PHIL 111 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Regnery Publishing, Willmoore Kendall, Sociality
The Political Philosophy of Kant Session 2 April 6, 1967
22
Savoyard Vicar is a character of Rousseau, and not Rousseau. That is9 as if you would
say Hamlet is Shakespeare, or something else. There are other reasons which make it
doubtful. And therefore10 let us consider briefly the Social Contract.
Now in “The Profession of Faith” it was made clear that there is a radical difference
between self-love and love of the whole, or love of order. The whole could be the society,
and it would be ultimately the universe. The social contract is based unmistakably on
self-love alone, in the form of self-preservation. Rousseau simply follows here Hobbes,
and just as in Hobbes,11 self-preservation is understood as most clearly visible as it were,
in all its implications, in the state of nature—also a Hobbean thought. The state of nature,
the state antedating all human institutions is according to Hobbes presocial but rational.
These are rational creatures who have not yet made the social contract. According to
Rousseau, however, man in the state of nature, because he is presocial is also prerational.
As he calls him, he is a “stupid animal.”
Now this creates this great difficulty: How can natural right, the right belonging to the
state of nature, be the standard of human action if man in the state of nature is a stupid
animal? Rousseau would probably have an answer to this question along these lines:12 the
desire for self-preservation affects or determines, of course, all living beings, not only
men. But13 whereas all living beings are concerned above all with self-preservation, man
alone can know this and therefore try consistently to act on that principle, which brutes
cannot do. However this may be, there is another difference between Rousseau and
Hobbes of which Rousseau was fully aware, and we should read that. Here, I have the
English translation. Mr. Reinken? The Social Contract 1, part 1, chapter 6.i
Mr. Reinken: “Concerning the Social Pact”?
LS: Ya, of the Social Contract. Now14 Rousseau gives here in the fourth paragraph a
formula which the Social Contract has to solve. Will you read this, please?
Mr. Reinken:
This difficult question may be restated, in terms15 appropriate to my inquiry, as
follows: [quote—R] “Is a method of associating discoverable which will defend
and protect, with all the collective might, the person and property of each
associate, and in virtue of which each associate, though he becomes a member of
the group, nevertheless obeys only himself, and remains as free as before?”ii
LS: So in other words, by becoming a member of society he should remain as free as he
was in the state of nature. Yes?
Mr. Reinken:
This is the problem, a basic one, for which the social contract provides the
solution.
i Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract, trans. Willmoore Kendall (Chicago: The Henry
Regnery Company, 1954), 13.
ii Ibid.
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The Political Philosophy of Kant Session 2 April 6, 1967
23
The terms of this contract are dictated by the nature of the transaction, and
in such fashion that modifying them in any way would render them
nugatory and without effect; they are, therefore, everywhere the same,
everywhere tacitly accepted and recognized, though nowhere perhaps have
they been systematically formulated. Whence it follows that each
individual immediately resumes his primitive rights, surprising as this may
seem, when any violation of the social pact occurs; i.e., he recovers his
natural freedom, and thereby loses the contractual freedom for which he
renounced it.
The contract’s terms reduce themselves, when clearly grasped, to a single
stipulation, namely: the total alienation to the whole community of each
associate, together with every last one of his rights. The reasons for this
are as follows: each gives himself completely, so that, in the first place,
this stipulation places an equal burden upon everybody; and nobody, for
that very reason, has any interest in making it burdensome for others.
The alienation is made without reservations, so that, in the second place,
no more perfect union is possible, and no associate has any subsequent
demand to make upon the others. For if the individual retained any rights
whatever, this is what would happen: There being no common superior
able to say the last word on any issue between him and the public, he
would be his own judge in this or that point, and so would try before long
to be his own judge on all points. The state of nature would thus persist;
and the association would necessarily become useless, if not tyrannical.iii
LS: Ya, tyrannical or useless. All right, let us stop here. Now here the difference between
Rousseau and Hobbes is crucial, for Hobbes preserves the natural liberty of the subjects
in the civil state after the social contract is made: Leviathan, chapter 21. And Rousseau
demands that there is a complete surrender of all rights and forces of every individual to
society, for which he has been called a totalitarian. (Whether this is fair or not we will see
later.) Rousseau’s point is this: if you preserve rights, natural rights within society against
society, as Hobbes and of course Locke too had said, then16 you have in principle a state
of anarchy, because then you will be the judge also of your natural rights and your
judgment may disagree with that of society.
The only way out according to Rousseau is to construct society according to natural
right, so that there will be no appeal possible to natural right. Society cannot possibly
infringe17 on the rights of man, and therefore a complete reconciliation of the individual
and society is achieved. A society constructed according to natural right is one in which
everyone [who] is subject to the law, to the positive law, must have a say in the making
of the law. Say, in an absolute monarchy, no one except the king (and he is not strictly
speaking subject to the law)18 has a right in the making of the law.19 In qualified republics
many people are subject to the law without having had a say in the making of the law.
iii Ibid., 13-14.
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Document Summary
Savoyard vicar is a character of rousseau, and not rousseau. That is9 as if you would say hamlet is shakespeare, or something else. There are other reasons which make it doubtful. And therefore10 let us consider briefly the social contract. Now in the profession of faith it was made clear that there is a radical difference between self-love and love of the whole, or love of order. The whole could be the society, and it would be ultimately the universe. The social contract is based unmistakably on self-love alone, in the form of self-preservation. Rousseau simply follows here hobbes, and just as in hobbes,11 self-preservation is understood as most clearly visible as it were, in all its implications, in the state of nature also a hobbean thought. The state of nature, the state antedating all human institutions is according to hobbes presocial but rational. These are rational creatures who have not yet made the social contract.
