Questions: Rousseau's General Will and Social Contract Theory

Question 1

A city holds a referendum and 62% of voters choose to cut public school funding to reduce their property taxes. According to Rousseau, does this vote necessarily express the general will?

• A. Yes — majority vote is the operational definition of the general will
• B. No — the general will is what citizens would choose if deliberating as citizens oriented toward the common good, not the aggregate of their private interests
• C. No — only unanimous votes express the general will
• D. Yes — any legitimate democratic process produces the general will by definition

Answer: (B)

Rousseau explicitly distinguishes the 'will of all' (volonté de tous) — the aggregate of individual preferences, including selfish ones — from the general will (volonté générale), which is what citizens would choose if oriented toward the common good rather than private benefit. A majority voting for lower taxes at the expense of public education may simply be aggregating self-interest. The general will emerges when citizens deliberate as citizens — asking 'what is good for the community?' rather than 'what do I want?' This is why Rousseau is skeptical of factionalism: organized interest groups corrupt the general will by mobilizing private interest at scale.

Question 2

What most sharply distinguishes Rousseau's social contract from Hobbes's?

• A. Rousseau believed humans are naturally violent; Hobbes believed they are naturally cooperative
• B. In Hobbes, subjects transfer freedom to an external sovereign; in Rousseau, citizens collectively legislate and obey laws they give themselves, making law and freedom compatible
• C. Rousseau required a monarch to enforce the contract; Hobbes preferred democracy
• D. Rousseau's theory applied only to small city-states; Hobbes's was meant for large kingdoms

Answer: (B)

The fundamental difference is the destination of surrendered freedom. For Hobbes, individuals hand their freedom to a sovereign (Leviathan) who stands above the contract; subjects obey not because the law is theirs but because the sovereign enforces it. For Rousseau, there is no external sovereign — citizens collectively are both the authors and subjects of the law. When citizens deliberate and legislate in accordance with the general will, obeying that law is not submission to another's will but self-governance. This is what Rousseau calls 'moral freedom': not doing whatever you want, but acting according to rules you have given yourself.

Question 3

According to Rousseau, a citizen can be both free and subject to law if that law was made in accordance with the general will.

• T. True
• F. False

Answer: True

This is the central paradox Rousseau resolves with the general will. Ordinary freedom (doing whatever one wants) is license, not genuine freedom. Moral freedom — Rousseau's term — is acting according to rules one has collectively authored. When citizens deliberate as citizens and produce law oriented toward the common good, obeying that law is not submission but self-determination. You are obeying yourself. The paradox dissolves because the 'you' who obeys is the same 'you' who legislated. This is the philosophical foundation of popular sovereignty: law is legitimate when it comes from the people, not when it is imposed on them.

Question 4

Rousseau's 'general will' is equivalent to the majority opinion of the population on any given political question.

• T. True
• F. False

Answer: False

Rousseau explicitly separates these concepts. The 'will of all' is the majority opinion — the sum of individual preferences. The 'general will' is what citizens would will if deliberating as citizens oriented toward the common good. These can diverge substantially. A majority might collectively prefer policies that harm minorities, redistribute wealth for short-term gain, or prioritize private convenience over shared institutions. The general will, by contrast, aims at what is genuinely good for the political community as a whole. Majority rule is a procedure; the general will is a substantive standard. This distinction is what makes Rousseau both inspiring and dangerous.

Question 5

Explain the tension in Rousseau's claim that citizens who vote against the general will can be 'forced to be free.' What does this reveal about the general will concept, and why has it proven politically dangerous?

Model answer: Rousseau's claim presupposes that the general will can be known independently of individual votes — that some authority can identify what citizens 'really' want as citizens, as opposed to what they actually expressed. If a citizen votes against the general will, they are mistaken about their own true interests as a member of the political community; compelling them to comply 'forces' them into the freedom they would have chosen if reasoning correctly. The danger is that this logic licenses any authority that claims to know the general will to override individual dissent. The Jacobins during the French Terror used precisely this reasoning: enemies of the Republic were enemies of the people's real will, and eliminating them was an act of liberation. Any theory that locates the 'real' will somewhere other than expressed consent is vulnerable to this authoritarian inversion.

This passage reveals the fundamental ambiguity in Rousseau: is the general will discovered through actual deliberation, or is it a standard against which deliberation is judged? If the former, it's democratic; if the latter, someone must judge — and that judge can always claim to speak for the real people against the actual people. This tension runs through modern populism: leaders who claim to speak for 'the people' against 'the establishment' are often invoking a Rousseauian logic.