Introduction
The famous political theorist Jean-Jacques Rousseau created The Social Contract to solve the problem of freedom by ensuring the preservation and survival of what he called “civil liberty.” His solution to this issue in the most general sense is constructing a civil state. Through the association of citizens, each of whom is willing to put himself in the hands of the whole community, the individual is enabled to set boundaries for his own behavior, to live with others as one, and yet to reason and act morally. Moreover, by agreeing to the social contract, people simultaneously surrender their physical freedom, rooted in the state of nature, and acquire civil freedom, which implies a way of thinking morally and rationally, or allows one to be fully human. The difference between the natural freedom of man and the freedom made possible by the social contract will be described in this paper.
Discussion
“Liberty” and “freedom” are synonymous, and most languages use only one word for this meaning. English has the advantage of being able to separate these terms semantically, and the slight difference is simple. Freedom is determined as the condition of being free to enjoy all political, social, and civil opportunities. It is the ability to determine one’s actions and the state of not being restricted or oppressed (Rousseau, Cress, and Wootton 2011). Freedom is a state in which people follow their will and control themselves, taking responsibility for their behavior and actions. It does not necessarily mean violating ethics and moral values.
According to Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality among Men, the first social contract was made by the rich, so it was an unfair contract: while ensuring common security, it led to the power of the rich over the poor. This authority deprives humans of their natural freedom: “Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains” (Rousseau, Cress, and Wootton 2011, 375). The social contract is meant to liberate each individual, every irrational “animal,” and to help man fully know his freedom through self-control and by placing himself in the hands of the civil state: a cooperative movement toward the shared good guided by the general will (Rousseau, Cress, and Wootton 2011). Rousseau emphasizes that this contract allows for the maintenance of freedom and freedom to love more effectively than natural freedom, thereby advancing the path to legitimate and justifiable political power. He is convinced that legitimate political power does not exist in nature. Instead, political power becomes legitimate through the formation of contracts between members of society.
Rousseau espoused tribal utopian ideas and advocated “universal” equality against property and luxury. Wishing to change the principles of social development, the author turned to the past, to the ancient tribes in which society formed differently (Rousseau, Cress, and Wootton 2011). In Rousseau’s view, “luxury is the worst of all evils that can exist in any state” (2011, 265). He idealized traditional communities and believed that in order to avoid evil, one must reject civilization because man is inherently good. If there is harmony with nature, a good society will be achieved and, therefore, the proper liberty.
Obviously, nature has done little to bring people together or make them sociable. Before the necessity of establishing communities, one’s first language was the “cry of nature” – and that was enough (Rousseau, Cress, and Wootton 2011). According to Rousseau, there is no reason why people in the state of nature could need each other (264). Rousseau’s idea of the natural goodness of the savage is not based on any good quality that man may have but rather on his ignorance. Without language and the ability to reason, it simply does not occur to the savage to be evil. From his image of the savage, Rousseau derives two basic principles: compassion and self-preservation (2011, 151). It is these two qualities that make the coexistence of savages possible. Compassion draws one person to another, while the desire for self-preservation distances people from one another. Compassion supersedes laws because if you empathize with another, you cannot harm him. Only those principles can guarantee a certain harmony. In the state of nature, inequality is barely perceptible, except for physical inequality.
The second discourse presents a description of inequalities according to the author’s version. Inequalities, like freedom in this doctrine, are divided into two kinds. People are natural because they are set by nature and consist of differences in age or physical and mental abilities. The other may be called “moral or political inequality, since it depends on a kind of convention and is established, or at least authorized, by the consent of men” (Rousseau, Cress, and Wootton 2011, 157). The second kind of inequality consists of the various privileges enjoyed by some at the expense of others: to be more prosperous, more potent than they are, or even to subjugate themselves completely. Speaking of slavery, Rousseau writes that only power could have created the first slaves, and their cowardice made them so evermore (2011). Man has no natural authority over his own kind, and force is not the source of law; hence it follows that the basis of legal authority is an agreement, which Rousseau constantly mentions.
Once an individual is engaged in a social contract, they lose their natural independence in exchange for civil liberty and the freedoms of a society, which are more valuable in the long run. For instance, a practical example would be the safety of the person. Since one is no longer alone in the complete wilderness, they now gain protection provided by society. Once again, all individuals must give their entirety to the social contract to ensure that the terms of the agreement are equal for everyone (Rousseau, Cress, and Wootton 2011). Since each individual estranges themself, the general will is the sovereign, which is the collective capacity of the people.
However, the issue stays – if people remain as free as before, it still proves problematic. No person depends on another individual’s will, and the general will is not only the sum of the individual wills but more of the general interest or the rational will of a community since each individual helps to contribute to the creation of free choice itself. Thus, an individual under the social contract who obeys the laws is obeying themselves (Rousseau, Cress, and Wootton 2011). The freedom described by Rousseau is called moral freedom – the freedom to do what the law tells people to do (2011). The advantages of participation in the social contract are civil liberty, the right of ownership of everything he owns, and, most importantly, added moral liberty, which alone makes man truly master of himself.
Conclusion
To summarize the author’s theories, inequality became more pervasive as humanity evolved because of the development of advantages that not everyone could obtain. Rousseau’s social contract represented a new revision to help solve the problems presented by previous imperfect social contracts and was an attempt to solve the paradox of how by uniting with all, man is subject only to himself and yet remains as free as before. Rousseau claims human has complete freedom only in the state of nature and can do whatever he delights in – this is called “natural freedom”. Liberty, however, is declared to be more an unattainable idea in which every member of civil society participates in setting the rules and, at the same time, abides by the rules established by that society.
Work Cited
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, Donald A. Cress, and David Wootton. 2011. Basic Political Writings: Second Edition. Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc..