Engraved in the Heart: How Rousseau’s Citizens are Motivated Toward the Common Good

Abstract

While Jean-Jacques Rousseau firmly defended the capacity of ordinary people to make good decisions for themselves, he did not view them as doing so naturally. In his view, they have to be educated and formed into citizens to be capable of sound decision making. But what is the nature of this education? For one prominent interpretive line, the Social Autonomy interpretation, the transformation occurs primarily through the education of reason. However, this article looks to an early draft of the Social Contract known as the Geneva Manuscript to argue that Rousseau views most people as narrowly self-interested and therefore in need of a passional transformation in order to make decisions based on the common good. People need their feelings expanded in order to agree to a good social contract. In the early draft, Rousseau considers a rationalist account of legitimacy and motivation made by his contemporary Denis Diderot but ultimately critiques and rejects it. This article traces the critique from the manuscript through to the final edition, emending the Social Autonomy interpretation, and further highlighting the necessity of emotional, extra-rational education in Rousseau’s thought.

Are ordinary citizens capable of making good decisions for themselves? Perhaps no thinker in the history of political thought believed so more forcefully than Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In his most famous work, the Social Contract (SC), the only legitimate legislative body is one in which the entire citizenry makes decisions together as the sovereign, making ordinary citizens the only group legitimately capable of sound decision making. However, as Rousseau makes clear, ordinary people do not immediately or naturally make decisions for the common good. Instead, they must be educated and formed into citizens that agree to the social contract and will the general will. It is only then, after this transformation into citizens that people become capable of sound decision making for the collective. But what is the nature of this transformation? For one prominent line of interpretation, the transformation occurs primarily through the education of reason. People come to understand that it is in their interest to agree to a set of laws and institutions that have been appropriately designed. These interpreters highlight autonomy as the organizing concept through which to understand Rousseau’s justification of the state. For them, the Rousseauean citizens agree to the social contract and will the general will because they reason it will maintain their freedom and provide for their own good. Coined by Cohen (1986), the Social Autonomy reading has been most fully developed by Cohen (2010), Neuhouser (2008), and Rawls (2008), though it certainly has origins in Cassirer’s (1954) seminal Kantian interpretation.

While the Social Autonomy readings correctly acknowledge that the social contract is principally justified in reason for Rousseau, it is not solely through reason that the vast majority of individuals agree to Rousseau’s social contract in practice. Rousseau assesses that most human beings neither possess passions directed toward the correct ends nor do they possess the correct relationship between reason and their passions for a good state. People are at core self-interested and so must both understand why the social contract is in their interest through rational insight and must expand their self-interest to include their fellow citizens through the development of feeling.

The interpretation put forth here adds to and is broadly consistent with the existing critiques of the Social Autonomy interpretation. Gomes (2018) has persuasively critiqued Neuhouser for not attending to the lawgiver’s importance in Rousseau’s account of citizenship. On separate occasions, Hasan (2016, 2018) has critiqued the Social Autonomy interpretation for not considering happiness as a key aspect of state legitimacy and for disjoining rationality and psychology in grounding obligation. Hasan’s work is exemplary of a broader tradition of interpretation which views other goods beyond autonomy as key to Rousseau’s politics (e.g., Cooper 1999 who argues it is maximization of existence). However, both Gomes and Hasan look beyond the SC to Emile in order to substantiate Rousseau’s moral psychology. While the present interpretation is ultimately consistent with their critiques and the broader interpretive tradition, Rousseau offers a direct and illuminating account of the average citizen in the often-overlooked early draft of the SC known as the Geneva Manuscript (GM) without the need for a direct appeal to commitments beyond autonomy. ¹ Most interpreters either ignore the GM, or use it sparingly, paying little attention to differences between it and the final SC. In the GM, Rousseau considers a rationalist account of legitimacy and motivation made by his contemporary Denis Diderot, but ultimately rejects it. The GM, and especially the second chapter, contains pertinent evidence for rationalist readings of Rousseau, but these passages are omitted or altered in the final draft of the SC. By paying attention to the changes that he made in framing his work, it becomes clear how he assesses the average person and helps us understand Rousseau’s uneasiness with a purely rational justification of the state in the final version of the SC. The first section of the article focuses on the problem of the independent reasoner, a narrowly self-interested person before the institution of society. This figure frames the problem in a useful and important way ultimately consistent with the final draft. Then, the second section moves to the SC proper and the nature of the transformation from independent person to citizen.

Reading the Geneva Manuscript

The GM is an early draft of the SC which Rousseau began work on at least 6 years prior to final publication. It has been well-established (Masters 1968, 261-4, Spector 2019, 110) that Rousseau began drafting the GM around 1756 at least in part in response to Diderot’s 1755 Encyclopédie entry on natural right (Droit Naturel). In his entry, Diderot argues that human beings are naturally reasonable, sociable, and capable of willing the general will, an argument akin to the Social Autonomy interpretation. Rousseau responds to Diderot’s position most directly and forcefully in I.ii of the GM. This chapter is one of the greatest points of difference between the draft and the final edition of the work and is one of the few places content is entirely omitted in the final version. Scholars have turned to this chapter for insights into Rousseau’s views on natural rights, especially how they contrast to Diderot’s (e.g., Masters 1968, 269–276, Melzer 1983), but less attention has been paid to how this chapter frames the work as a whole or how Rousseau evaluates the role of reason. Riley (1986) has classically and Canon (2022) has recently utilized the GM more broadly to understand Rousseau’s development of the idea of the general will, and Bernardi (2014) has argued that the GM centralizes the concept of sovereignty more than the final edition. Taken together, all these commentators treat the GM as ultimately consistent with the final edition, but with a different emphasis and structure that allows us to understand Rousseau’s thought more completely. I follow their lead, focusing on Rousseau’s disagreement with Diderot, but with an eye to Rousseau’s appraisal of reason and his critique of a rationalist conception of the state. In this section, I first discuss Diderot’s article and his understanding of the so-called “violent reasoner” before moving to Rousseau’s critique and revised position in the GM.

The content of Diderot’s entry Droit Naturel provides key context for Rousseau’s chapter, not just because Rousseau responds to it directly but also because Diderot’s article represents one major rationalist account of natural rights (akin to Malebranche’s) that Rousseau is both influenced by and breaks from (see Spector 2019, 111-5). After opening the article by stating the importance of the definition of the term droit naturel, Diderot asserts that any unjust man must admit that he desires to do to others what he does not want done to himself. He indicates that humans are self-interested creatures and have freedom to choose whether or not to be just. On these points, Rousseau agrees. Diderot goes on in the rest of the article to pose and respond to a “violent reasoner” (Diderot 2009 [1755], 9) who is a rational egoist in the state of nature. Diderot gives this character voice, declaring:

“I feel that I bring terror and disorder in the midst of mankind, but I must either be unhappy or make others unhappy; and nobody is dearer to me than I am to myself… if my happiness demands that I destroy the lives of all those who disturb me, it is also necessary for an individual, whomever he may be, to be able to destroy mine if he is similarly disturbed; reason requires this, and I subscribe to it…” (3)

This violent reasoner is in the final stages of the state of nature, and his reasoning has led him to the Hobbesian conclusion that each person has the right to judge the means of their own self-preservation. The violent reasoner believes that he has reasoned to the only logical conclusion and expects everyone else will reach the same conclusion. A Hobbesian war of all against all is the acknowledged result of this kind of thinking, but the violent reasoner sees no way out. This is the same character that Rousseau comes to utilize later, though with a different response.

Though Diderot acknowledges that the violent reasoner must eventually be stifled, he insists that any answer to this man must itself be rational. In fact, Diderot argues that human beings “must apply reason in all matters,” because they are “not only an animal but an animal who reasons” (4). By formulating humans as reasoning beings by nature, Diderot posits reason as the only standard for natural law and morality. As such, Diderot goes on to argue that reason itself answers, and must answer, the independent reasoner. Though, reasoning not from the perspective of an individual’s interest but from the perspective of the entire human race. The violent reasoner must not think in terms of what is best for himself but in terms of the good of all people. The capacity to do this is what makes people distinctively human.

Diderot concludes his article with a nine-point list, outlining and summarizing his argument for his conception of natural rights and his answer to the violent reasoner. This list is particularly helpful because it outlines his position in simple terms and builds his argument from its assumptions. Diderot’s first point is (1) “that the man who listens only to his particular will is the enemy of the human race” (Diderot 2009 [1755], 9). This man is the violent reasoner who knowingly brings chaos to the human race and is therefore an enemy to cooperation and the good of everyone, as discussed above. With this in hand, he moves to his second point to start to answer the violent reasoner: (2) “that the general will in each individual is a pure act of understanding that reasons in the silence of the passions about what man can demand of his fellow man and about what his fellow man can rightfully demand of him” (ibid.). The only way to access natural right and find out what one person owes another is through the general will. This kind of reasoning happens without any sort of personal interest or passion guiding it, rendering it “pure.” The general will is a distinct type of reasoning separate from the kind offered by the “violent reasoner,” and one much more conducive to cooperation.

Diderot explicates the general will in the next six points: dictating the components of the general will as its (3–4) universal, (5) general, (6) rightly directed, (7) enduring, and (8) just nature (ibid.). This account of the general will is one that Rousseau was both influence by and alters in his own version (see Riley 1986), as I discuss more in depth below. The ninth and final point brings home the reasonability of his argument: (9) “that all these inferences [listed in the other eight points] are evident to the person who reasons, and that the person who does not wish to reason, renouncing his human condition, must be treated as an unnatural being” (ibid.). This last point both ends the article on a grand rhetorical note that gets to the heart of Diderot’s argument. Natural rights are accessible through reason in the form of the general will. Reasoning to the conclusion that the general will is the foundation of natural right (droit naturel) embodies our capacity as human beings. Diderot asserts that humans in the state of nature inherently have the capacity and obligation to access and accept the general will as the foundation for their actions. They are capable of rejecting the general will and following their private will, but this would be unreasonable and therefore unhuman. Yes, because humans have the freedom to choose whether or not to be just in any moment, there are plenty of examples of injustice both at the individual and societal levels. However, these are instances where people ignore their humanity and indulge their animalistic passions.

Rousseau and the Independent Reasoner

Now that we understand the original text and context that Rousseau responds to in the GM, we can turn to the second chapter of the draft properly. This chapter was originally titled “That there is naturally no general society among men,” but then was crossed out and replaced. The original title aptly highlights the argument Rousseau goes on to make in this chapter. Like Diderot’s article, Rousseau’s section of the GM is an account of human beings before the creation of the social contract. Rousseau assesses that humans have developed desires that “finally encompass the whole of nature” and as such require the cooperation of the whole human race to even hope to satisfy them (GM I.ii. 158). ² However, unlike Diderot’s account, this dependence does not immediately lead to fair cooperation toward the common good. Instead, Rousseau writes

It is false that in the state of independence, reason leads us to cooperate for the common good out of a perception of our own interest. Far from there being an alliance between private interest and the general good, they are mutually exclusive in the natural order of things, and social laws are a yoke that each wants to impose on the other without having to bear it himself (GM I.ii. 160).

The state of independence Rousseau refers to here is a sort of state of nature that exists before the bonds of the social contract, or more specifically Rousseau’s social contract. The result of this state of independence has been laws imposed unequally, with each person attempting to impose laws on others while remaining exempt themselves. In the state of independence, reason is not the capacity that can bring humans to cooperate for the common good. Instead, reasoning only with the end of self-interest leads to the pursuit of the private good at the expense of the public good.

Because private interests are always in conflict, Rousseau poses the character of the independent reasoner, taken directly from Diderot though with a notable change in title from “violent” to “independent.” This man, existing in the state of independence, reasons only with a view to his individual self-interest. Rousseau gives this character voice to fully outline his reasoning, using the exact same words as Diderot: “I am aware that I bring horror and confusion to the human species… but either I must be unhappy or I must cause others to be so, and no one is dearer to me than myself” (ibid.). The independent man reasons that his self-interest does not lead to the common good because politics as it exists is a zero-sum game. Either he takes advantage of his fellow man or his fellow man takes advantage of him. This is the first (1) objection of the independent reasoner and the core of his position. At this point, Rousseau extends the logic of the independent reasoner beyond Diderot’s “violent reasoner” and poses a second (2) objection: “I would try in vain… to reconcile my interest with that of another man. Everything you tell me about the advantage of the social law would be fine if while I were scrupulously observing it toward others, I were sure that all of them observe it toward me” (ibid.). Here, the independent reasoner momentarily concedes his core position but still objects to acting for the common good on prudential grounds. Even if he were to agree to a just social contract, he would need assurance it would be respected by his fellow man, but he finds no such assurances. The independent reasoner thinks that most everybody else is like him, or at least he has no guarantee against this possibility, and Rousseau has assessed that he is correct, contra Diderot. In society as it exists, there is no guarantee that people will respect the good of others when their own interest is in conflict. Furthermore, the independent reasoner can recognize justice and knows it when he sees it, but claims “it is not a matter of teaching me what justice is but of showing what interest I have in being just” (I.ii. 161). The independent reasoner might know what the common good is but refuses to act out of a concern for it because it conflicts with his individual interest. In sum, the independent reasoner looks out for his own good and ultimately sees the common good as incompatible with it. While Rousseau agrees with Diderot that the independent man is primarily self-interested, he does not see that interest being led by reason towards justice.

Rousseau goes on to briefly consider two possible answers to the independent reasoner: one provided by religion and the other by the philosopher (in this case, Diderot). While the philosopher is more relevant to the matter at hand, I first discuss religion since Rousseau will return to it in his discussion of the lawgiver. At first Rousseau poses religion as an aid for morality where “God’s will” “bind[s] the society of men” and imposes the social virtues of “pure souls”; however, this cannot answer the independent reasoner because these precepts of religion “will always escape the multitude.” Religion escapes the multitude because “Gods as senseless as itself will always be made for the multitude, which will sacrifice worthless things in honor of these Gods in order to indulge in a thousand horrible, destructive passions” (GM I.ii. 160). The multitude, here portrayed as “senseless,” will not alter their passions in response to the demands of a deity. Instead, they will pay lip-service to God and follow their destructive passions anyway. They will take on a god or gods in name but not as a guide for their action. This is because God and his teaching are not innately known in the human heart, Rousseau goes on to explain. Instead, “special teaching became necessary” and “each people has its own ideas which it is taught are the only valid ones, and which lead to carnage and murder more often than to harmony and peace” (GM I.ii. 161). Here Rousseau denies the existence of natural revealed religion, pointing to the existence of religious plurality, disagreement, and conflict as evidence. Religion, then, cannot be the primary answer to the independent reasoner because traditional religion is not an innate precept and religious education always fails on a broad scale. It all too often leads to destructive fanaticism.

Because religion proves an unreliable basis for morality and a dangerous answer to the independent reasoner, Rousseau claims we must “give back to the philosopher the examination of a question that the theologian has never dealt with except to the detriment of the human race” (GM I.ii 161). However, the philosopher in this case holds the very same opinion as Diderot. Rousseau writes that the philosopher “will send me back to the human race itself, which alone ought to decide because the greatest good of all is the only passion it has” (161). As we have already seen, it was Diderot who appealed to the human race itself and his account of the general will as the answer for the violent/independent reasoner. And it was Diderot who posited that the general will was always good because the common good was its only passion.

However, it is at this point that Rousseau adds the independent reasoner’s second point, already outlined above, which goes beyond Diderot’s account. Even if the independent reasoner were to look to the common good, there is no guarantee others will do the same. The issue with Diderot’s account is that he did not provide the independent reasoner, or anyone else, with an interest in being just. The common good would be in each individual’s personal interest if they were guaranteed reciprocity, but they are not. At first, Rousseau appears to accept Diderot’s account of the general will: “no one will deny that the general will in each individual is a pure act of understanding, which reasons in the silence of the passions…” (161). Again, Rousseau verbatim quotes Diderot, this time his (2) second summary point in its entirety. While Rousseau momentarily accepts Diderot’s understanding of the general will, he rejects the idea that the independent reasoner would voluntarily choose to follow it. Rousseau goes on to question whether anyone can be objective about themselves, implying they cannot, and asks rhetorically why someone would submit themselves to duties they cannot connect to their own good, implying heavily that they would not. This makes up the first main objection Rousseau outlines to Diderot’s account. I will call this objection the voluntarist objection.

Social Autonomy Readings and the Independent Reasoner

Rousseau’s treatment of the independent reasoner addresses in advance, so to speak, some of the important features of the Social Autonomy reading, especially through the voluntarist objection. The Social Autonomy interpretations of Rousseau agree that he dismisses religion as the answer to the independent reasoner but would answer the problem of the independent reasoner and the voluntarist objection in two major ways, represented in the interpretations of Cohen and Neuhouser, respectively. Cohen (2010) rejects that Rousseau needs to answer the independent reasoner at all because he denies that people agreeing to Rousseau’s social contract are originally “moved solely by self-love” (87). Cohen (2010) briefly discusses the possibility of interpreting Rousseau as a “self-effacing Hobbesian,” that is, as conceiving of people in society as fundamentally self-interested, but finds no evidence for this claim (87–90). He acknowledges that on a self-effacing Hobbesian interpretation, the general will would have to be “cultivated, educated, formed” (88) within the people in some way, but he denies this is necessary.

Neuhouser (2008) on the other hand accepts that Rousseau needs to answer the independent reasoner but sees him as doing so in reason alone, resulting in a Rousseau that looks a lot like Diderot. Neuhouser explicitly claims that modern citizens “conceive of and value themselves as individuals and, most important, submit to the general will only on the basis of their own rational insights into the goodness of the laws that obligate them” (22). However, Rousseau manages to accept the self-effacing Hobbesian premise of Diderot but still not answer the independent reasoner exclusively through an appeal to his reason in the GM. Neuhouser (2008) bypasses the voluntarist objection by assuming that Rousseau fully accepts Diderot’s understanding of the general will as “a pure act of understanding, which reasons in the silence of the passions” (GM i.ii. 161). Neuhouser directly quotes this passage of the GM to argue that “adopting the standpoint of reason requires the ability to put to the side, at least momentarily, the demands of one’s own particular desires and interests” (196). If people are able to completely set aside their personal interest, they would easily be able to accept the general will and the voluntarist object would be answered. However, while Rousseau appears to take on this account of the general will, stating that “no one will deny” this way of understanding it (GM 1.ii. 161), he goes on to question this position (originally Diderot’s) in a series of rhetorical questions suggesting this line is not a serious position Rousseau takes but rather one he posits in order to critique. This series of questions, instead of answering the independent reasoner, actually posits the voluntarist objection. Rousseau asks if a man could be found who can be “so objective about himself” and if that man “can be forced” (161) to impose duties on himself. He indicates that these problems “still remain” (161) at the end of his line of questions. Rousseau does not accept Diderot’s account of the general will. Instead, he poses Diderot’s position in order to raise the voluntarist objection. This objection is not only a critique of Diderot’s position, but it is also a problem Rousseau will need to solve in his own conception of the social contract. The independent reasoner still needs an interest in being just.

Rousseau goes on to outline a second objection, an epistemic objection. Even if the independent reasoner could be motivated to accept the general will, he still would not properly know what the general will is or how to follow it. Rousseau rhetorically asks, “since the art of generalizing ideas in this way is one of the most difficult and belated exercises of human understanding, will the average man ever be capable of deriving his rules of conduct from this manner of reasoning?” (GM i.ii 162). The implied answer is, of course, that he will not, or at least that this act would not be as easy and natural as Diderot claims.

Now we can fully see the two fundamental reasons why Rousseau disagrees with Diderot’s answer to the independent/violent reasoner. The first, the voluntarist problem, is that pure abstract reasoning is not enough of a motivating force for most self-interested beings. They may be able to know what the common good is, but they will not necessarily accept that the common good is good for them. Then, the second, epistemic problem is that even if the independent reasoner accepts the general will as a guide for their actions, he still would not necessarily know what the general will consists in or how to carry it out. Each of these problems exists independent of one another. Given the stubbornness of the independent reasoner, and the faults in all existing answers for him, it is perhaps surprising that Rousseau selects this character as the judge for the whole of his proposed social contract. He writes: “Let us use new associations to correct, if possible, the defect of the general association. Let our violent speaker himself judge its success” (GM I.ii. 162). Rousseau aims to correct the defect he has identified in general society, namely, that individual interest does not lead to associations that work toward the common good. As he writes at the beginning of the final version of the SC, he seeks to “join what right permits with what interest prescribes, so that justice and utility are not always at odds” (SC I. 163). He wants to create a state that takes the interests of the people and leads them to accept a state that is just and works toward the common good. His task will be successful if the principles and practices he outlines in the rest of the work could be accepted by the independent reasoner. Returning now to Cohen’s (2010) interpretation, we can see here the evidence for Rousseau as a self-effacing Hobbesian. By placing the independent reasoner as the judge of the social contract, instead of a figure to be stifled like in Diderot’s account, Rousseau explicitly accepts the assumption that people before the institution of the social contract are narrowly self-interested.

But how is Rousseau supposing to persuade or convince the independent reasoner to agree to his principles? As he has already outlined contra Diderot, reason does not automatically lead a person in the state of independence toward the common good. With big rhetorical flourishes, Rousseau answers this question at length:

Let us show him in perfected art the reparation of the ills that the beginnings of art caused to nature. Let us show him all the misery of the state he believed happy, all the falseness in the reasoning he believed solid. Let him see the value of good actions, the punishment of bad ones, and the sweet harmony of justice and happiness in a better constituted order of things. Let us enlighten his reason with new insights, warm his heart with new feelings; and let him learn to enlarge upon his being and his felicity by sharing them with his fellow men (GM I.ii. 162).

The first sentence in this passage reiterates the goal Rousseau has already laid out in this chapter. “The beginning of art” is the artificial structure of general society that naturally came about. Rousseau seeks to show the independent reasoner that politics does not have to be a zero-sum game like he understands it currently. The independent reasoner has reasoned incorrectly about his own interest and must be shown or taught that what he understands as happiness (individual advantage) is not true happiness. True happiness can apparently be rightly found when the independent reasoner learns to “enlarge upon his being” and identify his interest with the interest of others. He would feel even greater felicity and happiness than he does now by sharing his happiness with his fellow man. Certainly, some of this showing or convincing of the independent reasoner is done through reason. Rousseau aims to “enlighten” the reason of the independent man with the “new insights” he will present in the rest of the work. He will show the independent reasoner the “falseness in the reasoning he believed solid.” However, he will also “warm his heart with new feelings.” This does not seem to be an appeal to reason. Instead, Rousseau promises to alter the passions of the independent man. No longer can he be entirely concerned with his narrow self-interest if and when he develops new feelings. Rousseau will also “let him learn to enlarge his being” to include other men. These changes are difficult to fully explain with reason. Instead, Rousseau requires a transformative education for the independent reasoner that makes him feel solidarity with his fellow citizens.

This one chapter of the GM, later omitted from the final version, cannot constitute a full answer to the problem, but it does frame the question in a useful way. How does Rousseau answer the independent reasoner? Does he enlighten his reason? Does he alter his passions? Both? Social Autonomy interpretations have already demonstrated how Rousseau enlightens the reason of this man and in so doing properly understand Rousseau’s answer to the epistemic objection. However, the SC also features a transformation of affect in the independent man not based entirely in reason that will change his character so that he can be in the right frame to accept the social contract and will the general will, thus answering the voluntarist objection. There is substance to what Rousseau means when he talks of “warm[ing] his heart with new feeling” and expanding his being to include others, and that substance is unpacked below.

Echoes of the Independent Reasoner in the Social Contract

Looking at the GM, we have now seen that the voluntarist objection is key to answering the independent reasoner and that the Social Autonomy reading overlooks this objection. Looking at the final draft of the SC, one of the most striking differences between the GM and the final draft is that the independent reasoner is nowhere to be found. In order to move from the GM to the SC, it is necessary to determine that the independent reasoner is still in Rousseau’s mind in the SC, considering he decided to omit this way of framing the work. While it is possible that Rousseau changed his mind between drafts, I aim to show this is not the case.

Instead of framing the treatise around answering the independent reasoner in a lengthy chapter, Rousseau opens the SC with these two famous sentences: “I want to inquire whether there can be any legitimate and reliable rule of administration in the civil order, taking men as they are and laws as they can be. In this inquiry I will try to join what right permits with what interest prescribes, so that justice and utility are not always at odds” (SC 1. 163). ³ On the surface, this seems compatible with the goal set out in the GM if “men as they are” are in fact like the independent reasoner. Rousseau is attempting to outline laws, or at least a way towards them, that answer the fundamental problem of the independent man. For the independent reasoner, justice and utility are always at odds, at least when there are no assurances that justice will be done. The independent reasoner could see the potential benefit of a just society but does not believe that it can be guaranteed. The institutions Rousseau will outline over the course of the SC are supposed to make this guarantee, or at least outline the best approximation of it. However, Rousseau will only “try to join” justice and utility; he does not claim that his inquiry will be convincing or succeed. By omitting the discussion of the independent reasoner, he dodges the question of the judgment of the work’s success. It is not clear from the outset if Rousseau believes the treatise can actually convince the independent reasoner with right reason alone. And as we shall see, he does not.

While it is plausible that most people are independent reasoners, how can we be assured that Rousseau means the independent reasoner when “taking men as they are”? There are two different passages, present both in both versions, though in shifted locations (GM I.vi., SC I.vii-I.viii), where Rousseau addresses the logic of the independent reasoner. The first is in the chapter “On the Sovereign” where Rousseau writes: “Indeed, each individual can, as a man, have a particular will contrary to or differing from the general will he has as a citizen. His particular interest can speak to him entirely differently from the common interest” (SC I.vii 175). This man understands his own self-interest is at times at odds with the common interest, much like the independent reasoner. Rousseau goes on: “His absolute and naturally independent existence can lead him to view what he owes to the common cause as a gratuitous contribution, the loss of which will be less harmful to others than its payment is burdensome to him” (SC I.vii 175). This individual man follows the same logic as the independent reasoner. When this man sees he can gain more for himself at the expense of the collective, he does so. He values his own good over the good of the collective. ⁴ The fact that Rousseau acknowledges this way of thinking and takes it seriously implies that he is concerned with the fundamental problem of the independent reasoner in the final draft of the SC.

This link is further made by Rousseau in the following chapter, “On the Civil State,” in a telling and famous passage that starts to get at the kind of transformation that takes place in civil society. Here, Rousseau discusses the transition from the state of nature to the civil state. This transition “produces a very remarkable change in man, by substituting justice for instinct in his conduct and by giving his action the morality they previously lacked” (SC I.viii 175). Here, the civil state brings about a fundamental change in the make-up of man, who had apparently lacked justice and morality. Rousseau goes on: “Only then, when the voice of duty replaces physical impulse and right replaces appetite, does man, who until then considered only himself, see himself forced to act on the basis of principles and to consult his reason before listening to his inclinations” (SC I.viii 175-6). Here we see that the core of man in the state of nature consists of narrow self-interest, just like the independent reasoner. The appetite of the man in the state of nature is the same appetite as the independent reasoner: it encompasses the whole of the universe. From the combination of these two passages, it is clear that man in the state of nature is the independent reasoner both in the GM and the final version of the SC.

Neuhouser (2008) reads the passage in I.viii as vindicating a fully rationalist reading of Rousseau. He argues that modern citizens “conceive of and value themselves as individuals and, most important, submit to the general will only on the basis of their rational insight into the goodness of the laws that obligate them” (22). For Neuhouser, reason is the driving force behind the shift that takes place as people move from the state of nature to the civil state. Reason replaces impulse, appetite, and instinct as the motiving force of action. He writes “reason is able to do this only by introducing into conduct the idea of right (or duty and justice) and by recognizing the principles of right as a higher authority than mere inclination” (192). While Neuhouser is correct that the principles of right come to have higher authority than inclination in the civil state, the passage does not necessitate that reason is the transformative force. Looking again, Rousseau identifies the capacity to reason correctly only as a result of the movement to the civil state, not the cause of that movement. In fact, it is only after the transformation that reason comes into play. This not only leaves open the possibility but even also suggests that it is something outside of reason that brought about the change that allows citizens to reason correctly.

Answering the Independent Reasoner

We can now see that Rousseau is concerned with the logic of the independent reasoner in the final edition of the SC and that reason alone is insufficient for getting the independent reasoner to want the common good. With this in hand, I now turn in this section to Rousseau’s answer to the independent reasoner in earnest, with a special eye to the nature of the required transformative education. I first address the practical figure that Rousseau conceives of inducing this transformation, the lawgiver, then turn to the continuing aspects of a political society that hold the people in their new state. What is important for the current argument is not the feasibility of the lawgiver as a founder or legitimator of a real state but rather what sort of guidance and formation Rousseau conceives the lawgiver providing to the people. The nature of this guidance reveals the nature of the transformation that must occur in a private person to become a good citizen in a just society. Then, the morals, customs, and opinions of the society are shown to be the forces that continue to keep the citizens voluntarily concerned with the common good.

Beginning the transition to the lawgiver chapter in the SC at the end of II.vi, “On Law,” Rousseau writes: “Private individuals see the good they reject; the public wants the good it does not see. All are equally in need of guides” (190). Here, Rousseau tersely reiterates both the voluntarist and epistemological problems he outlined in the GM in this passage. The independent reasoner understands what justice is but does not have any interest in being just. Private individuals understand what the common good is but ultimately reject it in lieu of their private good: the voluntarist objection. Then on the other hand, the public, just like the independent reasoner, even if they were to voluntarily choose the “good they reject” would not be able to “see” it, that is, would not be able to understand how to follow the general will: the epistemic objection. To solve this problem, Rousseau argues that the people need guidance. He then immediately outlines what this guidance entails: “[private individuals] must be obliged to make their wills conform to their reason” (190). The transformation they need guidance for is the same as the transition from the natural to the civil state outlined in I.viii. The private man, through guidance, will be obliged “to act on the basis of principles and to consult his reason before listening to his inclinations” (176). This move does not happen spontaneously through individual reasoning, like in Diderot’s account. Rousseau is clear that this transition requires a guide and that private individuals must be “obliged” to make this change.

The guide who brings about this transition in the private individuals is the lawgiver. The lawgiver is necessary because of both the epistemological and voluntarist objections Rousseau identified in the GM. The institutions set up for the people will answer the epistemic problem, and the transformation he will induce in them will solve the voluntarist problem. From the outset, it is clear Rousseau conceives of the lawgiver as bringing about a robust change in man, the very change promised in the GM and earlier in the SC. He writes:

He who dares to undertake to establish a people’s institutions must feel that he is capable of changing, so to speak, human nature; of transforming each individual, who by himself is a complete and solitary whole, into a part of a greater whole from which that individual receives as it were his life and his being; of weakening man’s constitution in order to reinforce it; of substituting a partial and moral existence for the physical and independent existence we all received from nature (II.vii. 191).

This transformation is the same kind of transformation alluded to at the beginning of the GM and constitutes the shift from natural to civil society. Each individual starts as a solitary whole, an independent person who lacks a moral existence. The movement from the individual to a greater whole seems to require the enlargement of his feelings Rousseau promises to provide the independent reasoner in the GM. The moral existence the lawgiver imparts is the same as the “value of good actions, the punishment of bad ones” (GM 1.ii.162) the independent reasoner will come to understand in the GM. This transformation lines up with the move from nature to civil society described above.

The lawgiver has to bring about the transformation without direct coercive force because he is not allowed to legislate or be a prince/executive in the government (SC II.vii, 190-1). One might think that this leaves reason alone as the method of guidance for the lawgiver, but Rousseau dispels this option as well: “The wise who want to speak in their own language to the vulgar rather than in the language of the vulgar cannot be understood by them” (SC II.vii, 192). The language of the wise is later called the “sublime reason, which exceeds the grasp of vulgar men” (193), making it clear that reason alone is not enough to bring about the right transformation in private individuals. They cannot understand the “sublime reason” of the lawgiver. The lawgiver imparts the values and institutions of Rousseau’s social contract onto private individuals, but the vulgar, a seemingly large number of said individuals, cannot understand.

Rousseau goes on to describe why they cannot: “Each individual, appreciating no other plan of government than that which bears on his particular interest, has difficulty perceiving the advantages he is to derive from the constant privations imposed by good laws” (SC II.vii, 192). This is the same logic the independent reasoner offered. The independent reasoner also did not want to give up his particular interest and was dissatisfied with the privations imposed by good laws. The vulgar are shown to be a mass of independent reasoners, at least in a simplified form. And these independent reasoners are unable to be convinced by the sublime reason of the lawgiver. However, while each individual has difficulty perceiving the advantages he derives from good laws, this does not necessarily mean that those advantages are not real.

The way that the virtuous society can be brought about is through a persuasive appeal to an extra-rational, affecting, and mythological force. The lawgiver will put his sublime reason into the “mouth of the immortals, in order to motivate by divine authority those who could not be swayed by human prudence” (SC 2.7, 193). This is what allows him to “persuade without convincing” (SC 2.7, 193). He persuades the vulgar independent reasoners through his appeal to a force greater than himself, but he does not convince them because convincing would need to be done through reason. The extra-rational is a tool that can be used to “so to speak” change human nature by molding the passions. Rousseau acknowledges that some may be convinced by reason alone but insists that an extra-rational appeal is necessary for those that are not “swayed by human prudence” (193). And nearly everyone will need to be convinced if the democratic society is to function and guarantee outcomes for the common good.

Christopher Kelly (1987) aptly highlights the persuasive nature of Rousseau’s lawgiver. He argues that the lawgiver illustrates the non-rational basis upon which the people’s consent can be obtained. Kelly looks to Rousseau’s accounts of language and music to demonstrate that persuasion and rhetoric are modes for changing the human passions in Rousseau’s moral psychology (326–331). The people are not high-minded political theorists who can work out all the principles of political right, but they are responsive to rhetoric and persuasion that can make them feel solidarity with their fellow man. The lawgiver appeals to divine authority because there is no logical reason why a certain set of people will come to identify with their specific countrymen in a community. The divine authority as outlined by the lawgiver gives form to the people, making them feel connected to their countrymen by a higher purpose. However, he does not impart a ready-made totalizing religion onto them. One of the key problems with religion in the GM was that traditional religion attempted to provide a universal and unitary morality true for all time and all people. And in Diderot’s account, the general will is of the human race, also a universal standard. The lawgiver’s guidance is conventional and can only apply to the citizens in the state. It binds a specific set of people together.

While reason is insufficient to convince, it is necessary that the lawgiver’s guidance is ultimately justified by reason in principle. This means that the lawgiver must be animated and guided by the very principles of political right Rousseau outlines in the SC, though Rousseau acknowledges that there is no guarantee this will be the case. He acknowledges that the people may be, and perhaps often are, persuaded by tricksters who “engrave stone tablets, or bribe an oracle, or feign secret dealings with some divinity…” (193). However, these miraculous tricks only lead to momentary fanaticism by forming a “mob of madmen” (193). It does not lead to stable and lasting institutions. This is consistent with and reflects Rousseau’s brief consideration and rejection of religion in I.ii of the GM outlined above. Religion and passionate persuasion when taken as the sole answer to the independent reasoner leads to destructive fanaticism and conflict. However, when guided by the philosopher’s reason (in this case not Diderot’s but Rousseau’s reason), passionate appeals can form lasting bonds. ⁵

We can now understand Rousseau’s answer to the independent reasoner, and especially his answer to the voluntarist objection. Neither religion nor the philosopher could answer the independent reasoner on their own in the GM, but they can answer him together in a precise way in the SC. When the pure reason of the philosopher is taken as the answer to the independent reasoner, it does not provide him sufficient interest in being just. When the passionate education of religion is taken as the answer, it leads to uncontrolled fanaticism. However, when reason is mixed with extra-rational modes that alter the passions, the independent reasoner can become a true citizen. Rousseau threads a needle through the two existing answers to the independent reasoner to craft his own. He takes the ideal rational, epistemic, answer of the philosopher and girds it with the voluntarist, passionate answer of extra-rational persuasion.

Once the lawgiver has done his work, it is not primarily the formal laws and institutions of the state which keep the citizens voluntarily in their newly minted state (as Cohen argues), it is the “morals, customs, and especially opinion(s)” (SC II.xii. 202). Rousseau refers to these factors as the laws which are “the most important of all” which are engraved “in the hearts of the citizens” (ibid.). Notably, these laws are not engraved in the reasoning minds of the citizens, but their hearts, the seat of the passions. And while less formal, these laws “form the unshakeable keystone” of the formal institutions and laws which “are merely the sides of the arch” (203). It is these moral and solidaristic aspects of a democratic regime that keep the ordinary citizens concerned with their common good, though they cannot be formally legislated. Instead, in Rousseau’s telling, they are attended to “in secret” (ibid) by the lawgiver. When these more informal aspects crumble, so does the belief in the laws and institutions that formally bind the people, like an arch without a keystone.

There is one set of formal rules which do attend to the passions of the citizens that it would be a glaring error not to mention, civil religion. Formally, this institution is not crafted by the lawgiver (though it is difficult to understand practically how this could be the case), but by the sovereign legislative body of all the citizens. This is not traditional religion but rather a narrow and particular religion that only applies to the citizens in the state. It does not consist of formal dogmas of religion “but as sentiments of sociability, without which it is impossible to be a good citizen” (IV.viii, 271). Rousseau even dictates what these sentiments should consist in: “The existence of a powerful, intelligent, beneficent, foresighted, and provident divinity, the life to come, the happiness of the just, the punishment of the wicked, the sanctity of the social contract and the laws” (ibid.). These sentiments line up with the lawgiver’s persuasive message and actually guarantee reciprocity when believed. The lawgiver appeals to a divinity in order to create a vision for the political community and persuade a people to buy into said vision. The civil religion as well as the morals, customs, and opinions of the society ensure the continuation of this vision for the future. The independent reasoner saw no guarantee that justice would be done to him by others and therefore refused to do justice to them. However, in a state with a strong civil religion and customs, justice is guaranteed because the people believe it is.

By downplaying these informal and extra-rational aspects of Rousseau’s thought, the Social Autonomy reading threatens to view Rousseau’s state as an arch without a keystone. It centers formal institutions, but not the persuadable passions. To be clear, Social Autonomy readings do formally recognize that affect can and does play a role in Rousseau’s state, they just do not acknowledge that it is a fundamental prerequisite for willing the common good. While reasoned arguments and formal institutions can help citizens know what the common good consists in, it cannot get them to choose it over their private good. Only when the rational aspects are paired with the informal, extra-rational, and affective aspects of society will the people choose the common good over and over again. As explications of Rousseau’s principles of political right, Social Autonomy readings are useful and insightful. Cohen (2010) acknowledged that a self-effacing Hobbesian Rousseau is consistent and possible but found no evidence for it. I have found that evidence in the independent reasoner. For him, and for everyone, reason cannot be a motivating force, only an instrumental force given our interests. While people could reason in the silence of the passions as a thought experiment, they do not tend to act in the world on such criteria. Instead, people need to feel that their interest includes the well-being of others. They need to develop feelings for others in the same way that they care about themselves.

The problem with this interpretation of Rousseau is that the social contract itself becomes, as Cohen puts it, “self-effacing” (2010, 89). That is, because the social contract requires a transformational education, it actually would not be agreed to by the independent reasoner. This is because the independent reason has ceased being independent and has become a citizen instead. By enlightening the independent reasoner and imbuing his heart with new feelings, his fundamental problems would be answered. When surrounded by citizens who have an interest in the common good, the independent reasoner would agree to the social contract because reciprocity is guaranteed. However, he is simply not that reasoner anymore. This is justified, in Rousseau’s view, because the independent reasoner would ask to be transformed into a good citizen if he possessed the sublime reason of the lawgiver, or even if he closely read the SC. Rousseau tries to take men as they are at the outset of the SC but finds them wanting. Instead, it takes laws as they can be, both formal and informal to make men as they can be for good democratic decision making. Luckily, human nature is moldable enough to make this transformation possible. ⁶ This is a feature rather than a flaw in Rousseau’s thought.

Could Rousseau be Right?

At this point, this article has reconstructed Rousseau on his own terms. By looking back at the GM and tracing it through the final SC, it has shown that Rousseau does in fact see the need for an affective education to turn people into good citizens. Something outside of rational arguments must bind ordinary people together. In Rousseau’s case, this persuasion is at first undertaken by a lawgiver, but the lawgiver is an admittedly problematic figure, one that perhaps even Rousseau did not take seriously. Politics always happen in medias res, with political communities constantly forming and reforming (see Honig 2007). However, the lawgiver illustrates an important point. People do not act out of the insights of their own reason. They reason in light of their passions, and even then, do so imperfectly. There is no logical reason why people should identify their interests with those of any other particular person or group. Instead, they need mythologies and stories about peoples and communities so that their fate feels tied together. These stories must be persuasive and must come to be instantiated in norms and institutions. And while themselves not grounded in reason, these affective aspects of society are justified when they gird good laws. It is widely acknowledged in contemporary democratic theory that at least some degree of national identity is necessary and useful for liberal democratic societies as it promotes stability, trust, compromise, and generates concern for the common good (see Schildkraut 2014 for a review). As such, if Rousseau is indeed correct, extra-rational persuasion is still key to democracy today. Laws only bind insofar as they are respected and followed. People only act toward the common good when they feel aligned with their fellow citizens.

These extra-rational appeals are potentially dangerous, and Rousseau knows this. He acknowledges that when not guided by reason, they lead to destructive fanaticism. Extra-rational forces have taken the form of mob rule, ethno-nationalism, and tribalism, and Rousseau has been blamed in some way or another in nearly every case where these forces have triumphed. However, Rousseau is clear that it is only when reasoned wisdom guides these appeals that a good state can come into being. And it would be a mistake to forgo the extra-rational aspects of Rousseau’s philosophy. Without an interest in one another, there is no reason to be just. Rousseau very carefully crafts a middle way through the relationship between reason and the passions to educate democratic citizens that can make decisions for the common good.