Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the new social contract
| Professeur(s) | Alexis Keller[1][2][3] |
|---|---|
| Cours | History of Legal and Political Thought: The Foundations of Modern Legal and Political Thought 1500 - 1850 |
Lectures
- Machiavelli and the Italian Renaissance
- The era of the Reformation
- The birth of the modern concept of the state
- John Locke and the Civil Government Debate
- Montesquieu and the definition of the Free State
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the new social contract
- The Federalist and American political theory
- John Stuart Mill, Democracy and the Limits of the Liberal State
One man will answer Hobbes and Montesquieu, challenging state modernity, and that man is Rousseau. Rousseau is fascinating because his work is gigantic; he is a man who practised many professions before becoming the citizen he was. He was born and grew up in Geneva in 1712.
Biography
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was born in Geneva on June 28th 1712. He was the second son of Isaac Rousseau and Suzanne Bernard, who died on July 7th.
<1778 : In the spring, Rousseau settles in Ermenonville at M. de Girardin's house with his wife Thérèse. He dies on July 2nd and is buried there on the 4th in the Ile des Peupliers.
Rousseau is a man who has experienced the relationship of domination having worked for people who did not always treat him well, he has the experience of a craftsman, the experience of service, he has worked in multiple trades giving him considerable human experience.
Rousseau is a great traveller who has had a wandering life, he has the experience of the humanity of men, but also the experience of travel and wandering.
He tackles a multitude of subjects, he is the author of treatises on music, a treatise on languages, a political and literary work, he was interested in education, he was a man of genius who touched everything; he is the Mozart of the humanities, he has something universal for having touched many and varied subjects.
Geneva in the 18th century: a struggle between social classes
Rousseau does not write in a European context, but in a Geneva context, he is proud of his Geneva citizenship. The structures of the social institutions of the Republic of Geneva left a strong impression on Rousseau.
The Republic of Geneva operates on the system of emboitement :
- first of all, there are the four trade unionists who are in charge and exercise the executive power, having to execute the decisions taken by the ...
- ... Small Council composed of 25 people who execute the laws, but also propose them. It is the heart of the power of the Republic of Geneva.
- The Council of Sixty is a council that meets when the Republic is threatened, it is a kind of political war council.
- the Council of Two Hundred meets once a month to adopt laws, but the laws proposed by the Petit Conseil. It is a legislative power limited by its capacity to initiate legislative reforms.
- the General Council and the electorate, it is within the General Council that the members of the Councils are chosen. This council includes all those who have the title of citizen and are over 25 years of age.
Sociologically, Geneva is divided into four categories. Rousseau was haunted by discrimination between citizens and others :
- citizens.
- a bourgeois in the Republic of Geneva is a foreigner, but who has bought the right of bourgeois, i.e. a right giving the same political rights as citizens, but with the reservation of eligibility.
- the inhabitants have the right to reside and to practise their profession.
- The natives are the descendants of the inhabitants who do not hold any political rights, but can exercise their profession as craftsmen.
The whole history of Geneva in the 18th century can be read as a struggle between citizens, bourgeois and natives, who in 1792 obtained the same rights as citizens and bourgeois. This struggle for the political emancipation of the natives left its mark on Rousseau, who found in his writings numerous allusions to the struggles between natives, citizens and bourgeois.
Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality among Men, 1755
In 1755 the speech in which he responds to Hobbes and Montesquieu is published. This discourse on the 'Origin and foundations of inequality among men' is a founding and fundamental text which tries to answer three questions:
- question of the history of humanity: how did we get to where we are today? It is a historical dimension of humanity.
- question of who we are: do we have passions inherent in humanity? what are we made of?
- analysis of the degradation of human nature: history of the degradation and corruption of human nature. What makes man born free and yet in irons.
Rousseau shows that the professions he has practised are fundamental to him, he has an exceptional knowledge of human nature. He shows us that his life experience marked his political philosophy and his philosophy of law.
The first part is the answer on human nature, taking up the posture of Hobbes :
- Yes he agrees with Hobbes that man is alone, isolated, which is not naturally social, yet man is not fearful, he does not feel threatened, man is happy.#Yes he agrees with Hobbes that man is alone, isolated, which is not naturally social, yet man is not fearful, he does not feel threatened, man is happy. This is the myth of the good savage, Man is simple and self-sufficient.
- Man is not endowed with a passion for war, man is not a wolf for man, he is endowed with two characteristics in the state of nature:
- self love
- pity
- the feeling of self-love is transformed, we compare ourselves, we envy our neighbours because self-love is born in us. Self-love changes, destroys and corrupts our natural innocence. Pity is a noble feeling just like self-preservation, but self-love is no longer.
Man is going to leave this state of instability to form modern society.
« The first one who, having enclosed a piece of land and said: This is mine, and found people simple enough to believe it, was the true founder of civil society. »
Rousseau attacks property, but it is not so much property as the accumulation of wealth that he attacks because it causes a threefold degradation in human beings is of three orders:
- moral;
- political;
- cultural.
Self-esteem and love of wealth corrupt our soul for Rousseau, this corruption is at the root of inequalities between men.
Humanity was built on a certain number of human principles that introduced inequality among men, so we must find a formula, a state that respects and restores this natural equality that has been destroyed and degraded.
A model must be constructed that allows equality among men to be constitutive of this State. We must find a model that makes the people the very heart of power.
The state of the modern people is not England, but the democratic state we now know as the meaning of the Social Contract of 1762.
Rousseau - Discourse on the origin and foundations of inequality among men, 1755 In the second discourse on the origin and foundations of inequality among men, Rousseau offers us two essential things:
- a history of humanity: it is an attempt to answer the question what is Man and how did he evolve in the state of nature? What made him different? What made him perfectible? What made us evolve from zero time to the moment we decided to live together? This is the story of human beings from the origins to the present day.
- How can we explain that this evolution led to political and social inequality among men? What happened in the history of mankind that caused the man-society machine to seize up and that will lead to inequality among men?
The diagnosis is made in the second discourse, which is the analysis, the solution to the problem was proposed by Rousseau in 1762, which is "The Social Contract".
In order to restore the lost equality among men, here is the type of state that is proposed to be established. Rousseau does not question the existence of natural inequality.
« I conceive in the human species two kinds of inequality; one which I call natural or physical, because it is established by nature, and which consists in the difference of ages, health, forces of the body, and qualities of the spirit, or of the soul, the other which may be called moral or political inequality, because it depends on a kind of convention, and is established, or at least authorised by the consent of men. It consists in the various privileges, some of which are enjoyed to the detriment of others, such as being richer, more honoured, more powerful than them, or even to be obeyed. »
It is clear that Rousseau is aware of this necessary distinction between natural and physical equality between men and equality in society; he does not want to interfere and intervene on the first type of inequality, but on the second.
« So what exactly is this Speech about? To mark in the progress of things the moment when law succeeded violence and nature was subjected to the law; to explain by what chain of wonders the strong could resolve to serve the weak, and the people to buy a rest in thought, at the price of real happiness. »
Rousseau knows the authors of the past, he sends a spade to each of them:
« The philosophers who have examined the foundations of society have all felt the need to go back to the state of nature, but none of them have succeeded in doing so. Some of them did not give up the idea of assuming that man in this state had the notion of just and unjust, without bothering to show that he must have had this notion, or even that it was useful to him. Others have spoken of the natural right of every man to keep what belongs to him, without explaining what they meant by belonging; others, giving first to the strongest authority over the weakest, have immediately given birth to government, without thinking of the time that had to pass before the meaning of the words authority and government could exist among men. Finally all, speaking incessantly of need, greed, oppression, desires, and pride, brought to the state of nature the ideas they had taken from society. They spoke of the savage man, and they painted the civil man. »
We can feel Rousseau gradually rising, explaining where we come from, while Hobbes is much more brutal in the passage from the state of nature to the state of society.
The whole first part retraces the history of humanity:
« I will not follow its organisation through its successive developments. I will not stop looking for in the animal system what it might have been in the beginning, to finally become what it is […] »
« By stripping this being, thus constituted, of all the supernatural gifts he may have received, and of all the artificial faculties he may have acquired only by long progress, by considering him, in a word, as he must have come out of the hands of nature, I see an animal less strong than some, less agile than others, but, all in all, organised most advantageously of all. I see him satiating under an oak tree, quenching his thirst at the first stream, finding his bed at the foot of the same tree that provided him with his meal, and there his needs are satisfied. »
It is the myth of the good savage and the natural man, he continues his explanation: since the moment t0 what happened? Nature has played its part, Man has shown a particular instinct.
« With so few sources of evil, man in his natural state has little need of remedies, still less of doctors; nor is the human race in this respect worse off than any other, and it is easy to know from hunters whether in their races they find many crippled animals. Many of them are found to have received considerable wounds which have healed very well, to have had bones, and even limbs, broken and rebuilt without any other surgeon than time, without any other diet than their ordinary life, and which are nevertheless perfectly healed, for they have not been tormented by incisions, poisoned by drugs, nor exhausted by fasting. Finally, no matter how useful well administered medicine may be among us, it is always certain that if the sick savage abandoned to himself has nothing to hope for from nature, on the other hand he has nothing to fear but his own evil, which often makes his situation preferable to ours. »
It is an almost modern anthropological vision that sees Man in the state of nature.
« Alone, idle, and always close to danger, the wild man must love to sleep, and sleep lightly like the animals, who, thinking little, sleep, so to speak, all the time that they do not think. »
Man differs from the beast in the sense that he needs to perfect himself, he is perfectible. What will distinguish man from animals is language.
Rousseau insists on our ability to communicate, he thinks we have developed a more sophisticated language.
« Allow me to consider for a moment the embarrassment of the origin of languages. »
Man progresses, communicates and develops his language. Rousseau develops a true evolutionary theory of language. There is not one language, but languages that man appropriates and develops, it is through language that ideas are born, that reason begins to function.
All attention is always paid to the calm and serene evolution of Man in the state of nature.
« It seems, first of all, that men in this state having no kind of moral relation between them, nor any known duties, could be neither good nor bad, and had neither vices nor virtues, unless, taking these words in a physical sense, one calls vices in the individual those qualities which may harm his own preservation, and virtues those which may contribute to it. »
Hobbes' criticism goes up :
« Above all, let us not conclude with Hobbes that, in order to have no idea of goodness, man is naturally evil, that he is vicious because he does not know virtue, that he always refuses his fellow men services that he does not believe to be their duty, or that by virtue of the right he rightly attributes to himself the things he needs, he foolishly imagines himself to be the sole owner of the whole universe. Hobbes saw very well the flaw in all modern definitions of natural law: but the consequences he draws from his own show that he takes it in a no less false sense. In reasoning on the principles he establishes, this author had to say that since the state of nature is the one in which the care of our conservation is the least prejudicial to that of others, it is therefore the state that is most conducive to peace, and the most suitable for humankind. »
The state of nature for Rousseau is the anti-Hobbes, it is the state of bliss. The man of nature does not have the qualities desired by Hobbes, but he has two essential ones:
« There is, moreover, another principle which Hobbes did not perceive and which, having been given to man to soften, in certain circumstances, the ferocity of his self-esteem, or the desire to preserve himself before the birth of this love, tempers the ardour he has for his well-being by an innate repugnance to see his fellow man suffer. I do not think I have any contradiction to fear, in granting man the only natural virtue that the most outraged detractor of human virtues has been forced to recognise, I am speaking of pity, a disposition suitable for such weak beings, and subject to as many evils as we are. […] »
« Self-esteem and self-love should not be confused; two very different passions in their nature and effects. Self-love is a natural feeling which leads every animal to take care of its own conservation and which, directed in man by reason and modified by pity, produces humanity and virtue. Self-love is only a relative feeling, false and born in society, which leads each individual to make more of himself than of any other, which inspires men with all the evils they do to each other, and which is the true source of honour. »
Self-esteem is the comparison with others, it is a form of selfishness and egocentricity. In a way, Rousseau agrees with Hobbes in the sense that the principle of self-preservation is within us, but he adds pity. It is because we love ourselves that we want to preserve ourselves.
« It is therefore certain that pity is a natural feeling, which, by moderating in each individual the activity of self-love, contributes to the mutual conservation of the whole species. »
For Rousseau, pity is a noble sentiment because it ensures peace, the peaceful nature of relations between men.
« Having proved that inequality is hardly noticeable in the state of nature, and that its influence is almost nil, it remains for me to show its origin, and its progress in the successive developments of the human mind. »
So what happened?
« The first one who, having enclosed a piece of land and said: This is mine, and found people simple enough to believe it, was the true founder of civil society. How many crimes, wars, murders, misery and horrors would not have spared the human race if he had torn out the stakes or bridged the gap and shouted to his fellow men, "Beware of listening to this impostor; you are lost if you forget that the fruits belong to all and the earth belongs to no one. But there is a great appearance, that then things had already come to the point that they could no longer last as they were; for this idea of ownership, depending on many previous ideas which could only be born successively, did not suddenly form in the human mind. Much progress had to be made, much industry and light had to be acquired, passed on and increased from age to age, before reaching this last end of the state of nature. Let us therefore take things from above and try to bring together under one point of view this slow succession of events and knowledge, in their most natural order. »
This misinterpretation of property has somehow upset the natural evolution of mankind. Then people experience self-esteem and compare themselves until everything starts to change.
« Everything is beginning to change. The men who had been wandering through the woods until now, having taken a more fixed plate, slowly come closer together, gather into various troops, and finally form in each region a particular nation, united in morals and character, not by regulations and laws, but by the same kind of life and food, and by the common influence of the climate. »
« But it should be noted that the society which had begun and the relations already established between men demanded qualities from them which were different from those they had derived from their primitive constitution; that as morality began to creep into human actions, and as each person before the laws was the sole judge and avenger of the offences he had received, the goodness appropriate to the pure state of nature was no longer that which suited the nascent society. »
The remedies that enable man to live with his fellow human beings in the state of nature, the mechanisms can no longer exist and are no longer applicable to the state of society.
« Here then are all our developed faculties, memory and imagination at stake, self-esteem interested, reason made active and the mind almost at the end of the perfection to which it is susceptible. Here are all the natural qualities put into action, the rank and lot of every man established, not only on the quantity of goods and the power to serve or to harm, but on wit, beauty, strength or skill, on merit or talent, and these being the only qualities which could attract consideration, it was soon necessary to have them or to affect them, it was necessary for one's advantage to show oneself to be other than what one was in fact. To be and to appear became two quite different things, and from this distinction came the imposing pomp, the deceitful cunning, and all the vices that go with it. »
« He must therefore constantly seek to interest them in his fate, and to make them find in fact or in appearance their profit in working for his: this makes him deceitful and artificial with some, imperious and hard with others, and puts him in the necessity of abusing all those whom he needs, when he cannot be afraid of them, and when he does not find it in his interest to serve them usefully. Finally, the devouring ambition, the ardour to raise his relative fortune, less out of genuine need than to put himself above others, inspires in all men a black inclination to harm each other, a secret jealousy all the more dangerous since, to make his move more safely, it often takes the mask of benevolence; in a word, competition and rivalry on the one hand, on the other opposition of interest, and always the hidden desire to make one's profit at the expense of others, all these evils are the first effect of property and the inseparable procession of the incipient inequality. »
He has turned Man over, Man is not a wolf to Man in the state of nature, but in the state of society.
« This was, or must have been, the origin of society and of laws, which gave new obstacles to the weak and new forces to the rich, destroyed natural freedom without any return, established for ever the law of property and inequality, made an irrevocable right out of skilful usurpation, and, for the benefit of a few ambitious people, subjected the whole human race to labour, servitude and misery. »
Rousseau criticised inequalities, he noted that man in the state of society is a wolf for man and not at all in the state of nature, he reversed Hobbes' arguments, but did not propose any solutions.
Rousseau - The Social Contract, Book I, 1762
The Social Contrac is the political response, the political solution that Rousseau proposes to us after having masterfully analysed the origin of inequality among men.
The work is based on four books; it is a systematic treatise, the logic of the reasoning is perfect. As a political society is not natural, it is necessary that men agree to put themselves together and renegotiate the social pact on other bases.
It is a question of redefining the social pact. All those who have thought about the social contract have been right to think in terms of the contract, but it needs to be rethought. He proposes another form of political order that aims to establish a new social contract. The whole question of the social contract is to build, to restore a form of inequality, but above all to establish a legitimate state, i.e. a state that guarantees equity and justice.
This State is based on the idea of the sovereignty of the people, it is the great idea of the social contract which has four criteria; sovereignty is the expression of the general will, but it has four criteria :
- infallible
- finalizable
- indivisible
- absolute
The last two terms bring Rousseau and Bodin closer together; the central term of the Social Contract is that of the sovereignty of the people.
Hobbes was right to say that there had to be a power that holds the body politic together, but it is not a monarch imposing power from below, but for that power to be legitimised it must come from below, it is the people who are sovereign and not the Leviathan, the people are the Leviathan, they remain and always are the sovereign: they promulgate laws, ratify them, but do not enforce them.
Rousseau was the first to give the government the notion of executive power; before Rousseau, when we spoke of government, we thought of the state.
| Conception of the state of nature | Logic behind the pact | Fundamental, priority values | |
|---|---|---|---|
| according to Hobbes (Leviathan) | war of all against all | safe (breaking with the state of nature) | the "security", the "life", of everyone. |
| according to Locke (Second Treaty of the Civil Government) | everyone enjoys natural rights (freedom and private property) | liberal (guarantee the state of nature) | freedom and private property |
| according to Rousseau (The Social Contract) | humans are naturally "good". | democrat (break with the state of nature: the people is sovereign) | the general interest |
For Hobbes, the sovereign is the Leviathan, which is generally a man, for Locke there is a shift, the sovereign is no longer a man, but is parliament, for Rousseau the sovereign is the people. We see very clearly the evolution and the shift in the definition of the people, which is the sovereignty of parliament in Locke and of the people in Rousseau.
The people for Rousseau is and remains sovereign. Basically, Rousseau's whole objective was to warn society and the state of a double danger:
- the usurpation by the sovereign of governmental functions.
- the usurpation by the government of the sovereign's functions.
For Rousseau, what is extremely important is that the one who passes and ratifies laws is not the one who applies them; the two functions must be distinct. Otherwise there is a danger of authoritarian drift.
This double danger shows that Rousseau is not in favour of democracy in the ancient sense of the term. Rousseau rejects the regime of direct democracy where the one who raises his hand to vote is also the one who applies the laws, for him this is a real danger: « it would take a people of God to govern themselves democratically ».
Est-ce que Rousseau est un démocrate ? Au sens moderne, Rousseau anticipe l’avènement de la démocratie moderne, mais si on entend la démocratie au sens athénien alors non, il ne l’est pas.
Cet ouvrage de 1782 aura une postérité particulière, il sera interdit en France, sera condamné à Genève, et va se diffuser lentement.
C’est la Révolution française qui va faire du Contrat Social un ouvrage de référence ; depuis la Révolution française il y a deux lectures offertes du Contrat Social qui sont aussi radical l’une que l’autre :
- ceux qui pensent que le Contrat Social est une utopie qui fait l’apologie de la bonté du peuple et de la démocratie directe.
- ceux faisant du Contrat Social un ouvrage anticipant les autoritarismes et les prémices des totalitarismes par son côté rigide.
À l’évidence, ces deux lectures sont erronées, lorsqu’on se pose la question de savoir ce que cherche Rousseau lorsqu’il écrit le Contrat Social est qu’il défend un régime légitime qui permette à l’Homme de devenir un citoyen.
Un homme ou un individu n’est pas complet s’il n’est pas aussi un citoyen. L’ouvrage de Rousseau cherche surtout à définir l’idée qu’être citoyen est un exercice exigeant, il y a un certain nombre de conditions pour réussir qui est l’éducation à la souveraineté.
Le Contrat Social est peut-être là afin de nous proposer un modèle politique légitime et reposant sur l’équité. La proposition d’établir un rémige légitime, plus juste et équitable restaurant cette égalité perdue, se retrouve chapitre premier.
« L'homme est né libre, et partout il est dans les fers, Tel se croit le maître des autres, qui ne laisse pas d'être plus esclave qu'eux. Comment ce changement s'est-il fait? Je l'ignore. Qu’est-ce qui peut le rendre légitime? Je crois pouvoir résoudre cette question.
Si je ne considérais que la force et l'effet qui en dérive, je dirais: «Tant qu'un peuple est contraint d'obéir et qu'il obéit, il fait bien; sitôt qu'il peut secouer le joug, et qu'il le secoue, il fait encore mieux: car, recouvrant sa liberté par le même droit qui la lui a ravie, ou il est fondé à la reprendre, ou on ne l’était point à la lui ôter». Mais l'ordre social est un droit sacré qui sert de base à tous les autres. Cependant, ce droit ne vient point de la nature; il est donc fondé sur des conventions. Il s'agit de savoir quelles sont ces conventions. Avant d'en venir là, je dois établir ce que je viens d'avancer. »
Rousseau va proposer un ordre juste fondé sur le principe de légitimité.
Pour Rousseau, le début de l‘état de société est la famille parce qu’il y a une convention : la famille est comme une convention, ce qui est dans les relations familiales peut être transposé dans les relations intersociétales.
« S'ils continuent de rester unis, ce n'est plus naturellement, c'est volontairement; et la famille elle-même ne se maintient que par convention. »
Au chapitre III on voit très bien l’allusion à Hobbes :
« Obéissez aux puissances. Si cela veut dire: Cédez à la force, le précepte est bon, mais superflu; je réponds qu'il ne sera jamais violé. Toute puissance vient de Dieu, je l'avoue; mais toute maladie en vient aussi : est-ce à dire qu'il soit défendu d'appeler le médecin ? »
Rousseau veut proposer un modèle d’État. Il voit un droit des rapports de forces dérivées de l’esclavage, les chapitres III et IV peuvent se résumer dans l’affirmation que les sociétés autour de nous ne sont que des reliquats de la vie, de la société romaine fondée sur l’esclavage. Selon Rousseau les esclaves sont ceux qui doivent obéir, ceux soumis à des rapports de domination.
Pourquoi Rousseau fait de la liberté et de l’égalité le cœur même de sa réflexion ? Si on renonce à être un homme libre, alors on est plus un homme.
« Renoncer à sa liberté, c'est renoncer à sa qualité d'homme, aux droits de l'humanité, même à ses devoirs. »
Hobbes et Locke avaient raison de dire que la société moderne est fondée sur un pacte, mais le pacte proposé n’est pas le bon, il faut un pacte fondé sur l’équité, la justice et le partage.
« Je suppose les hommes parvenus à ce point où les obstacles qui nui¬sent à leur conservation dans l'état de nature l'emportent, par leur résistance, sur les forces que chaque individu peut employer pour se maintenir dans cet état […] Trouver une forme d'association qui défende et protège de toute la force commune la personne et les biens de chaque associé, et par laquelle chacun, s'unissant à tous, n'obéisse pourtant qu'à lui-même, et reste aussi libre qu'auparavant. »
Il faut noter qu’il s’agit de préserver les biens, la diatribe de sept ans plus tôt s’est estompée ; il s’agit de préserver les biens de chaque associé.
« Enfin, chacun se donnant à tous ne se donne à personne; et comme il n’y a pas un associé sur lequel on n'acquière le même droit qu'on lui cède sur soi, on gagne l'équivalent de tout ce qu'on perd, et plus de force pour conserver ce qu'on a. »
« Chacun de nous met en commun sa personne et toute sa puissance sous la suprême direction de la volonté générale; et nous recevons en corps chaque membre comme partie indivisible du tout. »
Rousseau – Le Contrat Social, Livre II, 1762
« Je dis donc que la souveraineté, n'étant que l'exercice de la volonté générale, ne peut jamais s'aliéner, et que le souverain, qui n'est qu'un être collectif, ne peut être représenté que par lui-même; le pouvoir peut bien se transmettre, mais non pas la volonté. »
La souveraineté dispose d’un certain nombre de caractéristiques :
- la souveraineté est inaliénable : on ne peut pas déléguer, on ne peut représenter la volonté. Rousseau est hostile à la représentation politique parce que la souveraineté que nous possédons tous ne peut pas s’aliéner à un corps tiers. Rousseau est ici très hostile à l’idée de la représentation politique, il estime que la volonté ne peut pas se représenter.
- la souveraineté est indivisible : soit le peuple est souverain, soit il ne l’est pas, il ne peut pas l’être à moitié, ou bien il a les compétences générales soit il ne les a pas.
- la souveraineté est infaillible : « [...] la volonté générale est toujours droite et tend toujours à l'utilité publique ». Toutefois que « On veut toujours son bien, on ne le voit pas toujours. Jamais on ne corrompt le peuple, mais souvent on le trompe [...] ». Et comment trouve-t-on l'intérêt général? « Il y a souvent bien de la différence entre la volonté de tous et la volonté générale; celle-ci ne regarde qu'à l'intérêt commun; l'autre regarde à l'intérêt privé, et n'est qu'une somme de volontés particulières: mais ôtez de ces mêmes volontés les plus et les moins qui s'entre-détruisent, reste pour somme des différences la volonté générale. ».
- la souveraineté est absolue : elle ne peut pas se borner.
Ce qui fait avancer les corps politiques est les lois débattues, ratifiées, votées par le souverain et appliquées par le gouvernement.
Rousseau au chapitre VI fait de la loi un acte général et abstrait :
« Mais quand tout le peuple statue sur tout le peuple, il ne considère que lui-même; et s'il se forme alors un rapport, c'est de l'objet entier sous un point de vue à I‘objet entier sous un autre point de vue, sans aucune division du tout. Alors la matière sur laquelle on statue est générale comme la volonté qui statue. C'est cet acte que j'appelle une loi. »
La loi exprime un rapport quelque part un équilibre entre ce qui doit être et ce qui peut être. Pour Rousseau, la loi ne touche pas un individu en particulier, mais la loi doit rester générale ne voulant pas dire vague parce qu’elle est l’expression de la volonté générale et doit s’adresser à tous.
« On voit encore que, la loi réunissant l'universalité de la volonté et celle de l'objet, ce qu’un homme, quel qu’il puisse être, ordonne de son chef n'est point une loi: ce qu'ordonne même le souverain sur un objet particulier n'est pas non plus une loi, mais un décret; ni un acte de souveraineté, mais de magistrature.
J’appelle donc république tout État régi par des lois, sous quelque forme d'administration que ce puisse être: car alors seulement l'intérêt public gouverne, et la chose publique est quelque chose. Tout gouvernement légitime est républicain : j'expliquerai ci-après ce que c'est que gouvernement. »
Que le gouvernement prenne la forme d’une monarchie ou d’une démocratie ne pose pas problème à Rousseau, ce qui est important est que le régime soit républicain et que la loi soit la clef de voute.
Rousseau est le digne hérité de Machiavel faisant de la Respublica, des lois, la souveraineté du peuple, la clef de voute de tout État qui se réclame légitime équitable ou juste.
Annexes
- Cours :
Livre audio mp3 gratuit 'Du contrat social' de Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
References
- ↑ Alexis Keller - Wikipedia
- ↑ Alexis Keller - Faculté de droit - UNIGE
- ↑ Alexis Keller | International Center for Transitional Justice
- ↑ Barbara Roth-Lochner, Dans Sont Livre "d. Fonctionnement Des Institutions Genevoises Sous L'ancien Régime (n.d.): n. pag. Web. <http://www.patrigest.ch/Dufour-5b.pdf>.
- ↑ Contractualisme. (2014, juillet 4). Wikipédia, l'encyclopédie libre. Page consultée le 21:30, juillet 31, 2014 à partir de http://fr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Contractualisme&oldid=105175730.