legitimacy is a narrower notion than the notion of political success we have used throughout this book: legitimacy is a necessary condition of success, but it is not sufficient. Political success requires the general will to be law, but despite being law, the general will might fail to take effect over society. As we saw in Chapter 1, Rousseau considers two obstacles in the way of political success: the formulation problem and the enforcement problem. Broadly, legitimacy follows from the solution of the formulation problem. On the one hand, if the formulation problem is solved, the members of society choose laws to which they willingly subject themselves, hence which


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preserve their freedom. But on the other hand, if the formulation problem goes unsolved, any laws imposed on society would be illegitimate. As we saw in Chapter 1, the presence of faction distorts the process by which society formulates its general will (pp. 38–55). That is, in the presence of faction, the underlying general will is not expressed in the social choice—which we can here construe as the laws society enacts. In the extreme case, a single dominant faction inflicts its own will on society. Here, those outside the faction end up working on behalf of the faction, not of themselves—and hence are unfree. Thus Rousseau indicts society as it is—the exemplar of illegitimacy—on the grounds that the rich impose laws that work to their own benefit, not to the benefit of all. In general therefore, on Rousseau’s view, by interfering with the formulation of the general will, faction corrodes the state’s legitimacy. In turn, an illegitimate state cannot be politically successful: success requires a properly formulated general will. Let us assume, then, that the formulation problem has been solved: there are no factions, the general will is properly enshrined as law, that is the state is legitimate. Nonetheless, as we saw in Chapter 1, a problem remains—once the general will has been formulated, it then must be enforced. For, individuals may seek to enjoy the benefits offered by the general will while trying to evade the attendant responsibilities it imposes—they may try to become free riders. If it became widespread, free riding would undermine society’s ability to act on its general will; this is the enforcement problem (pp. 61– 4). Rousseau thus argues that the social contract ‘includes the tacit agreement, which alone can give force to the rest, that anyone who refuses to obey the general will shall be forced to do so by the whole body’ (SC, I.vii.8/ I I I.364). Rousseau claims that this condition—that any member of society shall, if necessary, be compelled to obey the general will by society as a whole—‘alone renders civil obligations legitimate’ (ibid.). How does the sanction lend legitimacy to civil obligations? The answer, in Rousseau’s famous (if mysterious) phrase is that a person’s being forced to obey the general will ‘means nothing more or less than that he will be forced to be free’ (SC, I.vii.8/ III.364). Since the state is legitimate to the extent that its members remain free, any institution that preserves freedom preserves legitimacy. But how does the sanction preserve freedom?

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Rousseau argues that the collective application of the sanction, ‘by giving each citizen to his country, guarantees him against any form of personal dependence’ (SC, I.vii.8/ I I I.364). As we observed in the Introduction, Rousseau abhorred dependency, construed as the subjection of one person to another person’s will. Freedom from personal dependence constitutes the natural liberty enjoyed by men in advance of political life; Rousseau’s point in framing the fundamental problem of politics as he does is that men should not lose this aspect of freedom when they enter society. Civil (and moral) liberty must be an advance on natural liberty; if society required a concession on the order of personal dependence, no one would leave the state of nature. Since social life requires some form of dependence—in society individuals cannot obey their own wills alone—dependence must be depersonalized, by being spread over society as a whole. For Rousseau, this form of socialized dependence is equivalent to man’s dependence on things in nature. He argues that ‘Dependence on things, since it has no morality, is in no way detrimental to freedom and engenders no vices. Dependence on men, since it is without order, engenders all the vices…. If the laws of nation could, like those of nature, have an inflexibility that no human force could ever conquer, dependence on men would then become dependence on things again’ (E, I I, 85/ IV.311; see OC, I I I. 1449, n. 1 to 364; see also Cranston (Introduction to SC (1968:41)). Thus, dependence on all one’s fellow citizens, as they act through law, does not diminish freedom. Thus, the collective application of the sanction preserves a negative aspect of individual freedom—it keeps men free from personal dependence (though not from dependence on society as a whole). But Rousseau famously holds that the sanction preserves freedom in the positive sense as well. For, recall that the person subjected to enforcement is a citizen, who has contributed to the formulation of the general will. As we saw above, in so far as he wants the benefits provided by the general will for himself, he himself wills the general will. It follows from the definition of moral liberty that in being forced to follow the dictates of his own will—that is in being forced to obey a law he imposes on himselfthe free rider is indeed being forced to be free.1 Thus, because they promote freedom, individual instances of compulsion are legitimate; more generally, because freedom is promoted when


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individuals’ obligations under the general will are enforced, the civil obligations imposed by the general will are legitimate as well. Discovering the general will In sum, for actions by the state to be legitimate they must be in accord with laws, which in turn must accurately express the general will. It follows that for a state to maintain its legitimacy it must have some procedure by which it can reliably discover the content of its general will. Now recall that in the Introduction we defined the general will in terms of a metaphorical procedure, which characterizes the relation between the wants of the individual members of society and the wants of society as a whole regarding the complete range of available public goods. This procedural metaphor grounds Rousseau’s ‘realist’ conception of the general will—his view that there is a fact of the matter as to what the general will holds. From here, however, we must consider the actual procedure society uses to attempt to discover the fact of the matter regarding its general will. We will say that while Rousseau’s metaphorical procedure gives sense to the formulation of the general will in an ideal sense, to provide guidance to society the general will must be discovered by an actual procedure. Rousseau implies that the actual procedure works one issue at a time—that is for any given public good the procedure seeks to discover whether it is included in or excluded from the set of goods the general will identifies as the common good. He holds that, owing to the distorting influence of private interest, perhaps organized into faction, the actual procedure can yield an incorrect result—that is, a social choice that does not express the general will. What is the nature of the procedure Rousseau has in mind? He stipulates that the general will is determined by majority rule. ‘Except for the original contract, the voice of the greater number [i.e. the majority] always obliges all the others [i.e. the minority]; this is a consequence of the contract itself (SC, IV.ii.7/III.440). Note that Rousseau did not consider the possibility of cyclical majorities—the possibility formalized by Arrow’s Theorem.2 Now Rousseau asserts, but does not argue for, the view that the social contract implies majority rule. Andrew Levine holds that Rousseau carries a presumption in favor of simple majority-rule on the grounds that it is ‘the procedure most consonant with popular

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sovereignty—the procedure least biased for or against the enactment of a law’ (1976:61). However, as Levine acknowledges, Rousseau himself does not advance this argument, and in fact advocates super-majorities on certain issues. In my view, Rousseau’s commitment to majority rule is based not on considerations of popular sovereignty, but rather on the direct conceptual link he sees between majority rule and legitimacy. Majority votes discover the general will, the enactment of which into law makes citizens free, making their arrangements of political authority legitimate. The epistemic conception of voting To understand Rousseau’s view let us follow his response to an objection. The general will is supposed to solve the fundamental problem of politics—preserving freedom while imposing authority. But majority rule seems to demand that the minority should surrender its freedom: in obeying the majority the minority seems to act against its own will. As Rousseau puts it, ‘It may be asked how a man can be free, and yet compelled to comply with wills which are not his own. How can the opposition be free, and at the same time subject to laws to which it has not consented?’ (SC, IV.ii.7/ I I I.440; cf. Wollheim (1962), Walzer (1981:382–7)). Rousseau must address this question. For, the state is legitimate only if the citizens obey only their own wills—if they are as free as they were before the institution of the social contract. But in the absence of unanimity won’t some citizens obey the wills of others? Rousseau admits that unanimity is necessary only for the original social contract; it would be virtually impossible on the many issues involved in running the state. Majority rule thus apparently entails the submission of the minority; Rousseau must resolve this paradox to preserve his theory of legitimacy. To disarm the paradox Rousseau tries to show that it is, in fact, an illusion. His position is that ‘the citizen consents to all the laws, even to those which have been passed over his opposition’ (SC, IV.ii.7/III.440). How is this possible? Rousseau’s explanation plays on the way we construe individuals’ votes. We might construe votes as expressions of preference: I vote for or against a proposal because I want or do not want the benefit it would provide. But if I am on the losing side of the vote, my commitment to majority rule forces me to consent to something I do not wantthat is I must


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act against my will. By contrast, however, Rousseau holds that votes should be construed not as expressions of preference but rather as judgments. When a law is proposed in the assembly of the people, what the voters are being asked is not precisely whether they do or do not approve of the proposal, but whether or not it is in conformity with the general will…. Each, when casting his vote, gives his opinion on this question. (SC, IV.ii.9/III.440-1) That is, for Rousseau, voters must not ask themselves whether a proposal conforms to their own personal wants, but rather whether ‘it is advantageous to the state’—that is whether it is in the common good (SC, IV.i.6/ I I I.438; see Waldron (1990:50)). Indeed, as we saw in the Introduction, the common good is defined in terms of the members of society’s wants. But that definition takes into consideration the pattern of wants of all the citizens regarding all available goods; the common good is that set of goods for which there is ‘a large number of small differences’ among wants, hence which supports the widest possible bargain between society’s members.3 Thus, voters must make a judgment— based on the evidence of their own wants, and their beliefs about everyone else’s—as to whether the specific proposal at hand would be included in the bargain that defines the common good. Rousseau’s realism regarding the general will implies that judgments as to whether a given proposal is or is not in the common good can be correct or incorrect. It follows that individual voters can be mistaken in their opinions. But how do the members of society learn the correct answer? Rousseau asserts that if ‘all the characteristics of the general will continue to be found in the majority,’ that is if the members of the majority have voted on the basis of their judgments of the common good, not their own private interest, then ‘the declaration of the general will is found by counting the ballots’ (SC, IV.ii.10, 9/III.441). That is, the ‘social judgment’ constituted by the majority vote correctly discovers the common good. We will consider a possible argument for Rousseau’s claim just below. First, let us observe that his faith in the perspicuity of majorities resolves the paradox posed by minorities. He argues that ‘when an opinion contrary to my own prevails, this proves

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nothing more than that I was mistaken, and that what I thought to be the general will was not’ (SC, IV.ii.9/III.441).4 That is, if I accept the majority’s judgment regarding the common good as correct, I come to regard my original judgment as mistaken. In rejecting it I in no way diminish my freedom—indeed my freedom would be diminished if I clung to my opinion in the face of conclusive countervailing evidence. I follow the majority decision, therefore, not simply because it is the decision of the majority but because I believe it is true. My belief in the majority thus grounds my unambiguous consent even to laws I have voted against. The epistemic value of majorities Now Rousseau simply asserts that, under the proper conditions, votes in the assembly reveal the general will, hence indicate what is, in fact, in the common good. That is, if the members of the assembly have enough information, and if they attend solely to public—not private—considerations, they will discover the common good. As Brian Barry puts it, ‘It is a contingent fact, according to Rousseau, that under certain conditions (equality, simplicity and virtue) the majority, provided its members ask themselves the right question (viz.: is this for the common good?) are more likely than not to arrive at the correct answer’ (1965:292). Barry draws an analogy to a group of mathematicians trying to solve a complicated problem. A solution exists, and each group member’s opinion is good evidence for what the solution is. It is reasonable to suppose that if the majority of the group propose a given solution, then that solution is in fact correct. Thus, if some of the group differed from the majority, it would be reasonable for them to forgo their opinions and concur with the rest. But even given a realist conception of the common good, why should we think that majorities have some special ability to recognize it? What gives the majority decision a special status, whereby it serves as the standard for the truth of judgments about the common good? In sum, why should a member of the minority accept the majority’s discovery, and reject his own original judgment as incorrect? As first noticed by Barry, Condorcet’s Jury Theorem can be used to support Rousseau’s faith in majorities. Condorcet proved (in Barry’s words) that ‘Provided every voter has an (equal) above fifty—fifty chance of getting the right answer, the majority opinion of the group will be right more often than


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that of any single member of the group voting’ (1965:292; see also Barry (1967:122), Levine (1976:66–72)). Recent work based on the Condorcet result has proved that majorities are right more often than any member of the group even if only the average voter has a better than even chance of being right (Grofman, Owen, and Feld 1983:268–9).5 The details of Condorcet’s proof are not important here.6 The upshot of his result is that as either the size of the majority or the competence (the probability of being right) of the average voter increases, the competence of the majority rapidly approaches 1. Indeed, if the competence of the average voter is more than 0.5, the competence of even a simple majority rapidly approaches 1 as the size of the group approaches infinity. For example, in a group of 250, if the average competence is only 0.51, the competence of the majority is 0.624. If the average competence increases to 0.525, the majority competence increases to 0.786, and if the average competence is 0.6, the majority competence is 0.999. If the average competence remains at 0.51, but the group size increases to 1,000, the majority competence increases to 0.736; at group size 10,000 it is 0.977.7 As Levine points out, the Condorcet Theorem supports a somewhat weaker claim than Rousseau’s—that the majority is very probably right, rather than certainly right (1976:68–9). That is, majorities have epistemic value: ‘the decisions of majorities about which policies to pursue can provide good evidence about which policies are in fact best’ (Cohen 1986a: 34, my emphasis). This epistemic conception of majorities is sufficient for our purposes, however, since it rests on an argument for what Rousseau merely asserts. As we saw above, Rousseau simply declares that the general will is found by majority rule; he does not provide reasons why majorities have this power. Now Condorcet’s reasoning was almost certainly unknown to Rousseau.8 Nonetheless, it can serve as the linchpin of Rousseau’s theory of legitimacy. For, by granting majority decisions the status of strong evidence regarding the content of the common good, the Condorcet Theorem explains why the members of a minority have good reason to reject their own judgments and agree with the majority. Thus, it explains why, when the members of the minority consent to a law to which they originally objected, they do not act against their own wills but rather exercise their autonomy.

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APPLYING CONDORCET’S THEOREM TO ROUSSEAU But does Rousseau’s political theory, overall, cohere with Condorcet’s theorem about majorities? In my view it does not. In the remainder of this chapter I will show that, on balance, the voters Rousseau imagines inhabiting his ideal—hence legitimate— society do not meet two conditions required to apply Condorcet’s reasoning. Specifically, I will argue, that while some features of the political institutions Rousseau supports are consistent with Condorcet’s conditions, these conditions are inconsistent with the culture of society as it could be. That is, the culture of society as it could be prevents majority votes from serving as good evidence for the content of the common good. I hold therefore that Rousseau’s vision of ideal culture leaves no room for the most plausible explanation of why citizens are obliged by decisions of the majority—that is that his cultural ideal is inconsistent with his theory of legitimacy. Condorcet’s conditions Voter competence What then are the conditions of Condorcet’s argument? First, as we have noted, the voters must have an average competence of greater than 0.5. An individual voter’s competence is simply the probability that he will make the correct judgment as to whether a given proposal is in the common good; average competence is simply the mean value of the competences of all the members of society. For this first condition to apply to Rousseau’s voters, they must be capable of forming judgments about the content of the widest possible bargain that could be struck among the members of society, given their wants, that are correct at least half the time. Note that Rousseau would insist that it is not enough that voters discern what is in the common good—they must also be committed to achieving it. Let us assume then that the voters are civically virtuous. We must consider whether, on Rousseau’s view, civic virtue includes the cognitive skills required for making accurate judgments of the common good—in particular, whether Rousseau can account for the acquisition of these skills.


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Voter independence The second condition holds that voters must be mutually independent: no one person can base his vote on the vote of another. 9 Bernard Grofman and Scott Feld explain the independence condition in terms of faction (1988:571). They interpret Rousseau’s remark that in the presence of faction ‘it can no longer be said that there are as many voters as there are individuals, but only as many as there are associations’ (SC, II.iii.3/III.37l–2) to mean that, for the purposes of calculating group competence, faction reduces the size of the group. ‘As the effective size of the assembly is reduced—because people vote as a herd (part of a faction) not as separately thinking and independently acting individuals—the Condorcet jury theorem tells us, group accuracy will be reduced’ (Grofman and Feld 1988:571). 10 That is, when any number of individuals vote together as a bloc, for the purposes of calculating the group competence all their votes count as only a single vote. It is necessary that citizens vote independently, in sum, to ensure maximum group competence. Therefore, we must consider whether Rousseau allows for voter independence. Now it can indeed be argued that Rousseau’s views provide for voter competence and independence—hence are consistent with both conditions. Let us proceed by first reviewing several arguments to the effect that Rousseau’s conception of ideal political institutions supports the applicability of Condorcet’s conditions to his theory. Then we shall rebut these arguments by showing how the cultural institutions of society as it could be withhold from citizens the kind of training necessary to make political institutions work as supposed. On balance, we shall find, culture on Rousseau’s view does nothing to instill competence, but instead makes citizens dependent on others. The case that Condorcet’s conditions apply There is indeed some evidence that Rousseau conceives of citizenship as encompassing the duty to improve one’s own competence as a voter, in a manner that preserves voter independence. In the introductory paragraphs of The Social Contract he declares that ‘Since I am by birth the citizen of a free state, and a member of the sovereign, my right to vote in that state, no

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matter how little influence my voice may have in public affairs, is enough to make it my duty to study them’ (SC, I.3/III.351). Although he speaks of his own duty, he presents it as a matter of principle that would apply to anyone. Rousseau defines citizenship as participation in sovereign authority (SC, I.vi.9); citizens therefore have the obligation to learn enough about the problems facing society to be able to make good judgments about what solutions are in the common good. Rousseau insists that the duty to study public affairs derives from the right to vote alone—‘no matter how little influence [one’s] voice may have in public affairs.’ This elaboration indicates that Rousseau believed voters should make up their own minds. On the one hand, the purpose of learning about public affairs is not to be better able to influence others, since one is obliged to study the common good even if one will have no such influence. And, on the other, Rousseau implicitly condemns what we might call cognitive free riding—the attitude that since one’s vote counts so little, one can shirk the obligation of learning about the issues at stake, and rely on others’ expertise. Thus, Rousseau holds that citizens are obliged not only to enhance their competence as voters but to form their judgments independently. Voter competence How, on Rousseau’s account, does ideal political life supply concrete opportunities for citizens to act on their duty to improve their competence? Carole Pateman (1970) argues that citizens develop and strengthen their ability to discern the common good through their participation in political institutions. She holds that Rousseau’s conception of politics stresses direct participation in political decision making, implying that the requisite skills will grow with practice. Pateman stresses that the most important effect of participation is an educative one. Rousseau’s ideal system is designed to develop responsible, individual social and political action through the effect of the participatory process. During this process the individual learns that the word ‘each’ must be applied to himself; that is to say, he finds that he has to take into account wider matters than his own immediate private interests if he is to gain co-operation from others, and he learns that the public and private interest


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are linked. The logic of the operation of the participatory system is such that he is ‘forced’ to deliberate according to his sense of justice, according to what Rousseau calls his ‘constant will’ because fellow citizens can always resist the implementation of inequitable demands. (24–5)11 On Pieman’s view, then, the logic of the social contract forces the members of society to realize that they can only benefit from others’ efforts on projects that benefit all—that is, on projects that are in the common good. A plausible account would have a group of cooperators arrive at a recognition of the common good through bargaining over their various interests. They would then each recognize that for the group to do anything, each member would have to consider more than his own interest—each would have to accommodate the interests of others in order to receive any benefits at all. Through experience, the members would gradually acquire the skill to recognize in advance of bargaining the outcome that is in everyone’s interest, and they would want to bring that outcome about. Over time, that is, individuals internalize a knack for compromise—they become capable and willing judges of the common good. Pateman holds that ‘Once the participatory system is established,…it becomes self-sustaining because the very qualities that are required of individual citizens if the system is to work successfully are those that the process of participation itself develops and fosters; the more the individual citizen participates the better able he is to do so’ (1970:25). Specifically, individuals become better able to recognize what is in the common good. We should note that they also come to recognize that their own best interest is served when the common good is achieved—that is they become more firmly motivated by civic virtue. We by no means have to imagine that individuals unfailingly discern the common good—but it is not obviously unreasonable to assume that each citizen will vote for the common good just over half the time. From this assumption we can conclude, on the basis of the Condorcet Theorem, that majorities will highly likely be right about the common good. It can be objected that Pateman attributes a belief in the capacities of average citizens to Rousseau that is more optimistic than the view he actually holds. Richard Fralin has argued that

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Rousseau is profoundly sceptical of the people’s ability to make competent judgments regarding the common good. There is perhaps no more radical theory of popular sovereignty than that set forth in the Contrat social, and such a theory is meaningless except on the basis of a deep respect for the good judgement of ordinary citizens. While there is no reason to doubt his sincerity in expounding this radical theory of popular sovereignty, it is nevertheless crucially important to recognize that he also harbored a deep distrust of the same people whose collective wisdom he often celebrated. (1978:87) Because Rousseau fears that ordinary citizens are unable to discover the common good, Fralin holds, he endorses political institutions designed to keep real power in the hands of an elite. The elite—that is the government—would present proposals for new laws to the assembly for approval; ‘the role of the people is limited to approving or disapproving proposals submitted and debated by the government’ (106). 12 It is likely, according to Fralin, that Rousseau intended to restrict the assembly’s right to discuss the legislation before it (106–7). On Fralin’s view, in sum, Rousseau leaves very little room for genuine political participation by the members of society—hence little opportunity (indeed little need) to improve voter competence. However, Fralin’s emphasis on Rousseau’s restriction of popular participation is too strong. As Joshua Cohen observes, Rousseau in fact endorses the right of ordinary citizens to discuss and deliberate political affairs in assemblies (1986b: 291). Thus, for example, in the Letters Written from the Mountain he asks ‘Why [should the government] suppress assemblies [of citizens] that are peaceful and purely civil, which could only have a legitimate purpose, since they remain always under the subordination owed to the Magistrate?’ (VI II, I I I.852). And he argues that the order in which an assembly ought to act on a proposal includes a stage in which the members voice their reasoned opinions on the matter at hand (LM, VII, I II.833, n.; see Estlund (1989:1336, n.7)). Rousseau, that is, presumes that assemblies will spend time in discussion before they give final approval to laws. This presumption is consistent with a belief that voters should learn more about the issues at stake. Indeed,


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in his account of the government of Rome Rousseau expresses approval of a system by which elections were repeated, giving ‘citizens from the country time, between the two elections, to inform themselves as to the merit of the candidate provisionally appointed, and thus to cast their ballots only when wellinformed’ (SC, IV.iv.30/ II I.451). 13 It appears then that Rousseau believed political institutions can serve the function of raising average voter competence. Through political participation citizens might receive the guidance they need to meet Condorcet’s competence condition. Thus, Cohen argues, Rousseau’s restriction of the right to initiate new laws to the government can plausibly be construed as designed to enhance popular judgement about the conduciveness of new legislative proposals to the common good. In states in which people do not devote all their time, or even most of their time to politics… some sort of initial review of the merits of legislative proposals is needed. Rousseau supposes that the review should be carried out by an executive. (1986b: 295–6) That is, the function of government can be construed as an educative one—explaining to the citizens why a given proposal serves or harms the common good. It is, after all, unrealistic to expect individual citizens to be able to perform the complex analyses needed to discover the common good on their own. But while ordinary citizens might not be able to propose a detailed plan that will work to the common good, they can be reasonably expected to recognize whether general policy proposals that are explained to them meet that criterion. Thus, it makes perfect sense to establish a division of labor, whereby elite experts suggest laws for the citizens’ approval. We can interpret Rousseau’s support for aristocratic government in this light; he holds that ‘it is the best and most natural arrangement for the wisest to govern the multitude’ (SC, III.v.7/III.407). In an argument that runs along similar, but more general lines, Jeremy Waldron ties Rousseau’s conception of political institutions specifically to Condorcet’s competence condition; he suggests that citizens’ participation in political life can raise the average voting competence above 0.5.

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Even if the average competence of the members of a group is below 0.5, it is likely that there will be some members whose competence is much higher. If so, they may be able to persuade those of lesser competence to abandon their prejudices and show them why (for example) an apparently counterintuitive proposal is not as inimical to the general good as it might seem. (1989:1326–7) Waldron observes that the members of society can learn not just from the government but also from interactions with each other. In the course of discussions, that is, less competent voters might come to accept the reasoning of more competent voters, thereby raising the average competence of the group. Indeed, Waldron notes, voters might learn simply by hearing a variety of points of view: ‘bringing citizens together in an assembly where they can be exposed in discussion to a range of perspectives other than their own may make it more likely that reason rather than prejudice will prevail as they address the problems of a large society’ (1989:1327). Thus, the educational benefits of participation Pateman identifies could result not simply from individuals’ experience of the logic of the social contract but also from the concrete information and assistance with cognitive skills the members of society receive from other citizens. On this view, the mechanism for improving average voter competence is built into the institutions in which Rousseau imagines citizens will participate during the course of political life. Voter independence But would the improvement in average voter competence we have just considered be purchased at the expense of the second of Condorcet’s conditions, voter independence? For example, would less competent individuals simply defer to the more competent, who would thereby function less as educators than as ‘opinion leaders’? If the less competent merely deferred to others, then indeed the independence condition would be violated—effectively there would be only as many voters as opinion leaders, and the competence of the group would, in general, decrease. It might be argued that Rousseau intuits this problem; hence, to preserve independence, he forbids communication between voters. For, as we have noted, he does declare that ‘If, when the people,


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sufficiently well-informed, deliberate, the citizens have no communication between themselves,…the deliberations would always be good’ (SC, II.iii.3/III.37l). But, as Waldron correctly observes, the context of Rousseau’s sentence makes clear that he is concerned with a particular form of communication—the communication that takes place within a faction (1989:1326). Rousseau does not condemn communication as such; indeed, as we have seen, his account of political institutions provides for opportunities for discussion, in the interest of raising voter competence. As Estlund puts it, ‘deference is the culprit, not communication…. [I]f deference can be avoided, communication would seem to have advantages from a Condorcetian perspective. Increasing the information of a nondeferential voter would tend to increase the voter’s competence’ (1989:1320). But in so far as the communication fostered by political institutions serves to raise average voter competence, does not the competence of some individual voters depend on others? Indeed yes—but while this form of dependence is inevitable, it does not violate Condorcet’s condition. In Waldron’s words, There is an obvious sense in which the competences of individual voters cannot possibly be independent of one another if they are members of the same society. They read the same newspapers, argue in the streets and coffee shops, and so on. What matters, for the purposes of independence, is what happens when the competence is exercised…. Independence is a condition on the way competence is expressed in voting, not a condition on the way competence is generated. (1989:1327–8) Members of the same society, that is, have their beliefs and abilities shaped by the same cultural forces—their moeurs—which they themselves transmit to each other. Hence it cannot be but that their competence as voters depends on these forces. But different individuals can exercise their competence independently, arriving at different judgments of the issues society faces. Certainly, individuals who have a high level of competence are likely to arrive at the same answer—the answer that is correct. They might even do so in consultation, each contributing some bit of skill or information to the problem. But individuals violate the independence condition only if, when they finally cast their ballots, they vote on the basis of how somebody else votes, and not on the

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basis of their own assessment of the issues. There is no reason to suppose that individuals cannot maintain this kind of judgmental independence. Indeed, it is easy to imagine institutional supports for it—most obviously, the secret ballot. If voting proceeds by fair secret ballot, individuals can discuss alternatives among themselves as they go about making up their minds, but at the decisive moment they must act on their own, without knowing for certain how anyone else has chosen. The privacy of the voting booth protects individuals from others learning their choices—but also prevents them, at least in principle, from simply copying another’s vote. 14 That is, the mechanism of the secret ballot illustrates how political institutions can provide for voter independence along with jointly (i.e. nonindependently) developed voter competence. Let us summarize the case that Rousseau’s theory is consistent with Condorcet’s conditions. As Grofman and Feld phrase the independence condition, ‘if individual choices are positively correlated with one another beyond the correlation to be expected from similarities in competence alone, group accuracy will be reduced’ (1988:571). The independence condition might thus seem to rule out interactions between voters, since these might lead some individuals to defer to others. But the political institutions we have surveyed can be conceived as serving an educative function: in virtue of their participation in politics, citizens improve their competence as voters. They can learn from their experience of the logic of the social contract; from their exposure to others’ diverse points of view; and from the explanation of issues provided by enlightened fellow citizens and the government. As the average competence rises, individuals become similar with respect to their competence, leading to strongly correlated choices. But voters’ competences can nonetheless be exercised independently: they can vote on the basis of their own judgments regarding the common good. Thus, Condorcet’s conditions can be satisfied by institutions such as Rousseau imagines. It follows, then, that these institutions will enable majorities to reliably discover the general will—hence that Rousseau’s conception of politics supports his theory of legitimacy. ROUSSEAU’S VOTERS In my view, the arguments that Condorcet’s conditions have a place in Rousseau’s vision of political life are finally not


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persuasive. I maintain that they make the mistake of abstracting the political institutions Rousseau imagines from his broader picture of social life. The individuals who participate in politics also participate in the institutions of culture; in general, Rousseau holds, culture shapes the attitudes of the members of society, preparing them to act as citizens. We must ask, therefore, whether the people the culture of society as it could be creates are indeed prepared to behave in the ways the arguments above suggest. Does the culture of society as it could be lay a foundation for voter competence? Does it encourage independence? The answer, I believe, is no: Rousseau’s ideal culture makes citizens who are not capable of meeting Condorcet’s conditions. Since they have to do with the process of discovering the common good, the Condorcet conditions bear on the formulation problem. But in his writings on the culture of society as it could be, Rousseau takes the law as given, presuming that in formulating its laws society as it could be expresses its general will. Thus Rousseau conceives culture not in terms of the formulation problem, but as a solution to the problem of enforcement. The solution to the enforcement problem, Rousseau thinks, does not demand cognitive competence, but does demand a lessening of individuals’ feelings of independence. Thus, the broad training citizens receive in the interest of conditioning them to obey the general will works against their ability to discover it. I conclude, therefore, that within society as it could be majorities have no special competence at discovering the common good—that is that Rousseau’s cultural ideal conflicts with his conception of legitimacy. We saw in Chapter 5 that the culture of society as it could be, represented by Rousseau’s idealized depiction of Genevan cultural life, serves to exploit citizens’ amour propre to cultivate their civic virtue. Republican festivals, exemplified by the winter balls, make the people feel part of the unified whole, but reward them for acting out their assigned social role. Broadly, ideal culture makes citizens want to conform to the expectations of their society—to cooperate as required in the life of the city. Thus, the institutions we surveyed are dedicated to producing individuals who, out of love for their country, are disposed to obey its laws. It is to instilling this aspect of civic virtue, the disposition to obey, that ideal culture is primarily dedicated. In sum, Rousseau conceives the culture of Geneva—hence the culture of society as it could be—

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as an agency that enforces the general will by encouraging citizens to make their own thinking depend on the thoughts of others. There is an exception to my reading: the Genevan men’s circles do provide for the acquisition of skills required to solve the formulation problem. Recall that Rousseau imagines that within the circles men will be able to hone their reason. Hence, we might think of the circles as cultural institutions that work to implement Condorcet’s conditions: they provide their members the opportunity to increase their competence as voters, and also privilege independent thought. However, the men’s circles are indeed exceptional within Rousseau’s overall conception of ideal cultural life. They are unique among the cultural institutions Rousseau envisions in that they enhance the cognitive abilities of ordinary citizens. Thus, they are out of keeping with his general belief, established in the First Discourse and reiterated frequently after, that cognitive development should be discouraged for all but the most intellectually gifted, who in turn should guide everyone else. I acknowledge that there are a few sublime geniuses capable of piercing the veils in which truth wraps itself, a few privileged souls able to withstand the folly of vanity, base jealousy, and the other passions to which a taste for letters gives rise. The small number of those who have the good fortune of combining these qualities are the beacon and the honor of mankind; only they should properly engage in study for the good of all. (PN, 33/II.970; see also DAS, II.59 and LR, 30) We must not, therefore, place too much weight on Rousseau’s apparent endorsement, with the men’s circles, of a role for culture in increasing individuals’ cognitive capacities and thereby voter competence. Much more characteristic of Rousseau’s views is the endorsement of cultural institutions that increase citizens’ dependence on one another. As we have noted, this is the case generally with the culture of Geneva. It is also the case with two other important cultural institutions we have not so far discussed, education and religion. Education In Emile Rousseau distinguishes between two forms of education: education for private life, and education for public life, that is for


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citizenship. He argues that, in his own time—that is in society as it is—public education is impossible. ‘Public instruction no longer exists and can no longer exist, because where there is no fatherland, there can no longer be citizens. These two words, fatherland and citizen, should be effaced from modern languages’ (E, I, 40/ IV.250). That is, the political conditions of society as it is render the concept of citizenship inapplicable—hence, training for citizenship is out of place. In Emile, therefore, Rousseau presents a program for private education, which he describes as the training of an individual, in accordance with nature, for life in society as it is. But, Rousseau implies, in society as it could be Emile’s private education would be inappropriate. In society as it could be there could be public education—indeed, public education would be required. ‘Public education under the rules prescribed by the government and under the magistrates put in place by the sovereign, is therefore one of the fundamental maxims of popular or legitimate government’ (DPE, II, 125/III.260–1). We are, of course, concerned here with society as it could be rather than society as it is; thus we must concentrate on Rousseau’s conception of public, rather than private, education.15 Rousseau conceives of public education as a means of inculcating civic virtue. As we saw in Chapter 3, Rousseau holds that civic virtue rests on the emotional foundation of patriotism. Thus, he begins the chapter on education in the Considerations on the Government of Poland by declaring ‘This is the important question. It is education that must give souls a national formation, and direct their opinions and tastes in such a way that they will be patriotic by inclination, by passion, by necessity’ (GP, IV, 176/III.966). Clearly inspired by Plato, in the Discourse on Political Economy Rousseau advocates a system whereby children are educated communally by the state.16 The object of their training, Rousseau makes clear, is not cognitive but motivational: public education has the task of forming the structure of children’s motivations so that they identify with their society and conform to the general will. If children are raised in common and in the bosom of equality, if they are imbued with the laws of the state and the maxims of the general will, if they are instructed to respect them above all things, if they are surrounded by examples and objects that constantly speak to them of the tender mother who nourishes them,…and in turn of the debt they owe her, doubtlessly they

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thus will learn to cherish one another as brothers, never to want anything but what the society wants. (DPE, II, 125–6/III.261)17 That is, on Rousseau’s view, public education should instill a sense of identity as a member of society, feelings of solidarity with one’s fellow citizens, and most important, the disposition to obey the law. The curriculum Rousseau recommends for public education places very little emphasis on developing children’s cognitive skills. The only ‘academic’ component—indeed, his only reference to reading—concerns learning about the nation. For, the purpose of public education is to make the nation the ground of the student’s own identity. Thus, in the Considerations on the Government of Poland he argues that At twenty, a Pole ought not to be a man of any other sort; he ought to be a Pole. I wish that, when he learns to read, he should read about his own land; that at the age often he should be familiar with all its products, at twelve with all its provinces, highways and towns; that at fifteen he should know its whole history, at sixteen all its laws; that in all Poland there should be no great action or famous man of which his heart and memory are not full, and of which he cannot give an account at a moment’s notice. (IV, 176–7/III.966) That is, public education consists in the absorption of facts rather than the development of intellectual abilities. Facts, of course, form the basis for judgments, hence are essential to the kind of competence Condorcet’s condition demands. But Rousseau does not regard the student’s immersion in facts about his nation as a stepping-stone to cognitive operations with these facts. Rather, the response Rousseau seeks from the training he proposes is mere repetition: as a result of their education, Poles should be able instantly to furnish any particular about their land. The facts they learn solidify through the power of overwhelming detail their identification with the nation.18 But Rousseau goes on to discount the value of any academic study. He argues that, for moral purposes, the most important part of public education is physical exercise and play.


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Prevent vices from arising, and you will have done enough for virtue. In a good system of public education, the way to accomplish this is simplicity itself: it is to keep children always on the alert, not by boring studies of which they understand nothing and which they hate simply because they are forced to sit still; but by exercises which will give them pleasure. (GP, IV, 178/III.968)19 Physical activity has a greater role in public education than cognitive development—but physical activity is important less for reasons of bodily health than for moral development. Thus, Rousseau requires that children ‘not be allowed to play on their own as their fancy dictates, but all together and in public, so that there will always be a common goal toward which they all aspire’ (G P, IV, 178/ I I I.968). The relative importance of publicly supervised play in Rousseau’s eyes is indicated by his insistence that even those parents who educate their children at home must send them to participate in the common games (GP, IV, 178—9/ III.968). The common games, therefore, teach the lessons essential to public education. What is the content of these lessons? In a negative sense, children are discouraged from being alone, and from exercising their own imaginations. For, Rousseau argues, on its own imagination leads to vice (E, IV, 218–9/IV.500–1). In a positive sense, the common games accustom children ‘to rules, to equality, to fraternity, to competition, to living under the eyes of their fellow citizens and to desiring public approbation’ (GP, IV, 179/III.968). Rousseau regarded the activities of children as of paramount importance: ‘How then is it possible to move the hearts of men and to make them love the fatherland and its laws? Dare I say it? Through children’s games…’ (GP, I, 162/III.955). Playing organized games gives children a direct experience of conforming to rules—as preparation for their conformity to the law. They experience solidarity with their fellows, and develop a competitive spirit—qualities that underlie military virtue. Foremost, children learn to associate their own happiness with serving their society. Like the festivals in Geneva, the common games stimulate amour propre in a controlled setting, calculated to make the opinion of society as a whole the source of children’s self-esteem. Thus, Rousseau recommends for the games that ‘the prizes and rewards of the victors should not be distributed

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arbitrarily by the games-coaches or by the school-officials, but by the acclamation and judgment of the spectators’ (GP, IV, 179/ III.968). Rousseau hopes, that is, that the games will instill in children the desire to live up to society’s expectations. In this respect they are a paradigm for the general quality Rousseau recommends for Polish life: ‘that every citizen will feel himself to be constantly under the public eye; that no one will advance or succeed save by favor of the public; that…all shall be dependent on public esteem that nothing can be done, nothing acquired, no success obtained without it’ (G P, XI I, 244/ I I I.1019). The common games, in sum, prepare children for a life of utter dependence on the opinions of others: they learn to look to society to know what to do. A recurring motif in Rousseau’s views on public education is the importance of models for emulation. The program of study he recommends for Polish youth culminates in their learning about great men; a student’s familiarity with the lives of heroes encourages him to imitate their noble deeds. An advantage of the common games is that these ‘excite competition and emulation’ in children (GP, IV, 178/III.968). Most important, Rousseau argues, teachers must be chosen on the basis of their suitability to serve as models for students. Polish students, therefore, ‘ought to have only Poles for teachers: Poles who are all, if possible, married; who are all distinguished by their moral character, probity, good sense and attainments’ (GP, IV, 177/III.966–7). The most important lessons the instructors teach, Rousseau holds, are conveyed by their personal example. For wherever the lesson is unsupported by authority, or the precept by example, instruction remains fruitless, and virtue itself loses its influence in the mouth of him who does not practice it. But let the illustrious warriors bent under the weight of their laurels preach courage; let upright magistrates, whitened in the wearing of purple and in service at the tribunals, teach justice. (DPE, II, 126/III.284) The spectacular effect of the appearances of decorated soldiers and august judges enhances their value as models to be emulated. Rousseau implies that students would be inspired to pattern their own lives on the lives of such distinguished teachers. In effect,


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Rousseau seeks to reproduce for students his own experience as a child reading Plutarch with his father. Continuously preoccupied with Rome and Athens, living as one might say with their great men, myself born the citizen of a republic and the son of a father whose patriotism was his strongest passion, I took fire by his example and pictured myself as a Greek or a Roman. I became indeed that character whose life I was reading. (C, I, 20/I.9)20 We can interpret Rousseau’s call for heroic instructors as an attempt to provide a living Plutarch: in the education Rousseau projects students would enjoy directly what he experienced only in imagination. Their experience would be all the more vivid than his, hence would lead to an identification with their teachers all the more complete. Ernst Cassirer holds that ‘Rousseau categorically denies the educational power of example’ (1954:124). But Rousseau’s requirement that teachers have upright moral characters belies this claim. He argues that the most important function of teachers in public education is to serve as living examples of civic virtue to their students. What effect on students should we assume this sort of education by example would have? Rousseau asserts that teachers would transmit their civic virtue to the next generation. But the relation between teacher and student Rousseau imagines would promote not genuine learning but rather simple deference. He supposes that students would have a respect bordering on awe for their instructors; the spectacular trappings of teachers’ appearances would have just this impact. The teachers embody authority, and Rousseau presumes that students will honor their words as final. Thus, students would not be encouraged to critically evaluate their teachers’ maxims—but would be expected simply to accept them as the wisdom of the ages. Rousseau expects students to identify with their teachers—but in an unquestioning way, by merely following a pattern. Let us summarize Rousseau’s conception of public education. As we saw, Rousseau believes that public education ought to make students thoroughly familiar with the facts about their nation. But this study is designed to strengthen students’ identification with their nation—it is not part of a program of broad cognitive

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development.21 Indeed, cognitive development is not the goal of public education at all. Rather, the function of public education is to instill civic virtue, in particular the disposition to obey the law. Thus, the educational mechanisms Rousseau advocates—common games, and exemplary teachers—work to make individuals deferential. Students are discouraged from thinking (even daydreaming) for themselves, and instead are taught to base their actions on others’ opinions. The games teach them to seek the approval of society, therefore to conform to society’s laws. And instructors teach them by serving as models for imitation, on the theory that students ought to conform to their teachers’ examples. Rousseau’s scheme for public education is thus well suited to the problem of enforcing the general will. It would create citizens who reflexively do what society demands. But public education does not address the issue of formulating the general will. It does not provide training in the skills required to discover the common good—but only in the attitudes that motivate individuals to seek the common good once it has been pointed out to them. Thus, the citizens produced by Rousseau’s scheme would be likely, for example, to defer to the declarations by the government or by experts as to the content of the general will; as patriots, they would do their duty and obey the law. It follows that public education as Rousseau imagines it violates both of Condorcet’s conditions. Except for their knowledge of the facts of their country, voters receive no training to enhance their competence at discovering the common good. But the decisive criticism is that voters’ training works against their independence— their training disposes them to defer to others’ opinions. Thus, majorities formed by the citizens produced by Rousseau’s scheme for public education would lack the special competence at discovering the common good Condorcet’s Theorem characterizes. But if majorities lack this competence, the laws they pass are not legitimate. I hold, therefore, that Rousseau’s views on public education undercut his theory of legitimacy. Religion Let us now turn to Rousseau’s views on religion. Rousseau famously calls for a civil religion, adherence to which is required of all citizens. The civil religion is thus a central element of the cultural life of society as it could be. We will consider the effect


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Rousseau desires it to have on the citizens in a moment. First, however, we should observe that Rousseau connects the question of the place of religion in political life to what we can interpret as the question of voter competence. For, Rousseau argues that religion plays a vital role in the founding of the state—specifically, that it compensates for cognitive abilities the members of nascent society lack. Recall our discussion of the Legislator in Chapter 3. Rousseau introduces the Legislator while discussing the difficulty of instituting a system of law for a newly constituted society. In advance of political experience a people has not yet developed the cognitive skills required to recognize its own common good. This poses the need for a Legislator, whose first task is to compensate for the people’s cognitive deficit: The people by itself always wills the good, but by itself it does not always see it. The general will is always right, but the judgment which guides it is not always enlightened. It must be made to see things as they are, sometimes as they ought to appear; it must be shown the good road it is seeking, safeguarded against seduction by particular wills, given a clear view of local and temporal circumstances, and taught to weigh the attraction of immediate and palpable advantages against the danger of distant and hidden evils. (SC, II.vi.10/III.380) Rousseau’s call for a Legislator thus conforms to the pattern of intellectual elitism he establishes in the First Discourse. There he argues that only sublime geniuses should be permitted to pursue study, the results of which would benefit all. The Legislator is an example of Rousseau’s vision of intellectual heroism. The people do not have the capacity to discover the common good on their own; the Legislator provides the guidance they need to ensure that they accept laws that will work in their best interest. As we have observed, Rousseau recognizes that the Legislator is caught in a circle. ‘For a new-born people to be able to appreciate sound political principles, and to follow the fundamental rules of political necessity, the effect would have to become the cause’ (SC, II.vii.9/ II I.383). Since the people are new to political life they cannot grasp why some measure will work to their common good, hence the Legislator cannot explain

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to them why they should adopt the course he recommends. That is, the Legislator faces the dilemma that he must get people to obey under circumstances that prevent him from explaining why they will benefit from obedience. This is why, according to Rousseau, the Legislator adopts religion: it is a means of ‘persuading without convincing’ the people to subject themselves willingly to law. Because reasoned argument has no effect, the Legislator resorts to religious awe. Religion can initiate common life because it induces obedience—it makes people ‘submissive to the laws of the state as to the laws of nature,’ so that seeing ‘the same power at work in the formation of the city as in the creation of man, [they] might obey freely, and wear with docility the yoke of public felicity’ (SC, II.vii.10/III.383). Rousseau thus concludes that religion can be an instrument of politics (SC, II.vii.12). Specifically, religion enables the Legislator to provide for a solution to the enforcement problem—on the assumption that he himself solves the formulation problem. Religion influences people to adopt the habit of obedience to lawbut it does not teach people why they should obey the laws, much less how to make them. For, religion makes people obey out of fear of an external (supernatural) agency, not because they understand obedience is in their best interest. The Legislator puts his edicts ‘in the mouth of the immortals, in order to compel by divine authority those whom human prudence could not move’ (SC, II.vii.11/ III.384). Rousseau cites Machiavelli’s argument that the reasons behind specific laws are too difficult for the mass of people to understand, hence the Legislator—who does comprehend these matters—must use a religious appeal to gain acceptance (SC, II.vii.11, n. 1). That is, religion remedies the effect of the cognitive deficit the Legislator encounters with a new people—but it does not remedy the deficit itself. However, it might be objected, the cognitive deficit the Legislator must overcome by religion exists at the outset of a people’s political life. Presumably once the laws have taken hold, citizens learn through experience the advantage of living under law and no longer need to be manipulated into obedience. But let us consider the role Rousseau sees for religion as society develops. In fact, he argues that once a people has been awed into accepting the bonds of political life, the function of religion shifts—from imposing those bonds to maintaining them. Thus, in his discussion of civil religion, Rousseau continues to hold that religion serves to


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motivate citizens to obey the law—but its motivating power evolves from awe to love. Early peoples, Rousseau argues, had national religions, which ‘combine divine worship with love of the laws and…mak[e] the country the object of the adoration of its citizens’ (SC, IV.iii.18/ III.464–5). Thus, national religions make citizens patriots. Since they love their country they are disposed to obey its laws. However, Rousseau recognizes a danger in national religion. Despite the value of giving religious fervor to political obligation, national religion ‘is bad in that, being founded on mistakes and lies, it deceives men, makes them credulous and superstitious, and… makes a people bloodthirsty and intolerant…. The result is to place such a people in a natural state of war with all others, which is extremely harmful to its own security’ (SC, IV.viii.19/ III.465). Thus, Rousseau concludes that, on balance, national religion is more dangerous than beneficial. Despite the danger of national religion—and of Christianity, which he argues erodes the attachment of citizens to their countries (see SC, IV.viii.21)—Rousseau does believe religious faith is essential to political life. ‘It is very important to the state that each citizen should have a religion which makes him love his duties’ (SC, IV.viii.32/ I I I.468). 22 The specific tenets of the religion a citizen holds are not important—‘except in so far as they have a bearing on morals and on the duties that he who professes it is bound to fulfil toward others’ (SC, IV.viii.32/ I I I.468). Rousseau thus proposes an abstract criterion which determines the acceptability of specific religious creeds. It asks whether a given religion makes citizens love their duties—though there is an indefinite number of ways in which this could be done. The criterion embodies a conception of the political function of religion: religion supports the political order by providing citizens with a psychological motivation—love—for obeying the law. Note that the tolerance Rousseau recommends follows from political considerations: he permits variation in beliefs in order to avoid the dangers associated with a national religion, but the range of acceptable belief is bounded by the political function assigned to religion. ‘Now that there no longer is, nor can be, any exclusively national religion, you should tolerate all those which tolerate others, in so far as their dogmas contain nothing contrary to the duties of the citizen’ (SC, IV.viii.36/III.469).23

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Rousseau speaks of his criterion for acceptable religion as itself a kind of civil creed. ‘There is, therefore, a purely civil profession of faith whose articles the sovereign is competent to determine, not precisely as religious dogmas, but as sentiments of sociability, without which it is impossible to be either a good citizen or a faithful subject’ (SC, IV.viii.33/ I I I.468). The content of Rousseau’s civil religion is relatively sparse: in addition to forbidding intolerance it posits ‘the existence of a powerful, intelligent, benevolent, foreseeing and providential God, the continuance of life after death, the happiness of the just, the punishment of the wicked, the sanctity of the social contract and the laws’ (SC, IV.viii.34/III.468).24 But Rousseau is less interested in the truth of the doctrines of the civil religion than in their practical effects. As Ramon Lemos puts it, ‘As far as the sovereign is concerned the important question is not the theoretical question of whether [the doctrines] are true, but rather the practical question of what the moral, social, and political consequences are of believing or disbelieving them’ (1977:250, see also 203). In explaining this point Howard Cell cites Rousseau’s declaration that his purpose in discussing civil religion is ‘not to consider religions as true or false, nor even as good or bad in themselves, but exclusively in their relations to political bodies and as an aspect of law-giving’ (LM, I, III.703, Cell’s trans. at 1981:44; see also 42–3). This distinction between truth and effect explains Rousseau’s rationale for banishing anyone who does not believe in the civil religion: the punishment is ‘not for impiety, but for unsociability, for being incapable of sincerely loving law and justice’ (SC, IV.viii.33/ I I I.468). Thus, for Rousseau, the practical effect of belief in the civil religion is that believers love the law, hence make reliable citizens. As in the hands of the Legislator at the founding, in the fully developed society as it could be religion remains a political instrument, whose purpose is to make citizens obedient. In sum, therefore, the civil religion—like public education— addresses the enforcement problem: love motivates citizens to obey the law once the law has been created. But making citizens love the law does not address the formulation problem. As Rousseau presents it, religion would condition a people to obey its leaders— but not to judge for itself whether its leader’s proposals actually work for the common good. Thus, religion might ensure that a people enjoys the common benefits identified by its leaders, but it


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does not help a people understand why their laws are beneficial. On Rousseau’s account, the original establishment and continuing influence of religion is evidence of the Legislator’s profound political judgment—but at the same time religion appears to be a substitute for the political judgment of the people. Thus, like his views on public education, Rousseau’s views on religion run counter to Condorcet’s two conditions. On the one hand, the need for religion indicates that people are not competent to discover the common good. But even if such competence were acquired, on the other, the civil religion counteracts citizens’ independence. Now it is true that Rousseau’s support for toleration entails that different individuals can hold different religious beliefs—they can be independently minded on matters of private faith regarding God’s nature and the life to come. But all permissible religious views intersect on the civil profession of faith, which sanctifies the social contract—hence the jurisdiction it grants the sovereign over all matters of public welfare (SC, IV.viii.32). Thus citizens’ rights to independent judgment do not extend to secular affairs; on these, by Rousseau’s reasoning, they could be compelled to believe what is socially useful. Rousseau does not explicitly claim that strong power for the sovereign. But it is reasonable to suppose that he presumes that the love of duty the civil religion instills in its believers would instill as well a disposition to respect the civil authorities. That is, like the products of public education, believers in the civil religion would be deferential on civil matters: they would tend not to make their own judgments about the common good, but instead would tend to follow the judgments of the government. Therefore, I hold, the civil religion works against legitimacy: the citizens it shapes would not produce majorities competent to discover the common good. CONCLUSION The arguments we surveyed on pp. 223–30 purported to show that in his conception of ideal political institutions Rousseau provides for the satisfaction of the two Condorcet conditions. That is, through their participation in politics citizens improve their competence as voters but at the same time maintain their independence. Thus, these arguments hold, when citizens vote on a given proposal, the majority is competent to discover whether or not the proposal conforms with the common good. To

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demonstrate that majorities do have this competence would provide powerful support for Rousseau’s theory of legitimacy. For, as we saw on pp. 213–21, legitimacy depends on society’s ability to discover its common good, hence its general will. Only if its laws truly reflect the general will can society legitimately oblige its citizens’ obedience: since each citizen himself wills the general will, in obeying the law he acts autonomously. Thus, at stake in the question of whether Condorcet’s conditions apply to Rousseau’s vision of society as it could be is the question of whether society as it could be is legitimate. I have tried to show, however, that if we attend to the culture of society as it could be we see that Condorcet’s conditions do not apply. The cultural institutions of society as it could be produce citizens whose participation in political institutions would not have the results the arguments of pp. 223–30 suggest. We reviewed Rousseau’s model cultural regime—the cultural life of Geneva—in Chapter 5; we have just examined his proposals for public education and civil religion. Taken together they indicate the range of effects Rousseau intends ideal culture to have—hence the kind of citizen he intends it to make. As we have seen, ideal culture does not foster the intellectual skills required to frame judgments about the common good; indeed, throughout his writing Rousseau expresses scepticism about the intellectual capabilities of ordinary citizens. Thus, we have no reason to expect the members of society as it could be to enter into political institutions as competent voters, nor that they would gain competence by means of their participation. Rousseau’s ideal culture provides no foundation for cognitive development. And ideal culture does not provide for independence; indeed, the goal of cultural institutions is to make citizens ‘extremely dependent on the city’ (SC, II.xii.3/III.394). That is, citizens look to the community as a whole for approval, and they are trained to defer to those officials who personify the state. Thus, we have no reason to expect the members of society as it could be to enter into political institutions as independent voters, nor that they would do anything but vote according to the opinions of others. Through their participation in politics, the citizens Rousseau imagines ‘internalize the conception [of the common good] embodied in existing laws and advanced by the government’ (Cohen 1986b:289).25 In sum, then, we have no reason to expect the political


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institutions of society as it could be to generate majorities that are competent to discover the common good. The citizens produced by Rousseau’s ideal culture do not meet Condorcet’s two conditions. Hence we cannot appeal to Condorcet’s Theorem to prove the competence of the majorities these citizens form. It follows that we cannot appeal to Condorcet’s Theorem to lend plausibility to Rousseau’s account of legitimacy. In the terms in which Rousseau states the problem, a member of the minority has no reason to believe that the majority has discovered the common good, hence that his own opinion on the matter is simply mistaken. Thus, he would have no reason to accept a law passed over his objection as in fact the true expression of the general will, hence of his own will regarding what society should do. Compelling him to obey the law, it follows, would not be forcing him to be free—it would be simple coercion, and it could not be legitimate. I conclude, therefore, that Rousseau’s cultural ideal is inconsistent with his theory of legitimacy. The cultural institutions he believes are needed to sustain society as it could be invalidate his explanation of how individuals can be free while they are obligated by the law—and thereby render that society illegitimate. But an illegitimate society cannot serve as society as it could be: society as it could be exemplifies successful politics, and legitimacy is a necessary condition of political success. Thus, finally, attention to Rousseau’s conception of ideal culture reveals the inconsistency of his notion of political success itself. Political success results from the formulation and enforcement of the general will. But, perhaps due to his fear of the unceasing power of amour propre, Rousseau places greater weight on the question of enforcement. He sees enforcement as a matter of motivation: ‘There will never be a good and solid constitution unless the law reigns over the hearts of the citizens; as long as the power of legislation is insufficient to accomplish this, laws will always be evaded. But how can hearts be reached?’ (GP, I, 162/ III.955). The answer Rousseau offers to this question is rigorous political supervision of culture. If you want the laws obeyed, make them beloved…. That was the great art of governments of old, in those remote times when philosophers gave laws to the peoples…. From this came the many sumptuary laws, the many regulations concerning moeurs, the many public maxims accepted or rejected with the greatest care’ (DPE, I, 119/III.251–2).

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The cultural institutions Rousseau recommends to make the citizens love the laws may indeed solve the enforcement problem. But they do so at the cost of solving the formulation problem. For the citizens they produce lack the traits—competence and independence—that make it possible for them collectively to discover the common good. Thus, the citizens produced by ideal culture are not capable of formulating laws that express their general will. On Rousseau’s account, in sum, if the influence of culture is strong enough to ensure that the general will is enforced, it is too strong to allow for the general will to be formulated. That is, if culture is strong enough, it is also too strong to produce political success. Therefore, since Rousseau holds that society cannot attain political success unless its culture conforms to his ideal, his conception of political success is incoherent.

Appendix I

Moeurs as culture

Moeurs is a key term in Rousseau’s discussion of political life. We cannot understand his view of politics without understanding what he means by this word. But moeurs has no precise equivalent in English; Peter Gay calls it ‘the translator’s despair’ (Gay 1977, vol. 2:41). (For several translators’ accounts of their renderings see Bloom (1960:149, n. 3), Masters and Masters (1964:66, n.7), and Cress (1987: vi).) The Grand Larousse offers two main definitions— ‘habits relative to the practice of good and evil’ and ‘manner of life characteristic of a people, a society, a social group’ (Dubois 1975:3417–18). Since there is no clear English equivalent, I shall leave moeurs untranslated. However, I believe that the notion of culture corresponds well to Rousseau’s notion of moeurs. To establish their functional equivalence, let us review two passages that exemplify Rousseau’s use of the word moeurs, and then see how this usage corresponds to a stipulated—but not idiosyncratic— use of the word culture. The first passage describes the initial appearance of proto-social groups at the very end of the state of nature. Rousseau says that ‘Men, who until now had roamed in the Woods, having become more settled, gradually come together, unite in various troops, and finally in every region form a particular Nation united in moeurs and character, not by Rules or Laws, but by the same kind of life and of foods, and the influence of a shared Climate’ (DI, II.15/ III.169). Rousseau here glosses moeurs as the manner of life of a people, down to its diet. He holds that this shared way of life keeps people together in primitive social groups. His denial that rules or laws bring people together is clearly aimed at the more abstract picture presented by standard social contract theory. As Richard Flathman puts it, ‘Rousseau argued that the self247

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consciously adopted agreements that Hobbes proposed as the way out of the state of nature presuppose an array of shared understandings, common beliefs, and matter of course or conventional behaviors that for the most part are implicit, tacit, or at least unself-consciously accepted and performed’ (Flathman 1987:94–5). To Rousseau’s mind, that is, a people must be united in their way of life before they can institute political relations with one another. Shared moeurs constitute the social glue in virtue of which individuals are sufficiently united to enter into political cooperation. Second, in a fragment Rousseau declares that ‘Law operates only externally and rules only actions; moeurs alone penetrate inwardly and direct wills’ (FP, XVI.6, III.555; cf. Montesquieu, SL, XIX. 16.2). Rousseau’s faith in the efficacy of moeurs reflects his belief that social experience shapes human psychology. Moeurs are not, that is, merely a matter of external actions—the customary behavior of a social group. Instead, they have profound motivational power: they literally direct the wills of society’s members. The psychological power of moeurs is the locus of their political significance. Moeurs are capable of restraining the passions that might lead to behavior that threatens political stability, and of redirecting those passions in ways that support political life. For, they shape the attitudes society’s members bring to social cooperation, in virtue of which, for example, individuals will be disposed to obey or disobey the law. Thus Rousseau describes moeurs as the keystone that holds together the arch of collective existence (SC, I I.xii.5/ I II.394). In sum, for Rousseau, moeurs constitute a condition for politics: the wrong sort of moeurs obstruct, while the right sort promote, society’s ability to accomplish its collective goals. In what ways, then, does Rousseau’s notion of moeurs correspond to the notion of culture? It is not to our purpose to survey the enormous breadth of meanings the word culture conveys (see Williams (1985) and Kroeber and Kluckhohn (1952)). However, drawing on the considerable theoretical discussion of culture, we can stipulate a specific usage for the term that is neither arbitrary nor unconstrained by a broader consensus on its conceptual components, but which highlights the features of social life with which Rousseau was concerned. The seminal modern definition (in English) of culture was offered by E.B.Tylor in 1871: ‘Culture, or civilization,…is that


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complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society’ (quoted by Kroeber and Kluckhohn (1952:81)). Raymond Williams holds that Tylor’s definition presents culture primarily as a realm of meaning and value: he notes that the leading constituents of Tylor’s complex whole are knowledge, belief, art, law, and morals. However, Williams argues, The effect of the work of Karl Marx and of the many nonMarxists who were influenced by him was to posit a definite relation between ‘that complex whole’ of meanings and values ‘acquired by man as a member of society’ and particular types of social and economic institutions. In general, types of organizations of material life were held to determine systems of meanings and values, although the process by which this determination was established was often very complex. According to this view, ‘culture’ inevitably includes the material organization of life and cannot be confined to the area of meanings and values. (1967:274) Although I agree that culture includes the ‘material organization of life,’ it is certainly not only that—it also includes beliefs. This aspect of culture is emphasized by Peter Berger, who views culture ‘not only as material artifacts and non-material socio-cultural formations that guide human behavior…, but the reflection of this world as it is contained within human consciousness…. The fabric of culture then is the intersubjective meanings individuals hold concerning the world in which they live’ (Wuthnow et al. 1984:35). The realm of culture, that is, is the realm where the activities of life acquire meanings in the minds of the members of society. Expositions of the concept of culture, then, are divided in their emphases: between the overt practices that make up social habits and customs and the internal meanings these practices have for society’s members. The most useful definition of culture will manage to refer to both elements: people’s activities and people’s beliefs. The question then becomes, how are activities and beliefs related within culture? Clifford Geertz offers a synthesis based on an analogy to computer programs. ‘Culture is best seen not as complexes of concrete behavior patterns—customs, usages,

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traditions, habit clusters—as has, by and large, been the case up to now, but as a set of control mechanisms—plans, recipes, rules, instructions (what computer engineers call ‘programs’)—for the governing of behavior’ (1973:44; see also Parsons (1973)). For Geertz, that is, culture is a collection of norms: pre-existing expectations that people follow as they act. Culture imposes regularities on human activities because in culture individuals learn to interact according to norms that produce stable patterns of action (see Elster (1989) and J.S.Coleman (1990)). The conception of culture we can stipulate as corresponding to moeurs, therefore, extends over activities—a society’s way of life. However, it picks out the ordered quality of cultural activities: culture is not the pattern abstracted from the behavior, but the behavior conceived as patterned. This conception fully acknowledges the interiority of culture. Culture is a storehouse of social meaning and value, which individuals draw on to understand and assess their lives. These two dimensions of culture are intimately linked. For, culture motivates individuals’ actions: people decide what actions to take—and how to perform them—on the basis of cultural norms. To be a member of a culture is to know what and how things are done in given situations: it is to participate in a system of expectations. In virtue of sharing cultural norms, individuals act in similar or coordinated ways, producing large-scale regularities in social life. This is how, for Rousseau, culture shapes the prospects for society’s politics. Cultural norms shape the attitudes with which members of society enter into political relations. Individuals’ attitudes might lead them to act in ways that help or hinder political cooperation. Thus, in Rousseau’s view, culture exercises its influence on political life—an influence that can be for better or worse—through its psychological effects on society’s members. Now Rousseau speaks of society’s cultural life—its moeurs—as part of the social environment: an ambience that surrounds and pervades society’s members. But he recognizes the effect of specific institutions in transmitting—or transforming—moeurs. Thus, his theory of the impact of culture on politics can be construed as a theory of the political impact of cultural institutions. Rousseau has a very broad conception of cultural institutions. Obvious examples include the institutions of the arts, of learning, and of religion. But he also considers as cultural institutions neighborhood associations and civic festivals. In general, any institution through which the


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members of society come into contact with one another has a cultural aspect. For, Rousseau believes, the interactions organized by the institution provide individuals with an opportunity to conform to social norms—but might, depending on the character of the institution, instead tempt them to change the way they ordinarily behave. Therefore, we must understand Rousseau’s conception of moeurs as culture to include more than the general practices of society’s members. When Rousseau refers to moeurs he also has in mind the cultural institutions through which the members of society interact.

Appendix II

Arrow’s Theorem

In light of results in the theory of social choice, theorists have raised the question of the coherence of the concept of the general will. In particular, it is argued, Arrow’s General Impossibility Theorem proves that no method can exist that, on the one hand, meets certain minimal conditions of fairness and democracy, and on the other, unfailingly aggregates the wants of the members of society into a collective decision for society as a whole. On this view, then, the concept of the general will is incoherent, because there will be certain circumstances—that is certain distributions of wants among society’s members—for which the general will cannot be defined. In my view, however, Rousseau’s conception of the general will escapes the challenge presented by Arrow’s Theorem. For, I hold, Rousseau conceives the general will as existing within a cultural context, hence he assumes the problem of formulating the general will occurs under conditions such that Arrow’s arguments do not apply. Let us quickly review the import of Arrow’s Theorem. It grows out of the paradox of voting first described by Condorcet (Black

Figure A.1 252

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1958:166 ff.). Imagine three voters, X, Y, and Z, who must choose between three alternatives, a1, a2, and a3. Their preferences are listed in Figure A.1. Which alternative commands a majority of the votes? Two voters (X and Z) prefer at over a2, two voters (X and Y) prefer a2 over a3, and two voters (Y and Z) prefer a3 over a1. In this circumstance, it is impossible to say what is the majority preference: by majority rule society prefers a1 over a2 over a3 over a 1. In this case the majorities are said to be cyclical, and the collective preference is said to be intransitive. The presence of the cycle reveals the paradox: although each member of the group has a clear set of preferences, there is no clear preference for the group as a whole. Kenneth Arrow generalized the paradox of voting by proving that, under certain basic conditions, there is no procedure which, given the preferences of the members of society, can unambiguously determine the preferences of the society as a whole (1963; for expositions of his proof see Luce and Raiffa (1957:331– 40), Riker and Ordeshook (1973:92–4), MacKay (1980: passim), Ordeshook (1986:56–65), and Resnik (1987:186–9)). Arrow’s proof incorporates several conditions that a procedure for aggregating individuals’ preferences must meet in order to exemplify values of fairness, justice, and democracy. A consequence of Arrow’s Theorem is that cyclical majorities are not an idiosyncrasy of a particular method of aggregating individual preferences, for example majority rule in pair-wise comparisons, as in the example above. For, any procedure that guarantees a noncyclical majority can be shown to violate at least one of Arrow’s conditions. The meaning of Arrow’s Theorem is that no procedure that meets minimally democratic criteria can be trusted to determine, on the basis of society’s members’ rankings of available alternatives, a coherent ranking of the alternatives for society as a whole. It can thus be argued that Arrow’s Theorem calls into question the very intelligibility of the concept of the general will. For Steven Brams, the import of the theorem is that ‘the paradox of voting cannot be avoided, which renders the notion of ‘social consensus’ achieved by procedures having these properties [meeting Arrow’s conditions] somewhat of a contradiction in terms’ (1976:34). If Arrow’s Theorem applies to Rousseau’s theory, there can be no sound procedure for formulating the general will—rendering Rousseau’s conception of political success

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incoherent. For clearly the general will must represent a transitive group preference; if it embodies a cycle, it cannot serve its function of directing collective action. Andrew Levine (1976) notes that if a master issued commands that were intransitive, that is contained a cycle, a servant would not know how to act. What could the servant do if the master said ‘Wash the dishes before the windows, the windows before the floors, and the floors before the dishes? But the general will is the will of the people as a whole, acting as the sovereign power of the state, issuing commands to the government (SC, III.i.4–5). Therefore ‘the collective judgment …must produce consistent (transitive) results. Otherwise, the public servants or magistrates (to use Rousseau’s word) would be unable to execute the sovereign’s will’ (Levine 1976:82). The prospect raised by Arrow’s Theorem is thus the prospect of political failure. It is, apparently, conceptually impossible for society to be able always to frame a collective decision—that is to formulate its general will. Even if the members of society wanted to provide public goods, their preferences among available public goods might be such as to produce cyclical majorities. In circumstances of this sort society faces ambiguity regarding its most preferred alternative, hence lacks direction regarding how it should act. But does Arrow’s argument in fact apply to the conditions Rousseau has in mind? Before addressing this question substantively let us take note of two considerations relevant to our exposition of Rousseau’s views. First, we have not presented Rousseau’s conception of the general will in terms of voting, but rather in terms of an ideal procedure akin to bargaining over ‘a large number of small differences.’ Indeed Rousseau does hold that in actual situations a society would determine whether or not to adopt a certain proposal by voting (SC, IV.ii.7–8; see pp. 217– 18). Thus, we might think that Arrow’s Theorem casts doubt on the actual process by which society discovers its general will. This view, to the effect that the general will is defined by voting hence that Arrow’s Theorem proves its unintelligibility, is argued by William Riker (1982). But we might nonetheless hold that the general will can be defined independent of votes, hence that arguments about voting procedures do not challenge the conceptual coherence of the general will itself. This response is argued under the rubric of ‘epistemic populism’ by Jules Coleman and John Ferejohn (1986), and by Joshua Cohen (1986a).


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(Epistemic populism is so called because it holds that votes give good evidence of the general will—see pp. 218–21.) However, as David Estlund observes, Arrow’s Theorem casts doubt not just on actual procedures for aggregating individuals’ votes, but on the possibility of a conceptual relation between individuals’ wants and the notion of the common good (1989:1321). Arrow’s Theorem holds that there can be no function from individuals’ wants to an aggregate want that meets Arrow’s basic conditions—indeed, Arrow calls the aggregation procedure a social welfare function. Thus, even though Rousseau does not define the general will in terms of voting but rather in terms of an abstract procedure, in so far as that procedure is a function, Arrow’s Theorem might still apply. Second, we have presented Rousseau’s conception of the general will in terms of what we have called welfare profiles—sets of wants for simultaneously available public goods. Following Rousseau’s own discussion, we have not considered how an individual might rank different goods in order of preference. Rather, we have simply considered whether or not the individual wants a given good—whether he gives it a plus or a minus. However, the paradox that Arrow’s Theorem generalizes results precisely because each individual ranks his preferences, as in Figure A.1. The paradox arises because there can be only one first choice for society, but in certain circumstances the preference rankings of society’s members do not yield an unambiguous winner. Now reference to rankings introduces a level of sophistication not present in Rousseau’s own treatment of the formulation of the general will. There is some reason to believe that he would argue that, ideally, individuals ought not rank available goods according to the strength of their preferences, since individuals with similar preference rankings might band together into factions (see Chapter 1, pp. 38–50). However, I do not insist that Rousseau’s theory escapes the voters’ paradox on these grounds. His view becomes all the more realistic—and certainly all the more relevant to contemporary discussions—if it can be construed in terms of rankings. Thus, let us suppose that we can in fact reasonably interpret Rousseau to be concerned with rankings. We must then ask directly whether Arrow’s conclusion invalidates Rousseau’s conception of the general will. To answer this question we must consider whether the conditions of Arrow’s proof apply to the political situation Rousseau has in

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mind. The theorem implies that no procedure that meets certain conditions can guarantee a non-cyclical outcome. Arrow’s first condition is ‘Universal Admissibility,’ which encapsulates the intuition that any ranking of the alternatives open to society should be counted toward the final ranking of society’s preferences. That is, no particular ranking of alternatives can be rejected as input to the decision procedure, no matter how bizarre or distasteful it might be. The effect otherwise would be to disenfranchise any individual who happened to have the proscribed preferences. But Arrow himself recognized that Universal Admissibility was a stumbling block to successful collective decision making (1963: Ch. VII). It might be, he held, that the range of citizens’ views of what is best for society is so broad as to make a transitive social choice impossible, short of arbitrary—non-democratic—imposition. For society to be democratic—that is to respond to the preferences of its members—it would have to restrict the preferences that count toward the social choice. In Arrow’s words, ‘the possibility of social welfare judgments rests upon a similarity of attitudes toward social alternatives’ (1963:69; social welfare judgments are the results of the aggregation procedure, or social welfare function). If Universal Admissibility is rejected, the damaging conclusion cannot be drawn. That is, if only sufficiently similar preference rankings are admitted into the aggregation procedure, the consistency of the procedure can be ensured: cyclical majorities will not arise where individuals have sufficiently similar preferences. (For a discussion of some illiberal implications of this line of thought see Amartya Sen (1970, 1976).) Just how similar must preferences be in order to avoid cyclical majorities? In fact, to guarantee a coherent social choice it is necessary to assume only a limited pattern of similarity among the preferences of the members of society. The limitation on preferences, identified by Duncan Black, is known as singlepeakedness, after a feature of the way the pattern of preferences can be graphically represented. The two graphs in Figure A.2 illustrate the given preference rankings for three individuals X, Y, and Z. Note that the single-peaked case (Case A) has a clear majority, and the non-single-peaked case (Case B) has a cycle. Black proved that single-peaked preferences—preferences such that every arrangement of alternatives on the horizontal axis of the graph yields a single-peaked curve—can be aggregated into a transitive, hence unambiguous, social choice (1948, 1958:14–25;


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see also Arrow (1963:75–80)). By contrast, non-single-peaked preferences—where at least one arrangement of alternatives on the horizontal axis yields a non-single-peaked curve—cannot be aggregated into a transitive social choice. (Note that the case where all the curves are non-single-peaked, that is are single-caved, also yields a transitive result (Inada 1964:529).) Thus, we can avoid Arrow’s impossibility result by adopting a more restrictive criterion of admissibility than he does—that is if we admit only preference rankings that are single-peaked. Singlepeakedness results if it happens that there is a limited difference between the ways the members of society rank alternatives. Sen (1966) characterizes this limitation as Value-restriction’, whereby for a set of individuals who value three alternatives either best, medium, or worst, there is at least one alternative that does not have a given value for any of the individuals. Inspection of Figure A.2 illustrates the connection between value-restriction and singlepeakedness: in Case A, the single-peaked case, X, Y, and Z all hold that a is not worst, and also that a is not medium—hence 2 3 Case A is value-restricted. By contrast, in Case B, the non-singlepeaked case, among all three individuals each alternative has each value—hence Case B is not value-restricted. Sen proves that majority decision between value-restricted preferences escapes Arrow’s impossibility results.

Figure A.2

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To understand how the diversity of preferences prevented by value-restrictedness leads to a cycle, note that where valuerestriction does not obtain, each alternative has a different rank in each individual’s preference order—for example is best for X, medium for Y, and worst for Z. Now say a given alternative— a —is the worst for X. It follows that a is medium and best among 1 1 Y and Z. Take the individual—say Y—for whom a1 is medium; Y then prefers a to a second alternative—say a . Now take the third 1 2 individual—Z—for whom a is best. It follows then that both Y and 1 Z prefer a to a . But this reasoning applies to all three alternatives. 1 2 Thus, for each alternative, two individuals prefer it to one of the other alternatives. Thus, each alternative commands a majority— meaning, of course, that the majorities are cyclical. In general, then, the notions of single-peakedness and value-restriction show that if the members of society’s preferences are not utterly disparate, but conform to an appropriate pattern, it is certain that they can formulate a coherent social choice. How can we interpret the pattern among preferences that corresponds to single-peakedness? Single-peakedness does not entail that preferences must be widely shared across society. What is shared is rather an understanding of how to compare alternatives one with another. Roughly, single peakedness can be interpreted to mean that there exists a single dimension underlying the preferences of all individuals (e.g. a liberalism-conservatism scale) along which the alternatives (e.g. political candidates) can be ordered. The existence of such a dimension is consistent with individuals’ having diametrically opposed preference scales; it implies only that they exercise a uniform—if opposed—standard in ordering the alternatives. (Brams 1976:40; see also Arrow (1963:76) and Resnik(1987:192–3)) Black explains the matter by pointing out that the peak of a curve represents the individual’s optimum alternative—any other alternative will have a lesser value, hence will be below that point (1958:10). Say that the horizontal axis of a graph scales alternatives from liberal, on the left, to conservative, on the right. The curve for a liberal would be highest at the left side, and slope downwards towards the right—since the liberal would rank the


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moderate position lower than the liberal alternative, but higher than the conservative alternative. Similarly, the curve for a conservative would be highest at the right, and would slope downwards towards the left. The curve for the moderate would be highest in the middle, and then would slope downwards on either side. That is, the curves in this case are all single-peaked—a fact made possible by the three parties’ agreement not on what is the best alternative, but by how the alternatives stand in relation to each other. Admitting only single-peaked preferences, therefore, restricts the preference rankings that may be admitted to the decision procedure to those that share a single arrangement of the relevant alternatives along some political dimension. Singlepeakedness does not entail agreement on the issues—just on how the issues are structured; it is a way of limiting admissibility to make room for genuine debate. Now it is not unreasonable to suppose that one of the effects of a common culture is precisely to foster awareness of how to place issues along underlying value scales. In William Riker and Peter Ordeshook’s words, ‘single-peaked curves reflect a cultural uniformity about the standard of judgement, even though people differ about what ought to be chosen under that standard’ (1973:105). For example, everyone in society can agree on whether a policy is more liberal or conservative, despite their disagreement over whether the policy is good or bad. In general, a shared understanding of the relation between different alternatives would seem to be necessary to sustain the level of communication between individuals that keeps society operating. As Mary Douglas argues, such shared conceptual schemes are necessary elements of social cohesion: ‘true solidarity is only possible to the extent that individuals share the categories of their thought’ (1986:8). Thus, it makes sense to suppose that an effect of culture on society is to establish single-peakedness—hence to head off Arrow’s result (see Arrow (1963:87)). (Though note that it can be argued that in fact culture can increase the likelihood of an intransitive social choice (Abrams 1980:95–7).) In my view, however, Rousseau believes that the culture of a functioning society enforces an even greater degree of uniformity in preferences than is achieved by single-peakedness. That is, single-peakedness implies even less agreement among individuals than Rousseau believes is necessary for society to come together and persist (see Appendix I). Thus, on Rousseau’s theory, for a

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society to exist at all it must have a culture whose strength is such that the problem of cyclical majorities does not arise. Were individuals with preferences diverse enough to engender cycles in the state of nature, they could not join in a social contract; were they in society, their social contract would break down. If my intuition is correct, then the challenge posed by Arrow’s Theorem to the possibility of formulating the general will collapses (cf. Levine (1976:94–5), who is sceptical on this point). For it is clear that Rousseau is not concerned with the question of whether any set of individuals will be able to formulate a general will (Estlund 1989:1321). Rather, the problems with which he is concerned begin with a set of individuals who are already sufficiently similar to have some basis for cooperation. In other words, there is never any question for Rousseau’s theory of maintaining the condition of Universal Admissibility. From the start of social life culture restricts individual preferences enough to dispel the prospect of cyclical social preferences. The challenge presented by Arrow’s Theorem simply does not apply to Rousseau’s particular conception of the general will.

Notes

INTRODUCTION: POLITICAL SUCCESS AND THE GENERAL WILL 1 2

3

4 5

See Appendix I for an exposition of my conception of moeurs as culture. To highlight the importance of the term moeurs in Rousseau’s theory I shall leave it untranslated. Throughout this book I will refer to individuals as males, in order to ensure consistency with quotations from Rousseau, who assumes the generic individual to be male. Indeed, Pateman has argued that the whole problematic Rousseau explores—that of aggregating individuals’ wills—is founded on the presumption that the individuals whose wills are aggregated are male (1986:43). Masters and Kelly argue that ‘In constructing his “principles of political right,” Rousseau focused on the will of the citizen, not on interests, passions, or other material causes of behavior’ (1989:116). Masters and Kelly are right to point out that, for Rousseau, human freedom entails that men’s actions are not determined by their interests—they are free to choose not to pursue their own particular interests. But Rousseau certainly holds that men’s wills are naturally directed toward their own interests, and, as I shall argue below, Rousseau conceived the general will as a matter of the interests of all the members of society. Thus, I shall, for the most part, discuss Rousseau’s theory in terms of individuals’ interests, not of their wills. (For an excellent interpretation of Rousseau’s theory of will, see Riley (1982: Ch. 4).) As Cranston observes, Rousseau’s views are perhaps the legacy of his own experiences as an apprentice and a valet (Introduction to SC (1968:41)). See C, I, 39 ff. and II, 83 ff/I.30 ff. and I.80 ff. There is an obvious danger in Rousseau’s position—dependence on the state can be as onerous as (or worse than) dependence on an individual. The experience of the French Revolution made this danger quite clear to Constant; see Principles of Politics Applicable to All Representative Governments, Chapter 1 (1988:177–8). Constant argued that Rousseau’s idealization of antiquity inspired a political theory inappropriate to modern conditions: ‘by transposing into our modern 261

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6

7

8

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Notes age an extent of social power, of collective sovereignty, which belonged to other centuries, this sublime genius, animated by the purest love of liberty, has nevertheless furnished deadly pretexts for more than one kind of tyranny’ (‘The liberty of the ancients compared with that of the moderns’ (1988:318)). For discussions of Constant’s criticisms of Rousseau see Holmes (1984: Ch. 3), and Terrasse (1991). The prospect of the individual’s complete dependence on the state inspires the view that Rousseau was a protototalitarian; see Talmon (1960: Ch. 3). Note that in the Geneva Manuscript Rousseau entertained a more ‘transcendentalist’ view—he argued that in a general society of the entire human race, ‘The public good or ill would not be merely the sum of private goods and ills as in a simple aggregation, but would lie in the liaison uniting them. It would be greater than this sum…’ (I.ii.9/III.284). However, Rousseau rejected this notion-the passage just cited was crossed out in the manuscript itself (OC, III.1413, n. 4 to 284). According to Morgenstern, ‘Rousseau distinguishes between man’s apparent interest, based on his passions, and man’s “proper interest [better] understood” grounded in an intellectual, rational understanding of where man’s true interest really lies’ (1989:12, citing F P, I I I, 12 or 13/ I I I.480—my translation; Morgenstern transcribes bien instead of mieux). Morgenstern’s point that men might be deceived about what counts as benefits by the pernicious effects of the arts and sciences, which enslave men to their passions, is well taken—but it does not tell against my view that man’s ‘true’ interest is ultimately a matter of wants. For, in the passage she cites, Rousseau holds that he can prove to a self-interested man that his true interest lies in becoming ‘just, beneficent, moderate, virtuous, a friend to men and the most worthy of citizens.’ But the self-interested man conceives of his interest only in terms of his wants; his rational understanding of his true interest thus consists of his understanding which of his wants constitute his welfare. Rousseau’s view that men in society develop the ability to apply reason to their wants would reasonably indicate support for an educational program designed to foster these skills. As we shall see in Chapter 6, however, Rousseau’s conception of public education works in a different way altogether—arguably with different effects than Rousseau here suggests. Rousseau is dealing in a more or less intuitive way with questions that have been taken up rigorously by the theories of collective action and social choice. I have designed examples to illustrate Rousseau’s own exposition. They are therefore much simpler than the treatments of Rousseau’s concerns that appear in the contemporary literature. In particular, I do not consider the amount wanted of a good, nor do I distinguish between indifference to a good and the positive desire not to have it. To begin with I do not consider the intensity of desire— though I will introduce this notion later. Hence I use only pluses and minuses—no zeros, nor cardinal utilities—on the assumption that, for a

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12 13 14

15

16

17

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single individual, a plus or minus on one good is equal in intensity to (has a utility of the same absolute value as) a plus or minus on any other good. Further, rows in the table do not constitute an ‘ordering’, or preference ranking among alternatives, but instead a set of wants for simultaneously available goods. I will thus refer to a row as a ‘welfare profile’ for an individual. See Masters (1968:307–8) for a discussion of d’Argenson. Rousseau argues that the ineligibility of the general will to consider specific individuals generates the necessity for a government that mediates between the sovereign and the citizens. See Chapter 1, pp. 56–61 for a discussion of Rousseau’s conception of government. See Chapter 3, pp. 123–43 for a discussion of the coordination of the accounts of human development offered in the Second Discourse and The Social Contract. Rousseau’s acceptance of Locke’s view of property is not complete, however—he denies the Lockian claim that property is a natural right, insisting instead that property rights can only be positive (SC, I.ix). Though note that Rousseau holds up as an ideal individual economic self-sufficiency. In his Constitutional Project for Corsica Rousseau hopefully foresees a time when ‘Each [farmer] will have everything he needs by producing it directly on his own land, rather than by exchange’ (308–9/ I I I.924). And in the Letter to d’Alembert he nostalgically recollects the mountain community of Neuchâtel, whose residents provide all of their own needs: ‘Never did carpenter, locksmith, glazier, or turner enter this country; each is everything for himself, no one is anything for another’ (61/GF, 134). Of course Rousseau differs from Locke in the fundamental sense that he denies that the contractors retain rights against the sovereign they create—the alienation of their rights is total (SC, I.vi.5). However, Rousseau does not hold that alienation of rights entails forfeiture of goods; to the contrary, in entering society man gains ‘the ownership of all he possesses’ since property ‘can only be founded on a positive title’ (SC, I.viii.2/III.364–5). Since, in light of the foregoing discussion, the goods at issue are public goods, the wants aggregated by the general will must be such that they can be satisfied by public goods—for example wants for fire protection, or for a transportation network. See Chapter 1 for a discussion of the consequences of individuals wanting private satisfaction of their wants. Note also that Rousseau does not consider the case of inconsistent goods, that is goods such that one person’s satisfaction entails the dissatisfaction of another. In the cases he has in mind, all the available goods are mutually satisfiable. Many commentators stress this sense of commonality in their interpretations of the general will. See, e.g., Gildin (1983:55–7), Hacker (1961:318, 332–4), Held (1970:101–7), and Masters (1968:326–7). In virtue of this statement I dispute Held’s claim that Rousseau holds what she calls a ‘common interest’ theory of the common good; on her terms, Rousseau holds a ‘preponderance’ theory (Held 1970:42–5). It is

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19 20

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Notes reasonable to suppose that it is necessary that a majority of individuals want something for it to be part of the common good—but in the passage that defines the general will (SC, II.iii.2–3) Rousseau does not mention majorities at all. Instead, he discusses majorities when he takes up the issue of actual voting procedures (SC, IV.ii). See Rawls’s conception of the position of equal citizenship and the principle of common interest (1971:97). See also MacAdam (1967). See SC, II.iii.3. The curious proscription of communication in this passage regarding public deliberation is meant to rule out private bargains, hence to prevent the formation of factions—see the discussion of faction in Chapter 1. On the importance of deliberation to Rousseau’s views of actual procedures for collective decision making see Plamenatz (1963:398–9). Plamenatz cites Rousseau’s comments on the Polysynodie de l’Abbé de St. Pierre, Ch. IX (OC, III.628–9), where Rousseau describes how, in open deliberation, the public interest emerges from individuals’ sacrifice of their purely private interest. In general, differences between two individuals who have intense wants for two different goods are set aside, and each agrees to support his less favored good in exchange for support for his more favored good. For general explanations of logrolling see J.S.Coleman (1986) and Buchanan and Tullock (1962:134–40). The standards for determining whether the number and size of the differences are large or small are, or course, relative. To establish a guideline, let us imagine a society as diverse as possible. If there are g available goods, there are 2g distinct type welfare profiles. Say then that this society has 2g members, each of whom has a distinct profile. It turns out that a graph of the number of differences of each possible size will have the shape of a normal curve, and just over half of the differences will be of size 50 per cent or greater (the graph peaks around 50 per cent). We can use this case as a norm and hold that, as a rule of thumb, differences of size 50 per cent or greater are large, and that the number of differences is large if it is 50 per cent or greater of the number of possible differences, given the number of individuals in society. Thus, there are a large number of small differences if half or more of the possible differences are less than 50 per cent in size; there are a large number of large differences if half the possible differences are greater than 50 per cent. Note that these standards presume the absence of faction; as we shall see in Chapter 1, where factions are present the size of the differences among the members tends to increase, raising the dividing line between small and large above 50 per cent. Rousseau’s view corresponds to the argument Aristotle offers against Plato in the Politics, II.ii-v. Aristotle complains that Plato’s scheme for the communal life of the guardians in the Republic imposes too much unity; in Aristotle’s view ‘there must be some unity in a state, as in a household, but not an absolutely total unity’ (II.v, 1263 b29). Likewise, Rousseau holds that the members of society must be in substantial agreement about what society should provide, but they need not all want exactly the same things.

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1 AN ANALYSIS OF POLITICAL FAILURE 1

2

3

4

Note, however, that in his pessimistic account of the institution of society in the Discourse on Inequality, Rousseau indicates that ‘crude, easily seduced men…ran toward their chains in the belief that they were securing their freedom’ (DI, II.32/III.177). See Chapter 3, pp. 123–9 for a discussion of the relation between this pessimistic account and Rousseau’s more hopeful account in The Social Contract. It is not enough for men to have the motive to abandon selfishness. For, Rousseau suggests, at this stage of human development, selfish behavior has a cognitive source—namely early man’s inability to grasp the future. Early man’s commitment to mutual engagements is ‘only as far as present and perceptible interest could require’ (DI, I I.9/ I I I. 166). Thus, participants in a cooperative deer hunt understand that they have responsibilities to the group—‘but if a hare happened to pass within reach of one of them, he will undoubtedly have chased after it without a scruple and, having caught his own prey, have cared very little about having caused his Companions to miss theirs’ (DI, II.9/III.167). The immediate value of the hare not only outweighs the value of a prospective share in a deer—it also outweighs the harm to the prospect of future cooperation that attends disappointing one’s companions. It is the latter consideration that primitive man cannot grasp: while Rousseau assumes a share in a deer is a perceptible interest (why else do the erstwhile hunters understand the need to keep to their posts?), an interest in future cooperation requires a degree of foresight primitive men do not yet possess. Thus, it is only after gaining experience that men gain the cognitive skill to grasp the future benefit of present cooperation. For other interpretations of the deer hunt see Hardin (1982:167–9). In my view, Rousseau’s insistence that some degree of cultural uniformity is a condition of political success protects his theory from an objection, based on Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem, that the concept of the general will is unintelligible because no procedure for aggregating wants can guarantee a consistent social choice. See Appendix II for a discussion of Arrow’s Theorem, responses to it, and its applicability to Rousseau’s conception of political life. Rousseau cites Machiavelli on the evils of faction, and makes reference to the political practices of antiquity (SC, II.iii.4). For a typical expression of the ancient horror at faction see Thucydides’ account of the civil war in Corcyra (1972: III.82). More broadly, Rousseau’s antipathy to faction falls under a general moral paradigm that, according to Riley (1986), is determined by the dichotomy between generality and particularity. This paradigm was available to Rousseau from a French tradition rooted in the theology of Pascal and Malebranche, which had become secularized by Bayle and Montesquieu. ‘What holds together the tradition of French moral and political thought from Pascal to Rousseau…is the notion that généralité is good, particularity bad—that, if one is just, one will embrace the general good of the body, to which one will subordinate egoism

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Notes and self-love’ (Riley 1986:251). Faction is a preeminent case of particularity: a faction is a particular group within society, which defines itself against the society as a whole. Rousseau is thus bound by his moral framework to condemn faction—and surely his own experience of partisan civil unrest in Geneva confirmed his predisposition in this regard (C, V, 207/I.216). I distinguish here between an interpretation of the social choice as an expression of wants and the actual procedure Rousseau holds society follows to frame a social choice. That procedure is voting—conceived epistemically, not in terms of preferences. That is, Rousseau interprets votes not as expressions of wants but as expressions of opinions (SC, IV.i.6, ii.8). We will return to Rousseau’s conception of voting in Chapter 6. Here I want to point out that the opinions Rousseau takes to be expressed in votes are, ultimately, opinions about what the members of society want. Now the question voters must answer is of the form ‘Is X in the common good?’ But, as we saw in the Introduction, the common good is defined in terms of the wants of society’s members. Society may or may not have a common good (hence a general will); a certain good may or may not be an element of the common good. These facts are determined by the facts of the matter of the members of society’s wants—what they are for, and the pattern of their distribution among individuals. Thus, on the epistemic conception, a social choice can be construed as a claim— which might be true or false—about the pattern of wants within society. In this sense, then, even though it is not generated by individuals expressing their wants in votes, a social choice can nonetheless be said to be an expression of wants. So to speak, the meaning of a social choice is the distribution of wants it attributes to the members of society. Of course we can easily imagine a more sophisticated view than the one I offer here—the intensities of individuals’ wants (that is their utilities) could function as weighting factors in determining the outcome of the bargain. However, in my view, the task of understanding Rousseau is better served by the simpler view I suggest. For a survey of contemporary approaches to bargaining see Elster (1989: Ch. 2) and Gauthier (1986: Ch. V). It may not be obvious that a faction has this sinister goal in mind. Specifically, Rousseau worries that a faction might persuade society as a whole to adopt some measure that appears to benefit all, but in reality benefits only the faction’s members. That is, Rousseau is concerned that a faction can exploit the rhetorical force of phrases like ‘the general will’ to mask pursuit of its private advantage behind an apparent pursuit of the common good. Indeed, in the extreme case of political failure—when the state is ‘on the brink of ruin’—Rousseau holds that ‘under the guise of laws are enacted iniquitous decrees whose only purpose is to further private interests’ (SC, IV.i.5/ III.438). This possibility grounds Rousseau’s repeated suspicion of eloquence, which he holds is symptom of the breakdown of political life. He argues, for example that a democratic assembly will never

Notes

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11

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pass bad laws ‘unless the populace is seduced by private interests which certain clever men have managed to substitute for those of the state by means of personal trust and eloquence’ (DPE, p. 115/ III.246). As we noted in the Introduction, Rousseau’s curious proscription of communication is meant to prevent just this kind of private bargaining that leads to the creation of factions. A government that usurps legitimate authority and exploits its citizens can be seen as a dominant faction—see SC, III.x, and the discussion of government, pp. 56–61 below. Note that in this case there are also fewer differences between individuals than with either the general will or plurality of factions. Thus in Figure 14d, there are only twenty non-0 per cent token level differences—compared with thirty-six with the general will and twenty-seven with moderate faction. Solon devised a class system for Athens based on wealth, which divided power among all the citizens (Plutarch 1932:107–8). Numa, by legend the second king of Rome, is reported by Plutarch to have counteracted the harmful effects of the original division of Rome into two tribes by instituting smaller divisions based on occupation. ‘In this manner all factious distinctions began, for the first time, to pass out of use…and the new division became a source of general harmony and intermixture’ (88). Rousseau himself regards Numa as a figure of fable (SC, IV.iv.l, n. 1); he follows Machiavelli and Sigonius in reporting that Servius replaced the traditional ethnic division of the Roman population with divisions based on residence and on wealth (SC, IV.iv.5, 15; see OC, III. 1494, n. 1 to 444). Individuals whose underlying wants conformed to any of the other three variants of Rousseau’s formula could not cooperate as a single society. If the number of differences were small, the individuals would splinter off into separate groups; if the number of differences were large, but their size was large, the individuals would not be able to come together at all. Rousseau would not be impressed by the pluralist argument that in the case where the distribution of wants is extremely wide, factions might serve to narrow them to the point where social cooperation is possible. For, he would respond, cooperation under such circumstances would be illegitimate—it would be bought at the price of ignoring some individuals’ wants, hence by limiting their autonomy. ‘That which makes human misery is the contradiction found… between our duties and our impulses, between nature and social institutions, between man and citizen’ (FP, VI.3, III.510). See Shklar (1985) for an extensive exploration of this theme. See also Riley (1982: Ch. 4) for a discussion of Rousseau’s political conception of will. It is possible to frame a conception of civic virtue based on a more complex account of the general will than I have offered—one whereby the bargaining over the available public goods that defines the general will takes note of the intensities of individuals’ wants. On such a conception factions would emerge if individuals simply

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refused to bargain over any given goods, no matter what the intensity of their wants for them. The impersonal attitude of civic virtue would then be construed as the commitment to bargain over all goods, whatever the intensity of one’s wants. 15 Rousseau is fully aware that civic virtue flies in the face of human inclination; thus his famous belief in the need for a great Legislator, whose task is to change human nature (SC, II.vii.3; we will take up Rousseau’s doctrine of the Legislator at length in Chapter 3). As a remedy for faction Rousseau cites ‘the unique and sublime system instituted by the great Lycurgus’ (SC, I.iii.4/III.372). By eliminating luxury and initiating common meals, Rousseau holds, Lycurgus fashioned a way of life for Sparta that made each individual identify his own self-interest with the interest of his city (Plutarch 1932:55–7). 16 Individuals’ contributions are, of course, taxes—though Rousseau was in favor of citizens contributing labor rather than money: the ‘best and surest’ form of public revenue comes ‘from men themselves, using their labor, their arms and their hearts, rather than their purses, in the service of the fatherland, both for its defence, in the militia, and for its utility, in corvées on public works’ (CC, 318/ III.932). See also SC, III.xv.2/III.429: ‘In a truly free country, the citizens do every thing with their own hands, nothing with money…. I am far from taking the common view; I consider corvées to be less inconsistent with liberty than taxes.’ 17 See A Treatise of Human Nature, Book III, Part II, Section VII: ‘Men are not able radically to cure, either in themselves or others, that narrowness of soul, which makes them prefer the present to the remote. They cannot change their natures. All they can do is to change their situation, and render the observance of justice the immediate interest of some particular persons, and its violation their more remote.’ These particular persons are the members of the government. See also James Madison, Federalist No. 51: in a good constitution ‘the constant aim is to divide and arrange the several offices in such a manner as that each may be a check on the other— that the private interest of every individual [ruler] may be a sentinel over the public rights.’ 18 Throughout his writing Rousseau voices approval for government by a small number of citizens, that is aristocracy (see, for example, SC, III.v; DI, Dedication.11; LM, VI/III.808). But he insists on elective aristocracy, because (he argues) elections will ensure that the government consists of the most qualified citizens. Thus, for Rousseau, ‘it is the best and most natural arrangement for the wisest to govern the multitude, as long as we are sure that they will govern in its interest and not in their own’ (SC, III.v.7/III.407, my emphasis). ‘Govern’ here is a term—his point, of course, is that the aristocratic government must not forget that it serves the democratic sovereign, but must use the power it controls in accordance with the general will. 19 Olson uses the terms ‘privileged’ and ‘latent’, respectively, to describe small and large groups (1971:49–50). A small group is privileged in the sense that it is likely to obtain a public good, if only through the

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efforts of a single member. A large group is latent in the sense that the provision of a public good is dependent on factors other than the inherent benefit of the good. Thus coercion or some positive inducement can serve as additional motives for the members of the group to contribute to the cost of the collective good. The index of size is that ‘no single individual’s contribution makes a perceptible difference to the group as a whole’ (44, my emphasis). Olson also proposes a third, ‘intermediate’ category of groups, ‘which does not have so many members that no one member will notice whether any other member is or is not helping to provide the collective good’ (50, my emphasis). The importance of the noticeability of a single member’s contribution is related to the free rider problem. The free rider can get away with it only if other members of the group do not notice that they are subsidizing the free rider’s free ride. If they do notice, they might withdraw their contributions, with the result that no one would receive any of the collective good. We will consider noticeability further in Chapter 5. For discussions of Olson’s theory see Hardin (1982: Ch. 3) and Taylor (1982:50–2). For a discussion of the political implications of group size see Dahl and Tufte (1973). For other expositions of the Prisoner’s Dilemma see Rapoport (1960:173–4), Hardin (1982:2), and Taylor (1987:14). Runciman and Sen (1965) have used the Prisoner’s Dilemma to explicate Rousseau’s distinction between the general will and the will of all. ‘This conflict between what seems individually better and what seems to produce the best over-all result contains, in our view, the essence of Rousseau’s distinction…. The “general will” of the [prisoners], we can say, is to avoid [defection], but each person’s “particular will” is to [defect]’ (555–6). Each prisoner’s particular will dictates avoiding the individually worst outcome and striving for the individually best. In this case the aggregate of particular wills, the will of all, results in both defecting. By contrast, the prisoners’ general will would provide that they collectively serve the least time possible; to effect their general will the prisoners would both have to cooperate. Note that Taylor (1987) argues against the claim that the Prisoner’s Dilemma is the best model of collective action problems. He holds, for example, that in important cases the provision of public goods is modeled more accurately by the game of ‘Chicken,’ in which ‘each player is willing to provide some of the public good unilaterally but not if the other player will provide it’ (36). Rousseau refers to the collective application of the sanction as ‘l’artifice et le jeu’ of the political machine (SC, I.vii.8/III.364). No two translators agree how to render these terms; they convey the idea of the key to the plan, and then the action of the parts of a mechanism. See also the corresponding passages in the Geneva Manuscript (I.iii.7/ III.292) and Emile (V, 461/ IV.841). See Masters (1986:285–7) for a discussion of Rousseau’s frequent use of the mechanical metaphor for the state. For a criticism of Olson’s conception of the state see Johnson (1975). Johnson argues that a citizen might think of a sanction not as a cost he will have to pay for withholding his contribution, but rather as a

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guarantee that enough other citizens will contribute so that he will not be caught paying when no one else does. In the terms of the Prisoner’s Dilemma, the sanction removes from cooperation the risk of being left with the sucker’s payoff. More broadly, Johnson criticizes Olson’s theory for its exclusive focus on individual selfinterest, which she holds is insufficient to account for state action—in particular, free riding might be successfully impeded by individuals’ feelings of group loyalty (a point with which Rousseau would agree, as we shall see below). For a discussion of loyalty within the context of collective action theory see Hirschman (1970). 25 Cf. Gauthier’s notion of the constrained maximizer—an individual ‘who is conditionally disposed to base her actions on a joint strategy or practice should the utility she expects were everyone so to base his action be no less than what she would expect were everyone to employ individual strategies’ (1986:167). The worst the civically virtuous individual can do if everyone (himself included) acts the same way is to get nothing—the same payoff he expects if everyone follows private interest and withholds his contribution. Note, however, that Gauthier’s conception is not based on considerations of similarity between people—see his discussion of the liberal individual (345 ff.). 2 THE STATE OF NATURE 1 2 3

4

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See DI, Exordium.7/ I I I.133; RJ, I, I.728. For a discussion of Rousseau’s use of historical narrative see Pickles (1972). See Starobinski’s discussion of Engels’s reading of the Second Discourse (1988:29). MacPherson (1962) argues that Hobbes is committed to abstract individualism by his ‘resolutive—compositive’ method. This method, ‘which he so admired in Galileo and which he took over, was to resolve existing society into its simplest elements and then compose those elements into a logical whole’ (30). The elements are, of course, individuals—who are then further resolved into mechanical systems of matter in motion. Pateman (1985) emphasizes that ‘Hobbes’ methodology leads him to base his argument on a radically abstract and atomistic individualism. Machines in perpetual motion, or mere physiological entities, have no natural connections with each other’ (38). That is, Hobbes’s method and his conception of the individual fit together hand in glove: the process of resolving society into individuals requires that the individuals be conceived abstractly. That life is of course extremely simple, if not nearly unrecognizable as human—it lacks precisely those features which we, as members of society, experience in our social lives. Wokler (1978) argues that Rousseau’s account of life in the state of nature matches to a very high degree the life in the wild of orang-utans—animals Rousseau conjectured might be very primitive humans. See Masters (196 8:138–46), Marshall (1988:149 ff.), Derrida(1976:184), and Starobinski (1961:132).

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It is, of course, deeply ironic that Rousseau refers to paternal love as one of the sweetest sentiments known to man; by the time he wrote the Second Discourse he had sent the children borne by his mistress, Thérèse Le Vasseur, to the Foundling Hospital. (C, VII, 320–2, VIII, 332–4/I.342–5, 56–8); see also, Cranston (1983:238–9, 244–6 and 1991:286–8.) For a discussion of the controversy over Rousseau’s abandonment of his children—in his own lifetime and after—see Blum (1986:74–82). Blum interprets Rousseau’s views on childrearing in both the state of nature and society as it could be, which share the feature that parents do not raise their children, as efforts to justify his action (118). 7 See also Coole (1988:106–9). For a more sympathetic reading of Rousseau’s account see Elshtain (1981:152–60). 8 It is interesting to observe that, despite his anti-feminism, Rousseau was immensely popular among women readers in his day, and served as an inspiration for leading women of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. May (1984) argues that women such as Mme de Staël, Mme Roland, and George Sand sympathized with his status as outcast and victim of society. 9 The distinction between amour de soi and amour propre is illuminated by the discussions of the self in social psychology, for example in the work of Goffman (1959), and by developments of Freud’s thinking on narcissism—see Freud (1957), Cheek and Hogan (1982), Gergen (1977), Kohut (1973), McCall (1977), and Wicklund (1982). 10 See OC, III.1376, n.1. to p. 219 for an account of some sources of Rousseau’s views. 11 For a criticism of Rousseau’s account see Charvet (1972:468–9). 12 The term perfectibility (perfectibilité) was apparently coined by Turgot in 1750; it did not appear in dictionaries before the appearance of the Second Discourse, but appeared later with the sense Rousseau gave it. See OC, III. 1317–18, n.3. 13 Note that in the paragraph that precedes this claim Rousseau seems to hold that in the state of nature proper man also enjoys this same equilibrium: he is ‘placed by nature at equal distance from the stupidity of the brutes and the fatal enlightenment of civil man’ (II. 17/III.170). Masters argues that ‘Rousseau intentionally blurs the difference between the pure state of nature…and savage society… by calling them both a kind of “golden mean”’ (1968:172). In my view we can clarify Rousseau’s notion by interpreting the following figure: A———————————C—————D—————B The line AB represents the distance between the state of nature and civil society. Point A represents the stupidity of the brutes, and point B represents the fatal enlightenment of civil man. Point C, the mean between A and B, represents natural human psychology—primitive, but superior to the animals (see DI, I I.6). The line CB thus represents the distance between man’s primitive state and society. Point D, the mean between C and B, is man’s psychology in nascent society. This second mean is therefore the result of a clear

272

Notes progression out of the state of nature—nascent society is a distinct stage of human history. Rousseau characterizes this mean as man’s happiest moment: he has advanced beyond the near autism of amour de soi, but has not yet become debilitated by amour propre.

3 SOCIETY AS IT IS—AND AS IT COULD BE 1

2

3

4

5

6 7

Gourevitch identifies ‘the Poet’ as Ovid (Notes to DI, 345); Masters as Lucretius (1968:175, n. 81). See Goldschmidt (1974:475–9) for a discussion of Rousseau’s contrast between poet and philosopher in this passage. See the discussion of the sanction above at Chapter 1, pp. 67–70. Rousseau’s reliance on ‘fatal accidents’ hints that he regards the origin of society as akin to a miracle. The Legislator in The Social Contract works through the miracle of his great soul (Il.vii.11). In the Second Discourse, the circular relation between language and society (each relies on the other as a condition of its own emergence) convinces Rousseau ‘of the almost demonstrated impossibility that Languages could have arisen and been established by purely human means’ (I.32/III.151). Certainly, however, Rousseau does not suggest that society is a divine creation (though the Legislator makes the people to whom he gives laws believe so—see SC, II.vii.10). See Arendt’s definition of society: ‘Society is the form in which the fact of mutual dependence for the sake of life and nothing else assumes public significance and where the activities connected with sheer survival are permitted to appear in public’ (1958:46). Her discussion of the emergence of laboring from the private realm of the household into the public realm with its division of labor parallels Rousseau’s account of the passage out of nascent society (45–8). Unlike Locke, however, Rousseau holds that the right to property in land is not a natural right—‘the division of land produced a new kind of right. Namely the right of property different from that which follows from natural Law’ (DI, II.24/III. 173–4). In The Social Contract Rousseau calls this new kind of right ‘the right of the first occupier,’ which nonetheless does not become a true right until the institution of property rights with the social contract (SC, I.ix.2). Colletti (1972) argues that Rousseau’s criticism of inequality is based on his analysis of exchange relationships, but that he confuses exchange relationships with the division of labor. According to Colletti, society just is the social division of labor, hence Rousseau’s attack on society itself as the source of inequality is misplaced (164, n. 67). However, as we shall see, Rousseau presumes the division of labor as the background of the just, relatively egalitarian society of The Social Contract. Note that the unhappiness Rousseau standardly associates with social life is thus not the result of society in and of itself, but of the wrong sort of social arrangements. See Schudson (1984:130–5). Schudson observes that both Adam Smith and Marx held that the baseline for human necessities is socially determined.

Notes 8

9 10

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In a phrase that anticipates the opening of The Social Contract, Rousseau goes on to say that at the end of nascent society man’s needs subjugate him to other men, ‘whose slave he in a sense becomes even by becoming their master’ (DI, II.27/III.174). Cf. SC, I.i.l/III.351: ‘Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains. One thinks himself the master of others, but is himself the greater slave.’ Note that the despot’s self-interest must be socialized—he seeks his satisfaction from the collective efforts of his subjects. See the ‘Second Letter to Malesherbes’, OC, I.1136, in which Rousseau describes the inspiration that led him to write his First Discourse. The letter does not mention The Social Contract, in keeping with his general silence about that work at the time of the letter’s composition—see OC, I.1850, n. 2 to p. 1136. See Masters (1968: xxiv) for a discussion of the unity of Rousseau’s work. See DPE, II, 124/III.258: ‘It is one of the most important items of business for the government to prevent extreme inequality of fortunes.’ Rousseau suggests steps to moderate such economic inequality as does arise, for example by taxes on luxury goods (DPE, III, 137/III.276–7). See also GP, XI, where Rousseau recommends various measures designed to limit the effects of economic inequality. See GP, II (The Spirit of the Institutions of Antiquity’), where Rousseau praises at length the laws handed down by Moses, Lycurgus, and Numa. For a discussion of Rousseau’s modification of Plato’s conception of the Legislator see Masters (1968:359–64). For discussions of Rousseau’s reliance on Machiavelli see Derathé (OC, III.1461–2 n. 1 to p. 381), Masters (364–8), and Masciulli (1988). For a comparison of the Legislator with other ‘images of authority’—the Tutor in Emile and Wolmar in the Nouvelle Héloïse—see Shklar (1985: Ch. 4). There is an obvious parallel between the Legislator and the rich man who propounds the fraudulent social contract: each personifies the fate of the society in which he appears. The Legislator guides society to the success of society as it could be, the rich man sets society on the path to the failure of society as it is. The two figures are not precise doubles, however: while the Legislator appears after the legitimate social contract has been instituted, the rich man is himself the propounder of its fraudulent counterpart. Rousseau cites his approval of Montesquieu’s doctrine of geographical relativity explicitly at SC, I I.xi.4 and I I I.viii.1. Regarding Rousseau’s reading of Montesquieu, see Cranston (1983:213–15), Derathé (1970:53–4), Riley (1986:173–5), and Shackleton (1980). In the Geneva Manuscript Rousseau holds that the Legislator does not merely change but mutilates human nature (II.ii.3/III.313). See DI, II.37/III.181: ‘In the relations between man and man the worst that can happen to one is to find himself at the other’s discretion.’ As Gauthier observes, both Wolmar in the Nouvelle Héloïse and the Tutor in Emile also seek to manage the growth of amour propre (1980:83).

274 18 19

20

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Notes Cf. SC, I.vii.8/III.364: the social contract ‘by giving each citizen to his country, guarantees him against any form of personal dependence.’ Note that Rousseau does not mention the country in Emile because he announces that the education he will describe is purely private; he presumes a context, society as it is, in which true patriotism cannot exist. Emile is a manual for training men, not citizens (I, 40–1/ IV.250—1). None the less, we can invoke the psychological mechanism he cites to understand public education—the creation of citizens in society as it could be. Rousseau argues that patriotism is impossible in society as it is because amour propre distracts men from nobler feelings for their countrymen. ‘How could love of country develop in the midst of so many other passions which choke it? And what is left for fellow citizens of a heart already dividing its affections among greed, a mistress and vanity?’ (DPE, II, 125/III.260, emphasis added). We must distinguish here between Rousseau’s own analytical conception of the country, and the feelings he attributes to citizens. As Derathé observes, ‘The country [patrie] properly speaking is, for [Rousseau], neither the country of birth nor the land of the ancestors. It is bound to political institutions, and patriotism is the attachment or devotion to these institutions’ (OC, III. 1535, n. 1 to p. 536). Nonetheless, when a patriotic citizen loves his country’s institutions, he does not love an abstraction, but loves those institutions as peopled by all the members of society. For explicit statements of Rousseau’s anti-cosmopolitanism see, e.g., DAS and GP, III. Pangle (1973) argues that Montesquieu inverts the classical conception by which the psychology of the citizens determines the form of their government. Whereas for Aristotle, the purpose of government is to provide for the particular way of life of its citizens, for Montesquieu all governments have the same purpose: to provide security and freedom. Thus, Montesquieu regards the psychology of the citizens as an element of the state that must support the preservation of the government. ‘Despite the tremendous practical importance of the differing principles or motivating passions, they are ultimately derivative from, and means to, the different ways of structuring sovereign power in order to enforce peace’ (Pangle 1973:49–50). Thus Montesquieu stresses education and other social institutions that shape citizens’ psychology to conform to the principle of their government—an idea taken up fully by Rousseau. Like Machiavelli before him and Rousseau after, Montesquieu conceived of civic virtue in the light of an idealized image of antiquity—‘The politic Greeks, who lived under a popular government, knew no other support than virtue’ (SL, III.3.6). See Keohane (1980:419). For a comparison of Montesquieu’s and Aristotle’s conceptions of virtue, see Pangle (1973:59–65). For an alternative account of civic virtue which stresses the affective dimension of Rousseau’s conception, see Ellenburg (1976:168 ff.). See Blum (1986) for an extended psycho-sexual interpretation of the various forms of virtue Rousseau constructs throughout his works.

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25 Nonetheless, Rousseau suggests that the experience of living in society will prompt citizens to further extend their sympathies to all men: ‘Protected by the society of which we are members or by the one in which we live, the natural repugnance to do evil is no longer counterbalanced in us by the fear of being wronged, and we are simultaneously moved by nature, by habit, and by reason to treat other men approximately as we do our fellow citizens’ (GM, II.iv.14/ III.329). 26 A similar problem confronts Marxist theory, with respect to the process by which ‘capitalist man’ becomes ‘socialist man’—see Buchanan (1979) and Lane (1979). 27 A similar difficulty exists in explaining the origin of language: in the Second Discourse Rousseau asks ‘which was the more necessary, an already united Society for the institution of Languages, or already invented Languages for the establishment of Society?’ (DI, I.32/ III.151). 4 CULTURE AND POLITICAL FAILURE 1

2 3

4

5

6

The chains do not bind men to their (monarchical) government, but men to each other as members of society. In my view Rousseau does not—as Masters suggests (1968:242–3)—speak of chains here in order to condemn monarchy specifically, hence to express his support for democracy. He speaks of monarchies and thrones as generic examples of political authority. The imagery of chains represents the loss of what Rousseau would later call natural liberty—which, of course, he holds is replaced by civil liberty (SC, I.viii.2). Hamilton argues that Rousseau has in mind the state’s approval of Parisian salon culture (1979:11–14). Though note that a few sentences later Rousseau seems to downplay the value of the contribution ‘learned men’ can make—‘O virtue! Sublime science of simple souls, are so many efforts and so much equipment really required to know you?’ (DAS, II.61/III.30). Rousseau is not concerned that kings would use culture as an agency of domination—he assumes that they themselves would be enlightened by the advice they receive from the wise. Rousseau seems to reserve the possibility that political authorities could have wisdom in his pointed misquotation of the Apology. As Masters observes (1968:239– 41), Rousseau repeats Socrates’ account of his discovery that the selfstyled wise men of Athens were in fact ignorant, but conspicuously leaves out Socrates’ reference to his conversations with politicians (DAS, I.26–30/III.13; cf. Apology, 22a-d). In a similar manner Rousseau idealizes a period of his childhood spent in the countryside near Geneva; he describes it nostalgically as a period of transparency cut short by an act of injustice (C, I, 30—1/ I.20–1). See Starobinski (1988: Ch. 1) for the importance of the image of the veil in Rousseau’s writings. See NH, II.xiv for a description of the opaque moeurs of Parisian society.

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The Spirit of the Laws appeared the year before Rousseau wrote the First Discourse. During the time Rousseau was at work on his discourse he made a careful study of Montesquieu’s book while working as a researcher for a wealthy Parisian family. See Shackleton (1980). Indeed, the First Discourse becomes more comprehensible when read against the background of The Spirit of the Laws. Rousseau offers more assertions than arguments—in a tone that presumes an understanding of unstated logical connections between his claims. The First Discourse is certainly tendentious, but conceptual links that Rousseau treats as given—for example between courtesy and amour propre, and others we shall see below—are at least articulated by Montesquieu, who in this sense provides the conceptual framework Rousseau relies on to support his views. 8 As Marshall observes, Rousseau’s primary text on theatre, the Letter to d’Alembert, addresses the general phenomenon of spectacles, that is public displays, not only theatre narrowly construed as dramatic performances (1988:135–6). 9 Cf. CC, 327/III.939: ‘Apparent power, in these cases, is in the hands of the magistrates, and real power in those of the rich.’ 10 Levine (1976) argues that only under conditions of relative equality is it meaningful to say that society has a common good—hence that society can have a general will. Thus, he holds, ‘Determinant economic institutions and policies must be implemented to overcome private interest and to create a general interest’ (188). 11 Note that Rousseau’s criticism is suffused with a revulsion at eroticism, which he conceives as women’s power over men. Thus the presence of eroticism is an index of the corruption of public taste due to the influence of women: a sign of decadence is that ‘masterpieces of dramatic Poetry are dropped and wonders of harmony rejected because one of the sexes dares to approve only of what suits the other’s pusillanimity’ (DAS, II.44/III.21). 12 The citizens Rousseau has in mind are yeoman farmers, ‘dispersed in our abandoned rural areas, [where] they waste away indigent and despised’ (DAS, II.54/III.26). 13 See Rousseau’s discussion of The Misanthrope in the Letter to d’Alembert, where he describes how Molière valorizes the man of the world (that is the agreeable man) at the expense of the good man (Alceste) (36– 40/ GF, 96–102). 14 Within an aristocracy (the other form of republican government, in Montesquieu’s taxonomy), the case is slightly different—since aristocracy presumes a higher degree of inequality, civic virtue demands a spirit of moderation. See SL, V.8.1, 2. 5 CULTURE AND POLITICAL SUCCESS 1 2

See Miller (1984: Ch. 2) and Fralin (1978: Chs 2, 7) for excellent discussions of Rousseau’s political idealization of Geneva. By concentrating on Geneva this chapter will skirt Rousseau’s views

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on two key cultural practices—education and religion—which he presents elsewhere. We will take these up in Chapter 6. Commentators have observed the affinities between the arguments Rousseau deployed in the Letter to d’Alembert and the tradition of antitheatrical polemics that dates back to antiquity—to the effect, for instance, that theatre encourages sin by appealing to the senses. Although he repeats many of the standard complaints, however, Rousseau was unique in complaining about the theatre’s effects on civic, rather than religious, life. As Barish puts it, Like most antitheatrical tracts, the Letter to d’Alembert advances few new arguments. Most of its positions had been staked out by Nicole, Conti, Bossuet and others in the previous century, as well as earlier by Plato and the [church] Fathers. What distinguishes Rousseau’s treatment is the impetuous eloquence of his pleading, and the vigor with which he fashions a secular framework for what had long been primarily a theological argument. The theatre is now judged not for its service to God but its utility to men. (1981:260–1)

Both Barish and Barras (1933:259–62) survey the major figures and arguments in the controversy up to Rousseau. 4 Both these views are reflected in contemporary debates about advertising, which is said by some to change attitudes, and by others to merely reflect attitudes which are already present. See Schudson’s discussion (1984:175–7) of Ewen (1976). 5 Rousseau’s vision of the circles has an undeniable totalitarian cast. For a discussion of totalitarian use of local leisure-time organizations in fascist Italy see de Grazia (1981:115–18). 6 Miller shows that Rousseau’s description of the circles is more polemical than accurate—hence that his praise of the circles is an indication of his support for the democratic party in Geneva’s complicated politics (1984:87–102, 123–5). See also Fralin (1978:62– 5). 7 See Rousseau’s description of a Parisian salon—an example of society as it is’ mixing of the sexes in contrast to the segregation exemplified by the Genevan circles (LdA, 101–2/GF, 197). 8 See SC, IV.vii, where Rousseau argues for the necessity of censorship. We will return to his views on the institution of censorship on pp. 205–7 below. 9 See Coleman (1990:283–6) for a general discussion of gossip as an element in the enforcement of social norms. 10 Rousseau’s view is, of course, startlingly illiberal. Although he would not flinch at that criticism, we shall see in Chapter 6 how the restrictiveness he advocates for cultural life is in fact inconsistent with other elements in his political theory. 11 For discussions of Rousseau’s denial of the possibility of civic virtue to women see Coole (1988:111–12), Elshtain (1981:160–1), Okin (1979:179–80), and Pateman (1988:100–2).

278 12 13 14

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17 18

19

Notes In a note to this sentence Rousseau refers readers to the Nouvelle Héloïse, which he declares illustrates the principle of sexual segregation. See Lange (1991:104–5). For discussions of Rousseau’s views of the relation between the family and the state see Okin (1979:189–93) and Schwartz (1984:47–52). Rousseau scarcely mentions Geneva in Emile, perhaps because in that work he is more interested in imagining man as he could be within the context of society as it is, that is in forming a man who could remain free even in Paris (E, V, 473/IV.857–8). To prevent just this sort of confusion arising in children, in society as it could be education is taken out of the hands of families and placed in the hands of the state (DPE, II p. 125/OC, III.260). See Okin (1979:190). We will consider Rousseau’s views on public education in Chapter 6. At the end of the Letter Rousseau recounts a childhood memory, where the men of his quarter of the city performed a dance in the square after their military exercise. The wives looked on from windows, and eventually went down into the square to join their husbands. After the dance broke down into joyous confusion, each man returned home to his family. Rousseau notes that ‘this is how these lovable and prudent women brought their husbands back home, not in disturbing their pleasures but in going to share them’ (LdA, 135, n.l/G F, 248–9). Note that the women share their husbands’ pleasures only after the activity proper to the men has ended. Bloom translates spectacle as ‘entertainment’ (see Bloom’s explanation at LdA, 150, n. 12); following Marshall, I use the word spectacle (see 1988:258, n. 3). Rousseau describes the economic life of Geneva as itself constituting a dazzling spectacle. ‘Everyone is busy, everyone is moving, everyone is about his work and his affairs. I do not believe that any other city so small in the world presents such a spectacle.’ He goes on to describe how ‘stacks of boxes, barrels scattered at random, an odor of the orient and spices, make you think you are in a seaport’ and how ‘the sight and sound of the printed calico and linen mills seems to transport you to Zurich. The city appears, as it were, multiplied by the labors which take place in it’ (LdA, 93/GF, 184). Rousseau’s implication is clearly that the spectacle of theatre is superfluous in a city as inherently spectacular as Geneva. Geneva outdoes theatre in virtue of its ‘multiplicity’ as well. For, it does not (falsely) merely play the role of a seaport or of Zurich. It is not like the actor, whose talent ‘is the art of counterfeiting himself, of putting on another character than his own, of appearing different than he is’ (LdA, 79/GF, 163). Geneva presents many appearances—but they are all real: they result from the activities actually present in the city. This overcoming of individual identity through communal spectacle is reminiscent of Nietzsche’s account of the Dionysian festival in The Birth of Tragedy: ‘The individual, with all his restraint and proportion,

Notes

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25

279

succumbed to the self-oblivion of the Dionysian states, forgetting the precepts of Apollo’ (1967:46). Just so in their festivals the Genevans ‘are unrecognizable;…they are no longer those slow reasoners who weigh everything, including joking, in the scale of judgement’ (LdA, 127/GF, 235). The difference, of course is that while for Nietzsche the underlying reality the Dionysian state reveals is the raw world of natural impulse, for Rousseau it is the political community. Rousseau was quite familiar with the Republic; before writing the Letter to d’Alembert he wrote a paraphrase of Republic X (Bloom, Introduction to LdA, xxi). Compare Rousseau’s view of government: governmental offices, which he argues should be filled by election, are like roles—an individual can become a magistrate, but can shed this role to reveal his underlying equality with other citizens. Further, the festivals are akin to the moments in which the sovereign reveals itself, effacing the distinctions between the citizens and their governors. ‘The moment the people is lawfully assembled as a sovereign body, the whole jurisdiction of the government ceases…and the person of the meanest citizen is as sacred and inviolable as that of the chief magistrate’ (SC, III.xiv. I/III.427–8). At the moments when the sovereign assembles, in theory it has the right to do away with its government (SC, III.xviii). However, Rousseau presumes that the ‘periodic assemblies’ will in fact ratify its government’s continued authority (SC, III.xviii.3). Thus, we might suspect that the periodic assemblies in effect serve an essentially ceremonial function—to legitimate the existing government. Thus Rousseau poses the passion of amour propre against the rational calculation of self-interest; in this respect Rousseau runs counter to the intellectual movement identified by Hirschman (1977). Hirschman traces the idea that the interests, identified with commerce and early capitalism, could be used to moderate the violent excesses of the passions. Similarly, in Emile Rousseau imagines how the inevitable emergence of amour propre in his pupil can be managed to prevent harm. In particular, once Emile reaches adolescence, Rousseau attends primarily to controlling the development of his sexuality (E, IV, 215– 21/ IV.495–503). See Schwartz (1984:79–82). The presence of a magistrate was in line with existing Genevan custom (Fralin 1978:65). Rousseau argues that the presence of the magistrate at the balls will strengthen the bond between the people and its rulers; he reiterates this argument in GP, III, 173/III.963–4: ‘It is good…that the people should be together with their leaders on pleasurable occasions…. Provided that…distinctions of rank are not confounded, this is the way to make them love their leaders, and to combine respect with affection.’ See Foucault’s discussion of the Panopticon: ‘Hence the major effect of the Panopticon: to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power’ (1979:201). Note, however, that while Foucault traces the shift in

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28 29

30

31

32

Notes

visibility from the powerful agency to the subject of discipline (see 187), for Rousseau both parties in the relationship of power remain visible to each other. Rousseau acknowledges the potential for ridicule here by insisting that the authorities ensure ‘that this honor be a thing serious enough never to become a subject of joking’ (LdA, 129–30/GF, 238–40). Michael Fried (1980) argues that for Rousseau men and women alike are enmeshed in appearance. Referring to a passage in which Rousseau defends the propriety of properly supervised dancing (LdA, 127–8/GF, 236–7). Fried notes that ‘a striking feature of the passage is the repeated use of the feminine noun “personne”…. This may appear innocuous, a matter of standard grammar and nothing more. But it may also be read as motivating the imposition of strict theatrical controls over the activities of the engaged and married couples in question: as if by virtue of being subsumed under a feminine noun, all persons, male and female, participating in the ball are rendered equally vulnerable to the risk of theatricalization that Rousseau chiefly associates with women’ (170). See Hirschman (1977:9–28) for a history of the idea that a harmful passion can be set against itself. Marshall’s evidence is that ‘like the homme sauvage the Genevan in Rousseau’s portrait does not seem to depend on the regard of others for a sense of his own existence’ (1988:139, my emphasis). Of course, it only seems this way, since Marshall goes on to detail how the balls enforce the Genevans’ dependence on the regard of others. But although Rousseau points out that the Genevans have a love of nature, the contrast he wishes to make is between them as residents of a small city and residents of a large city—Genevans are in any event social creatures, well beyond the level of the state of nature. The sense of rivalry Marshall detects is perhaps the deepest link between Rousseau and Plato—though the rivalry is better stated as between theatre and the philosopher who envisions ideal political relations. Thus, in the Laws, faced with tragedians asking to perform in the ideal city, the Athenian would say Respected visitors, we are ourselves authors of a tragedy, and that the finest and best we know how to make. In fact, our whole polity has been constructed as a dramatization of a noble and perfect life; that is what we hold to be in truth the most real of tragedies. Thus you are poets, and we are also poets in the same style, rival artists and rival actors, and that in the finest of all dramas, one which indeed can be produced only by a code of true law—or at least that is our faith. (VI I, 8l7b) An idea taken up by the French Revolutionaries: ‘The famous Festival of the Supreme Being, it has often been noted, was the literal enactment of Rousseau’s prescription for the celebration “appropriate to a free people”’ (Blum 1986:249). See also May (1991:207). See also PN, 35/II.972. Rousseau follows a pattern Plato uses with his argument that (for example) lying is like a drug—in the proper hands it is useful to the state, otherwise it is dangerous (Republic, II,

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382d; III, 389b-d). See Derrida (1981) for a lengthy discussion of the ambiguities in pharmacological imagery in Plato. 33 Note that absent from Rousseau’s more mature view of culture and politics is the role, set forth in the First Discourse, for wise men who would work in conjunction with political authority. Instead, Rousseau takes upon himself the function of the Legislator, who occupies a position outside society, but who exercises his wisdom to fashion appropriate moeurs—see Rosenberg (1989:27). 6 CULTURE AND LEGITIMACY 1 2 3 4

5 6

7

For a critical discussion of Rousseau’s view see Plamenatz (1963:410—18 and 1972). See Appendix II for a discussion of Arrow’s Theorem; I argue there that Arrow’s result does not apply to the situation Rousseau envisions. See Introduction, pp. 24–9. Recall that the common good is defined in terms of the underlying structure of wants, that is wants abstracted from intensity—see Chapter 1, pp. 40–2. Rousseau’s view inspires the contemporary conception of democracy called epistemic populism (which however differs from him on the point of the infallibility of majorities). Epistemic populism attempts to explain how a gap can open between the outcome of a vote and the common good. Epistemic populists follow Rousseau in holding that voting aggregates judgments, but they reason that since individuals’ judgments can be mistaken, the aggregate judgment can be false. See Coleman and Ferejohn (1986) and Cohen (1986a). For examples of modern extensions and applications of the Condorcet Theorem see Grofman and Owen (1983: passim). Condorcet’s proof is reproduced by Black (1958:164–5). The probability that the majority is correct (P ) is given by the formula vhm k /(vh-k+eh-k), where the number of voters=n=h+k, h is the number of voters in the majority, v is the probability that each voter will give the correct answer, and e is the probability that each voter will give the wrong answer. This probability increases to 1 either as v increases or as h increases (provided v>0.5). Contemporary versions of the proof interpret v as the average probability of a voter giving the right answer, and show that if v >0.5, then P >v, and increases to 1 as n increases to infinity—but that if v < 0.5, mP

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Handbook of Political Theory

Encyclopedia of Political Theory

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Handbook of Political Theory

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The Political Culture of Judaism

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Political Theory of Global Citizenship (Routledge Innovations in Political Theory)

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