Maximizing the Freedom

Qian Yin

Dr. Hélène Landemore

POLS0820D: Freedom

10 October 2008

 

In his work The Social Contract, Jean-Jacques Rousseau aims to design a society within which an individual gets protection from the State, while “obey[ing] only himself and remain as free as before” (50). The freedom he depicts in his theory, however, is considered by Isaiah Berlin as a conception associated with tyranny, which may be commonly understood to relate to an absolute and centralized rule as well as the people’s lack of freedom. While the approach Rousseau takes to construct the society may raise readers’ apprehensions of the generation of a tyranny, taking a more comprehensive and coherent view of the book, I understand it as an integral part of a theory which effectively diminishes the possibility of a tyranny, and ensures the rule of the people.

In his essay Two Concepts of Liberty, Berlin examines the idea that there could be “something wider than the individual” (9), and thus people could be coerced in the name of it. He then points out that such logic is often used to justify a tyrannical rule. So the general will in Rousseau’s theory, through which people are free, becomes the target of Berlin’s blame, because it is described as “always upright” (Rousseau 59), and the Sovereign Power that it directs, which controls the right of legitimacy, is “absolute, sacred, and inviolable” (Rousseau 63). Measured with Berlin’s argument, the general will, in the name of the only path leading to people’s real freedom, at a position so supreme and absolute as to be able to force an individual to obey it, carries a dangerous affinity with tyranny.

The defense against such blame, however, presents itself in Rousseau’s book, in his explanation of how the general will generates and operates. Let’s begin with the nature of the general will. It is defined as the intersection of the particular wills of all (60). Rousseau does not say explicitly how the general will comes into being, but judging from a footnote he gives: “for a will to be general, it is not always necessary that it be unanimous, but it is necessary that all votes be counted; any formal exclusion destroys generality” (58), it is determined by the suffrage of every member of the society, under the rule that “the majority decides”. A general will generated through this process covers the common interest of the majority of the people. Determined by the vote of every individual, it is not a supreme being that stands independently and high above the members of the society, but rather, closely associated with the will of each. It is the result of every individual’s own decision-making, in which he takes full consideration of his own interest. This eliminates the possibility that people obeying the general will are coerced by “an ultimately correct way of life”, or “an absolute truth”, which is supposedly generated by a wise man’s brain, as Berlin apprehends. Nor can a ruler use general will as a “supreme end” to shape the people’s life or oppress the people, since it has been recognized by the majority of them. Thus the tyranny of a dictator is out of question.

But even if it’s secured that the Sovereign is directed by the common will of the majority of the people, what about the minority who are forced by this absolute power to obey a decision that they have voted against? It would sound self-contradictory to claim that they gain freedom by doing so. Berlin points out this problem, that “the sovereignty of the people could easily destroy that of individuals” (26). In other words, Rousseau’s design of the Sovereign might turn out to be the tyranny of the majority.

To defend Rousseau against such charge, I shall begin with the legitimacy of the general will, which comes with the generation of the social contract. A man is born with the freedom to do whatever his own need calls him to. But to maintain this freedom without the least constrain, he has to live solely on his own. Even the simplest cooperation with another would require a reconciliation that would flaw that perfect freedom. But at some point of history, when “the obstacles that interfere with their preservation in the state of nature prevail by their resistance over the forces which each individual can muster to maintain himself in that state” (Rousseau 49), when the costs of preservation of such freedom excesses the benefits of living completely independently, men form a society to live with each other in a better way. It is on the basis of this common interest that they enter the social contract. By doing so, a man essentially gives up the natural freedom in trade of a new kind of freedom, civil freedom, which consists of both being able to do what the society does not forbid him to do, and getting the protection he needs to live a peaceful, secured, and thus more enjoyable life.

Because a man’s original freedom is undeprivable, he must personally agree to enter the social contract, and thus all must be unanimous about forming the social contract. But once they have reached this point and agreed to live as a society, they are confronted with the reality that each of them has his particular interests that might differ from or even contradict with one another’s, that they might not be able to reach unanimity on any other decision about their life. To let the society function, they have to solve this inevitable problem, and that is why they apply the rule of “the majority decides”, which I think, should also be set up at the point of the formation of the social contract.

Let’s look at this from an individual’s point of view. When he has to obey a decision agreed by the majority of the people, which he has voted against, he is carrying out an obligation brought by the social contract. By obeying the rule that “the majority decides”, he is enabling the function of the society, and because it is the society that guarantees his civil freedom, in doing so he keeps himself free. This case can be explained in another way: to obtain the protection from the society, an individual has to pay a price, which includes complying with a decision of the majority. When he considers such deal worthwhile, he is acting according to his will even when he obeys others’ decision; when the costs excess the benefits for him, he could always withdraw himself from the social contract.

One thing is worth noticing: even though it can be justifiable to have individuals act against their particular interests, Rousseau makes an effort to diminish the degree of coercion of such cases, by suggesting a control of the proportional number of the votes needed to declare the general will. He introduces the maxim that “the more important and serious the deliberations are, the more nearly unanimous should be the opinion that prevails”.

Derived from the argument above is that, the property of the general will of always being upright lies in that it always aims at the common interest of the majority of the people, rather than that it always makes best or cleverest choices. This can be verified by Rousseau’s words: “a people is in any case always master to change its laws, even the best of them; for if it pleases to harm itself, who has the right to prevent it from doing so?” (80) And consequently another problem rises: A people could be “a blind multitude, which often does not know what it wills because it rarely knows what is good for it” (Rousseau 68), as Rousseau describes. Then what if the majority of the people make a bad decision, which is not to the maximum common interest of them? Berlin would consider such claim as the beginning of a dangerous track of thinking because it could lead to the statement that people are not the best decision maker and thus need someone capable and wise to decide for them. But Rousseau is not taking that track. He declares that “power can be transferred, but not will” (57), and designs other measures for this problem.

First, he emphasizes that “there [should] be no partial society in the State, and every Citizen state only his own opinion” (60). By ensuring this, a vote would genuinely reflect the interest of the voter; the result of a suffrage would indicate where the common interest lies. In addition, the people wouldn’t be influenced or blinded by any individual or party, to vote for an external purpose.

Another effective design is to have the lawgiver, who is “in every aspect an extraordinary man in the State” (69), draft the law, and then to have the people, who occupies the legislative right, to decide on it. The work of designing a system of legislation requires an outstanding level of intelligence, which one can’t expect the people as a whole to possess. Having a draft drawn by a wise lawgiver would provide the possibility of a more reasonable, comprehensive and practical system of law, which would benefit the society when it is legitimized by the people.

With all these considered, I deem Berlin’s interpretation of tyrannical implications in Rousseau’s theory rather unfair. We choose to unite to live a life of higher quality, but a unity inevitably generates an accumulation of power that could bring threats of other kinds. Rousseau makes an effort to improve the system, not by denying the power, but by finding ways to confine it to the hands of all those who live under it, and to direct them to utilize it fairly and wisely. That doesn’t sound like an ultimate solution, and new problems follow. But it is in this arduous process of balancing among various ends that we maximize the degree of our freedom.

Works Cited

Berlin, Isaiah. “Two Concepts of Liberty.” Four Essays on Liberty. Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 1969. 9 Oct. 2008

<http://www.nyu.edu/projects/nissenbaum/papers/twoconcepts.pdf>

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. The Social Contract and other later political writings.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.