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 states that there is no “right of the strongest.” Strength itself only forces obedience through fear, but it cannot possibly “produce morality.” If “the strongest [were] always right,” the concept of “rights” would be meaningless: anyone who says it is right to “obey those in power” really means that people should “yield to force,” but not that the powerful have some inherent moral right to be obeyed. Similarly, an armed thief who robs Rousseau’s purse does not have a “right” to keep it just because he has the power of a gun. In summary, Rousseau concludes, “might does not make right,” and people should only obey “legitimate powers.”
Because morality is only created when people agree to follow a certain set of rules or laws, it is impossible for mere force to create an ethical state of affairs, or a legitimate form of political community. Rousseau is not denying the existence of physical coercion, but merely explaining that it has nothing to do with the nation he is imagining and distancing himself from philosophers who reduce all morality to physical force. However, readers might ask if the community Rousseau describes truly avoids coercion—for instance, can a majority legitimately impose its will on a minority?
Themes
