5 Lessons from Jean-Jacques Rousseau: On the Social Contract (5 Lessons from Great Thinkers Book 26)

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712 to 1778) was celebrated in the fields of music, literature, and political philosophy. In political philosophy, he is most famous for his work The Social Contract published in 1762 before the French Revolution, whose course the book influenced although Rousseau himself died before the revolution. The central political idea in the Social Contract is that only the assembled people are sovereign and are thus entitled to pass laws. The distinct role of government, as he defines government, is to apply those laws through executive or judicial officials. Rousseau thus rejected any form of representative legislature as part of the government, a view which many find impractical. He also favored small states as a result of his rejection of the typical representative legislature. But the central moral idea animating all his political theory is that the common good of all the people, which he famously called the general will, must guide all lawmaking and governance. He contrasts the general will to special interests or particular wills that look, not to the common good, but to the good of only a particular individual or a particular group of individuals. Rousseau remains relevant especially because of the influence of the social contract tradition in modern political philosophy. The renowned American political philosopher John Rawls (1921 to 2002) provided a classic of liberal political philosophy in the twentieth century based on the social contract tradition in which Rousseau plays a prominent role. Thus a reader familiar with Rousseau's Social Contract is better able to grasp the modern development of this important tradition in political philosophy. This book 5 Lessons from Jean-Jacques Rousseau: On the Social Contract takes readers on a tour of the various parts of the Social Contract to give them that familiarity with a still important current in political thought. Read more