Rethinking the Social Contract(2): On the Concept of the General Will in Rousseau

Introduction

The concept of the general will (volonté générale), as presented by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) in The Social Contract (1762), is widely regarded as his response to the question of what constitutes a legitimate foundation for law among citizens. It continues to occupy a central place in contemporary legal and political philosophy.

Yet because Rousseau himself provides only abstract accounts of the general will, even today there is no clear consensus as to what the general will actually entails in concrete terms — nor, more specifically, how it differs from the so-called will of all (volonté de tous, to be discussed later).

In this regard, one of Rousseau’s contemporaries, David Hume (1711–1776), may provide a useful point of reference for understanding the general will. This is because Rousseau’s notion of the general will, as I read him, appears to share a conceptual affinity with Hume’s idea of convention.

Both thinkers, I suggest, regarded convention as the supreme legitimate basis for issuing commands to others. When viewed from this perspective, the “mystery” surrounding the general will, begins to dissolve.

……This second part of the essay takes up the challenge of rethinking Rousseau’s general will in light of Hume’s convention. In doing so, I hope to clarify what Rousseau ultimately sought to achieve in The Social Contract.

Let us now turn to the main body of the argument.

*Note: Hume’s terms “convention” and “human conventions” refer to spontaneous and tacit consensus that are not consciously constructed. For a detailed discussion, see the previous page.

Rousseau’s Definition of the General Will

Let us begin by briefly reviewing how Rousseau defines the general will. In The Social Contract, Rousseau asserts that all laws must be grounded in the general will (§2.2). He then offers the following abstract characterization of the general will:

A. The general will is that which is free from all particular interests or factional bias. (§2.2, §2.3)
B. The general will must not be confused with the will of all, which is the sum of particular wills. (§2.3)

Let us briefly consider what each point involves.

A expresses what is often referred to as the principle of generality or neutrality in law. The idea is this: laws are instruments of constraint, but if they are determined by the interests of the majority, they will inevitably result in unjust oppression of the minority. Therefore, to qualify as laws among equal citizens, they must be impartial — that is, they must be grounded in the general will.

B represents Rousseau’s warning that the general will must not be conflated with the will of all, which represents the aggregate of particular wills — that is, private or self-interested aims. The will of all appears to arise through a kind of majority vote; but because majority decisions necessarily involve partisan division (since any majority decision necessarily entails a dissenting minority), they cannot express the general will. In this sense, point B may also be understood as a logical consequence of A.

……That said, Rousseau’s account remains abstract. While we may grasp the general thrust of his argument, certain questions remain:
・What, concretely, does it mean for a will to be “free of faction”?
・And in what substantive sense does the general will differ from the will of all?

As we continue through The Social Contract, we encounter numerous additional statements concerning the general will. (The following are listed in no particular order and represent paraphrased text — not direct quotations — drawn from various passages throughout The Social Contract.)

a. All members of society must surrender their rights to the community and be placed under the supreme direction of the general will. (§1.6)

b. Members are to be compelled to obey the general will. (§1.7)

c. Sovereignty is defined as the collective power exercised in accordance with the general will. (§2.1, §2.4)

d. Citizens (citoyens) are at once sovereigns (souverain) who participate in acts of sovereignty, and subjects (sujets) who are bound by those acts. (§1.6)

e. The general will cannot be represented. Deputies are not representatives of the general will. (§2.1, §3.15)

f. Laws must be enacted in accordance with the general will. (§2.2)

g. The legislature is bound by the general will. Legislators are not true representatives, but merely commissioners tasked with giving form to the sovereign’s general will. (§3.15)   (This is a critique of the British system of parliamentary sovereignty, in which the sovereign people are respected only during elections and then ignored.)

h. Sovereignty can neither be divided nor transferred. (§2.1, §2.2)

j. The general will is always right and tends toward the public good (l'utilité publique). It attends solely to the common interest (intérêt commun). (§2.1, §2.3, §2.6)

k. Since the general will is what everyone already thinks, it need only be voiced. Eloquence is unnecessary. (§4.1)

m. The general will is indestructible. (§4.1)

⁉️ Wait — the general will is always right and tends toward the public good?   And so people are supposed to hand over all their rights to the community and simply obey the general will? ⁉️

...Taken at face value, these passages suggest that the general will is an astonishingly convenient idea — but what exactly is it? How is it to be identified in reality? On these crucial points, Rousseau remains frustratingly vague. Interpretations of the general will vary widely as a result.

Now, before presenting my own reading, let us first review an often observed interpretation.

(I) The Modernist Interpretation

The general will is sometimes understood as something that emerges from rational deliberation among autonomous individuals. According to this view, the general will is the point of agreement that remains once all particular interests have been canceled out or neutralized through discussion.(*1) In other words, it is discovered through reasoned debate aimed at identifying non-partisan common ground.

……We shall refer to this kind of view as the modernist interpretation of the general will.

However, under this interpretation, the distinction between the general will and the will of all — though formally clear — remains practically ambiguous. More fundamentally, one cannot help but wonder: is it really possible to arrive at a point of non-partisan agreement through deliberation? For example, can opponents and proponents of abortion ever be expected to reach any kind of consensus through discussion? This seems unlikely, if not impossible.

Moreover, it is doubtful whether this modernist reading can fully account for the range of Rousseau’s claims from (a) to (m). Take, for instance, point (k): “The general will need only be voiced; eloquence is unnecessary.” That hardly aligns with a model that treats rational deliberation as its foundation.

(II) The Anti-Modernist Interpretation (Humean Interpretation)

By contrast, I propose to interpret the general will as equivalent to convention — that is, a tacit and self-evident consensus that arises spontaneously from human logic or human nature.

……Let us refer to this as the anti-modernist interpretation of the general will.

I adopt this (II) anti-modernist interpretation because it provides a more coherent account of Rousseau’s intent.

What Is the General Will?

At the beginning of The Social Contract §1.2, Rousseau offers the following explanation:

Parents have a duty to care for their children, and children have a duty to obey their parents. Once the children grow up, this natural bond dissolves. Nevertheless, a certain connection often continues — not by nature, but volontairement. The family is maintained solely by convention. It is the oldest and most natural form of society. (Paraphrased from §1.2) **

Let us focus on two key terms used in this passage:

・volontairement
・convention

The term convention also carries the meaning of “custom.” So, if the term is interpreted in conjunction with volontairement, the passage may be understood as follows:

The family is a spontaneously sustained human relationship — that is, one maintained not by force but voluntarily — which persists even after children attain independence. This is because human beings, as biological creatures, possess an innate disposition to preserve certain interpersonal bonds. This volontaire (voluntary) tendency, rooted in human nature, becomes established as a convention — that is, a tacit and self-evident social custom.

(Here, the term “disposition” refers to a psychological tendency that cannot be changed through conscious effort — a trait grounded in human nature. → **)

Now, after this somewhat lengthy preamble, let us turn our attention to the original French term for the general will: volonté générale.

If we consider that volonté (will) and volontairement (voluntarily) share the same Latin root — voluntas — we may interpret volonté générale not merely as “general will,” but as “general spontaneity” or “general disposition to act.”
Moreover, given the parallel in §1.2, where convention is described as being grounded in volontairement, it is not unreasonable to see convention as grounded in volonté générale. That is, we may understand the volonté générale as human disposition*, or as its social expression (i.e., convention). *This disposition may also be viewed as a form of human logic — a spontaneous pattern of judgment grounded in human nature.

For convenience, then, let us treat the volonté générale as effectively equivalent to human conventions. That is, we will simply read the volonté générale as convention — in the sense of a tacit, self-evident social order grounded in human logic. While this interpretive step simplifies matters, it allows us to make coherent sense of both A and B, as well as the many statements listed in (a) through (m).

(The reason for this reading is that Rousseau himself appears to use the volonté générale in both senses — sometimes to mean human logic, and at other times to refer to socially shared conventions. For our purposes, I suggest we read the volonté générale as equivalent to convention in the Humean sense.)

(A fuller justification for this equation — volonté générale ≒ convention — will be provided later [→Supplementary Note]. For now, let us proceed on this basis and test whether the interpretation holds.)

On that reading, for instance, passage (d) — “citizens are at once sovereigns and subjects” — can be interpreted as follows. Individuals, as souverain, possess the authority to define the general will (that is, convention), while at the same time they are sujets (subjects) who are compelled to obey that very general will (convention).

Similarly, in passages (a) through (d) and (f), we may interpret Rousseau’s claims as follows: we, as members of society, are understood to have transferred to the courts the authority to adjudicate rights — such as property — that arise through the general will (i.e., convention), and we are likewise compelled to obey the decisions rendered by those courts in accordance with the law (i.e., the general will).

(Indeed, do we not already accept all of this without resistance in our daily lives? Why? Because it is grounded in the general will.)

And we can also better understand the meaning of passage (j) — that the general will is “always right” and “tends toward the public good” (l'utilité publique) — by considering the following.

Take, for instance, ideas such as “property arises from first occupancy,” “murder is a graver offense than theft,” or “the scope and form of marriage and kinship relations.” We generally feel no need to debate, negotiate, or vote on such matters.

This is because they reflect conventions — expressions of a fundamental consensus of human judgment — and are so self-evident that discussion seems unnecessary. If something is so self-evident to human beings that it requires no deliberation — that is, it constitutes an instance of the general will (i.e., convention) — then codifying it into law to ensure its stability is “always right” and, just in this sense,“ tends toward the public good.”

In this way, the general will (convention) arises precisely where humans agree without partisanship — that is, where their judgments align self-evidently (Übereinstimmung). It is in this sense that the general will can be said to tend toward the realization of the common good (intérêt commun). (For those who would like further clarification, see the “Supplementary Note” below.)

Furthermore, because such a general will (i.e., convention) is something everyone already agrees upon as a matter of course, it “need only be voiced” and “eloquence is unnecessary” (→k). Since it is self-evidently shared by all, there is no need for anyone to “represent” it (→e). Seen in this light, we can also better understand why the general will — that is, a form of general spontaneity — is fundamentally different in kind (or dimension) from the will of all, which is merely a sum of particular wills (→B). *2

★Supplementary Note: Further Grounds for Interpreting the General Will as Equivalent to Convention

Additional Textual Basis for the Affinity Between Volonté Générale and Convention — “volonté qui détermine l’acte”

In the main text, I discussed the conceptual affinity between volonté générale and convention by analyzing the wording of §1.2. Here, I would like to introduce an additional textual basis for this interpretation.

In §3.1 of The Social Contract, Rousseau uses the phrase “volonté qui détermine l'acte” (will that determines the act). He follows this with an illustrative example: “j'y veuille aller” (I want to go there), where veuille corresponds to the English want. In this context, Rousseau is explaining that volonté refers to a kind of desire or impulse (veuille) that gives rise to an action (l'acte).

Now, French has two different words for “decide” or “determine”: décider and déterminer. The former (décider) implies a conscious choice made among multiple options — a deliberate decision based on reasoning or preference.
In contrast, déterminer is used in contexts where an action is shaped or constrained by factors beyond deliberate choice — such as physical conditions, psychological tendencies, or innate dispositions — under which the outcome arises spontaneously, without conscious decision. In this sense, the result is, to some extent, fixed. For example: “He was so inspired by the moon landing that he was determined (déterminé) to become an astronaut”; or, “The room size determines (déterminé) the maximum number of people.”

Suppose I find myself, for no particular reason, strongly wanting (veuille) to eat gyudon (beef bowl) early in the morning. In this case, my decision to go to a gyudon shop at lunchtime is not the result of a rational choice made from among ramen, curry, or other alternatives. Rather, the action (l'acte) is determined — driven by an internal, unchosen inclination. My action is not décidé, but déterminé.

In this sense, volonté refers to that which internally fixes or determines human action — something not consciously chosen or deliberated, but arising from within.

Thus, if we understand volonté as something that determines (or fixes) human action, we can coherently connect this to the interpretation offered in §1.2 — namely, that the family relationship continues to exist (i.e., fixed, determined) as convention because it is sustained by “volontairement.”

Under this understanding, the volonté générale may be read as a kind of “general spontaneity” — one that arises from human logic and that determines stabilized social practices, or conventions. As shown in the main text, this interpretation of the volonté générale — namely, as equivalent to convention — makes Rousseau’s concept both coherent and meaningful.

The General Will and Convention: Their Affinity Seen Through the Idea of the Public Good

Rousseau’s assertion that “the general will is always right and tends toward the public good (intérêt commun)” (→j) may at first appear elusive. However, a similar idea can be found in Hume’s A Treatise of Human Nature, which may shed light on Rousseau’s intended meaning.

To begin with, in §3.2.2 of the Treatise, Hume uses the term “common interest” and explains that this shared interest forms the basis of convention (→ see §The Difference Between Convention and Promise).

Further, in §3.3.1 of the Treatise, Hume discusses virtue in society. Loosely summarized: just as the notions of property and justice originate in voluntary convention (→ see previous page) — that is, in human logic — so too does virtue. Though artificial in the sense that it is a product of human practice, virtue nevertheless arises spontaneously and self-evidently. For this reason, Hume argues, virtue naturally tends to align with the good of society, in much the same way as property and justice do. This point can be illustrated by the following reflection:

— We tend to feel pleasure toward honest individuals — and pain toward those who lie. But this emotional response could easily have been reversed. Why, then, has honesty come to be regarded as a virtue that evokes pleasure in human beings? The likely answer is that communities composed of individuals who refrained from lying were more likely to survive.

Diligence in itself is often unpleasant, but we tend to view diligence as a moral virtue — one that elicits a sense of pleasure — precisely because societies with a higher proportion of diligent individuals were more likely to survive. In this way, our tendency to feel pleasure toward honesty or diligence has been shaped through both biological and cultural evolution.

If we consider the general will in the same way we have considered virtue, we can better grasp what it means to say that the general will “tends toward the public good.” This is not to claim that the general will invariably moves in the direction of absolute truth or objective correctness. Rather, it means that the direction people spontaneously recognize as self-evident — that is, as one associated with pleasure — naturally coincides with the direction they regard as morally good or virtuous.

In this sense, the general will necessarily tends toward the realization of the public good.

By reading Hume and Rousseau side by side in this way, we can better grasp both the meaning and the underlying mechanism behind Rousseau’s claim that the general will “tends toward the public good.” Their textual similarities help reveal the underlying affinity between convention and volonté générale.

Now justice is a moral virtue, merely because it has that tendency to the good of mankind; and, indeed, is nothing but an artificial invention to that purpose. The same may be said of allegiance, of the laws of nations, of modesty, and of good-manners. （§3.3.1）

That many of the natural virtues have this tendency to the good of society, no one can doubt of. （§3.3.1）

The whole scheme, however, of law and justice is advantageous to the society; and it was with a view to this advantage, that men, by their voluntary conventions, established it. （§3.3.1）

Incidentally, The idea that the general will coincides with the public good appears already at the very beginning of The Social Contract as well.

I wish to examine whether, in the civil order, there can be some legitimate and reliable rule of administration, by taking men as they are and laws as they can be. In this inquiry, I will always try to reconcile what right (droit) permits with what interest (intérêt) prescribes, so that justice and utility (utilité) are not found to be in conflict.（The Social Contract, §1.1）

One of the central aims of The Social Contract is to show that even in the absence of monarchs or divine (i.e., ecclesiastical) guidance, human beings can nonetheless construct a just and orderly society — not through external coercion, but by simply following their own nature. That is, as long as each individual attends to both their own utility (utilité) and the interest (intérêt) of society as a whole, justice (justice, droit) and utility need not stand in conflict; rather, they can be brought into harmonious consensus. Rousseau states this objective at the very outset of the text.

(Another central theme of the work — as discussed in the main text — is to resolve the question of what constitutes a legitimate standard of coercive authority in a society of equal individuals. The first part of the quotation above refers precisely to this issue.)

The Significance of an Anti-Modernist Interpretation of the General Will

As we have seen, Rousseau’s claims begin to make coherent sense if we adopt an anti-modernist (or Humean) interpretation of the general will — that is, if we take it to mean a shared human disposition that gives rise to convention, or simply equate it with convention itself.

The general will is not something discovered through democratic deliberation (→ see (I) The Modernist Interpretation).

Rousseau held that those who prevail — whether in war or in debate — do not thereby acquire rights, that is, the legitimate power to compel others. Anything subject to the fluctuations of fortune — such as force or dominance — cannot serve as a stable foundation for universal (i.e., general) human rights (→ §The Principle of Authority and Loyalty). The same logic holds for victory in discussion or deliberation as well. *3

In Rousseau’s time, monarchs and the Church — that is, the victors — unilaterally imposed laws and moral codes upon the people. Rousseau’s theory of the general will was an attempt to address the following question: If equal citizens are to exercise coercive authority — not through force — what, then, can serve as a legitimate standard for doing so?

Thus, Rousseau regarded the general will as the sole legitimate foundation of coercive authority — that is, of rights — within an egalitarian civil society.

As Hume observed, people tend to obey voluntary conventions (→ §The Principle of Authority and Loyalty). Rousseau held that only commands grounded in the general will — that is, volonté générale, understood as a voluntary convention — can serve as a legitimate basis for coercive authority among equal citizens without violating their mutual freedom. An example would be a command such as “recognize property rights based on prior occupation.”

As long as coercion is exercised in accordance with the general will, people do not experience it as coercion. This is because the general will is also “their own will” (leur propre volonté, §2.4). Accordingly, Rousseau described the state of obeying only the general will as one in which “... by which each person, in uniting with all, nevertheless obeys only himself, and remains as free as before” (par laquelle chacun s'unissant à tous, n'obéisse pourtant qu'à lui-même & reste aussi libre qu'auparavant, §1.6).

(★ Recall the example from §Rousseau’s Use of Convention: Gian, acting on his particular will, takes the marble that Nobita had found — that is, had first occupied. But even Gian, deep down, recognizes that his act is unjust. In other words, this recognition is part of his general will. That is why, when he ends up in jail, Gian accepts the punishment as legitimate. In this sense, Gian is not a “slave” dominated by another, but remains, in Rousseau’s sense, “free.”)

Thus, Rousseau saw the general will — that is, convention — as the true foundation of legitimate rights and social order within civil society. According to my reading, this view is most succinctly expressed in a passage found in §1.1 of The Social Contract (see next section).

What The Social Contract Ultimately Aimed to Achieve — A Provisional Summary

In general, the term “social contract” is generally assumed to mean that the foundations of order and rights are derived from explicit “agreement.” (→ I)

However, for Rousseau — as for Hume — social order and rights do not originate in the conscious and deliberate agreement of individuals. Rather, they are grounded in spontaneous and largely unconscious conventions (≒ general will), which are woven into being through ongoing processes of social interaction and shared consensus in judgment (Übereinstimmung). (→ II)

But the social order is a sacred right which serves as the basis of all other rights (droit). Yet this right does not come from nature; it is therefore founded on conventions. The question is: what are these conventions? (The Social Contract, §1.1)

The family is maintained solely by convention. It is the oldest and most natural form of society. (Paraphrased from in §1.2) (**)

Since no man has natural authority over another, and since force produces no right (droit), it follows that only conventions can serve as the basis of all legitimate authority among men.（§1.4）

The essence of the social contract may be summarized as follows: that each of us entrusts our person and all our powers to the supreme direction of the general will. (Paraphrased from §1.6）

★ One major source of misunderstanding lies in the tendency to interpret convention(s) as “promise” or “agreement”.

(This issue also arises in Japanese, where similar mistranslations have been common.)

The conventions that appear in §§1.1–1.4 are sometimes read as referring to “promises” or explicit agreements. Since these passages appear at the very beginning of The Social Contract, this reading can lead one to assume, quite naturally — but mistakenly — lead one to assume that Rousseau’s theory is founded on the idea that rights and social order are based on deliberate promises (contract) made by autonomous individuals. However, this is a misreading.

As explained in the main text, if the general will (volonté générale) can be understood as equivalent to convention, then it is reasonable to read the following:
The actual contract (pacte social) in Rousseau’s theory is not about explicit promising — whether concerning human relations or rights — but about aligning oneself with the general will (i.e., convention, described in §1.4 as “legitimate authority”), as described in §1.6.

In a civil society where individuals are not ruled unilaterally by God (the Church) or by a monarch, but instead govern themselves as equals, any legitimate basis for coercive authority — especially law — must ultimately rest on the general will. That is, it must be grounded in conventions that have become self-evident by being tacitly embedded in the shared practices of human life. This is the core argument of Rousseau’s theory of the social contract.

(Additional Reason 1) If convention referred to a conscious promise, then Rousseau’s statement that “it is a matter of knowing what these conventions are” (Il s'agit de savoir quelles sont ces conventions, §1.1) would be incoherent. After all, if a promise were truly conscious and explicit, there would be no need to “know” what it is at all.
It is precisely because convention does not refer to a conscious agreement, but rather to a tacit and unreflective consensus, that the problem arises — namely, that we must first identify, or become aware of, what these conventions are in order to codify them into law.

(Additional Reason 2) As Hume pointed out, there is no such thing as a promise that exists independently of convention (→ §The Difference Between Convention and Promise). In relationships such as the family as well, it is spontaneously formed conventions — not any isolated or prior act of promising — that come first. Rousseau’s use of convention in The Social Contract reflects a foundational insight into the structure of rights and social order. To translate this term as “promise” is therefore both misleading and inappropriate.

Hume and Rousseau share a common aim: the construction of a society grounded in human conventions — a society neutral with respect to any pre-given hierarchy.

Hume) As explained on the previous page, Hume did not ground social order and rights in promises, but in conventions. He regarded conventions as arising naturally (or spontaneously) from human nature — that is, as self-evident patterns of behavior that exert an internal constraint on individuals and thus serve as a legitimate basis for order and rights. Promises, by contrast, carry no binding force in themselves and therefore cannot serve as such a foundation.

Rousseau) Rousseau, similarly, grounded the legitimacy of coercive force — especially law — in the general will (≒ convention), as he regarded it as the only possible standard by which coercion could be justified without subjecting citizens to domination by others.

However, despite Rousseau’s original intent, the concept becomes distorted: under the name of the general will, citizens come to rule over one another.

(Related essay)
Avoiding the Tyranny of the Majority: The Role of Convention in Rousseau’s Social Contract

The Misuse of the “General Will” — The French Revolution

Article 6 of the so-called “Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen” (1789), also known as the French Declaration of Human Rights, contains the following statement:

The law is the expression of the general will. (La Loi est l'expression de la volonté générale.)

This line is a direct appropriation of Rousseau’s principle that laws must be grounded in the general will (→f). However, when the Jacobins later invoked the idea of the general will, it was used to justify coercion in the name of collective authority. As a result, Rousseau came to be seen as a precursor of totalitarianism — a reading advanced by thinkers such as Hannah Arendt.

But as we have seen, what Rousseau actually meant by the general will was something closer to convention — that is, something tacit and self-evident, which individuals do not experience as coercive.

Why, then, did a reign of terror such as the Jacobin dictatorship emerge — a development entirely at odds with Rousseau’s theory of the general will?

Interestingly, Rousseau himself seems to have anticipated this very possibility. Let us conclude by examining a passage from §4.1.

Partisanship — What Makes a “Unjust Law” Possible

§4.1 On the Indestructibility of the General Will (Que la volonté générale est indestructible)

(1) As long as a group of individuals regards itself as a single body, it possesses but one will, directed toward the common preservation and the general well-being. In such a state, all the mechanisms of government are vigorous and simple; its principles are clear and luminous; it has no tangled or contradictory interests; the common good reveals itself everywhere with clarity and requires only good sense to be perceived. Peace, unity, and equality are enemies of political subtlety. Honest and straightforward people are hard to deceive precisely because of their simplicity: refined tricks and pretexts have no effect on them; they are not even cunning enough to be duped.

(2) A state governed in this way has little need for laws. And when the promulgation of new laws does become necessary, this necessity is universally recognized. The first person to propose such a law merely gives voice to what everyone has already felt. There is no need for intrigue or eloquence to pass into law what each individual has already resolved to do — so long as he is assured that the others will do the same.

(3) But when the social bond begins to loosen and the state to grow weak; when particular interests begin to assert themselves and small associations begin to influence the larger whole; the common interest becomes corrupted and encounters opposition; unanimity no longer prevails in the vote; the general will (volonté générale) is no longer the will of all (volonté de tous); contradictions and debates arise, and even the best proposal cannot pass without dispute.

(4) Finally, when the state, on the brink of collapse, survives only through an empty and hollow form; when the social bond is broken in every heart, and the basest interests shamelessly dress themselves in the sacred name of the public good — then the general will falls silent. All are guided by hidden motives, and no one votes as a citizen any more than if the state had never existed. What are falsely passed off as laws are in fact unjust decrees that serve only particular interests.

Let us turn to the title of §4.1: “On the Indestructibility of the General Will.”

Suppose, for example, that citizens are swayed by political maneuvering and eloquence — that is, by rhetorical gamesmanship — and end up voting in favor of “communism,” a form of partisanship that denies private property.
Even in such a case, the general will — the shared sense that one naturally deserves compensation for one’s labor — does not vanish from people’s hearts.

The general will is grounded in a natural human disposition and cannot be altered arbitrarily. This is what it means to say that the general will is indestructible. Institutions that contradict it ultimately collapse. What goes against the general will is nothing more than an unjust decree, and it must not be mistakenly enacted as law.

Rousseau’s remark that “honest and simple people are hard to deceive” is intended as praise. People of straightforward character do not engage in convoluted reasoning; instead, they trust their common sense — they simply voice what they have already felt. For this reason, they are not easily fooled by clever rationalizations, no matter how eloquently delivered.

The Jacobins — like the communists — claimed to represent the general will through rhetoric, even though, by its nature, the general will simply cannot be represented (→ e). Under the banner of this supposed will, they imposed a reign of terror aligned with their own partisan agenda. (→*3)

Indeed, Rousseau’s account in §4.1 appears almost prophetic — anticipating not only the Jacobin dictatorship and communism, but also the rise of certain contemporary forms of political correctness as a new mode of ideological coercion.

Note — The General Will and Justice

There is no standard of justice in any domain where the general will — that is, self-evidence — does not exist. The following passage may serve as a helpful point of reference.

The engagements that bind us to the social body are obligatory only because they are mutual; and their nature is such that, in fulfilling them, one cannot act for others without also acting for oneself. Why is the general will always right (droite), and why does everyone consistently will the happiness of each, if not because no one fails to appropriate the word each to himself, and no one votes for all without thinking of himself?

What this shows is that equality of rights, and the very notion of justice it generates, derives from the preference each person gives to himself — and therefore from human nature. For the general will, in order to be truly such, must be general not only in its essence but also in its object — it must issue from all and apply to all. It loses its natural rectitude when it is directed toward any individual and determinate object, for in that case, judging something external to ourselves, we lack any true principle of equity to guide us.

Indeed, as soon as a matter concerns a particular fact or individual right — one not already settled by a general and prior convention — it becomes contentious. It is a case in which the private individuals concerned constitute one party, and the public constitutes the other. But in such a case I see neither the law that ought to be followed nor the judge who ought to decide. It would be absurd to appeal to an explicit decision of the general will — for in such cases this “general will” can only be the conclusion drawn by one of the parties, and therefore, for the other, it is merely a particular and foreign will, inclined in this instance toward injustice and prone to error. (The Social Contract, §2.4)

Why Do We Obey the Law?

We do not obey the law because the state coerces us with the threat of punishment; we obey it because it appears self-evident to us.
Laws such as “the first possessor has property rights,” “murder is more serious than theft,” or “marriage and kinship relations exist” strike us as self-evident truths. What makes us submit to the law is precisely this quality of self-evidence.

We are not compelled externally to obey the law; rather, we obey volontairement — by our own will. This is because the general will — and the law as its expression — arises wherever there is a natural convergence of judgment among human beings. It is something self-evident, like a language game(*4).

As long as a law accords with the general will, we are — both by definition and in practice — not subject to the domination of anyone. This is why laws must be enacted in accordance with the general will. It is this principle that lies at the very heart of what Rousseau sought to establish through the concept of the general will.

From this idea, one sees immediately that there is no longer any need to ask: who has the right to make laws — since they are acts of the general will; or whether the prince is above the laws — since he is a member of the state; or whether a law can be unjust — since no one is unjust toward himself; or how one can be both free and subject to the laws — since they are nothing but the record of our own wills. （§2.6）

(The abortion issue, for example, is a conflict not at the level of the general will, but between particular wills or rival wills of all; and if no compromise is possible, then the only solution may be to live separately.) *5

Conclusion

As we have seen, the concept of the general will can be better understood by adopting an anti-modernist — that is, Humean — interpretation, rather than the prevailing modernist one.

The general will (volonté générale), as we have argued throughout, is nothing other than an expression of human logic — of human nature itself. We obey the law because it is grounded in a general will that arises voluntarily.

As we saw earlier in the discussion of how the right to property arises (→ previous page), the laws of civil society exist to protect human conventions. The very essence of law lies in its as the preserver of our intuitive sense of right — that is, the general will. A law that violates this human sense is, in its essence, unjust.

Law must never be enacted on the basis of sheer numerical advantage. A law passed by a majority — by the victors — is not the law of equal citizens, but rather the law imposed by masters upon slaves (→ §The Principle of Authority and Loyalty). Except in domains where no general will exists (such as the setting of tax rates), any law that contravenes the general will — and is passed through rhetorical manipulation and majority vote — lacks legitimacy. (→*3)

Rousseau’s Social Contract does not envision a society in which individuals consciously “agree” on the terms of their collective life — that is, a promise-based contractual society, as it is commonly imagined.

The “contract” Rousseau speaks of does not consist in each individual making a separate promise. Rather, it consists in “the total surrender of each person and all his powers to the supreme direction of the general will” (§1.6 → a). As we have seen, the general will arises not from individual will or discretion, but from the self-evident practice of citizens (Citoyens) — that is, from convention.

Contrary to the image evoked by the word “contract,” Rousseau’s Social Contract aims at a natural society founded not on conscious agreement, but on the unconscious, self-evident consensus (Übereinstimmung) that constitutes the general will.

And this definition of the citizen in The Social Contract offers a powerful insight into the nature of the modern nation-state.

To become a member of a nation does not require any act of conscious promise. It is not, for instance, a verbal declaration of “loyalty to the state,” as is practiced in countries like the United States.
In Rousseau’s theory, the citizen (Citoyen=Sovereign&Sujet) is one who voluntarily accepts the foundational principles — that is, the conventions or general will — that constitute the state. *6

There is only one law which by its very nature requires unanimous consent: the social pact. For civil association is the most voluntary of all acts. (§4.2)

If, therefore, there are dissenters at the moment of the social pact, their opposition does not invalidate the contract; it merely means that they are not included in it. They are foreigners (étrangers) among the citizens. Once the state has been established, consent is implied by residence; to live within the territory is to submit to sovereignty. (§4.2)

[Fin]

*1) The expression used here — that the general will is what remains after discussion has canceled out all partisan positions — is my interpretive summary of a passage in The Social Contract, §2.3: “But take away from these same wills the pluses and minuses that cancel each other out, and what remains, as the sum of the differences, is the general will.”(mais ôtez de ces mêmes volontés les plus et les moins qui sʼentredétruisent, reste pour somme des différences la volonté générale.)
Now, if we take Rousseau’s wording literally — that the general will emerges through the canceling out of particular wills — then we are left with the conclusion that particular wills and the general will belong to the same dimension. But this seems inconsistent with Rousseau’s own definition, according to which the general will and the will of all are qualitatively different in kind.
In light of this, the next section, “(II) The Anti-Modernist Interpretation,” deliberately avoids adhering strictly to Rousseau’s phrasing and instead takes a decisive step in separating the relevant dimensions. The general will is interpreted not as an agreement within the dimension of “individual opinions” — the dimension to which both particular wills and the will of all belong — but rather as an consensus situated one level higher: the dimension of “human logic.” (→ *2)

*2) For example, disputes over who a particular object belongs to — based on arbitrary claims or competing lines of reasoning — are expressions of particular wills or the will of all. In contrast, the general will refers to a non-partisan, self-evident consensus regarding the underlying conditions that determine the right of ownership in the first place.
Consider how we spontaneously and self-evidently accept certain conditions as valid grounds for the acquisition of property — such as prior occupation, prescription (i.e., long use), accession (i.e., natural increase), and inheritance (→ cf. Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, §3.2.3). It is important to note that this recognition involves no partisanship whatsoever.
Thus, the general will belongs to a different dimension from that of particular wills or the will of all.

*3) This relates to the problem commonly known as the “tyranny of the majority,” which I have examined in a related paper: Avoiding the Tyranny of the Majority: Convention in Rousseau’s Social Contract §1.5.

*4) In the context of language-game theory, the act of following something self-evident is expressed as follows:
　　“When I follow a rule, I do not choose. I follow the rule blindly.”
　　[Wenn ich der Regel folge, wähle ich nicht. Ich folge der Regel blind.]
　　(Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, §219)
Here, the term “rule” may be understood as equivalent to “convention” in the present context.
For a more detailed discussion of language-game theory, see the related essay listed below.

*5) As explained in Note: The General Will and Justice, justice presupposes the presence of a general will — that is, a domain of non-partisan, self-evident consensus(Übereinstimmung).
In disputes such as abortion, where such consensus is absent, no shared standard of justice can be said to exist. See also note *2 for comparison.

*6) Although the modern nation-state is a nineteenth-century invention and did not exist in Rousseau’s time, the criteria he identified for citizenship remain relevant today.
Japan, for example, can be seen as a nation-state formed by those who share a common historical consciousness — that is, the sense that “Japanese history is our history.” In this sense, Japanese citizenship is grounded in a general will, or convention, rooted in this shared awareness.

**) In the main text, I omitted a detailed explanation of Rousseau’s view of human nature, which may make the connection to Hume’s conception of human nature less apparent. However, Rousseau explicitly refers to human nature in §1.2, in the second paragraph — that is, immediately following his discussion of family bonds:
　　“This common liberty is a consequence of human nature.”
　　(Cette liberté commune est une conséquence de la nature de l'homme.)
The phrase “this common liberty” refers to the entire preceding paragraph, which describes the natural freedom found in the parent–child relationship.
In short, Rousseau is suggesting here that the family relationship arises volontairement — that is, spontaneously — from human nature, and thus constitutes a convention in his sense.
This bears a resemblance to Hume’s idea that conventions arise “artificially” — that is, through human interaction grounded in natural tendencies. In this respect, Rousseau’s and Hume’s views on human nature and convention appear to align in several important respects.

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(Japanese ver. @2021.10.3)