Quotation
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“Each of us puts his person and all his power in common under the supreme direction of the general will.”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau · Enlightenment · Enlightenment · 1762
What does it mean?
The usual reading takes the clause as the heart of the pact: each alienates every right to the community, under the general will, so that the association can act as a moral body. He thinks total alienation makes the terms equal. A rival reading hears a handover of the person to whatever a government later claims is the public good, and that danger is why the phrase supreme direction is fought over. Chapter 6 states the pact, and the general will is supposed to aim at the common interest, not at a sum of private wishes.
Did Jean-Jacques Rousseau really say this?
The library’s label is Paraphrase or translation. A standard English of The Social Contract, book one, chapter 6, the clause of the social pact. The general will is not the same as the will of all. This wording is a translation of the French.
Where it comes from
The Social Contract I.6
Approximate date: 1762.
How to use it
A residents' ballot in a block in Poplar can look like a general will because everyone voted, and Rousseau's distinction says a sum of private wants is only the will of all. If each flat voted its own advantage and the majority grabbed the shared fund, the clause has not been met just because a count occurred. The example is smaller than a republic; It shows why he separates a common interest from a pile of particular ones.
A mindset reading
In common is the phrase that frightens liberals, and he thinks the fright is the wrong diagnosis of slavery, which is dependence on another particular will. Whether his remedy creates a new domination is the live argument, not a reason to misquote the clause as a modest request for teamwork. A rival use treats every committee as the general will; He requires citizens legislating about what is common, under conditions he spends the book trying to state.
Understand the philosophy
The key term is the general will, the will of the citizen body toward the common interest, distinct from the will of all, which is only the sum of private interests. Chapter 6 of book one gives the pact's wording. The Social Contract of 1762 is the text, and the English is a translation. Later chapters discuss how a people can be made capable of willing generally; Critics from the eighteenth century on have argued about whether the supreme direction leaves any protected remainder.
- society
- freedom
- power
FAQ
What does it mean?
The usual reading takes the clause as the heart of the pact: each alienates every right to the community, under the general will, so that the association can act as a moral body. He thinks total alienation makes the terms equal. A rival reading hears a handover of the person to whatever a government later claims is the public good, and that danger is why the phrase supreme direction is fought over. Chapter 6 states the pact, and the general will is supposed to aim at the common interest, not at a sum of private wishes.
Did Jean-Jacques Rousseau really say this?
Paraphrase or translation. A standard English of The Social Contract, book one, chapter 6, the clause of the social pact. The general will is not the same as the will of all. This wording is a translation of the French.
Which work is it in?
The Social Contract I.6 Approximate date: 1762.