general will remains constant, but dissolve as soon as it changes.
C) “Actual” General Will
Rousseau appears to recognize yet a third form of the general will in The Social Contract. This form is simply
the empirical will of the majority. “After this primitive contract [the social contract],” he says, “the vote of the
majority always obligates all the others” (SC 206; see also 150). Thus, returning to the Platonic distinction
between the ideal and the actual, we can describe this third form as the “actual” general will. It is simply
whatever a society’s simple majority manifests at any given moment.8
This type of general will would therefore seem to be general only in a subjective sense, (and then just to the
point of a simple majority). Contrasted with the ideal general will, which is thought to exist even if no subjects
will it, this form of will clearly has no existence whatsoever without willing subjects. But its subjective
generality need not be universal; it only requires a simple majority. In addition, this manifestation of the
general will would not require a general object. The majority need not will what is in the interest of the whole,
or even what is in the interest of itself as a majority, (since conflict with individual private wills may thwart
even that). The object of the general will in this form would not have to agree at all with the object of the ideal
general will, but, on the other hand, neither would it have to agree with the objects of the private will, (in the
way that the original general will does). Its relationship with the private will would remain completely
undetermined, as would its relationship with the object of the (ideal) general will. So it is clear that this is in
fact a distinct form of the general will. It differs from the two previous forms in all of the key areas on which
we have focused our attention: its subject, its object, and its relation to the private will. What is perhaps most
interesting to notice in Rousseau’s treatment of the actual general will, however, is the fact that he seems to
believe that it will not, in practice, constitute a significantly different form of the general will than the ideal
general will. He thinks that in a healthy society, what the ideal general will requires for an object will be
realized in an actual majority vote. Thus, confounding Plato, the actual would collapse back into the ideal–or
rather, the ideal would never fail to be actualized.
Rousseau’s assumption seems to be that so long as a society remains founded upon original general
will, it will always be possible to get at least a simple majority of the citizens to manifest the ideal general will
in their voting. Hence, majority rule will prove an adequate mechanism for managing the day-to-day
governance of the state, and Rousseau allows it to do so (this is the main principle that is agreed upon and
formalized in the social contract (SC 147, 206)). Rousseau believes that we can have confidence in a majority
vote as long as we remain founded, as a community, upon the originary general will.9 “We always want what is
good for us, but we do not always see what it is” (SC 155). A society that remains securely founded “is never
corrupted, but it is often tricked, and only then does it appear to want what is bad” (SC 155). So the voting
process must be structured in order to allow the ideal general will to manifest itself. This amounts to making
sure that each citizen is aware that she or he is being questioned about the general will, and has a chance to
respond individually. “[T]he law of the public order in the assemblies is not so much to maintain the general
will, as to bring it about that it is always questioned and that it always answers” (SC 204).
If, when a sufficiently informed populace deliberates, the citizens were to have no communication among themselves,
the general will [in the ideal form, based on the originary form] would always result from the large number of small
differences, and the deliberation would always be good… it is therefore important that there should be no partial society
in the state and that each citizen make up his own mind (SC 156).
D) The Three Forms Reunited
Breaking Rousseau’s general will down into three distinct forms has allowed us to understand it better,
so that we are now in a position to consider it once again as a unified whole. Ultimately, I believe, Rousseau’s
presentation of the general will does give us a single coherent picture. As we have just seen, the actual general
will ought to be a reflection of the ideal general will, which in turn ought to find a stable foundation in the
original general will. As long as “the characteristics of the [original] general will are still in the majority,”
Rousseau maintains, the whole pyramid is guaranteed to stand (SC 206). He seems to consider all three
moments of the general will to be essentially linked together, and all grounded in the same founding moment.
Though I believe that it is appropriate and worthwhile to distinguish the three forms that we have considered,
to think of any of these forms as radically independent of the others would be a distortion.
In all of its different manifestations, the general will is what governs and preserves a society. It founds
the state in such a way that membership in it is mutually beneficial for all who sustain the social contract. It
informs and sustains the laws, and all other actions of the government (SC 195, 199, 219. 176). In all of these
respects I can find no fault in Rousseau’s account of the general will, and in the functions that he calls upon it to
carry out in his society. Our analysis has revealed that Rousseau’s theory of the general will is coherent and
persuasive. I conclude, therefore, that those who have found that theory to be inadequate are mistaken. Such
criticism of the general will has been misdirected. What is most problematic in Rousseau’s political theory is
not the general will, but rather the condition of the general will’s possibility. 10
2) The Origin of the General Will
Our close analysis of the general will has revealed that it can, in fact, serve as a very sound foundation
for the state–if it can be made to exist. We have traced the general will, in all of its various shapes, down to an
original, founding moment: the moment of agreement between the general good and the private good in the
minds of the people. What needs to be questioned, I would argue, is not the efficacy of the will which arises
from that moment, but rather the very possibility of that moment.
Rousseau claims that this founding moment must be created by a “legislator.” The legislator is the
formalizing or actualizing force behind the creation of the state, the “demiurge” that intervenes from the outside
in order to bring about the original general will which in turn gives rise to the society. Unlike other concepts in
Rousseau’s political theory, the concept of the legislator is spelled out very succinctly and directly in the course
of only a very few pages in The Social Contract.11 Rousseau begins by clarifying the need for a legislator. The
problem is that people are simply unable to say what they really desire, or what they ought to desire. Any
multitude is, unfortunately, “a blind multitude, which often does not know what it wants (since it rarely knows
what is good for it)” (SC 162). There always already exists, for Rousseau, an end for every group, which is in
the best interests of both the group as a whole and of all the individuals in that group. In a sense, Rousseau
argues, everyone in the group already desires the right end, but they fail to realize it. “By itself the populace
always wants the good, but by itself it does not always see it…. It must be made to see objects as they are, and
sometimes as they ought to appear to it. The good path it seeks must be pointed out to it” (SC 162). Any group
of people in its natural state, before the organization of society, will find itself caught up in disagreements
between the general and the private will. No agreement appears to exist between the two in a “state of nature,”
though Rousseau believes that such an agreement does exist at a deeper level, beneath the surface.12 This
agreement must be defined through the work of the legislator.
Private individuals see the good they reject. The public wills the good that it does not see. Everyone is equally in need
of guides. The former must be obligated to conform their wills to their reason; the latter must learn to know what it
wants…. Whence there arises the necessity of having a legislator (SC 162).
The legislator confronts an apparently impossible situation. On the one hand, he faces an “undertaking that
transcends human force,” but on the other hand he has, “to execute it, an authority that is nil” (SC 164). Both
sides of this difficult situation deserve careful consideration.
The “undertaking that transcends human force” is the task of bringing humans to acknowledge their will, even
though it be against their will. The legislator must lead individuals to a deeper understanding of themselves, in
spite of their natural resistance.
He who dares to undertake the establishment of a people should feel that he is, so to speak, in a position to change
human nature, to transform each individual (who by himself is a perfect and solitary whole), into a part of a larger
whole from which this individual receives, in a sense, his life and his being; to alter man’s constitution in order to
strengthen it… In a word, he must deny man his own forces in order to give him forces that are alien to him and that he
cannot make use of without the help of others (SC 163).
The legislator must first of all locate the deeper good which is both general and private, the telos which is
capable of uniting a group of individuals into a society, and then he must make all the individuals aware of this
good so that they can will it unitedly. This twofold task would require extraordinary powers. The human who
could do it would have to be something more than human. Rousseau says that he would have to be,
a superior intelligence that beheld all the passions of men without feeling any of them; who had no affinity with our
nature, yet knew it through and through; whose happiness was independent of us, yet who nevertheless was willing to
concern itself with ours; finally, who, in the passage of time, procures for himself a distant glory, being able to labor in
one age and find enjoyment in another (SC 162-163).
Who are these superhuman legislators? Rousseau, very honestly, calls them “gods” (SC 163).
The other side of the legislator’s “impossible” situation is the fact that he is given no authority to accomplish his
task. Just as the legislator must have an extraordinary character, he is constrained to occupy an “extra-ordinary”
office in the government. “This office, which constitutes the republic, does not enter into its constitution” (SC163). The legislator must create a society from the outside. He cannot have the obligating authority of a state or
a government behind him in his work because “only the general will obligates private individuals,” and that is
precisely what the legislator is working to bring about (SC 164). The legislator cannot address himself to the
people’s obligations, for they have none. Prior to the advent of the original general will, there is no authoritative,
obligatory power from which to draw. Thus, the only power left to the legislator is the power of persuasion.
But here another problem presents itself:
The wise men who want to speak to the common masses in the former’s own language rather than in the common
vernacular cannot be understood by the masses. For there are a thousand kinds of ideas that are impossible to translate
in the language of the populace. Overly general perspectives and overly distant objects are equally beyond its grasp…
For an emerging people to be capable of appreciating the sound maxims of politics and to follow the fundamental rules
of statecraft, the effect would have to become the cause. The social spirit which ought to be the work of that institution,
would have to preside over the institution itself (SC 164).
Prior to the founding moment of originary general will, the common people are incapable of understanding the
legislator’s principles. The extraordinary legislator must necessarily be so far above the ordinary people that it
would be impossible for them to understand him if he speaks to them directly, in his own language. Thus, he
cannot even use the power of persuasion, because he is left without a voice.
The only solution is to find a new voice, which situates itself between the language of authoritative obligation
and the language of rational persuasion. Because “the legislator is incapable of using either force or reasoning,
he must of necessity have recourse to an authority of a different order, which can compel without violence and
persuade without convincing” (SC 164). This new authoritative voice is the voice of myth. The lack of a
language with which to communicate their extraordinary understanding to the ordinary masses “has always
forced the fathers of nations to have recourse to the interventions of heaven and to credit the gods with their
own wisdom, so that the peoples might obey with liberty and bear with docility the yoke of public felicity” (SC164). The legislator has no other method to which to turn; “he must of necessity” make use of such myths.
Rousseau believes that this is the only way that the originary coincidence of general and private will, which is
necessary to found a state, can be brought about.
At this point we can clearly see that what is most tenuous in Rousseau’s theory of the state is not the general
will, but rather the legislator which is needed to produce it. Two obvious criticisms apply to Rousseau’s
legislator. First of all, it seems completely unrealistic. This criticism might not matter to another political
theory, but it surely applies to The Social Contract, since the explicit project of that work is to “inquire whether
there can be some legitimate and sure rule of administration in the civil order, taking men as they are?” (SC141, my italics). Or perhaps Rousseau’s description of the legislator is his own way of responding to that initial
question in the negative.13 He does not disguise the fact that he believes that the legislator faces a nearly
impossible task; and he speaks wistfully of these “god-like” creatures as if he does not really believe that any
exist. But assuming that Rousseau does consider the legislator a realistic possibility, and does want us to take
him seriously in this matter, a second criticism would apply. Given that Rousseau believes that the only
resource at the legislator’s disposal in her efforts to instill an originary general will in a people are
“metanarratives” that attribute a metaphysical source and foundation to his project, what would happen if the
people simply refused to believe her? Here Rousseau’s state seems to ultimately rests on a foundation–not of
the general will, and not even of the legislator–but rather of myth. Doesn’t this seem a rather unstable
ground?14 But whatever the answer may be to that question, this much, I believe, is clear: the most
questionable link in Rousseau’s story of the origination and maintenance of a society is not the general will, but
rather the legislator who is the condition of its possibility. While Rousseau’s account of the general will is
sophisticated, well-argued, and coherent, the story of the legislator is so fantastic that he does not seem to
believe it himself. And while the general will emerges as an efficacious mechanism in Rousseau’s state, the
legislator’s chances of success in her task look slim indeed. Clearly, Rousseau’s critics would do better to look
beneath the general will to the legislator, who makes maintenance of the state possible.
Endnotes:
1. Jean Jacques Rousseau, On the Social Contract, trans. and ed. Donald A. Cress, Jean-Jacques Rousseau:
The Basic Political Writings (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1987) 141-227. 160. Hereafter cited internally as SC
followed by page numbers from the Cress translation.
2. For his comments I wish to thank Marc J. Ramsay.
3. Andrew Levine believes that for Rousseau different forms of the will can be distinguished only in terms of
their object. This leads him to a confused picture of the general will, which recognizes only a single form of it,
overlooking entirely the other two that I will discuss in this paper. See The Politics of Autonomy: A Kantian