The rise of modern philosophy a new history of western philosophy volume 3 (new history of western philosophy) ( PDFDrive ) (1) 314

POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY The type of arrangement here proposed by Rousseau seems practicable only in a Swiss canton or a city-state like Geneva But he insisted, like Montesquieu, that one cannot specify a single form of government as appropriate to all circumstances However, an issue of much wider application is raised by the theory of the general will A citizen in a Rousseauian state gives his consent to all the laws, including those that are passed in spite of his opposition (SC 2) What, in such a polity, are the rights of dissident minorities? Rousseau says that the social compact tacitly includes an undertaking that whoever refuses to submit to it may be constrained by his fellow citizens to conform to it ‘This means nothing other than that he shall be forced to be free.’ If I vote against a measure which then triumphs in a poll, this shows that I was mistaken about where my true good, and my genuine freedom, were to be found But the freedom that an imprisoned malefactor enjoys is only the rather rareWed freedom to be a reluctant expression of the general will In spite of his concern with the general will, Rousseau was not a wholehearted supporter of democracy in practice ‘If there were a people of gods, they would govern themselves democratically But a government of such perfection is not suitable for human beings’ (SC 4) In a direct democracy where rule is by popular assembly, government is likely to be fractious and ineYcient Better have an elective aristocracy in which the wise govern the masses: ‘there is no point in getting twenty thousand men to what a hundred select men can ever better’ (SC 4) Aristocracy demands fewer virtues in the citizens than democracy does—all that it requires is a spirit of moderation in the rich and of contentment in the poor Naturally, the rich will most of the governing: they have more time to spare This seems a tame and bourgeois conclusion to a book that began by calling mankind to throw oV its chains Nonetheless, the concept of the general will had an explosive revolutionary potential Examined closely, the notion is theoretically incoherent and practically vacuous It is not true as a matter of logic that if A wills A’s good and B wills B’s good, then A and B jointly will the good of A and B This remains true, however well informed A and B may be, because there may be a genuine, unavoidable incompatibility between the goods of each It is precisely the diYculty of determining what the general will prescribes that made the notion of the general will such a powerful tool 299