Rousseau’s General Will
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.12797/Poliarchia.03.2015.05.04Keywords:
Rousseau, general will, participatory democracy, political representation, moral relativismAbstract
The advance of populist parties in the European Union can be interpreted as the sign of an expanding “frustration” about representation in a political sphere oppressed by economic austerity. In this context, the modern philosophical roots of an alternative conception of democracy, based on direct participation, appear to be worth of a careful scrutiny. This paper focuses on the notion of the General Will as described in The Social Contract. After a critical review of the antithetical conceptions of the General Will suggested by Rousseau, a coherent interpretation is proposed, obtained through an analysis of the text taken as a “self- -sufficient” unity: the General Will is pure “ambition” for an unknown common good, shared by all the members of a political community. However, it is argued that the participatory “machinery” of General Will is fundamentally incapable of resolving three serious problems that undermine the foundations of Rousseau’s ideal “République”, namely, 1. How the citizens can identify the common good without errors; 2. How the citizens can develop an ethical dimension by themselves, without any external influence; 3. How single individuals, seen not as active citizens but as passive subjects of the State, can protect themselves from the abuses of power.
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