Conclusion

Images: Banksy. 

The purpose of this blog has been to inform the reader about three of the most ground-breaking political philosophers of the Pre-Modern era. Its goal was in no way to be exhaustive but rather to point out the parallel concerns that have interested thinkers who lived ages apart. What should strike the reader is the variety with which these thinkers have answered similar questions: why do men come together in polities, what legitimizes authority, and what societal values ought to be protected? 

If we retrace our steps we see that for Rousseau freedom was the paramount virtue and the chief goal of politics was to instil people with the right kind of freedom, and not just to supply them with the limited elbowroom of the natural condition. Morality would then spring from the actions of these transformed human beings. According to Hobbes, on the other hand, morality could only be squeezed out of people using a massive amount of pressure. The more powerful the Leviathan, the more obedient and safe its people were. The only thing that a government should guarantee is safety from external and internal corrosion. Though Hobbes and Rousseau probably find themselves on the extreme ends of the spectrum at least they find themselves on the same scale, speaking the same language, whereas Locke seems to occupy a position outside of their paradigm. Both Rousseau and Hobbes are extreme in their ideas. They adhere to some kind of truth: that morality is either the product of liberated -republican- thought or that it comes about by extortion. 

Locke does no such thing and perhaps that is why now, post-French revolution and post WWI and II, in this world that is predominantly characterized by disillusion and scepticism Locke's ideas are the ones that have survived in their most concrete form. To adhere to any kind of truth too firmly is to risk everything. Locke's theory does not preach any truth except, perhaps, for toleration. Rather it supplies a blueprint for dealing with people and living in complex, multi-cultural, societies; societies where people may have nothing in common, not even their values. It protects individuals from each other, as much as from their government. Ironically, the right to own property, which was meant to do away with hunger and to empower the citizen, has been misused to throw up walls between people. Perhaps we should consider tearing them dow. 

Rousseau: Forcing to be Free

"Perhaps the most widely shared account of how, for Rousseau, the use of coercive power to force compliance with the law can amount to forcing to be free is the so-called social-autonomy account.' That account turns on Rousseau's important distinction between natural freedom and what he calls moral freedom or autonomy, a distinction that is understood as, roughly, a distinction between being able to do what one wills to do without interference or impediment and self-conscious rational self-determination" (p  303). 

Steven G. Affeldt. "The Force of Freedom: Rousseau on Forcing to be Free". Political Theory. Sage Publications. Vol 27-3. pp 299-333. Accessed on Jstor 09/06/2013. 

One of the unresolved paradoxes from Rousseau's text is the one about the legitimacy of force in politics. In Rousseau's opinion, force precludes right, or duty. Therefore anything that is accomplished by means of force is not politically legitimate. However, apparently, when it comes to unifying all the particular wills of the people and transforming them in order to attain a general will, it is perfectly alright to use force. Dissidents must be made to see the light, "forced to be free". This tension in Rousseau's work about whether force is ever a good thing has been the subject of much debate.

The paradox is open to more than one interpretation. The first one relies on the presupposition that republicans owe their republic for the protection that it gives them. Acting according to the rules -the general will- is a means of showing that gratitude and in the end results to nothing more than being a good citizen. After all, there is something illogical about entering or being part of a republic, and thus being guaranteed to have your best interests looked after, and then simply not cooperating. In this respect people can forced to be free.

Another interpretation, and widely thought to be a more insightful one, is the interpretation that discerns two different kinds of freedom, one that is associated with the republic, and one found in natural condition. In the latter state, freedom means being free to give full vent to your passions and desires without anybody judging or limiting you. In the republic however, this kind of freedom is construed to be false. After all, being a slave to your senses does not even come close to what liberty truly is. The republican idea of freedom means being subject to no one, except to yourself, and the rules that you put down. This is called autonomy, a quality that is capable of transforming people from animals into true moral and political human beings. It is this quality that enables people to separate that which is good for oneself, from that which is good for everyone. 

Rousseau: Transformation

"I mean to inquire if, in the civil order, there can be any sure and legitimate rule of administration, men being taken as they are and laws as they might be. " (Book 1 preface)

Jean Jacques Rousseau. The Social Contract. Trans. G.D.H. Cole 1782. Rendered into HTML and texts by Jon Roland of the Constitution society. http://www.constitution.org/jjr/socon.htm

Despite Rousseau's initial willingness to deal with "men as they are" he is surprisingly eager to see them changed for the sake of his republic. The transformation of men into republicans is both a necessary condition for, and the incredible result of the social contract. But what was so wrong with mankind that Rousseau thought it was necessary to change them in order to arrive at a legitimate form of government? In order to answer this question scholars have had to refer to Rousseau's other, decidedly more pessimistic work: the urgency of the republic arises from a situation very different to that of the natural condition, which Rousseau deemed to be rather positive. In fact, the republic is a solution a problem that is not explicitly mentioned in The Social Contract: Locke's bourgeois citizenry. 

According to Rousseau the purity of man in the natural condition was spoiled the first moment that one person claimed something as his own property. Since this pivotal moment the Lockean nightmare has kept us in its sway. In order to escape from it, the materialistic egotism that has permeated the political sphere and all our political thoughts must be abolished. In a republic all political, meaningful decisions will need to be made in a spirit of complete abnegation. 

The question of whether this is even possible must have haunted Rousseau as it concerns the very nature of mankind -and thus the basis of every political theory. In the end, Rousseau came up with a very modern compromise that presupposes a kind of dichotomy in human psychology. Rousseau assumed that people were capable of being ruled by generosity and selflessness in the political sphere, but may yet cherish radically different opinions in the privet sphere. The idea of people as multifaceted beings, filling different or even contradictory roles depending on which situation they find themselves in, is something that is quintessentially 'modern'. The idea of an evolutionary biologist who is religious is no longer as inconceivable as if first was. As the 19th century -the age of reason- drew to a close that almighty concept called 'rationality', in which so much had been invested, turned out to be far more complex than people had ever imagined.

Rousseau: Religion Paves the Way

"We should not, with Warburton, conclude from this that politics and religion have among us a common object, but that, in the first periods of nations, the one is used as an instrument for the other." (Book 2:7)

Jean Jacques Rousseau. The Social Contract. Trans. G.D.H. Cole 1782. Rendered into HTML and texts by Jon Roland of the Constitution society. http://www.constitution.org/jjr/socon.htm

Republicanism requires of its citizens that they sacrifice their natural freedom and their amour-de-soi, their natural selfishness. This selfishness is not construed as something wicked. It is a quality of man that enables him to live as a noble savage, an aristocrat among animals. However tolerable this state of being, if man is to transcend the animal kingdom, another form of grace is necessary, and more suitable. In a republic the natural selfishness of man needs to be conquered by a free and constant selflessness; in the political sphere not the particular, but the common good must prevail. Evidently this transformation is not one that happens over night. 

It is a common reproach that if Rousseau's republic were to succeed, it would need Republicans to kick it off, which is of course an impossibility. If the law makes the people, then who makes the law? For Rousseau this was one paradox that he could not allow to remain unsolved. His solution was that the initial laws of the Republic should be proposed by an extremely wise and benevolent legislator. The public just has to accept them -though of course they are free to refuse. The proposed rules serve as a starting point which the common will is free to adapt as soon as it has established itself. 

Sometimes in the course of history a proposed set of rules has been so convincing that it was adopted instantly. Rousseau refers especially to Ancient Greece where it was common for foreign legislators to propose laws that would be objective and fair to all. However, most fledgling republicans are not so eager and need to be convinced. This is where religion comes in. In order to convince people of the truth and fairness of a law it is completely justified to breed a religious atmosphere beneficial to its survival. Judaic law has only been this successful because it was preached by the arch-legislator himself, Jesus Christ. According to Rousseau prophets are legislators and religion is an instrument that helps to lay the foundations of a Republic. Rousseau's heretical interpretation of religion demonstrates his knowledge about the nature of man. Some people are deaf to reason, but they are not impossible to communicate with. They only need to be spoken to in their own language which is compiled of prophesy, superstition and fiction.  

Sci-Fi Epic Dune posits a universe in which Religion is equally used as a political strategy, to pave the way for future civilisation. Also, it features giant worms. 

Rousseau: The Right of the Strongest

"To renounce liberty is to renounce being a man, to surrender the rights of humanity and even its duties. For him who renounces everything no indemnity is possible. Such a renunciation is incompatible with man's nature; to remove all liberty from his will is to remove all morality from his acts." (Book 1:4)

Jean Jacques Rousseau. The Social Contract. Trans. G.D.H. Cole 1782. Rendered into HTML and texts by Jon Roland of the Constitution society. http://www.constitution.org/jjr/socon.htm

In the first book of The Social Contract Rousseau vehemently attacks the idea that slavery can be justified. He criticizes Hobbes especially, but includes Aristotle, Grotius and the Roman emperor Caligula in his invective, according to whom some people were born for slavery, and others were simply not. "Nonsense" exclaims Rousseau. People are born free and equal and the only arguments in favour of slavery are circular. 

Generally, the right to enslave a person, according to Grotius, stems from his right to kill that person. In which case slavery is justified because it is beneficial to both parties. The slave buys back his life with a lifetime of servitude -but, Rousseau insists, where does this right to kill a person originate? It is derived from the idea that lies at the heart of the matter: the right of the strongest. However, force, according to Rousseau, cannot be linked to right, or duty, or politics. If force is added to the equation the entire dimension of morality is lost. There is no morality in an action that follows a command. In this respect Hobbes' Leviathan is not a political ruler, but a despot; and equally there is no virtue in Locke's civilised citizenry, because it also comes about by force -the supreme executioner who keeps everyone on the straight and narrow. Politics to Rousseau is a question of determining what people ought to do, what is ethically correct, not just for oneself, but for everyone. 

If the right of the strongest is void, because it is not a right at all, what could possibly bind a slave to his master? A slave gets nothing in return for his labour, not even peace or tranquility, because there is no certitude in serving a person who has absolute power over you. Moreover, even if his master is benevolent and kind, there is nothing in the world that could match the sacrifice that the slave makes; his liberty is that what makes him human. In conclusion, there are no reasonable grounds for slavery. Rousseau will have to come up with other conditions, conditions that don't rely on force, if he is to bind his people and transform them from a mass into a polity. 

Rousseau: Embracing Paradox

“Finally, each man, in giving himself to all, gives himself to nobody” (Book 1:6)

Jean Jacques Rousseau. The Social Contract. Trans. G.D.H. Cole 1782. Rendered into HTML and texts by Jon Roland of the Constitution society. http://www.constitution.org/jjr/socon.htm Jean-Jacques Rousseau by Maurice Quentin De La Tour (1753)

In the work of Rousseau all contradictions meet. They are not resolved but are accepted as part of the bigger picture -anticipating the dialectics of Hegel. A person in search of the truth must be able to work with them. After all, in the words of F. Scott Fitzgerald: "the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise." Rousseau passed this test with flying colours. He reconciled the concern of authority with the importance of liberty; a marriage of political realism and political idealism, its progeny: the republic. 

Rousseau was an author of novels, opera, philosophical and educational treaties. He was loved by many, and despised by a few more. He was catapulted into fame when he won an essay contest with an extremely controversial submission. The work he submitted gave a negative answer to the question of how arts and sciences had improved the world. However, despite his pessimism he continued to be a champion of the arts and sciences, even working on the French Encyclopédie. It seems that paradoxes were part of his life as well as his philosophy. 

In The Social Contract Rousseau offers the solution to a problem that he sees has arisen in Locke's treatise: the problem of materialistic confinement and the lack of political wholesomeness.  In the game of interest politics people do not actively contribute. They merely represent interest parties vying for attention. Additionally they console themselves by amassing property which only ties them down, hinders their movement in the political sphere, and distracts them from making any meaningful contribution. In his philosophical work Rousseau offers to do away with private property -because it was always the State's concern anyway. He proposed that people should merely become guardians of that which, because it belongs to the state, belongs to everybody. In a republic the people are sovereign. They sacrifice their own particular desires in pursuit of the common good. In doing so they form an indivisible whole with a general will. The general will can never be false, can never have anything else in mind than the good of the people, and as such, it is the supreme law. 

Locke: The New World

“Even if we were to take Locke's point that accumulated coins liberate us from our moral qualms about keeping barnsful of wheat and root cellars overflowing with rotting crops, we would not thereby be freed from the other limit imposed upon us by natural law. The storage of wealth in the form of money does not leave "enough, and as good" so that others might live. Locke's theory of property violates this second limit set by a natural law the validity of which Locke never questioned or claimed suspended.” (p 574)

Herman Lebovics. "The uses of America in Locke's second treatise of government". Journal of the History of Ideas. Vol 47, Nr 4.  University of Pennsylvania Press

The social contract, to Locke is a solution that, like nuclear energy, should only be used as a last resort. Its consequences are permanent and drastic, and it takes a really dire situation in order to equal the cost of the sacrifice. No wonder Locke dramatically called this situation "The State of War", a situation wherein people are no longer sure of their safety, and particularly their property's safety. In the end it is this fear of losing property that tips the balance and makes people to congregate under one body of rulers. 

Preceding the social contract Locke already conceived a community that had all the characteristics of a polity, except a centralized authority. For example, the rules of property were already crystal clear, derived from the belief that the earth was given to man by God for the purpose of cultivation, and that God had created enough of it to satisfy any number of people. News of the far-reaching, fertile plains discovered in the New World undoubtedly fueled these beliefs. To Locke America was a kind of deus ex machina. Here was an entire continent: perceived to be almost empty. The few inhabitant living there in pre-political, peaceful communities inspired Locke to ascribe a historical reality to his natural condition. His emphasis on the reality of the natural condition was meant to underline the feasibility of Locke's ideal government.  

In a way though Locke's interpretation of the New World was naive. He saw it as more bountiful, and purer than it actually was. The truth about the Native American communities was that they were very much political, though not in the sense that Locke understood, and America was not really a land of inexhaustible plenty. There was wealth of course, but wealth is always relative. Having a lot of it does not mean one is rich, except of course if your neighbour has very little. The native Americans knew this, and lived by it. There was social class even among them, though it was not because one owned more land than the other. It was a question of lineage and prowess. Locke's ideas about property and money are based on two faulty premises: that property equals wealth, and that it is inexhaustible.