Rousseau’s Social Contract: Freedom and Equality in Society
Rousseau’s Philosophy: Freedom and Equality
Author: Rousseau participated in the cultural atmosphere of the Enlightenment and can be considered one of its most prominent representatives. However, his philosophy has important differences with the other Enlightenment philosophers. Enlightened society’s ideal result of rational progress to their peers who aspire. Rousseau was seen as a setback when setting up life in society. Social life is for man to develop their negative qualities against the natural state. In the natural state, man is complete and morally straight. Therefore, once instituted, society must consolidate on new principles to enhance the positive qualities that developed spontaneously in the natural state. The solution is the establishment of a social contract based on the common good, from which the general will emerge as the force capable of making it effective. The social pact is not a waiver of individual rights but rather a transformation of the individual into an active member of society. The consequence is that no human being is subjected to any other, but the laws are an expression of the general will.
Topic: Freedom and Equality in Rousseau’s Social Contract
The goal of every legal system consists of two things: freedom and equality.
Main Ideas:
- “The goal of all legislative systems consists of two main things: freedom and equality.”
- “Freedom is necessary because without it the state loses its strength.”
- “Equality is necessary because without it freedom cannot subsist.”
- “There is no need to understand that all have the same degree of power and wealth.”
- By equality, we must understand:
- a) Regarding power, that it is never engaged in violence, but under the laws.
- b) In terms of wealth, no citizen is so rich that they can buy another, and none is so poor as to be forced to sell themselves.
Understanding Rousseau’s Ideas on Freedom and Equality
This paper highlights the two fundamental values that must be based on any legal system: freedom and equality, stopping further to explain the second (equality). For Rousseau, all human beings are free and equal. Consequently, since human beings are good by nature, an unjust and oppressive society must give way to a new legal and legislative system that guarantees the freedom and equality of all men. In this sense, the author in this text presents the need for both values as the pillars of the proposed new political order: without freedom, the state loses its strength, its power and would be de-legitimized, and freedom without equality is not possible.
Then we clarify what we meant by equality. First, it does not mean that everyone has the same degree of power and wealth. Secondly, regarding power, it means that power is exercised according to law. Regarding wealth, it means that nobody is so rich or so poor as to consider another human being or oneself as a commodity, an object of purchase or sale.
In his work The Social Contract, Rousseau raises a possibility of moral regeneration of man and civilization through a contract or agreement to harmonize social and political freedom, the individual, and society. By the social contract, men freely associate and give a law to which subjects so they deliver their freedom and equality themselves. Thus the supply of natural liberty permits obtaining civil liberty they receive from the State and whose rule is law. All individuals will become members of society and individual wills are integrated into the general will, that is, the will of all citizens in a social and political body which aims at the common interest.