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Book 4, Chapter 1
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Social Contract, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Human Freedom and Society
Sovereignty, Citizenship, and Direct Democracy
Government and the Separation of Powers
National Longevity and Moral Virtue
Summary
Analysis
Rousseau again reiterates that the way a state functions reveals the body politic’s “moral character” and “health.” The more united it is, the healthier it is and the stronger its general will is; the more divided it is, the more particular interests have taken charge and the closer it is to death. It is sometimes possible for states to appear divided when they are really healthy (like Rome, which was split between “its [upper-class] patricians and [lower-class] plebians”), or united because oppressed citizens have given up on participating in politics.
While Rousseau uses the example of Rome to emphasize that he still wants to avoid making global claims about whether a nation’s “health” can be deduced from its outward appearance, there is still a valid universal principle behind his argument: a nation is as strong and legitimate as it is unified, since the social contract is founded on an agreement to give up one’s autonomy to the whole and make all political decisions for the sake of the collective.
Themes
In the original social contract, there is no disagreement, because anyone who disagrees is simply left out. Once the state is created, “residence implies consent,” and anyone who lives in a country assents to its contract and its general will. The majority vote is the best expression of this will—the minority does not go against their will by following the majority, but rather simply learns that they “have made a mistake” about “what [they] believed to be the general will.” Of course, this is only true if the majority is working for the general will and not their own private interests. In order to determine how large a majority must be to reflect the general will, Rousseau says states should combine two principles: “the more important and serious the matter,” the larger the majority needed, and “the swifter the decision the question demands,” the smaller the majority needed.
When Rousseau says that the social contract initially has no disagreement, what he means is that anyone who does not want to join society is free to leave and not agree to the social contract. This means that anyone who lives in society has, by definition, agreed to it. Rousseau’s explanation of majority and minority votes might not satisfy some readers, because it is difficult—if not impossible—to distinguish between the situation in which the majority is right and the minority is learning their lesson, on the one hand, and the more dangerous situation in which the minority truly expresses the general will and the majority has given up on it, on the other hand. While it is clear that the first of these is legitimate and the second of these is not, how can someone living in such a society reliably determine when the minority happens to be right and convince their fellow citizens to defend it? Rousseau provides no clear answer, but he appears to think that each individual must guide themselves to an understanding of the general will through reason, and so if someone concludes they are right because they have rationally examined the general will, then they are, in fact, right. Meanwhile, those on the other side of the vote will not have made this rational deduction. Moreover, Rousseau has already admitted that the sovereign cannot be saved once it goes awry, which means that if the majority is corrupted, the state is likely to be on the brink of death anyway (and little can be done about it, besides reasserting ethical values and trying to convince members of the majority to reinvest in the community).
Themes
