Salam...
Alhamdulillah, Im done reading Rousseau's book on social contract. For those who question or want the constituition to be reconstruct should read this book. I managed to wrote the review and some my observation on the book...
____________________________________________________________________
Jean-Jacques Rousseau's most important work is The Social Contract, which coined the basis for a legitimate political order based on the social contract that is formed by the society from state of nature to civil society and state. The book was published in 1762, where it became one of the most influential works of political philosophy in the social contract theory. The book begins with the dramatic opening lines, "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains. One man thinks he the master of others, but remains more of a slave than they." Rousseau claimed that the state of nature was a primitive condition without law or morality, which human beings left for the benefits and necessity of cooperation.
As society developed, division of labor and private property required the human to adopt institutions of law. Men lives in isolation and fear of conflict, but due to the motivation of self improvement, development of society to govern their rights that they possess men gave up the rights and liberty in order to form government.
The pressure threatens both men survival and freedom for Rousseau, made the poeple came and joins together into civil society through the social contract and abandoning their claims of natural right and individual liberty. This is because submission to the authority of the general will of the people as a whole guarantees individuals against being subordinated to the wills of others and also ensures that they obey themselves because it is the roles of government as an intermediate body set up between the subject and the sovereign, to secure the mutual understanding, to execute the law and to maintain liberty.
Rousseau also argues that sovereignty should be in the hands of the people, he also makes a sharp distinction between sovereignty and government. The government is charged with implementing and enforcing the general will and is composed of a smaller group of citizens, known as magistrates. Rousseau was bitterly opposed to the idea that the people should exercise sovereignty through a representative assembly. Rather, they should make the laws directly.
Evaluation and Main Theme Rousseau social contract
Book I
In book one Rousseau tries to describe the nature and possession of men in the state of nature. He begins with the famous sentence, "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains." this is the basic principle that he tried to put forward in his writing. In the state of nature that describe by Rousseau is where men are possess with their personal liberty. In the state of nature there are no legitimate and political authorities are form. In this state, family institution play vast roles in society. He also mentioned about roles that has to play in the members of the family with certain obligation and rights. As mentioned above, men are possessed with individual liberty, but men gave up this liberty in order to receive protection for the family.
One of the main idea that propagate by Rousseau is men has no natural authority towards other men in state of nature and men are born free and not alienated, such renounced of denial is incompatible with men nature. He regard if men are removed from his liberty is to remove all moral from his acts. Because of this all legitimate authority must depend on convention.
According to Rousseau, no one will give up his liberty without getting something in return. A popular argument made by political philosophers holds that people can renounce their freedom in exchange for the civil tranquility offered by a monarch. Referring to contemporary situations, Rousseau asserts that this promise of civil tranquility becomes insignificant when kings drag their countries into numerous wars and place unnecessary demands on their citizens.
.
Thus, for such a society to be legitimate, each generation must offer their expressed approval of it. Because everyone gives himself and all of his rights to the community, the conditions of the social contract are equal for all those involved. The association of many individuals with the same interests creates a collective body with its own life and will, this body is called the "state".
In giving up the liberty in order to form state with legitimate authority it is must the based on the condition of general will. General will is introduced by Rousseau as a foundation of a transition from state of nature towards civil state. General will is the common interest of the people that bind the people, while another is considers as private interest that known as the will of all but Rousseau argued that private interest is the sum of particular will that only serve the benefit of the stake in the society.
Rousseau ends Book I by emphasizing the basis for every social system. Instead of destroying natural inequality, the social contract makes the physical differences found in the state of nature insignificant so that all men may be equal by convention and by right.
Book II
Rousseau believes that only general will can direct the society towards common good. The general will is always right and promote public interest. In this chapter or book II he mentioned about the law that carried out by general will. According to Rousseau, a law is a decision that considers the state as a whole, and cannot be made with particular individuals in mind. For example, the law can create a royal government and a hereditary line of succession, but it cannot elect a royal family. The right to appoint political leaders is an executive power.
Rousseau calls 'Legislator’ to protect the law from manipulated by private wills. In this sense, Law and legislatures need to be separate from other organs or institution of state neither legislature nor prince, all abounds to law and no body is above law.
The aim of all legislation should be the promotion of liberty and equality. Equality, however, does not suggest that everyone must have the same amount of power and wealth. Power should never be based on violence, and should be exercised in accordance with the law. In regard to wealth, no man should have so much money that he is able to buy another person, and no man should have so little that he is forced to sell himself. This kind of equality may not exist in reality, but should always be a goal of legislation.
Book III
In book III Rousseau focused more on the aspect of government including, form, division and some other aspect of his observation. Government or executive that Rousseau called its members as Magistrate or king that is formed in order to fulfill various purposes. Government is a body that is function as an intermediate body set up between the subjects and the Sovereign, to secure their mutual correspondence, charged with the execution of the laws and the maintenance of liberty, both civil and political.
Rousseau listed the division of form of government into democracy, aristocracy and monarchy. A government in which the sovereign gives power to all people is a "democracy." The sovereign can also give power to a small number of individuals, and this type of government is called an "aristocracy." Finally, the sovereign can place a single individual in charge of government, and this is called a "monarchy." These three types of government are not, however, mutually exclusive from one another. Rousseau argued that democracy is the best and monarchy is the worse form of government.
The population of the state is an important factor in deciding its form of government. As the size of the state increases, each individual has an increasingly smaller amount of input into the laws. Thus, in a larger nation, the citizen loses his connection to the state, and his private will becomes stronger than his desire to promote the common good. Because there is less agreement between the private will and the general will, the government must employ more repressive force as the population grows.
Book IV
In Chapter IV, Rousseau talks about the election of government officials and whether it should be done by choice or by lots. Although his justification is quite different, Rousseau agrees with Montesquieu that in a democracy, elections should be done by lots. He argues that being a part of the government is a great responsibility, one that cannot justly be imposed on anyone except by chance. This reasoning agrees with his previous argument on the universality of the law. Because Rousseau views being a magistrate as a necessary obligation, the state can only choose people by chance to fill this role. In states where elections are done both by choice and by lots, citizens should choose people by choice when positions require special talents. Positions that call for good sense and morals (like being a judge) should be filled by lots, because these qualities are common to everyone in a healthy state.
Rousseau creates a special body called a "tribunate" to maintain the respective powers of the sovereign and the government and to prevent the two from conflicting. A tribunate preserves the laws and protects legislative power. However, a tribunate is not a part of the constitution and thus should not exercise legislative or executive power. Rousseau argues that although a tribunate cannot do anything, it can prevent everything and thus has a great deal of power.
In this chapter Rousseau coined on the matters of religion with term of civil religion that became one of the most controversial issues in his writing of social contract. He claims that at first people thought of the gods as their political leaders, and all governments were theocratic.
The effect of government towards religion is that it’s developed into three types of religion. The first kind is religion of man which connects the relation of men and god through the teaching of Christianity. Rousseau believes that religion is needed but it could bring harm to the state. The second type that is unites the administrative and religion, where in this type love of God reinforces one's love for the laws, and the individual, obeys the state with a fanatical zeal. The third type of religion is one that, like Christianity, splits church and state. Rousseau thoroughly disapproves of this kind of religion, because it gives the individual contradictory duties and forces them to prioritize either their religion or their citizenship.
Rousseau recommends a combination of the first two types of religion in an ideal society. Each individual is free to have his own religious beliefs, because the sovereign can only regulate matters that affect public interest. However, Rousseau argues that there are certain beliefs that each person should have in order to be a good person.
Generally, the citizen must believe in God, the existence of an afterlife, and the sanctity of the social contract. The citizen must also believe in justice and disapprove of intolerance.
Comparison with other scholar and framework analysis
In order to compare the idea of social contract of Rousseau with other social contract scholar especially Thomas Hobbes ( 1588 – 1677) and John Locke we must look into their ideas on the state of nature. The earlier philosopher Hobbes came with a very negatives connotation and tragic description of men in the state of nature. The phenomenon during the dark ages where men lives in oppression of the churches and poverty, state of nature according to Hobbes is a state of only powerful will survive and the weak will be manipulated and oppress by the strong. The society is at the constant war and people are struggling to survive. At this stage, men were regard as selfish and political animal. With this understanding of state of nature according to Hobbes gave up in conflicting each other and tried to attain peace and security. Thus they came together to form government to govern and execute the law.
In this sense, the state of nature according to Hobbes are very much differ compare to Rousseau, the he regard men in the state of nature are not in conflict and brutality, but still they lives in isolation with merely anarchy with no government and body to enforce and execute law. Thus the formation of government and sovereign based on social contract formed are due to the roles plays for the betterment and improvement of the society including maintaining, enforce laws, protection of individual right, and prosperity of well being. This idea of state of nature according to Rousseau and more less similar with the ideas of state of nature according to Locke.
In term of form of government, Hobbes agrees and propagate the supreme and ultimate power of ruled by on or the monarchy, He strongly emphasized on the aspect of strong government are highly demand in order to govern the society, in fact Hobbes accept the used of dictatorship if it is needed the ruling of the monarch in order to attain peace and security. On the other hand, Locke is more emphasize on the matter of the organs of government, Legislative, Judiciary and Executive. He further extend his explanation on these with legislature must be supreme than other due to its role to makes law, and govern based on trust. Even in this understanding, Locke did not reject the Monarchy as the form government in govern the people. Contradict to Hobbes he regard Monarchy or the rule of one as the worst form of government. Rousseau argued that the sovereignty are given to the people and the right of the people are to be preserve with the government formed based on the common interest of the people and the societal will.
Rousseau theory of sovereignty differs obviously from those other political philosophers including Hobbes, Rousseau asserts that the people should exercise sovereignty rather than bend to the whims of an absolute monarch. Common interest of the public could not be preserve and protected of there is no medium of separation of power and check and balance in governing the state.
The ideas of Rousseau that he coined in his book of Social Contract would gives an impact on modern form of democratic society based on his understanding of general will and theory of sovereignty would bring us the understanding of the power of people in modern society. His ideas are near to what we have today in understand the good government and democratic society.
If it is possible for me to coin my final observation where I could says that his ideas are merely Humanocentric even though he coined some of the aspect of morality and religion roles in government. Humanocentric is where men or people became the sole reference and binding factor that determine everything, this is good in ideal sense but if it came into the extend of the absence or the negligence of the role of religion and god.
SAIFULLAH ZULKIFLI
8.07 am, 20 Sept 2008
Akmal's House
Alhamdulillah, Im done reading Rousseau's book on social contract. For those who question or want the constituition to be reconstruct should read this book. I managed to wrote the review and some my observation on the book...
____________________________________________________________________
Jean-Jacques Rousseau's most important work is The Social Contract, which coined the basis for a legitimate political order based on the social contract that is formed by the society from state of nature to civil society and state. The book was published in 1762, where it became one of the most influential works of political philosophy in the social contract theory. The book begins with the dramatic opening lines, "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains. One man thinks he the master of others, but remains more of a slave than they." Rousseau claimed that the state of nature was a primitive condition without law or morality, which human beings left for the benefits and necessity of cooperation.
As society developed, division of labor and private property required the human to adopt institutions of law. Men lives in isolation and fear of conflict, but due to the motivation of self improvement, development of society to govern their rights that they possess men gave up the rights and liberty in order to form government.
The pressure threatens both men survival and freedom for Rousseau, made the poeple came and joins together into civil society through the social contract and abandoning their claims of natural right and individual liberty. This is because submission to the authority of the general will of the people as a whole guarantees individuals against being subordinated to the wills of others and also ensures that they obey themselves because it is the roles of government as an intermediate body set up between the subject and the sovereign, to secure the mutual understanding, to execute the law and to maintain liberty.
Rousseau also argues that sovereignty should be in the hands of the people, he also makes a sharp distinction between sovereignty and government. The government is charged with implementing and enforcing the general will and is composed of a smaller group of citizens, known as magistrates. Rousseau was bitterly opposed to the idea that the people should exercise sovereignty through a representative assembly. Rather, they should make the laws directly.
Evaluation and Main Theme Rousseau social contract
Book I
In book one Rousseau tries to describe the nature and possession of men in the state of nature. He begins with the famous sentence, "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains." this is the basic principle that he tried to put forward in his writing. In the state of nature that describe by Rousseau is where men are possess with their personal liberty. In the state of nature there are no legitimate and political authorities are form. In this state, family institution play vast roles in society. He also mentioned about roles that has to play in the members of the family with certain obligation and rights. As mentioned above, men are possessed with individual liberty, but men gave up this liberty in order to receive protection for the family.
One of the main idea that propagate by Rousseau is men has no natural authority towards other men in state of nature and men are born free and not alienated, such renounced of denial is incompatible with men nature. He regard if men are removed from his liberty is to remove all moral from his acts. Because of this all legitimate authority must depend on convention.
According to Rousseau, no one will give up his liberty without getting something in return. A popular argument made by political philosophers holds that people can renounce their freedom in exchange for the civil tranquility offered by a monarch. Referring to contemporary situations, Rousseau asserts that this promise of civil tranquility becomes insignificant when kings drag their countries into numerous wars and place unnecessary demands on their citizens.
.
Thus, for such a society to be legitimate, each generation must offer their expressed approval of it. Because everyone gives himself and all of his rights to the community, the conditions of the social contract are equal for all those involved. The association of many individuals with the same interests creates a collective body with its own life and will, this body is called the "state".
In giving up the liberty in order to form state with legitimate authority it is must the based on the condition of general will. General will is introduced by Rousseau as a foundation of a transition from state of nature towards civil state. General will is the common interest of the people that bind the people, while another is considers as private interest that known as the will of all but Rousseau argued that private interest is the sum of particular will that only serve the benefit of the stake in the society.
Rousseau ends Book I by emphasizing the basis for every social system. Instead of destroying natural inequality, the social contract makes the physical differences found in the state of nature insignificant so that all men may be equal by convention and by right.
Book II
Rousseau believes that only general will can direct the society towards common good. The general will is always right and promote public interest. In this chapter or book II he mentioned about the law that carried out by general will. According to Rousseau, a law is a decision that considers the state as a whole, and cannot be made with particular individuals in mind. For example, the law can create a royal government and a hereditary line of succession, but it cannot elect a royal family. The right to appoint political leaders is an executive power.
Rousseau calls 'Legislator’ to protect the law from manipulated by private wills. In this sense, Law and legislatures need to be separate from other organs or institution of state neither legislature nor prince, all abounds to law and no body is above law.
The aim of all legislation should be the promotion of liberty and equality. Equality, however, does not suggest that everyone must have the same amount of power and wealth. Power should never be based on violence, and should be exercised in accordance with the law. In regard to wealth, no man should have so much money that he is able to buy another person, and no man should have so little that he is forced to sell himself. This kind of equality may not exist in reality, but should always be a goal of legislation.
Book III
In book III Rousseau focused more on the aspect of government including, form, division and some other aspect of his observation. Government or executive that Rousseau called its members as Magistrate or king that is formed in order to fulfill various purposes. Government is a body that is function as an intermediate body set up between the subjects and the Sovereign, to secure their mutual correspondence, charged with the execution of the laws and the maintenance of liberty, both civil and political.
Rousseau listed the division of form of government into democracy, aristocracy and monarchy. A government in which the sovereign gives power to all people is a "democracy." The sovereign can also give power to a small number of individuals, and this type of government is called an "aristocracy." Finally, the sovereign can place a single individual in charge of government, and this is called a "monarchy." These three types of government are not, however, mutually exclusive from one another. Rousseau argued that democracy is the best and monarchy is the worse form of government.
The population of the state is an important factor in deciding its form of government. As the size of the state increases, each individual has an increasingly smaller amount of input into the laws. Thus, in a larger nation, the citizen loses his connection to the state, and his private will becomes stronger than his desire to promote the common good. Because there is less agreement between the private will and the general will, the government must employ more repressive force as the population grows.
Book IV
In Chapter IV, Rousseau talks about the election of government officials and whether it should be done by choice or by lots. Although his justification is quite different, Rousseau agrees with Montesquieu that in a democracy, elections should be done by lots. He argues that being a part of the government is a great responsibility, one that cannot justly be imposed on anyone except by chance. This reasoning agrees with his previous argument on the universality of the law. Because Rousseau views being a magistrate as a necessary obligation, the state can only choose people by chance to fill this role. In states where elections are done both by choice and by lots, citizens should choose people by choice when positions require special talents. Positions that call for good sense and morals (like being a judge) should be filled by lots, because these qualities are common to everyone in a healthy state.
Rousseau creates a special body called a "tribunate" to maintain the respective powers of the sovereign and the government and to prevent the two from conflicting. A tribunate preserves the laws and protects legislative power. However, a tribunate is not a part of the constitution and thus should not exercise legislative or executive power. Rousseau argues that although a tribunate cannot do anything, it can prevent everything and thus has a great deal of power.
In this chapter Rousseau coined on the matters of religion with term of civil religion that became one of the most controversial issues in his writing of social contract. He claims that at first people thought of the gods as their political leaders, and all governments were theocratic.
The effect of government towards religion is that it’s developed into three types of religion. The first kind is religion of man which connects the relation of men and god through the teaching of Christianity. Rousseau believes that religion is needed but it could bring harm to the state. The second type that is unites the administrative and religion, where in this type love of God reinforces one's love for the laws, and the individual, obeys the state with a fanatical zeal. The third type of religion is one that, like Christianity, splits church and state. Rousseau thoroughly disapproves of this kind of religion, because it gives the individual contradictory duties and forces them to prioritize either their religion or their citizenship.
Rousseau recommends a combination of the first two types of religion in an ideal society. Each individual is free to have his own religious beliefs, because the sovereign can only regulate matters that affect public interest. However, Rousseau argues that there are certain beliefs that each person should have in order to be a good person.
Generally, the citizen must believe in God, the existence of an afterlife, and the sanctity of the social contract. The citizen must also believe in justice and disapprove of intolerance.
Comparison with other scholar and framework analysis
In order to compare the idea of social contract of Rousseau with other social contract scholar especially Thomas Hobbes ( 1588 – 1677) and John Locke we must look into their ideas on the state of nature. The earlier philosopher Hobbes came with a very negatives connotation and tragic description of men in the state of nature. The phenomenon during the dark ages where men lives in oppression of the churches and poverty, state of nature according to Hobbes is a state of only powerful will survive and the weak will be manipulated and oppress by the strong. The society is at the constant war and people are struggling to survive. At this stage, men were regard as selfish and political animal. With this understanding of state of nature according to Hobbes gave up in conflicting each other and tried to attain peace and security. Thus they came together to form government to govern and execute the law.
In this sense, the state of nature according to Hobbes are very much differ compare to Rousseau, the he regard men in the state of nature are not in conflict and brutality, but still they lives in isolation with merely anarchy with no government and body to enforce and execute law. Thus the formation of government and sovereign based on social contract formed are due to the roles plays for the betterment and improvement of the society including maintaining, enforce laws, protection of individual right, and prosperity of well being. This idea of state of nature according to Rousseau and more less similar with the ideas of state of nature according to Locke.
In term of form of government, Hobbes agrees and propagate the supreme and ultimate power of ruled by on or the monarchy, He strongly emphasized on the aspect of strong government are highly demand in order to govern the society, in fact Hobbes accept the used of dictatorship if it is needed the ruling of the monarch in order to attain peace and security. On the other hand, Locke is more emphasize on the matter of the organs of government, Legislative, Judiciary and Executive. He further extend his explanation on these with legislature must be supreme than other due to its role to makes law, and govern based on trust. Even in this understanding, Locke did not reject the Monarchy as the form government in govern the people. Contradict to Hobbes he regard Monarchy or the rule of one as the worst form of government. Rousseau argued that the sovereignty are given to the people and the right of the people are to be preserve with the government formed based on the common interest of the people and the societal will.
Rousseau theory of sovereignty differs obviously from those other political philosophers including Hobbes, Rousseau asserts that the people should exercise sovereignty rather than bend to the whims of an absolute monarch. Common interest of the public could not be preserve and protected of there is no medium of separation of power and check and balance in governing the state.
The ideas of Rousseau that he coined in his book of Social Contract would gives an impact on modern form of democratic society based on his understanding of general will and theory of sovereignty would bring us the understanding of the power of people in modern society. His ideas are near to what we have today in understand the good government and democratic society.
If it is possible for me to coin my final observation where I could says that his ideas are merely Humanocentric even though he coined some of the aspect of morality and religion roles in government. Humanocentric is where men or people became the sole reference and binding factor that determine everything, this is good in ideal sense but if it came into the extend of the absence or the negligence of the role of religion and god.
SAIFULLAH ZULKIFLI
8.07 am, 20 Sept 2008
Akmal's House
1 comment:
Oit....awak tulis "akmal's house"? Sejak bile????
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