Without consent, constraints, duties, and authority lack all legitimacy.

The only legitimate constraints on my choices, and likewise the only duties, obligations, and authorities that I am morally required to respect, are those which I have willingly accepted for myself. What factor, then, separates the just from the unjust? For Rousseau, the answer is consent. Whatever inconvenience such constraints may inflict on us, however, we typically do not view all constraints on human freedom as illegitimate. We nevertheless obey, because we must, for anyone who does not willingly obey is either coerced into obedience or punished. Not only do our societies prohibit certain acts, such as trespassing, driving too fast, and smoking in restaurants, they also compel us to do certain acts we would otherwise have no desire for, such as paying taxes, serving on juries, and registering for the draft. Yet despite this capacity for deep freedom, we find ourselves living in societies that everywhere impose constraints on our exercise of freedom. Indeed, Rousseau thinks our species is distinguished from all other animals not by our rationality or compassion, both of which animals also possess to a degree, but by our possessing free will. On the contrary, we choose for ourselves what our ends will be and how we will pursue them. Unlike other organisms found in nature, we are not under the full control of instinct or appetite or any other automatic biological force. Human beings are free beings, not just in the superficial political sense of desiring not to be dominated by tyrants, but also in the deep metaphysical sense of living as the will in each of us leads. “Man was born free, and he is everywhere in chains.” Thus begins Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s classic political treatise, The Social Contract, the aim of which is to offer a solution to the puzzle so memorably stated in its opening line. The topic of his dissertation is the epistemological roots of conservatism. He is mainly interested in political philosophy.

candidate in philosophy at the University of Oklahoma.

Jean rousseau the social contract