Jean Jacques Rousseau's The Social Contract

The Social Contract, published in 1762, is generally regarded as Rousseau's most important work and also one of the most influential works of political philosophy. It advances the ideas of human nature and government set forth in Rousseau's earlier works, The Discourse on Political Economy, and The Discourse on the Origin of Inequality. Rousseau was one of the most influential philosophers of the Enlightenment.

The Social Contract opens with "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains. One thinks himself the master of others, and still remains a greater slave than they. How did this change come about? I do not know. What can make it legitimate? That question I think I can answer." which are perhaps the best well known lines of his entire body of work. This statement proclaims the views of Rousseau that man must abandon his primitive state and form a social contract with his fellow man in order to be truly free.

Rousseau advocated the concept of popular sovereignty, which holds to a collectivist philosophy that is different from the individualism of other philosophers such as John Locke. He advocates the idea of a general will (that is popular sovereignty) that should be made to override the individuals' interests. This giving up of self interests for the good of all is at the center of Rousseau's Social Contract. This forced morality or submission to the good of the society has often received much criticism. In part, because Rousseau failed to clearly distinguish between rights and responsibilities in the public and private spheres.

The purpose of The Social Contract is determine how men might be free in society. According to Rousseau, man is free in his natural state, but that natural state is unrestrained and egotism is rampant. This natural state of man is not good for all and should be overcome in a civil society. Rousseau advocates that man will be truly free if he can give up his natural state of unrestrained freedom, and willingly enter into the confines of a social contract that places society as a whole above any one individual's interests. By giving up that natural freedom, man will become moral (to Rousseau, morality is only of value within a civil society). Rousseau believed that a civil society could only be achieved if the individuals within the society were both moral and rational, something he felt could only be achieved through the adoption of a social contract.

Most criticism of Rousseau's work is centered around his ideas of freedom through restraint. Many would disagree with the idea that freedom could come through submission to the will of the society as a whole. While entering voluntarily into the social contract as set forth by Rousseau would no doubt create a more civil and moral society, it is not clear that giving up ones freedom would make one free. Rousseau's views on direct or popular democracy (he advocated for it) contributed to the inability of his ideas to be adopted on a large scale.