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 explains that the social contract creates the body politic, but the nation must pass laws to preserve itself. While true justice and goodness come from God through the medium of human reason, in a state of nature, some people follow these natural laws and others ignore and break them without consequences. Therefore, people need society to systematize and enforce these laws.
Rousseau emphasizes that the nation’s original decision to establish itself through the social contract does not automatically mean that it will endure or that its citizens will actually treat each other as equals; this is the purpose of laws, which are essentially the sovereign’s collective commitments to itself. By claiming that “God” creates true virtue, Rousseau cites Locke’s influential theory of natural rights, but he also points out the limits of religion’s involvement in politics: notably, Rousseau argues that human reason must reign supreme in politics, as this reason—more than any doctrine or institution—is God’s legacy for humankind. Therefore, he offers Christians a way to believe in secular, popular republics without contradicting their religious beliefs.
Themes
Rousseau asks what laws are and returns to the idea that “the general will cannot relate to any particular object” without ceasing to be general. So, to be a law, a rule must be made by and for “the people as a whole […] without any division whatsoever.” Therefore, “the law considers all subjects collectively and all actions in the abstract,” rather than naming particular people. It can create “privileges” but not say who gets them, or create a monarchy but not actually “choose a royal family.” Because everyone collectively gives the law to themselves, nobody is “above the law,” the law is never unjust, and the law does not take away people’s freedom, but is rather a way of realizing it. But any particular action for or against a particular individual or object is “not a law,” but “an act of government.”
Laws are the nation’s way of concretizing its commitment to the collective good, or the general will: by passing a law, the community declares that it has chosen a certain principle in accord with the general will and is willing to hold itself to this principle. In this sense, laws are also expressions of a community’s moral beliefs. Since moral principles are based in human reason and free choice, the only body that can adopt laws is the collective of citizens who freely determine their own future: the sovereign. When Rousseau says that “the general will cannot relate to any particular object,” this is what he means: it has to take the form of a principle or abstract law, because it cannot put the interests of any citizen above any other. In short, this means that the sovereign’s job is to make laws, but it cannot apply these laws to specific situations (which is the government’s job).
Themes
Rousseau defines “any state which is ruled by law” in this way to be a republic and argues that “all legitimate government is ‘republican.’” In other words, “laws are […] the conditions on which civil society exists.” But Rousseau asks how the body politic makes these laws, for unfortunately it “seldom knows what is good for it,” even though it “always wills what is good.” In fact, it needs to learn to use reason “to recognize what it desires,” which is why it needs “a lawgiver.”
Rousseau reformulates the answer to his original question of what the “legitimate and sure principle” of a state can be: a state is legitimate only if it is a republic (or what is often called a democracy in the 21st century—although Rousseau later uses the word “democracy” in a different and incompatible sense). By mentioning the body politic’s difficulty understanding its own general will, however, Rousseau points out a potentially enormous problem with his theory: if the sovereign’s decisions do not actually follow the general will, is the sovereign any good? And even if this sovereign becomes illegitimate when it ceases following the general will, what mechanisms can and should exist in a society to keep a sovereign legitimate and reliably convince the people to abandon their sovereign when it becomes illegitimate? He ultimately argues that the state needs a strong moral culture to keep itself on track, but this answer may not satisfy all readers and critics.
Themes
