The General will Before Rousseau
@article{Riley1978TheGW, title={The General will Before Rousseau}, author={Patrick Riley}, journal={Political Theory}, year={1978}, volume={6}, pages={485 - 516} }
will” (volontk gkltkrale)~ is central in Rousseau’s political and moral philosophy; Rousseau himself says that “the general will is always right,”2 that it is “the will that one has as a citizen”3-when one thinks of the common good and not of one’s own “particular will” ( V O ~ O F Z I ~ partictrlie‘re) as a “private person.” Even virtue, he says, is nothing but a “conforming” of one’s personal volontt particuliere to the public volontt gtntrale-a conforming which “leads us out of ourselves,”4…
47 Citations
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Action de Dieu siir les Cr6atures. (Paris. 1713), p. 70. 83. Ibid
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to be sure, goes well beyond Rousseau in calling the self "hateful"; cf. PensPes
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his head and discover all the evils which happen in the world, and let him justify Providence, on the supposiGon that God acts and must act through volontCs particuliires
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Judith N. Shklar, Men and Citizens: A Study of Rousseauk Social Theory 122. On this cf. particularly Rousseau's Gouvernenient de Pologne, chs. I-IV
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Since no man has natural authority over his fellow-man . . . conventions alone remain as the basis of all legitimate authority among men
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To those therefore whose power is irresistible, the dominion of all men adhereth naturally by their excellence or power
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