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V. The Political Moralism of Rousseau
- The Catholic University of America Press
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The Political Moralism of Rousseau v Having developed with some care the idea of the duality of human nature and the relation of ethical conscience to community and culture, we are in a position to examine in depth the implications of man's moral predicament for the theory of democracy. The ethical reasoning should now be applied to the difficult question of which institutional arrangements can make popular rule compatible with the promotion of the ethical life. Our moral framework established, we shall turn to a consideration of one of the most influential answers to that question in Western political thought, that given by Jean-Jacques Rousseau in The Social Contract. An analysis of Rousseau's argument is suggested by the fact that he is widely regarded as a founder of modern democratic thought and by the fact that, directly or indirectly, his ideas form an important part of the hidden assumptions of much political theory in the twentieth century. My examination of the doctrine of majority rule propounded by this seminal thinker is intended to bring some of those assumptions into the open and to expose certain central ethical problems which are usually blurred or evaded in modern thought. The following analysis of Rousseau's theory of popular rule will help to develop a fundamental distinction which, although crucial to democratic theory, is only vaguely recog92 THE POLITICAL MORALISM OF ROUSSEAU 93 nized and understood by most influential theoreticians of democracy today. In his effort to reconcile ethics and politics Rousseau becomes the champion of a form of popular rule which may be termed "plebiscitary democracy," one which gives maximum freedom and power to the momentary majority of the people by placing no strongly resistant legal obstacles in the way of emerging popular wishes. This type of democracy may be defined in contradistinction to "constitutional democracy," a form of popular rule designed to promote , not the instant and complete public implementation of the most recent will of the people, but the articulation of the "deliberate sense" of the community, to use a phrase from the American constitutional tradition. Popular majorities are subject to constitutional restraints whose removal requires an elaborate procedure and not only persistent but overwhelming popular support. The purpose of such a form of government is to filter out what is merely transitory or premature in the various expressions of popular will and to enhance the implementation of what is lasting and well considered. These, it may be argued, are two essentially different conceptions of democracy with vastly different ethical implications. They delineate what may well be the fundamental theoretical alternative available to proponents ofpopular rule. Intelligent choice between them requires a choice between conflicting ethical philosophies. To be able to evaluate the validity of Rousseau's germinal theory of plebiscitary democracy we must carefully examine its ethical foundations. A thorough analysis of Rousseau's ideas about popular rule is more than appropriate, since his thinking involves a few important concepts and terms which bear a certain resemblance to some of those advanced in this discussion. I have introduced the idea of a higher and a lower self in man, hinting at the possibility of applying it to a whole people. It has [44.210.236.0] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 07:49 GMT) 94 DEMOCRACY AND THE ETHICAL LIFE been indicated that the higher self, or ethical conscience, is not a merely private, subjective will, but a will common to all men. Rousseau, by way of comparison, distinguishes in The Social Contract and elsewhere between the general will CIa volonte generaIe), which he defines as the intrinsically moral will of the people, and the will of all CIa volonte de tous), which is a mere aggregation of their selfish interests. He also speaks of a people's common self C moi commun). It needs to be determined whether these similarities are substantive or just terminological and superficial. Rousseau's argument for plebiscitary popular rule in The Social Contract turns on the notion of the general will. The task will be to decide if this concept gives an accurate account of the possible meeting of politics and morality in a democracy . Is the general will the absolute principle of right that would justify the total freedom and loyalty that Rousseau claims for it? On the answer to this question depends the adequacy of the institutional arrangements for popular rule which he suggests. I hope to show that there are grave objections to accepting Rousseau's general...