Private And General Wills example essay topic

Rousseau In all of the "general will's" different manifestations, it is what governs and preserves a society. One problem may be that people are simply unable to say what they really desire, or what they ought to desire, despite Rousseau's distinctions between private and public will. Any group of people in its natural state, before the organization of society, will find itself caught up in disagreements between the general and the private will. No agreement appears to exist between the two in a 'state of nature". However, in the state of social order the private will and general will seem to collide, and I say they even become each other leaving us no worries that our private will is to be ignored. The formation of the social contract is precisely, and the totality, of what you need in order to have a general will; this leads to a sort of agreement.

When one enters this contract they have forgiven the right to disagree with a law that has been passed. I am not denying the existence of disagreement inside the contract; be that as it may, disagreement is merely private will, which carries zero weight in the political society. "When, therefore, an opinion contrary to mine prevails, this proves merely that I was in error, and what I took to be the general will was not so" (pg 82). This essentially rips the power away from any single vote, or opinion, unless it is a vote for the majority. Without agreement between private and public will, there can be no general will. That is to say, it is impossible to have the will of a particular group differ from the will of an entire society; this is because the very instant that the opinion becomes something other than the majority it is rendered null and void.

This is why murderers cannot appeal to the nation by stating their will. In forming a society Rousseau states, "the total alienation of each associate, together with all of his rights, to the entire community" (pg 24), the keyword being 'entire'. This alienation is nothing more than the ritual ignorance of your private will, which eliminates the potential for one person in a society to demand things of the whole. Your private will is consumed by the general".

But the whole less a part is not the whole, and so long as this relationship obtains, there is no longer a whole, but rather two unequal parts" (pg 37). Any particular, whether it is a group or an individual, must always be in agreement with the general will, because it is theirs. A minority complaint against the acts of the general will, the murderer saying that murder should not be punished, is one of misunderstanding. Although we must think about this from the murderer's perspective, he must do the inverse. "On this view, it is immediately obvious that it is no longer necessary to ask who is to make the laws, since they are acts of the general will; nor whether the prince is above the laws, since he is a member of the state; nor whether the law can be unjust, since no one is unjust to himself; nor how is one both free and subject to the laws, since they are merely the record of our own wills" (pg 37). Aside from my agreement with this, I would like to point out the very end when he says, "our own wills".

These are statements about very general things that particulars create. Therefore, I conclude that the general will is private will, and at the same time private will is the general will, within a political system. Without the presence of both this is not a true statement; that is in the state of nature things are very different. By making the private and general wills agree with one another Rousseau has lifted many worries that would ensue pending the release of all your freedom to the masses.

This is an important element in is social schema. The very fact that humans are selfish in nature is what allows the general will to be so productive and general; given all the different private wills that go into it, the general will can be anything, and will at one time or another if not always agree with the private will of each and every citizen.