"Freedom is the power to choose our own chains.

"
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
In the Social Contract:
• Rousseau reimagined a kind of political society
where citizens could come together to form a
government that still preserves the liberty of
individuals.
• Rousseau aims for constructing a civil society that
allow for the co-existence of free and equal citizens
in a community where they themselves are
sovereign.
Born: June 28, 1712, Geneva, Switzerland
• Rousseau was born from a middle-class connection and
Jean-Jacques
was orphaned at the age of 10.
• Rousseau thought of himself as a citizen from the lower
Rousseau
class/grass roots.
Spouse: Therese Levasseur
Notable works:
• Discourse on the Sciences and Arts
• Discourse on the Origin of Inequality
• Emile
• The Social Contract
Died: July 12, 1778, Ermenonville, France
 State of Nature and Natural Liberty
Social Contract
• “Man is born free and • The social contract is a way of
everywhere is in chains” enhancing individual freedom by
recognizing the inherent difficulties of
• Rousseau denied that there is However solitary living (in a state of nature) and
any natural basis that one Individuals’ instinct for self- Fundamental taking advantage of the benefits of

individual has authority over preservation is also

question that political society.

another. All men are naturally Rousseau’s Social

moderated by equally natural • Everyone entering a civil association
equals.
Contact seeks to
sense of must give up his rights to the whole
How doaddress:
you join a political community. Each puts in common his
compassion/sympathy for
• Individuals have natural right society and retain your original person and all his power under the
others, which paves the way supreme direction of the general will
to self-preservation, which natural freedom?
for: and in return, each member becomes an
means they could do indivisible part of the whole.
whatever’s necessary to
survive.

Human interactions civilized society (individuals’ became dependent to one another) inequalities (invention
of private property) Creation of government that served the interests of the few (destroyed the concept of natural
equality and freedom).
 Sovereign and the General
• For Rousseau, the entire
citizenry, united in a legislative
assembly exercises sovereign
power. (Popular sovereignty,
each citizen enjoys equal
responsibility in the legislative
assembly)
• For this power to be legitimate,
laws are to be made in
accordance with the general will
towards the common good.
Will
• The general will is the collective will of each
individual or the society directed towards common
good.
• The common good is what is in the best interests of
society as a whole. This is what the social contract is
meant to achieve, and it is what the general will aims
at.
• For Rousseau, in the idea of direct popular
government unanimity is, in practice, impossible to
achieve, thereby the vote of the majority binds the
minority.
• If a citizen objects to a proposed law in a
popular assembly and find himself in the
minority, he does not thereby lose his
freedom, for his minority vote merely
proves that he did not recognize the
General Will, rather than that the
majority, as such, has a right to rule over
him.
• In obeying the law, the citizens would be
obeying themselves as a self-legislating
citizen. Hence, it is only through obeying
the law that man would become free.

01
It serves as the foundation for the
principles of popular sovereignty
and direct democracy with
respect to legislating laws to be
applied to all the citizens in a
civil state.
Relevance of
Rousseau’s
Social Contract to
Contemporary
02 Societies 03
Rousseau's theory serves as the foundation for Rousseau’s social contract encourages each
democracy and justifies revolutions against arbitrary citizen to participate in civil activities or
authority or rule (French Revolution of 1789; a perform civil responsibilities.
revolution against the oppressive French Monarch).
Rousseau's thoughts on individual liberty and freedom in
society point to a demand for a complete rejection of
tyranny or dictatorship in modern governments, along
with the implementation of unconstitutional government
measures and denial of human rights and freedom.
Thank you
Group 9
Antipuesto
Bacus
Cañete