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Media type:
E-Article
Title:
Rousseau's Moral Realism: Replacing Natural Law with the General Will
Contributor:
Melzer, Arthur M.
Published:
The American Political Science Association, 1983
Published in:
The American Political Science Review, 77 (1983) 3, Seite 633-651
Language:
English
ISSN:
0003-0554;
1537-5943
Origination:
Footnote:
Description:
<p>The Social Contract is reinterpreted by emphasizing its relation to Rousseau's other writings and doctrines. In the spirit of Hobbesian realism, Rousseau regards natural law and other forms of @'private morality@' as ineffectual, invalid, and in practice dangerous tools of oppression and subversion. But, still more realistic than Hobbes, Rousseau thinks it impossible to build a nonoppressive state on men's selfish interests alone and embraces the classical view that morality or virtue is politically necessary (as well as intrinsically good). Rousseau's doctrine of the natural goodness of man, however, which traces all vice to the effects of oppression, leads him to conclude that the nonoppression more or less guaranteed by the absolute rule of general laws is also sufficient to make men virtuous. Thus Rousseau can declare law as such (General Will) infallible and @'sovereign@'--and he must do so in order to protect rule of law from its greatest danger, the subversive appeal to @'natural law.@'</p>