Hobbes - The Leviathan

Locke - Two Treatises of Government (The Second Treatise of Government)

Rousseau - The Social Contract; The Origin of Inequality Among Men
JS Mill - On Utilitarianism; On Liberty; Principles of Political Economy and Taxation

Thomas Hobbes
CONTEXT:
● Modern Age
● Thirty years war - civil wars and revolutions, Protestantism vs Catholicism
● Issue:
○ Religious Liberty
○ Constitutional: who was sovereign, parliament or King?
○ Socio-economic: to what extent are tradesmen involved in governing
classes of the nation
● Companion and tutor to Cavendish family for most of his life
● Writings were initially anti-parliamentary and antidemocratic
● The Leviathan is not an apology for the Stuart Monarchy but the first general
theory of politics in the English language

Limitation: Unable to extensively discuss the question whether men have actually
ever lived in such a state of nature

The Leviathan
THE NATURE OF MAN
• Whatever men desire, they “love”, and they hate things which they have desire = absent,
aversion love = present,
aversion = absent,
• When we desire something, we long for something that is absent. However,
hate = present
when we love something, it is most likely present already.
• For aversion, we signify the absence, and hate signifies its presence
Some appetites and aversion are born with men (appetite of food, excretion,
etc.)
• Appetites of particular things proceed from experience, and trial of their
effects upon themselves or other men. Things we do not know at all, or
believe not to be, we can have no further desire than to taste and try.
• We have aversion from things that have hurt us, and from things that we are
not sure if they’ll hurt us
• Whatever is the object of appetite/desire: Good
• Whatever is the object of aversion/hatred: Evil
• Whatever is the object of contempt: vile and inconsiderable
• The passions that most of all cause the difference of wit, are principally,
the more or less desire of power, of riches, of knowledge, and of honor. All of
which may be reduced to the first, that is, desire for power.
• Riches, knowledge, honor are several sorts of power man desires power always,
• Man who has no great passion for any power but is indifferent, though he man who does not desire
may be a good man so far, is also someone who cannot have a great fancy or power will not have much
much judgment judgment
• Felicity is a continual progress of the desire, from one object to another;
the attaining of the former, being still but the way to the latter.
• The object of man’s desire is not to enjoy once only, and for one a short
period of time, but to assure forever, the way of his future desire.
• The actions and inclinations of men tend not only to the procuring, but also
to the assuring of a contented life; they differ only because of diversity of
passions, knowledge, or opinion each one has of the causes, which produce
the effect desired
• Mankind has a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, ends only
in death
o This is not because he hopes to be happier, or he’s not content with
moderate power but because he cannot assure the power and means
to live well without the acquisition of more
• Kings who have the greatest power turn their endeavors to assuring it at
home by laws, or abroad by wars. Afterwards, they succeed with a new desire
(fame from new conquest, ease and sensual pleasure, admiration or being
flattered for excellence in some art, ability of the mind, etc.)
• Competition of riches, honor, command, or other power, incline to
contention, enmity, and war: because the way of one competitor, to the
attaining of his desire, is to kill, subdue, supplant, or repel the other.
• Competition of praise, incline to the reverence of antiquity. For men
contend with the living, not with the dead; to these ascribing more than due,
that they may obscure the glory of the other.
• Desire of ease and sensual delight, disposes men to obey a common power;
because by such desires, a man doesn't abandon the protection that might be
hoped for from his own industry and labor.
o Fear of death and wounds, disposed to the same, and for the same
reason.
• Needy men not contented with their present condition; all men that are
ambitious of military command, are inclined to continue the causes of war
and to stir up trouble and sedition: for there is no honor in military but by
war; nor any such hope to mend an ill game, as by causing a new shuffle
• Desire of knowledge, arts of peace, incline men to obey a common power
• Those that make little or no inquiry into the natural causes of things yet
from the fear that proceeds from the ignorance itself, of what it is that hath
 the power to do them much good or harm, are inclined to suppose, and feign
unto themselves, several kinds of power invisible.

THE STATE OF NATURE

“Nature has made men so equal in the faculties of body and mind….when all is
reckoned together, the difference between man and man is not so considerable…” Basic equality of men
principle
• Two men desire the same thing -> Which cannot both enjoy -> Enemies ->
Destroy each other
• In the nature of man, we find three principal causes of quarrel/sources of
conflict:
o Competition – invade for gain – use violence to make themselves
masters of other men
o Diffidence – for safety – to defend themselves
o Glory – reputation – for trifles, as a word, a smile, a different
opinion, and any other sign of undervalue, either direct in their
persons or by reelection in their kindred
- Equality of men = equal accessibility/chances to men’s desires
- “If two men desire the same thing which they cannot both enjoy, then they
become enemies” (competition makes men invade for gain)
- Conservation is the end goal, men will pursue dominion over men
- Diffidence (makes men invade for safety) = uneasiness or anxiety that all
individuals have about their own security and standing vis-à-vis one another.
- “...there is no way for any man to secure himself…”
- “...every man looks that his companion should value him at the same rate he
sets upon himself…” (glory makes men invade for reputations)

● Men are in the condition of war

- Men against men
- No common ruling power Justice and injustice are
- “...so the nature of war consists in the known disposition therto, during all social concepts; not
the time there is no assurance to the contrary*.” *peace applied to single man in
- No place for industry (because fruits are uncertain), culture, commodities, solitary
knowledge, nor society
- “...the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”
- Nothing can be unjust
- “The desire and other passions of man are in themselves no sin”
- Actions are not wrong until there is a law that prohibits them; there is
no law until someone is appointed to make laws
- Where there is no common power, there is no law; where no law,
no injustice = they are in a condition which is called war

- Why do people leave the state of war?

- Passion: inclines men to peace are fear of death; desire of such things
as are necessary to commodious living; and a hope by their industry to
obtain them
- Reason: inclined by the *laws of nature*
Additional Notes:
• There be found one man sometimes manifestly stronger in body or of
quicker mind than another
• Yet when all is reckoned together, the difference between man and man is
not so considerable, as that one man can thereupon claim to himself any
benefit, to which another may not pretend
• The weakest has strength enough to kill the strongest either by secret
machination or confederacy with others that are in the same danger
• Prudence, which equal time, equally bestows on all men, in those things
they equally apply themselves unto.
• Not a greater sign of the equal distribution of any things, than that every
man is contented with his share
• War is not in battle only but in a tract of time
• The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice have no place in the
state of nature.
• Force, and fraud, are in war the two cardinal virtues

Social contract - Doing

THE SOCIAL CONTRACT
to others as we would be
● Right of nature = liberty each man has to use his own power, as he will himself done to; made bet
(by his own judgment and reason), for the preservation of his own nature… subjects and subjects,
● Liberty = absence of external impediments; these impediments may take away not bet subjects (author)
part of man’s power to do what he would, but cannot hinder him from using the and sovereign (not a
power left him, according as his judgment, and reason shall dictate to him. party, but creator)
● Law of nature = general rule, found out by reason, by which a man is forbidden
to do that which is destructive of his life or takes away the means of preserving Right → liberty;
his life. Law → obligations
● Right: liberty to do
● Law: determines and binds to one of them
● The condition of man is a condition of war of every one against every one.
● Every man ought to endeavor peace, as far as he has hope of obtaining it; and
when he cannot obtain it, that he may seek, and use, all helps, and advantages
of war

1. Seek peace if you can

● First Fundamental Law of Nature: “that every man ought to endeavor peace, as
far as he has hope of obtaining it, and when he cannot obtain it, that he may
seek, and use, all helps and advantages of war” seek peace and follow it; by all 2. I am willing to give up
means we can, to defend ourselves all my rights and capacity
to defend and govern
● Second Fundamental Law of Nature: “A man be willing , when others are so too, myself if you will also be
as far-forth as for peace and defense of himself he shall think it necessary, to lay willing to do so
down this right to all things, and be contented with so much liberty against the
other man as he would allow other man against himself”

● Third Fundamental Law of Nature: “When a man has in either manner 3. Abide by the
abandoned or granted away his right, then he is said to be obliged, or bound, not agreement
 to hinder those to whom such right is granted or abandoned from the benefit of
it, and that he ought, and it is his duty, not to make void that voluntary act of his
own.”...it would be an injustice to undo that which he had voluntarily done men Men join social contracts
perform their covenants made for self-serving intentions

● Of the voluntary acts of man, the object is some good to himself; the motive of
renouncing rights is nothing else but the security of a man’s person in his life

● A contract not to defend myself from force, by force, is always void because no
man can renounce his right to save himself unless it is to avoid the danger.
Choosing danger of death in resisting >> certain death in not resisting

Additional Notes:
• Law of the gospel: whatsoever require that others should do to you, that do
ye to them
• To lay down a man’s right to anything, is to divest himself of the liberty, of
hindering another of the benefit of his own right to the same
• In voluntary acts of men, the object is some good to himself
• Contract: mutual transferring of right
• There is a difference between transferring of right to the thing; and
transferring, or tradition, that is delivery of the thing itself.
• One of the contractors may deliver the thing contracted for on his part, and
leave the other to perform his part at some time. The contract on his part is
called pact or covenant.
• He that is to perform in time to come, being trusted = keeping of promise,
or faith; and the failing of performance, if it be voluntary = violation of faith

Laws of Nature (3)

• When a covenant is made, to break it is unjust
• Injustice: the not performance of a covenant [whatever is not unjust = just]
• The laws of nature are immutable and eternal; it can never be that war
shall preserve life, and peace destroy it
• Moral philosophy is nothing else but the science of what is good and evil in
the conversation and society of mankind, THUS it can change over time

THE COMMONWEALTH

● Commonwealth is jus the environment which allows men to reach their final
end/design aka foresight of their own preservation and of a more contented
life (that is to say getting out of the condition of war)

● “covenants, without the sword, are but words, and of no strength to secure a
man at all”
● “Therefore notwithstanding the laws of nature, if there be no power erected (or
not great enough for our security) every man will lawfully rely on his own
strength and art for caution against all other men.”

● Men enter commonwealth → confer all their power and strength upon one man,
or upon one assembly of men that may reduce all their wills to one will
● “This is more than consent or concord; it is a real unity of them all in one and
the same person made by the covenant of every man with every man…”

“I authorize and give up my right of governing myself to this man on this

condition to the give up by right to him and authorized all his actions in like
manner.”

● When multitude is so united in one person* it is considered a Commonwealth

● *Sovereign
= Leviathan = mortal god to which we owe our peace and defense
- authority is given him by every particular man
- all power and strength is conferred on him
- he may use the strength as he thinks expedient for their peace and common
defense

POLITICAL POWER

• Greatest of human powers is that which is compounded of the powers of most men,
united by consent, in one person, natural, or civil, that has the use of all their
powers depending on his will; such as is the power of a commonwealth
• If the representative consist of many men, the voice of the greater number must
be considered as the voice of them all
• Covenants, without the sword, are but words, and of no strength to secure a man
at all
• If there be no power erected, or not enough for our security; every man will rely
on his own strength and art, for caution against all men
• They should confer all their power and strength to one man, or one assembly of
men, that may reduce all their wills, by plurality of voices, unto one will
• Commonwealth (civitas): multitude united in one person
• Leviathan: mortal god, to which we owe under the immortal god, our peace and
defense
• “I authorize and give up my right of governing myself, to this man, or to this
assembly of men, on this condition, that thou give up thy right to him, and authorize
all his actions in like manner.”
• Sovereign: “one person, of whose acts a great multitude, by mutual covenants one
with another, have made themselves every one the author, to the end he may use the
strength, and means of them all, as he shall think expedient, for their peace and
common defence”
o Has sovereign power, rules over subjects
• Sovereign can attain power by two ways:
o COMMONWEALTH BY ACQUISITION: Natural force: making children and
submitting these children to government OR war (subdue his enemies to his
will, giving them their lives on that condition)
o COMMONWEALTH BY INSTITUTION (Political Commonwealth): Men agrees
amongst themselves to submit to some man or assembly of men voluntarily,
on confidence to be protected by him against all others
• Monarchy or aristocracy or polity are all equal
• The greatest objection is when men ask where and when such power has been
acknowledged.

RIGHTS OF THE SOVEREIGN

• Absolute power, do almost whatever they like – imprisoning people, putting them
to death if necessary
o But why would the people agree to these acts like killing? = Authorization
o In the social contract, individuals come together and authorize the
person to act for them; you own whatever they do; see their actions as your own
• Maintain security of political community
• Making peace and war; appointing ministers; deciding education; banning literature
• Sovereignty by institution: people come together make a contract and decide on
the new sovereign
• Sovereignty by acquisition: conquered by foreign power and forced to submit to
will of new sovereign – but this does not give consent??
o According to Hobbes, If you are conquered by another power, if your
sovereign is killed, you’re thrown back into the state of nature.
o When new sovereign comes along, their condition to spare your life is to
submit to their will; contract entered out of fear is still enforceable

“A commonwealth is said to be instituted when a multitude of men do agree and

covenant that to whatsoever man [or assembly of men] shall be given, by the
major part, the right to be their representative; and he that voted for it as well
as he that voted against it shall authorize all the actions and judgments of that
man as if they were his own, so as to live peaceably amongst themselves and be
protected against two other men”

1. Subjects are loyal solely to the sovereign and they cannot leave this
obligation
- “They that have already instituted a commonwealth CANNOT lawfully
make a new covenant to be obedient to any other without his
permission”
- Subjects are bound to be the author of all that the sovereign shall do
and judge fit be done
- It is injustice for subjects to attempt to depose the sovereign because
in doing so they will incur punishment from the sovereign (whose
actions are theirs) and will seem like they are punishing themselves.

2. There can be no breach of covenant on the part of the sovereign and none of
his subjects can be freed from his subjection
- the Sovereign is a product of the covenant so he enters no agreement
with the people

3. Dissenters must yield to the majority in declaring a sovereign

- Joining the covenant is also consenting to whatever the majority
should ordain
- Standing against = contrary to covenant = unjust
 - Either submit to the majority or return to a state of war

4. The sovereign cannot be unjust or injure any innocent subject

- Since subjects are the authors, “whatsoever he [the sovereign] does it
can be no injury to any of his subjects…”
- Sovereign merely acts on authority of others so he cannot injure those
who give him this authority
- Sovereign can commit inquiry but not injustice

5. The sovereign cannot be put to death or punished

- Right of the sovereign to judge the means of peace and defense and
also of the hindrances and disturbances, and do soever what he thinks
necessary to be done

6. The sovereign may determine what ideas are acceptable (he is the ultimate
judge of philosophical/scientific first principles) and may censor doctrines
that are repugnant to peace (ideas that may cause discord within the
population);
- Well governing opinions ⇒ well-governed man’s actions

7. The sovereign prescribes legislative rules

- Propriety = rules whereby man knows what goods he may enjoy and
what actions he may do
- Basically he establishes civil laws (good and evil, lawful and unlawful,
etc.) or the laws of the commonwealth

8. Right of Judicature i.e. the sovereign has judicial power in all controversies,
civil and intellectual
- Hearing and deciding all controversies concerning law (civil or natural)
- Deciding controversies = protection from others; avoiding
self-protection

Other implied(?) rights:

9. The sovereign may make war and peace with other commonwealths
10. The sovereign may choose his counselors
11. The sovereign has the powers of reward and punishment
12. The sovereign may make all civil appointments, including that of the militia.

LIBERTY OF THE SUBJECTS

• Subjects must obey laws of sovereign

• They can do whatever they want as long as they don’t disobey
• The laws only prohibits actions that would harm peace and security
• Right to defend yourself from being killed
• Subjects aren’t obliged to kill themselves even if commanded by sovereign
• Individuals can disobey dangerous or dishonorable offices so long as the
disobedience does not threaten the overall safety of commonwealth
• SELF PRESERVATION
• Military men may run away from battle if they didn’t enlist themselves, not a
mercenary, survival of the state is not at stake
• To resist a sovereign is to commit an act of injustice but once a group of men have
begun resisting, to join this group is no longer to commit a further act of injustice
• Religion is an essential part of life but he subordinated the power of the church to
the state

- Commonwealth lead to the creation of artificial chains knowns as civil laws

- If no commonwealth, “...men have the liberty of doing what their own
reasons shall suggest.”
- Liberty under a commonwealth is the ability to act according to one's will
without being physically hindered from performing that act
- Absolute freedom is still achievable because the artificial chains of civil laws
were set by the people themselves (authors principle) so they created the
things that “hinder” their freedom
- ex. People have the liberty to buy, sell, contract with one another,
choose their own homes, etc.
^ things sovereign is not concerned with

- We are actually freer in the commonwealth > state of nature

- State of nature was hindered by fear of death and fear of others
- In the commonwealth, we have absolute liberty to do what we shall
judge is most conducive to our benefit
- “Our submission consists both our obligation and our liberty”

- Every subject has liberty in all those things, the right whereof cannot by
covenant be transferred.
ex. Covenants not to defend a man’s own life is void; man cannot be obliged
by covenant to accuse himself

“The obligation of subjects to the sovereign will last as long as the power lasts
which he is able to protect them…The end of obedience is protection.”

- Sovereignty is the soul of the commonwealth

- If the sovereign is no longer able to fulfill the function of protection, then the
soul has left the body of the Leviathan

CIVIL AND NATURAL LAW

- Civil laws = laws men are bound to observe because they are members
- Knowledge of civil law belongs to all men
- “Civil law is [to every subject] those rules which the commonwealth has
commanded him by word, writing, or other sufficient sign of the will, to
make use of for the distinction of right and wrong.”
- None can make laws but the commonwealth; sole legislator is the
sovereign
- Commands must be signified by signs (only way a man knows to obey
it)
- Laws not communciated fail to be justly enforced
- Sovereign is not subject to the civil laws

HOBBES ADDITIONAL NOTES:

Rights and Laws of Nature

• Right of self-preservation: capacity to use any means necessary to defend
ourselves
• Laws of nature (=/= rights of nature) are discoverable through our reason;
results should be universal, everyone correctly reasoning should come to the
same conclusion
• Driven by fear of death, desire of better living, we figure out how to live
peacefully with other people
o (1) every person should seek peace
o (2) to secure peace, we should be ready to lay down our right to do
whatever we want; to live alongside others, our rights are going to be
limited by theirs
o (3) SUMMARY - do unto others as you want others to treat you

Creating the state

• Inclined to follow laws of nature = to seek peace
• Peace w/o subjection leads to civil war
• All individuals should come together, sign a contract, create a political
society, and live together under the enforcement of the laws of the sovereign
• Submitting their will to the judgment of the sovereign and renouncing their
right to decide on what would be a threat to the political community
• Multitude individuals come together in the artificial person of the
state/commonwealth = leviathan (mortal god) = state represented by the
sovereign
• It’s the state that is represented by the sovereign; sovereign = may be more
than one person; he prefers monarchy but any is possible

● Monarchy as the best form of state because it suffers less from

competition for office and power than do aristocracies or democracies
● No religion - curiosity and panic terror; a serious danger of civil obedience
and disunity
 Property
Money
John Locke Right to Rebel
CONTEXT:
● “Who is to be supreme, king or Parliament?”
● Parliament invited Prince William and his wife Mary to become King and Queen
of England, with the condition of the use of the Declaration of Right (Bill of
Rights)
○ No profess who profess the Roman Catholic religion or is married to a
Roman Catholic may inherit or hold the throne
○ Judges made to be irremovable except when address of both Houses of
Parliament
● Glorious Revolution - first constitutional monarchy in Europe
● Interest: philosophy, science, medicine
● Thomas Sydenham - life-long close friend
● Two Treatises - apology for the victorious Whigs in the Revolution 1688-1689;
attacked despotism; Bible of modern liberalism
● People -> Legislative (makes laws) -> Executive (enforces law)
● Ordinarily, there are three parties to a trust (Trustor, trustee, beneficiary); but,
for Locke, there are only two (the people and legislature)
○ Only the trustor and beneficiary have rights; the gov’t as trustee has
only duties, which are defined by the interests of trustor and
beneficiary
○ Theory of divine right: only the ruler has rights; theory of contract:
both people and gov’t have rights; Locke: only the people have
rights
● Absolute monarchy - worse than the state of nature and not a form of civil
government at all, bc only one person has liberty: the king
● Human effort + Natural resources = Private Property
● Labor creates property
● Major limitations on the power of legislature:
1. Law must apply equally to all, rich and poor
2. Law must not be arbitrary and oppressive, designed for the good of
the people
3. Legislature must not raise taxes without the consent of the people
4. Legislature must not transfer its lawmaking power to anybody else
● Theory of resistance:
1. Force is to be used by the people only against unjust and unlawful
force
2. Right of disobedience may not be exercised by one man or a small
group of citizens who feel themselves oppressed, but only by the
majority
Hobbes vs. Locke
Government Experience
- H: Little or no practical acquaintance with government; absolutist France
- L: Had administrative and political experience; liberal Holand
State of Nature
- H: Pessimistic view; no natural law, only natural right; each individual doing
as he sees fit for his preservation and enhancement of power
- L: Optimistic view, not noticeably different from man in organized society; it
is the law of nature that rules, which defines what is right and wrong
Social Contract
- Only bet subjects and subjects;
H: avoided a conception of the duties of the government
L: does not wish to give the state ay right against the people
- Laws precedes the state in Locke, but follows it in Hobbes

Limitations:
● Law of the state of nature of Locke is still deficient
a. Not sufficiently clear - if men are guided by pure reason they would all
see the same law, but men are biased by their interests and mistake
their interest for general rules of law
b. No third party judge who has no personal stake in disputes; those who
judge their own conflicts -> carried away by passion and revenge
c. Injured party is not always strong enough to execute the just sentence
of the law
● Locke did not work out a consistently clear theory as to how much a person
may fairly claim for himself, but acknowledges that the right to property is
limited “Nothing was made by God for man to spoil or destroy.”

Two Treatises on Government

THE STATE OF NATURE

• Political power
o Making laws with penalties of death, and, consequently, all less penalties
for the regulating and preserving of property
o Employing the force of community in the execution of such laws
o Defense of commonwealth from foreign injury
o ^ ALL FOR THE PUBLIC GOOD
• State all men are naturally in
o State of perfect freedom
- order their actions and dispose of their possessions and persons as
they think fit
 - Within the bounds of laws of nature
- Not depending on the will of any other man
o State of equality
- All the power and jurisdiction is reciprocal
- No one having more power than the other
- We are all born to the same advantages of nature and use the same
faculties
o NOT a State of License
- Man has no liberty to destroy himself
- The state of nature has the law of nature to govern it
- Reason teaches all mankind that being equal and independent, no one
ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.
o The law is in the hands of every man
- “The execution of the law of nature is put into every man's hand
whereby everyone has the right to punish the transgressors of that law
to such a degree as may hinder its violation.”
• Reparation and restraint: two reasons why one man may lawfully do harm ro
another; punishment
• The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it which obliges every one; and
reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind who will but consult it that, being all
equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or
possessions
• Men are all created by one omnipotent and infinitely wise Maker
o We are his property whose workmanship is towards his pleasure
o We are furnished with like faculties
o There cannot be subordination among us that may authorize us to destroy
one another
o Every one, as he is bound to preserve himself and not to quit his station
willfully, so by the like of reason, when his own preservation comes not in
competition, ought he, as much as he can, to preserve the rest of mankind,
and may not, unless it be to do justice to an offender, take away or impair
the life, or what he tends to the preservation of life: the liberty, health,
limb, or goods of one another.
• Men may be restrained from invading others’ rights and from doing hurt to another,
and the law of nature be observed, peace and preservation of all mankind, execution
of law of nature = everyone has the right to punish the transgressors of law
• In the state of nature, one man comes by a power over another; but yet no
absolute or arbitrary power to use a criminal, when he has got him in his hands,
according to the passionate heats or boundless extravagancy of his own will
• Civil government: proper remedy for the inconveniences of the state of nature,
which must certainly be great where men may be judges in their own case
• Men living together according to reason, without a common superior on earth with
authority to judge between them, is properly the state of nature
STATE OF WAR
• A state of enmity and destruction
• Force upon another, where there is no common superior on earth to appeal to for
relief
• “He who makes an attempt to enslave me thereby puts himself into a state of war
with me.”
• State of Nature vs. State of War
- SoN: As far distant as a state of peace, goodwill, mutual assistance, and
preservation; men living together according to reason without common
superior on earth, with authority to judge between them
- SoW: A state of enmity, malice, violence, and mutual destruction are one
from another; force upon the person of another, no common superior on earth
• It is okay to kill someone who is a thief as an appeal to the law for having stolen all
that I am worth - law, made for preservation - > no reparatio -> permits in one’s own
defense and the right of war, a liberty to kill the aggressor
• Want of a common judge with authority puts all men in a state of nature
• Force without right upon a man’s person makes a state of war, both where there is
or not a common judge
• To avoid this state of war, wherein there is no appeal but to heaven = men put
themselves into society and quit the state of nature

SLAVERY
• Natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on earth; not to be
under the will/authority of man
• Only law of nature for his tule
• Freedom of nature - no other restraint but the law of nature
• The liberty of man in society is to be under no other legislative power but that
established by consent in the commonwealth; nor under the dominion of any will or
restraint of any law, but what that legislative shall enact according to the trust put
in it
• A man not having power of his own life cannot by compact or his own consent
enslave himself to any one, nor put himself under the absolute arbitrary power of
another to take away his life when he pleases

PROPERTY

• Every man has property in his own person; this nobody has any right to but himself
• The labor of his body and the work of his hands are properly his
• The measure of property nature has well set by the extent of men’s labor and the
conveniences of life
• No man’s labor could subdue or appropriate all, nor could his enjoyment consume
more than a small part; so that it was impossible for any man, this way, to entrench
upon the right of another, or acquire to himself a property to the prejudice of his
neighbor who would still have room for as good and as large a possession – after the
other had taken out his
• In governments, laws regulate the right of property, and the possession of land is
determined by positive constitutions

CIVIL SOCIETY

• Age or virtue may give men a just precedency; excellency of parts and merit may
place others above the common level
• Law in its true notion is not so much the limitation as the direction of a free and
intelligent agent to his proper interest
• The end of law is not to abolish or restrain but to preserve and enlarge freedom;
for in all the states of created beings capable of laws, where there is no law, there is
no freedom
• Liberty is to be free from restraint and violence; without law, there is no liberty
• But freedom is not, as we are told: a liberty for every man to do what he wants –
for who could be free, when every other man’s humor might domineer over him?
• Freedom: liberty to dispose and order as he lists his person, actions, possessions,
and his whole property, within the allowance of laws; not to be subject to the will of
another but freely follow his own
• Freedom and liberty of acting according to own will is grounded on having reason –
able to instruct himself of law he is to govern himself by, and how far is left to the
freedom of his own will
• God made man and said they were not good to be alone, put them under strong
obligations of necessity, convenience, and inclination to drive him into society, and
fitted him with understanding and language to continue and enjoy it
• It is easy to discern who we are, and who we are not, in political society together
• Every man has given a right to the commonwealth to employ his force for the
execution of the judgments of the commonwealth, whenever he shall be called to it
• Whenever men are united into one society as to quit every one his executive power
of the law of nature and to resign it to the public, there and there only is a political
or civil society
• The end of civil society is to avoid and remedy these inconveniences of the state of
nature which necessarily follow from every man being judge in his own case, by
setting up a known authority to which everyone of that society may appeal upon
injury received or controversy that may arise, and which everyone of the society
ought to obey
• Men are foolish that they take care to avoid mischiefs by foxes but are content to
be devoured by lions

THE SOCIAL CONTRACT

• Men being by nature all free, equal, and independent, no one can be put out of
this estate and subjected to the political power of another without his own consent
• The only way one divests himself of his natural liberty, and puts on the bonds of
civil society, is by agreeing with other men to join and unite into a community for
their comfortable, safe, and peaceable living one amongst another, in a secure
enjoyment of their properties and a greater security against that are not of it
• When men have consent of every individual to make a community, that community
will have the power to act as one body by the will and determination of the majority
• Where the majority cannot conclude the rest, there they cannot act as one body,
and consequently will be immediately dissolved again
• Nothing can make any man so (subjects or members of that commonwealth) but his
actually entering into it by positive engagement and express promise and compact

THE END OF SOCIETY AND GOVERNMENT

• A man is free but is willing to part his freedom and be under the authority of
another power due to fears and continual dangers.
• Joining society for the mutual preservation of lives, liberties, and property
• The great and chief end of men uniting into commonwealths and being under a
government is the preservation of property. To which in the state of nature there are
many things wanting:
o There wants an established, settled, known law, received and allowed by
common consent to be the standard of right and wrong and the common
measure to decide all controversies between them
o There wants a known and indifferent judge with authority to determine all
differences according to the established law
o There wants power to back and support the sentence when right, and to
give it due execution
• Whoever has the legislative or supreme power of the commonwealth is bound to
govern by established standing laws, promulgated and known to the people, and not
by extemporary decrees

THE LEGISLATIVE POWER

• The first and fundamental positive law of all commonwealths is the establishing of
the legislative power
• It cannot absolutely arbitrary over the lives and fortunes of the people; it is limited
to the public good of the society – it is a power that has no other end but
preservation and therefore can never have a right to destroy, enslave, or designedly
to impoverish the subjects
• Cannot assume to itself a power to rule by extemporary decrees but is bound to
dispense justice and to decide the rights of the subject by promulgated, standing
laws, and known authorized judges
• Cannot take from any man part of his property without his own consent
o Governments cannot be supported without charge so everyone who enjoys
the share of protection from government should pay WITH CONSENT out of his
own property for the maintenance of it
• Cannot transfer the power of making laws to any other hands
• They are to govern by promulgated established laws, not to be varied in particular
cases, but to have one rule for rich and poor
• These laws ought to be designed for no other end ultimately but the good of the
people
• They must not raise taxes on the property of the people without their consent
• They can’t transfer the power of making laws to anybody else, or place it
anywhere but where the people have
• *don’t have to be so active or in session all the time

THE SEPARATION OF POWERS

• The legislative and executive power come often to be separated
o The legislative power has the right to direct how the force of the commonwealth
shall be employed for preserving the community and the members of it
o The executive should see to the execution of the laws that are made and remain in
force
• The whole community is one body in the state of nature in respect of all other
states or persons out of its community
• Executive
o comprehending the execution of the municipal laws of the society within itself
upon all the parts
o aka enforcing what the legislative made / manages society WITHIN
• Federative
o contains the power of war and peace, leagues and alliances, and all transactions
with all persons and communities without commonwealth
o management of security and interest of the public without, with all those that it
may receive benefit or damage from, yet they are almost always united
o manages society WITHOUT
• It is impracticable to place the force of the commonwealth in distinct and not
subordinate hands, or the executive and federative power be placed in persons that
may act separately = cause disorder and ruin

THE POWER OF THE PEOPLE

• The people remain to have power to remove or alter the legislative when they find
the legislative act contrary to the trust reposed in them
• The community perpetually retains a supreme power of saving themselves from the
attempts and designs of anybody, even of their legislators, whenever they shall be
foolish or so wicked as to lay and carry on designs against the liberties and properties
of the subject
• The community may be said to be always the supreme power, but not considered
under any form of government because this power of the people can never take
place till the government be dissolved.
• When man is deprived of their right on earth, they have a liberty to appeal to
heaven whenever they judge the cause of sufficient moment

THE POSSIBILITY OF RESISTANCE

• May the commands of a prince be opposed? Force is to be opposed to nothing but
to unjust and unlawful force
• That which makes the community and brings men out of the loose state of nature
into one politic society is the agreement which everybody has with the rest to
incorporate and act as one body, and so be one distinct commonwealth
• Whenever the society is dissolved, it is certain that the government cannot remain
• When can people resist?
o When legislative is altered
- It is in the legislative that the members of the commonwealth are
united and combined together into one coherent living body
- This is the soul that gives form, life, and unity to the commonwealth
- When legislative is broken or dissolved, dissolution and death follows
o When he who has the supreme executive power neglects and abandons that
charge, so that the laws already made can no longer be put in execution
- The people become a confused multitude without order/connection
- Where the laws cannot be executed, it is all one as if there were no
laws; and a government without laws is inconceivable to human
capacity and inconsistent with human society
o When legislative or prince act contrary to their trust When they invade
property of their subject and dispose the lives and liberties of the people By
forfeiting their trust, they forfeit the power the people had put into their
hands
o Foreign conquests
• In cases where the government is dissolved, the people are at liberty to erect a
new legislative differing from the other
• Revolutions don’t happen because of little mismanagements. Great mistakes in
ruling, many wrong and inconvenient laws, and all the slips of human frailty will be
borne by the people without mutiny or murmur.
• But if a long train of abuses, prevarications, and artifices, all tending the same
way, make the design visible to the people, and they cannot but feel what they lie
under and see whether they are going, it is not to be wondered that they should then
rouse themselves and endeavor to put the rule into other hands to secure the ends
The power that every individual gave the society when he entered into it can never
revert to the individuals again as long as the society lasts, but will always remain in
the community, because without this, there can be no community, no
commonwealth, which is contrary to the original agreement.

POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY/SUMMARY
• Individuals are born free and equal in possession of themselves and with the
capacity to obtain property through their labor
• They enjoy natural rights to life, liberty, and property, and have natural obligations
to mutual love and charity
• They find themselves in a state of nature which is not a state of war because most
people would try to keep peace
• Due to the potential of rights violations, and to better secure themselves with an
impartial arbiter of justice, individuals form a social contract to form a political
society
• The people so united establish a government for the purpose of maintaining
security and defending their rights
• Legislature (rather than executive) = supreme power and make decisions through a
majority vote
• Sovereign is bound by a social contract and cannot exercise power arbitrarily
• If government acts outside of legitimate ends of preserving liberty and property, it
can justly be dissolved and have a new government set up in its place
• The two treatises was an attack on absolute monarchy which was written in the
context of debates of the constitutional limits on the prerogative powers of the
monarchy in England – different arguments represent his changes in position

The first treatise

• No divine right of kings
• No biblical evidence for absolute right granted to Adam
• Patriarchal power =/= political power
• All individuals are born free and equal
• Law of nature forbids (most) slavery

The second treatise ; The state of nature

• Aim of the text is to establish the origin, extent and ends of civil
government
• Individuals in a state of nature make an original contract that forms a
political society in government
• God created us in the condition of natural equality and freedom
• God made us, therefore we do not go by suicide, murder, and harming
others
• The earth was given to us to cultivate and to be used by industries
• Condition of basic equality, no natural superiority of one group over another
• All men in state of equality & perfect freedom
o All men =/= women
o Power of husband over wife is originated in nature
o Husbands should govern the common interest and property of the
family
o Based on foundation in natural law
• Anytime people encounter each other outside of established authority, they
are in a state of nature – how would fights be resolved without authority?
• The state of nature wouldn’t be a constant state of war
o Rational people would be inclined to keep the peace and respect the
natural rights of others
o “The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it which obliges
everyone and reason which is that law, teaches all mankind who will
but consulted that being all equal and independent, no one were to
harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions”
• We shouldn’t judge our own case because we would bias ourselves; every
little difference in judgments were most likely to end in a state of war
• People have tendencies towards mutual aid and care for others, but also
tend to their self-interests
• One of the biggest sources of conflict is reputation and the desire for the
esteem of others
• Locke was confident that through the exercise of reason, every man had the
ability to understand the law

Slavery
• Condition unfit for human beings
• God created us and has power over our lives so we don’t have authority to
agree to enslave ourselves
• Limited situations to be legitimate slave: unjust aggressor defeated in war
could be killed/enslaved – continuation of a state of war in which the victor
only delayed killing the captor
• Those who argue that monarch should have absolute power = describing a
condition of slavery rather than legitimate government

Property
• Attempted to provide a justification for the right of private property
• Shows the degree of the effects of unregulated markets
• “Though the earth and all inferior creatures be common to all men, yet
every man has a property in his own person thus nobody has any right but to
himself.”
• Shared custodianship on the earth
• We acquire property when we mix our labor with an object; villager
collecting water, farmer growing crops
• Something could be turned into property when somebody worked on it and
appropriated it from the commons
• Any human action that converted a potentially useful thing into a resource
that meets our common needs
• He immediately followed this labor theory of property with the ff caveats:
 o “At least where there is enough, and as good, left in common for
others” – there should be enough left-over for everyone else; your
property rights should not trump the rights of others to survive
o “As much as anyone can make use of to any advantage of life before
it spoils… nothing was made by God for man to spoil or destroy” – we
shouldn’t take so much that it would spoil; it was given for us to
cultivate/improve Locke said that nature was given specifically to the
rational/industrial to cultivate and improve so people have a right to
work on/consume parts of nature but none to waste it
• How can Locke’s theory be applied to countries where resources are
enclosed?
o “and thus came in the use of money, some lasting thing that men
might keep without spoiling, and that by mutual consent men would
take in exchange for the truly useful, but perishable supports of life”
o Money doesn’t spoil – system where we can potentially keep much
more
o Because we use a system of money, we have consented to allow
people to have more
o By using money, we agree to consequences of the system – unequal
distribution of property

Forming a commonwealth
• Established proper grounds of legitimate government
• Distinguished political society from other forms of power
o Paternal power: to govern children for their own good until they
come to the use of reason (temporary)
o Despotic power: an absolute, arbitrary power of life and death
o Political power: limited to preservation of life and property (not
arbitrary or absolute)
• A husband would be the head of the household but does not get the power
to decide life and death over wife
o Only the power to provide for mutual assistance and support
o Women are naturally subordinate to men in state of nature and
society – PATRIARCHAL DISPOSITION
o If men who emerges heads of households in state of nature, they
come together and escape this condition and form a political society
• They do this because the state of nature lacks:
o An established settled known law… as the common measure to
decide all controversies – if no established law, people have to work
out for themselves what is the law of nature which would cause
misunderstandings and conflict
 o “A known and impartial judge, with authority to settle all
differences according to the established law” – everyone would decide
on their own cases
o A power to back up and support a correct sentence, and to enforce
it properly – even if you work out a correct judgment, there’s nothing
to force transgressors of the rules to adhere to the decision
• People would agree that their condition was unsatisfactory and as a result
transfer some of their powers to a political society in order to establish a
government
• Locke’s two stage social contract:
o Establishment of political society through universal consent
Multitude now turned into a single body politic. Decisions made
through majority rule.
o Forming a particular type of government such as democracy,
oligarchy, or monarchy – majority vote
• The social contract therefore is between a preformed political society and a
sovereign
• Unlike Hobbes, the sovereign is a party to rather than a result of the
contract and is therefore bound by its terms

The ends of legitimate government

• The aim of government is to preserve rights to life, liberty, and property
and to punish those who violate
• Individuals must renounce their rights to punish aggressors but don’t give up
all their rights to a sovereign
• “yet it being only with an intention in every one the better to preserve
himself, his liberty and property; (for no rational creature can be supposed to
change his condition with an intention to be worse) the power of the society,
or legislative constituted by them, can never be supposed to extend farther,
than the common good”
• The reason he carefully delineated the scope of legitimate government is
because it provided him with criteria to define instances of illegitimate
government – not pursuing life, liberty, and property
• Absolute monarchy is inconsistent with civil society, therefore, illegitimate
• Absolute monarchs are in condition of a state of nature in relation to its
subjects
o Individuals are more vulnerable in absolute monarchy than state of
nature because they have to fear the power of the sovereign
• The sovereign is bound by law and shouldn’t be entitled to do whatever
they want

The dissolution of government

• Ways a government can be dissolved
 o Foreign conquest
o Legislature altered
o Government exercises arbitrary power (tyranny – for the benefit of
private advantage rather than public good)
o Government lacks power to enforce the laws
• People rather than the sovereign has the right to decide when the sovereign
is acting justly
• He believed people were right minded and would not overthrow government
for every small thing
• If the government acts contrary to natural law and continually abuses its
position, then it’s the government who is in opposition to legitimate
authority, and is considered a rebel in civil society.
• By overthrowing an illegitimate government, people aren’t rebelling against
authority but only reinstating a rightful order. Taking themselves out of a
state of nature produced by a tyranny government.
Jean Jacques Rousseau
CONTEXT:
● Industrial Age - technological innovation, capitalist/consumer lifestyle, and
modernizing society
● Monarchial Mercantilism - goods & gold is consolidated to royal power; more
gold = wealthier state
● Shift to a classic liberal political economy (capitalists manage the free market
and states conduct less restrictive international trade)
● Downside of Industrialization: human slavery, dehumanized labor, mismanaged
urbanization, disease-infested or unsanitary communities, and polluted
environments
● Seat in British Parliament in 1865

The Social Contract

“Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains.”

His main shtick is legitimacy = consent; legitimizing [through the social contract]
the chains brought by social institutions] inflicted on human beings

“Approximating the state of freedom, the state of equality, and the state of
independence in the natural state prior to the intrusion of civilization in organized
society”
- Carolina Hernandez, Lec video

- Men are “slaves” of others specifically the social order

MAN IS BORN FREE

• Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains – (chains may be interpreted as in
comparing himself to others in modern society)
• Social order is a sacred right which is the basis of all other rights
• This right does not come from nature and must be founded on conventions

THE RIGHT OF THE STRONGEST

• The strongest is never strong enough to always be the master, unless he transforms Strength ≠ right
strength into right, and obedience into duty
If we are made to obey,
• Force is a physical power – to yield to force is an act of necessity, not of will, at
we are not compelled by
the most an act of prudence
duty but by force; force is
- “Obey the powers that be” not needed for us to obey
• Force does not create right, and that we are obliged to obey only legitimate if the action is what
powers ought to be done
SLAVERY
- conventions form the basis of all legitimate authority among men Giving away our
- “To alienate” is to give or to sell; he who does it [aka gives himself] is out of liberty/ourselves is
his mind unnatural for Rousseau
- Men cannot alienate their children
“Men are born to their liberty belongs to them and no one but they has the
right to dispose of it.”
Consent!
- “In order to legitimize an arbitrary government every generation of people
should be in a position to accept or reject it.”
- “to renounce liberty is to renounce being a man, to surrender the rights of
humanity and even its duties…a renunciation is incompatible with man’s
nature”
- War of man cannot exists in the state of nature (no constant property) nor in
the social state (where there is the authority of the law)
- War is a relation between state and state, men are enemies as soldiers
→ as soon as they lay down they arms, they cease to be enemies or
instruments of the enemy and no one has any right to take away their life
- Right of conquest is founded on the right of the strong (which is not legit)

THE FIRST CONVENTION OF SOCIETY

• Even if scattered individuals were successively enslaved by one man, however
numerous they might be, I still see no more than a master and his slaves, and
certainly not a people and its ruler.
• I see an aggression not an association; there is as yet neither public good nor body
politic; Aggregation ≠ Association
• The man even if has enslaved half the world is only an individual and his interest is
only a private interest
• People can give itself to a king – the gift itself is a civil act, and implies public
deliberation; People is a people (prior convention) before it gives itself to a king.

- “There will always be a great difference between subduing a multitude and

ruling a society.”
- Act of forming “the people” = foundation of society
Act of giving itself to a king = civil act

THE SOCIAL COMPACT

• Men have reached the point at which obstacles in the way of their preservation in
the state of nature show their power of resistance to be greater than the resources resources are not
at the disposal of each individual for his maintenance in that state sufficient for the
• As men cannot engender new forces but only unite and direct existing ones, they preservation of the
have no other means of preserving themselves than the formation (by aggregation) of human race
a sum of forces great enough to overcome the resistance.
• The sum of forces can arise only when several persons come together, but the force
and liberty of each man are the chief instruments of his self-preservation

Why men leave the state of nature?

- obstacles to preservation > resources at their disposal
- to preserve themselves, men will form an aggregation great enough to
overcome the resistance

How can people reconcile their being an individual and being a member of
society?
- Force and liberty are the instruments of self-preservation
- “The problem is to find a form of association which will defend and
protect [with the whole common force] the person and goods of each
associate, and while uniting himself with all, may still obey himself
alone and remain free as before.

The Social Contract

- Man will alienate/give himself and his rights to the whole community Joining society is giving up
as each [also] gives himself absolutely. your rights in return for
- In giving himself to all, man gives himself to nobody…he gains an more protection
equivalent of what he loses and an increase of force for the
preservation of what he has
- “Each of us puts his person and all his power in common under the
supreme direction of the general will and, in our corporate capacity,
we receive each member as an indivisible part of the whole

THE SOVEREIGN
. The only way people can
“the sovereign, merely by virtue of what it is, is always what is should be” be subjected to a
sovereign power without
• The act of association comprises a mutual undertaking between the public and the losing their freedom is if
individuals, and that each individual, in making a contract, as we may say, with they themselves are this
himself, is bound in a double capacity sovereign power.
• Sovereign is not bound to public deliberation
• Subjects of the sovereign are doubly bound: as individuals, they are bound to the The sovereign by nature
sovereign, and as members of the sovereign they are bound to other individuals. cannot violate the law
• The sovereign being formed of individuals who compose it, can have no interest
contrary to theirs; and consequently the sovereign power need give no guarantee to
its subjects, because it is impossible for the body to wish to hurt all its members
- “Sovereign to impose on itself a law it cannot infringe”
• Each man may have a particular will contrary or dissimilar to the general will which
he has as a citizen
• Sovereign cannot bind itself to something that would harm the original act
[which is act of association/social contract]
- “It is impossible to offend against one of the members without attacking the
body, and still more to offend against the body without the members
resenting it.”
- Since sovereign = people, it cannot have interest contrary to theirs
Individuals can still have interest different from the general will Sovereign is a distinct
and unified whole
Rights of citizenship VS duties of a subject
The Social Contract Book
• People not obey the general will will be forced to; “he will be forced to be free”
I, Chapters 6-9 Summary
→ condition that pushes him out of state of nature and relying on personal
& Analysis | SparkNotes
dependence
• The particular interest of man may be different from the common interest: his
absolute and naturally independent existence may make him look upon what he owes
to the common cause as a gratuitous contribution, the loss of which will do less harm
to others than the payment of it is burdensome to himself
• Moral person constitutes the state as a persona ficta, because not a man, he may
wish to enjoy the rights of citizenship without being ready to fulfill the duties of a
subject
• The continuance of injustice could not but prove the undoing of the body politic
• In order for the social compact to work, it should include the undertaking which
would give force to the rest, that whoever refuses to obey the general will shall be
compelled to do so by the whole body

THE CIVIL STATE

• What man loses by the social contract is his natural liberty and an unlimited right
to everything he tries to get and succeeds in getting; what he gains is civil liberty
While we lose the physical
and the proprietorship of all he possesses
liberty of being able to
• In civil state we exchange natural liberty for civil liberty
follow our instincts freely
- Natural liberty: bounded only by the strength of the individual; unlimited and do whatever we
right to everything please, we gain the civil
- Civil liberty: limited by the general will; proprietorship of his possessions liberty that places the
Civil liberty “substitutes justice for instinct in his conduct and gives man’s limits of reason and the
actions the morality it lacked” general will on our
• Possession: merely the effect of force or the right of the first occupier, from behavior, thereby
property, which can be founded only on a positive title rendering us moral. In
• Civil liberty ⇒ gain moral liberty civil society, we take
• Moral liberty alone makes him truly master of himself responsibility for our
• Mere impulse of appetite is slavery, while obedience to a law which we prescribe to actions, and become
ourselves is liberty nobler as a result
• Duty replaces instinct = man is forced to act on different principles and to consult
his reason before listening to his inclinations
• Advantages from nature ↔ stimulated and developed faculties; uplifted soul, made
him more intelligent being
• “Obedience to a law which we prescribe to ourselves is liberty”

THE INALIENABILITY OF SOCIETY

• Inalienable because it lies in the general will Society can only function
• The general will alone can direct the state according to the object for which it was if people have an interest
instituted, i.e., the common good in the common good (not
• For if the clashing of wills/ particular interests made the establishment of societies just passively obeying)
As the will of the people,
necessary, the agreement of these very interests made it possible
the sovereign can only
- Clashing of wills = necessity of the social contract
exist so long as the people
- Agreement of wills = made social contact possible
have an active and direct
→ therefore, this common interest should be sole basis of governing
political voice.
• The common element in these different interests is what forms the social ties; and
were there no point of agreement between them all, no society could exist
• Solely on the basis of this common interest that every society should be governed
• Since sovereignty = general will, and general will cannot be alienated…the power
of the sovereign may be transmitted but not the will
• Universal silence is taken to imply the consent of the people
• Will cannot bind itself to the future nor to something that harms the being who
wills
• Sovereign ≠ subjects of a master; act of obeying dissolves it. Commands of the
ruler must be of the general will for the sovereign to exist

THE INDIVISIBILITY OF SOVEREIGNTY

• General will ≠ particular wills the sovereign always and
necessarily expresses the
→ general will = act of sovereignty and constitutes law
will of the people as a
→ particular will = application of the law (magistrates*)
whole, and not of some
• The will is an act of sovereignty and constitutes law
part.
• It is merely a particular will, or act of magistracy – at the most a decree
*magistrate = civilian
• Divided sovereignty according to its object: force (executive power) and will officer who administers
(legislative power) the law
• Whenever the sovereignty seems to be divided, there is an illusion: the rights
which are taken as being part of Sovereignty are really all subordinate, and always
imply supreme wills of which they only sanction the execution
Ex. war is not will of Sovereign since it is application of law

THE INFALLIBILITY OF GENERAL WILL

• General will = always right, tends to public advantage, equality, but “It does not
follow that deliberations of people are always correct… the people is never
corrupted but it is often deceived.”
• Our will is always for our own good, but we do not always see what that is
• People are never corrupted, but it is often deceived, and on such occasions only
does it seem to will what is bad
• General will ≠ will of all
→ will of all = takes private interests into account; sum of particular wills
→ general will = common interest, sum of the differences; particular wills
balance each other out
● General will can only be achieved if there are NO FACTIONS
○ Partial associations will cause their will to become general will
“The will of these associations becomes general in relation to
its members while it remains particular in relation to the
state…”
○ If one association has all the power, general will is no longer
sum of small difference but a single difference; “opinion that
prevails is purely particular”• When these associations is so
great to prevail over all the rest, the result is no longer a
general will, and the opinion which prevails is purely particular
○ It is essential that the general will is able to express itself, that
there should be no partial society within the State, and that
each citizen should think only of his own thoughts

LIMITS OF THE SOVEREIGN POWER

• The social compact gives the body politic absolute power over all his members, and
it is this power which under the direction of the general will, bears the name of
sovereignty
• We are bound to distinguish clearly between the respective rights of the citizens
and the Sovereign, and between the duties the former have to fulfill as subjects, and
the natural rights they should enjoy as men
• Every service a citizen can render the state he ought to render as soon as the
sovereign demands it; but the sovereign, for its part, cannot impose upon its objects
any fetters that are useless to the community
• The sovereign power, absolute, sacred, and inviolable cannot exceed the limits of
general conventions, and that every man may dispose at will of such goods and
liberty

- By entering into the social compact, man alienates part of his power, goods,
and liberty
- Therefore, a citizen must render whatever services or goods are necessary
to the state, but the state cannot demand more than what is necessary
from the citizen.
- Furthermore, the general will must be general in its objectives as well as its If it doesn’t concern all
essence i.e. general will must come from all and apply to all citizens, the sovereign
- Every act of the general will binds all citizens equally should not interfere.
- General will is concerned only with the general; does not exceed the limits of
each citizen is free to
general conventions
pursue private interests
 - Particular will cannot stand for general will ↔ general will cannot meddle in and is only bound to the
particular affairs sovereign in matters that
ex. Judging on a private case = sovereign is acting on the particular are of public concern
- Social compact = advantageous exchange rather than the renunciation of any
part of the individual’

LAW
• What is well and in conformity with order is so by the nature of things and
We are free by following
independently of human conventions
the law because the law is
• All justice comes from God, who is its sole source; but if we knew how to receive
but register of our wills.
so high an inspiration, we should need neither government nor laws
By following it we are
• There is a universal justice emanating from reason alone; but this justice, to be simply following ourselves
admitted among us, must be mutual
• The object of law is always general, consider subjects en masse and actions in the
abstract, and never a particular person or action
• When the whole people decrees for the whole people, it is considering only itself;
and if a relation is then formed, it is between two aspects of the entire object,
without there being any division of the whole
• Republic – to every state that is governed by laws, no matter what form of
administration may be; only public interest governs; and the res publica rank as a
reality
• Every legitimate government is republican
• Laws are only the conditions of civil association
• People, being subject to laws ought to be their author

- Social compact ⇒ gives existence and life to the body politic

- Legislation ⇒ gives movement and will of the body politic
- Justice of men is ineffective, “conventions and laws are therefore needed to
join rights to duties and refer justice to its object.”
- LAW = “when the whole people decrees for the whole people it is considering
only itself…in that case, the matter about which the decree was made is
general.”
- Law considers subjects en masse and actions in the abstract…the law can
decree privileges but not hand them out by name
- Again, legislative power cannot deal with objects of particular
- Law is the act of general will, inherently just (since no one can be unjust to
himself), and everybody (including the prince since he is a member of the
state) is under the law.

- Every legitimate government (i.e. ones governed by laws) is republican.

- Since the law is a condition of civil association, it ought to be regulated
solely by those who come together in the association.
 - General will is always in the right but others are not…
→ individuals must be compelled to bring their will in conformity with reason
→ public will must be taught to know what it wills
- Public enlightenment (^) leads to union of understanding and will

THE LEGISLATOR
• Engineer who invents the machine
• The legislator occupies an extraordinary position in the state
• In the task of legislation, we find together two things which appear to be
incompatible: an enterprise too difficult for human powers, and, for its execution,
an authority that is no authority
• Unable to appeal to either force or reason, must have recourse to an authority of a
different order, capable of constraining without violence and persuading without
convincing lawgiver should not
“A superior intelligence beholding all the passions of man without experiencing any himself be a citizen of the
of them would be needed” state to which he gives
- The legislator is the engineer who invents the machine laws. He is outside and
- Legislator should be wholly unrelated to our nature, have happiness above the authority of
independent of us, supremely intelligent and provide insight. the sovereign.
- “Rulers of the republic establish the institutions, then institutions mould the
rulers”
- Legislator must be ready to: Perfect legislation =
→ change human nature, transforming individuals (solitary whole) into part of citizens are nothing
a greater whole without each other
→ “He must take away from man his own resources and give him instead new
ones alien to him and incapable of being made use of without the help of
other men.”
*legislation = process of
- Office of the legislator = individual and superior function enacting/promulgating
“He who has commands over the laws should not have commands over men the law
and vice versa”
“He who draws up the laws has/should have no right of legislation*
- Particular will is not general will until it has been put to the free vote of the
people

- How to make people obey laws?

- “Each individual, having no taste for any other plan of government Appeal to supernatural
then which suits his particular interest, finds it difficult to realize the origins of the laws is
advantages of continual privations good laws impose.” generally a good means of
- Another authority is needed, someone who can contain without ensuring that they are
violence and persuade without convincing obeyed.
- Divine intervention and credit the gods with their won wisdom in order
that the peoples submit to the laws and might obey freely
THE PEOPLE
• Fix limits for it not to be too large for good government, and too small for Costly, more levels to
self-maintenance manage
• The state must assure itself a safe foundation, if it is to have stability, and to be
able to resist the shocks it cannot help experiencing, as well as the efforts it will be
forced to make for its maintenance
• There are reasons for expansions and contractions
o Expansion: external and subordinate
o Contractions: internal and absolute

- “In every body politic there is a maximum strength which it cannot exceed
and it only loses by increasing in size.”
- “A small state is stronger in proportion than a greater one.”
- Reason 1: Administration becomes more and more burdensome as the
distance grows greater. (single authority is better than cities, districts,
provinces which have their own separate administrations)
- Reason 2: People has less affection for its rulers whom it never sees ⇒ more
nuisances and abuses in distant places
- Reason 3: same laws cannot suit so many diverse provinces with different
customs (different laws lead only to trouble and confusion among people)
- Reason 4: big body poilitc has hardly enough to defend itself if needed,
measures needed to maintain the general authority take up much public
energy

- Danger of too small a state: the weak run the risk of being soon swallowed
up
- Reasons for expansion = external and relative
Reasons for contraction = internal and absolute

GOVERNMENT IN GENERAL
• Every free action is produced by the concurrence of two causes; one moral (will
which determines the act), the other physical (the power which executes it)
• Will is represented by the legislative power and force under the executive power
• The public force needs an agent of its own to bind together and set it to work
under the direction of the general will, to serve as means of communication between
the state and the sovereign.
• Government: an intermediate body set up between the subjects and the sovereign,
to secure their mutual correspondence, charged with the execution of the laws and
the maintenance of liberty, both civil and political.
• The members of the government are called magistrates/kings, that is to say
governors, and the whole body bears the name prince
• In government reside the intermediate forces whose relations make up that of the
whole to the whole, or of the Sovereign to the State.
• The larger the state, the less the liberty
• For the government to be good, they should be proportionately stronger as the
people is more numerous
• If the prince comes to have a particular will more active than the will of the
sovereign, and should employ the public force in his hands in obedience to this
particular will, there would be, so to speak, two sovereigns, one rightful and the
other actual, the social union will evaporate instantly, and the body politic would be
dissolved.

- “Every free action is produced by the concurrence of two causes: moral i.e. people do not surrender
the will which determines the act; and physical i.e. the power that executes their power or will to the
it.” government in the way
- Legislative power = will; executive power = force that they do to the
- Government = Intermediate body, set up between the subjects and the sovereign
Sovereign, to secure their mutual correspondence charged with the execution
of the laws and the maintenance of liberty.
- It is simply and solely a commission/employment
- Government = legitimate exercise of executive power; prince/magistrate =
man entrusted with that administration
- Government gets from the sovereign the orders it gives the people The ratio of the power of
Sovereign > Government > People the government to the
- Equality: power of the people should
be equal to the ratio of
- sovereign gives law, magistrate governs, people obey
the power of the sovereign
- each member of the state has as his share only a part of the sovereign
to the power of the
authority although he is wholly under its control
government.
- Larger state = less liberty, therefore, the government should be
proportionately stronger as the people more numerous; and as government
gains more control/power, the greater too should be the force at the disposal In a large state, where a
of the Sovereign for keeping the government in hand. strong government is
needed, fewer magistrates
- The state exists by itself, and the government only through the sovereign are desirable
- The dominant will of the executive power should be nothing but the general
will or the law
States, by their nature,
DEMOCRACY tend toward having a
• He who makes the law knows better than anyone else how it should be executed smaller number take
and interpreted charge of the affairs of
• It is not good for him who makes the laws to execute them, or for the body of the government. When the
people to turn its attention away from a general standpoint and devote it to government and the
sovereign are the same
particular objects
body, there is a great
• Nothing is more dangerous than the influence of private interests in public affairs, danger that the
and the abuse of the laws by the government is a less evil than the corruption of the combining of legislative
legislator, which is the inevitable sequel to a particular standpoint. and executive functions
• People that would never misuse governmental powers would never misuse will corrupt the laws and
independence; people that would always govern well would not need to be governed lead to the ruin of the
• If we take the term in the strict sense, there never has been a real democracy, and state.
there never will be. It is against the natural order for the many to govern and the
few to be governed
• It is unimaginable that the people should remain continually assembled to devote
their time to public affairs, and it is clear that they cannot set up commissions for
that purpose without the form of administration being changed

- Nothing is more dangerous than the influence of private interests in public

affairs
- A people that would always govern well would not need to be governed.
- There has never been a real democracy, there never will be, because “it is
against the natural order for many to govern and the few to be governed”
- Challenge: Cannot expect people to devote 100% of their time to public
affairs & cannot set up commissions without changing the form of
administration
- Democratic government = perfect government meant only for the Gods
- Democratic or popular government:
→ tendency to change
→ demands more vigilance and courage
→ needs to be small state, with cultural homogeneity in manners and morals
among people, rough equality in socio-economic status, and absent of greed
and luxury in order to be successful

DEPUTIES OR REPRESENTATIVES
• As soon as public service ceases to be the chief business of the citizens, and they
would rather serve with their money than with their persons, the State is not far
from its fall
• It is through the hustle of commerce and the arts, through the greedy self-interest
of profit, and through softness and love of amenities that personal services are
replaced by money payments
• Men surrender a part of their profits to make time for leisure
• The deputies of the people, therefore, are not and cannot be its representatives:
they are merely its stewards, and can carry through no definitive acts
• Every law the people has not ratified in person is null and void-is in fact, not a law
• Where right and liberty are everything, disadvantages count for nothing
• Law being purely the declaration of the general will, it is clear that, in the
exercise of legislative power, the people cannot be represented; but in that of the
executive power, which is only the force that is applied to give the law effect, it
both can and should be represented.

- By reason of idleness and money, public service is done with money rather
than persons in order for men to increase their leisure time
- “The lukewarmness of patriotism, the activity of private interests, the
vastness of states, conquest, and the abuse of government⇒ deputies or
representatives of the people in national assemblies
- Deputies are not representatives but stewards
- Executive power can have representatives but legislative shouldn’t because it
should be of the general will and requires direct participation of all in teh
assembly
- Being under representatives, people are like slaves.
- “As for you, modern peoples, you have no slaves, but you are slaves
yourselves; you pay for their liberty with your own.”
- “...the moment when a people allows itself to be represented, it is no
longer free: it no longer exists.”

VOTING
• The way in which general business is managed may give a clear enough indication
of the actual state of morals and the health of the body politic
• The more concert reigns in the assemblies, that is, the nearer opinion approaches
unanimity, the greater is the dominance of the general will
• On the other hand, long debates, dissensions, and tumult proclaim the
ascendancy of particular interests and the decline of the State
• There is but one law, which, from its nature, needs unanimous consent. This is the
social compact; for civil association is the most voluntary of all acts
• Every man being born free and his own master, no one, under any pretext
whatsoever, can make any man subject without his consent
• To decide that the son of a slave is born a slave is to decide that he is not born a
man
• If there are opponents when the social compact is made, their opposition does not
invalidate the contract, but merely prevents them from being included in it. They
are foreigners among citizens.
• When the state is constituted, residence constitutes consent; to dwell within its
territory is to submit to the sovereign
• A difference of one vote destroys equality; a single opponent destroys unanimity;
but between equality and unanimity, there are several grades of unequal division, at
each of which this proportion may be fixed in accordance with the condition and the
needs of the body politic.
• Two general rules that may serve to regulate this relation
o The graver and more important the questions discussed, the nearer should the
opinion that is to prevail approach unanimity
o The more the matter in hand calls for speed, the smaller the prescribed difference
in the numbers of votes may be allowed to become: where an instant decision has to
be reached, a majority of one vote should be enough

- the nearer opinion approaches unanimity, the greater is the dominance of the
general will
- Civil association in the most voluntary of all acts
- Opposition to the social contract merely excludes you from it
- Vote of the majority always binds all the rest; all qualities of the general
will reside in the majority
- If a law is passed that is against my opinion, it just means that what I thought
to be the general will and good for all was not so.

- The more grave and important the questions discussed the nearer should
the opinion that is to prevail approached unanimity
- The more the matter at hand calls for speed the smaller the prescribed
difference in the number of votes may be allowed to become (i.e. where an
instant decision must be reached, a majority of one vote should be
enough.)

Political Philosophy/Summary
• Human beings were by nature good but were corrupted by the influence of society
• There are growing inequalities and divisions of modern life
• He was pessimistic in the possibility of redemption, his writing spoke on how we
could live more free and autonomous lives
• Always believed that the republic was the best regime
• We are no longer in a state of nature as we progress in society, the aim then is to
balance freedom and equality while living together under the rule of the sovereign =
people
• The ruling of the sovereign must come from everyone and must apply to everyone

Discourse on the Science and the Arts

• He argued that advances in arts and sciences corrupted people and
denigrated morality
• Human beings were by nature good and become corrupted through
influence of society
• Sparta > Athens
• Championed human reason and perfectibility through moral and cultural
development
• Criticized corrupting effects of modern society and drew from art, nature,
imagination, and sensibility
• Pragmatic thinker
Discourse on Inequality
• Development of modern institutions like law, property and the state created
and strengthened forms of class rule which were basically inexistent in a
more natural condition
• Law gave the rich an instrument in which they could oppress the poor and
justify inequalities which was arbitrary from the point of view of nature
• What was initially won through force and domination was then justified as
part of a just society
• “The true founder of civil society was the first man who having enclosed a
piece of land thought of saying ‘this is mine’ and came across people simple
enough to believe him.” – fraud
• We have a natural moral quality of compassion which precedes any rational
thought processes or social influences
o When we see people suffering, our natural instinct is to rush to their
aid
o It is only after living in social institutions that we are taught to turn
our back on other people and justify their position

The Social Contract

• Put forth arguments about how we can live as free and equal citizens in
modern society
• Theorized the political institutions a republic would need to guarantee a
new kind of civil and moral freedom for equal citizens
• “How can people come together to form a society and create a legitimate
government that would secure and enhance their mutual freedom?”
• Every citizen should actively participate in legislative activity
• People could give up their natural freedom to receive a superior form of
civil and moral freedom where their rights could be protected and they could
follow the laws knowing they’ll prescribe rational and virtuous action
• “What men lose in the social contract is his natural liberty and an unlimited
right to everything he tries to get and succeeds in getting; what he gains is
civil liberty and the proprietorship of all he possesses”
• Sovereignty would be expressed in the general will – procedure of
determining the common good through democratic deliberation and decision
making
• How can people come together to create a government that still preserves
the liberty of individuals?
• General will – collective will of society directed to the common good
• Only if laws are made in accordance with this collective will that the
sovereign would be considered legitimate
• Citizens would actively participate in making the laws, so in following the
law, each member would simply be obeying themselves as a self-legislating
citizen

Natural Liberty
• Man was born free and he is everywhere in chains – denied there was any
natural basis for the authority of one person over another
• Individuals have a natural right to self-preservation
• In the state of nature, they can do whatever is necessary to survive
• State of nature =/= state of war; Our instinct for self-preservation was also
moderated by compassion that gave rise to empathy for others
• Human beings are robust and independent in the state of nature
• They are solitary creatures
• Because he didn’t see a drive for esteem and glory as so fundamental in
human nature, his image of the natural condition was far less conflictual than
Hobbes/Locke
• He started the social contract by criticizing other writers for defending
natural hierarchies
• Argued against Robert Filmer who said that there was an original right to
rule inherited by Adam as the first man of the bible
• He was also critical of Grotius and Hobbes who justified the rights of
absolute monarchs by claiming that people agreed to their subjection through
an original contract
• Rousseau didn’t think it was possible to sign away your freedom because the
capacity to make meaningful, moral choices was the basis of your humanity
• To give up your freedom was to give up your moral nature and hence your
status as a human being
• Hobbes’ sovereign may have the power to enforce the law but Rousseau
thought there was a difference between power and authority
• We are in no duty to obey a sovereign even if it’s based on a contract
entered under duress
• No person has any natural authority over another therefore the only
legitimate way of establishing authority was by free consent
• The goal of the social contract was to enhance the freedom that individuals
already possess in a natural condition

The Social Contract

• How do you join a political society and retain your original natural freedom?
• He attempted to show how to enter a collective association without giving
up freedom
• “How to find a form of association which would defend the person and
goods of each member with the collective force of all and under which each
individual while uniting himself with the others, obeys no one but himself,
and remains as free as before?”
• Enhancing our freedom by recognizing inherent difficulties of solitary living
and taking advantage of the benefits of political society
• “Each of us puts in common his person and all his power under the supreme
direction of the general will and in return, each member becomes an
indivisible part of the whole”
• We also renounce our individual rights but in return we receive something
far more valuable inclusion as a free and equal member of a political
community
• We are ultimately better off with others in society than on our own
• The sovereign will only be legitimate if they strive for the common good of
all the members
• Ultimate goal is freedom
• ‘How do I as an individual ensure that the community’s laws are always ones
that I agree with? What about minority groups? How do I participate directly
in creating every law?’

Civil Society
• For him, it was the people united together who are the true sovereign
• The greatest threat to this political community came from individuals who
didn’t fully commit to the contract and its goals, those who pursue private
interest
• If we want to enjoy benefits, we have to do our fair share of fulfilling our
duty as citizens
• We receive two main things when we enter into political community:
o We exchange our natural liberty for civil and moral freedom To be free is to
be autonomous; to live under our own laws This guarantees property rights
that are more secure than mere possession of objects in the state of nature
We are restrained by the power of everyone else to do what they want
o Living in a society in which the law is decided by everyone; therefore, laws
of the community are going to be rational and therefore moral Don’t have to
rely on natural instincts to act morally

Sovereignty and the General Will

• The entire citizens who are united in a legislative assembly exercises
sovereign power.
• This power to be legitimate must be directed in accordance with the
general will towards the common good
• The legislature is supreme, and must be derived from the combination of
every citizen and it must only direct itself to general and universal laws that
apply equally to everyone
• In terms of executing the laws = executive
• Executive is an intermediary body set by a sovereign people to maintain and
carry out the law they decide upon
• Rousseau and Hobbes agree:
o Sovereignty is inalienable and indivisible – sovereignty could only be
exercised by all the people united and directing themselves to the
common good
• He thought that politics was a process of collective decision making by
equal human beings in a self-governing political community
• General will
o individual citizens turning away from their own private interest to
think about what’s best for society
o process of collective will formation of all citizens deciding on what’s
the common good
o establishes rules for the good of society but it directs how those
rules are carried out in particular circumstances – it can only ever
express laws in the abstract and hence can’t be directed at specific
people or objects
o does not emerge by adding up all our personal preferences but of
each individual turning from their own private affairs to the affairs of
the community
o change in perspective from inward looking individuals to public
minded citizens
• Homogeneity is a public good and differences in the opinion reflect defects
in the body politic
• If I hold an opinion that holds different from the general will, it proves only
that I’ve made a mistake in my reasoning
• The greater the harmony, the healthier society
• Whoever refuses to obey the general will shall be constrained to do so by
the whole body – he shall be forced to be free
• In a well-ordered society, individuals will be able to differentiate their own
private wills from the general will but in modern divided commercial
societies, the accumulation of private wealth was becoming a much more
dominant driving force in politics than in older notions of civic virtue

The legislator
• There is a virtuous relationship between good laws and good citizens but it
is unlikely that the first citizens to form a society would be sufficiently moral
and be able to make good laws
• How do corrupted citizens make good laws for themselves?
• Job of the legislator to solve this^ problem and to frame the initial
collective identity and laws of a community
• The legislator chooses the form of government based on an assessment of
the cultures and customs of people and the geography and climate of the
territory
• After framing the initial laws, the legislator will then withdraw from the
state and have no right to govern or participate in politics
• The office of the legislator is extra constitutional; special office completely
outside the normal functioning of the republic
• He credits the legislator with superhuman wisdom and foresight
• Should credit God with the wisdom they required to make the laws to add
to their authority
• Their aim is to find long-term stable institutions that would provide the
basis for long lasting republic
• Wise intelligent virtuous person who can explain and teach the average man
about the situations at hand and inspire people to vote in accordance with
the general will
• States figure that promotes collective identity; advice what’s the best for
general will that will strength and the good of everyone
• Problem: sounds like manipulation, states propaganda, engineering the
masses to vote in a certain way; creating homogenous thoughts where any
dissent is silenced; sounds tyrannical – tyranny of the majority
• Unlikely to use SCT in large city-states, hard to get a lot of people together;
but you can break down into smaller parts of a whole – then you’ll have a
country with hundreds of different laws? Sounds impractical and does not
inspire collectivity.

Forms of Government
• For him, the government is only the executive rather than the legislature
which is composed of all citizens and guided by the general will
• Although he proposed a participative idea of politics, his theory of popular
sovereignty isn’t synonymous with democracy
• He thought that democracy was a government in which the people were not
only sovereign but also constantly sitting as a permanent council of full-time
public servants administering public policy
• He preferred elected aristocracy if only a few wise people were elected to
govern a civil servant
• Different types of governments fit different types of culture, etc.
• Freedom is not within the capacity of every people
• Necessary pre-conditions of a democracy
o Small state – people can be readily assembled
o Culturally homogenous society in manners and morals
o Rough equality in socio-economic status
o Absence of luxury – corrupts both rich and poor
Civil Religion
• Christianity had been ineffective at fostering civic pride and patriotism and
had a negative effect in the flourishing of the state
• The sovereign encourage belief in the existence of the supreme being, the
afterlife, and the idea that those who act wickedly would be punished
• The purpose seems less about a genuine commitment to the beliefs and
more an instrumental use of them for political purposes
• Differences in religious beliefs should be tolerated within certain bounds; so
long as their dogmas contain nothing contrary to the duties of a citizen
• The variety of different denominations of Christianity should be tolerated
• What couldn’t be tolerated: atheists because without the fear of divine
punishment, they couldn’t be trusted to follow the laws
• Those who couldn’t accept the doctrines of the state should be banished –
can be put to death
John Stuart Mill
CONTEXT:
● Industrial Age - technological innovation, capitalist/consumer lifestyle, and
modernizing society
● Monarchial Mercantilism - goods & gold is consolidated to royal power; more
gold = wealthier state
● Shift to a classic liberal political economy (capitalists manage the free market
and states conduct less restrictive international trade)
● Downside of Industrialization: human slavery, dehumanized labor, mismanaged
urbanization, disease-infested or unsanitary communities, and polluted
environments
● Seat in British Parliament in 1865

On Liberty
Liberty and Authority
● Civil Liberty - nature and limits of the power which can be legitimately
exercised by society over the individual
● In the past:
- rulers = antagonists; authority was derived from inheritance or conquest;
power was necessary but highly dangerous
- Liberty = protection against tyranny of rulers

● Limits to the power of the ruler: political liberties and constitutional checks
(consent of the community or representative body)

● GUARANTEED NO ABUSE OF POWER?

- Various magistrates of that state should be revocable delegates; elective
and temporary rulers
- Interest of the rulers = interest and will of the nation
- In this way, “nation doesn’t need to be protected against his own will…no
fear of tyranny…rulers be effectually responsible to it, promptly
removable by it, and it could afford to trust them with power which itself
could dictate the use to be made”
- Power of the ruler = concentrated power of the nation

● Rise of Democratic Government

- Elective and responsible government, subject to observations and New threat to liberty
criticism the people themselves with
- The “people” who exercise power are not always the same people with their societal standards
those over whom it is exercised. Self government is not each by himself that demand complete
but each by all the rest conformity to the
 - Will of the people = will of the most numerous, active part = majority majority has also
- Tyranny of the Majority - the people may desire to oppress a part of their jeopardized liberty.
number and precautions are needed against this as against any other
abuse of power

● Tyranny of the Majority

- Operating through the act of public authorities
- Society is itself the tyrant (collective society over the individuals) majority can tyrannize
- Ex. social tyranny wherein society executes wrong mandates or mandates society by teaching
in thing which it out not to meddle; tyranny of the prevailing opinion and dogmatic truths that
feeling, tyranny of conformity cannot be questioned

“There is a limit to the legitimate interference of collective opinion with individual

independence.”
Men in genuine
● SELF-PROTECTION
democracy may act freely
- “Only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any
but conditional to its
member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to effect on others.
others.”
- “...principle…entitled to govern absolutely the dealings of society with All acts may be done for
the individual in the way of compulsion or control…” as long as that it does
- *The excuse of for his own good cannot be used to justify compulsion or NOT lead to the harm of
control, this argument can only be used to reason with the individual another.
- Actions concerning himself = individual is sovereign
Actions concerning others = he is amenable to society
- “A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his
inaction…he is just accountable to them for the injury”
- Exceptions to accountability: individual acts better alone than when
controlled by society (conscience in judgement seat) OR attempt to
exercise control would lead to more evil
- Society cares little for peron’s life and conduct that only affects
Acts can affect others as
himself and/or effects others with their free, voluntary, and
long as they agree to it
undeceived consent

*applies only to individuals with mature faculties (adults) ang barbaric/uncivilized

communities
→ “Despotism is a legitimate mode of government in dealing with barbarians,
provided the end be their improvement and the means justified by actually effecting Compulsion is ok as long
that end.” as it is done for the
→ liberty only applies to societies that can be improved through equal and free security of others
discussion

● Region of Human Liberty

 1. Inward domain of consciousness aka Liberty of Thought, Conscience,
Speech, Opinion, and Sentiments
2. Liberty of Tastes and Pursuit - doing as we like subject to the Regards to individual’s
consequences and we do not harm others; not being stigmatized for our absolute freedom
passions
3. Liberty of combination or Liberty of Unity, Friendship, and Alliances -
unite and assemble their interests with like-minded persons through
personal friendships and public or organizational alliances.

[paraphrased] “Mankind gains more by letting each other live as deemed good to
themselves, than by compelling each to live as deemed good by the rest”

LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION

● Liberty of the Press = Defense against Tyranny of majority opinion
- majority can tyrannize society by prescribing opinions and determining
what doctrines and arguments people shall be allowed to hear
- Silencing the expression of opinion = robbery
- Silencing of discussion about theopinion = assumption of infaliability
(assuming their certainty on the truthfulness of the opinionis absolute
certainty*)
- People have complete confidence in their opinion because this is shared
by “the world” which is infallible; world = part which he comes into
contact with (therefore biased) majority opinion presumes
its unmistakable
- “It is the duty of governments, and of individuals, to form the trust
knowledge;
opinions they can…”

“If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for
truth; if wrong, they lose the clearer perception and livelier impression truth
produced by its collision with error

*there is no such thing as absolute certainty but there is assurance sufficient enough
for the purposes of human life

- “Complete liberty of contradicting and disproving our opinion is the very The neglect of creative
condition which justifies us in assuming its truth for the purposes of and productive discussion
action” in society may the curtail
- Man is capable of rectifying his mistakes by discussion and experience geniuses to speak up in
- Human judgement is considered reliable when it is always open to pursuit of societal
criticism (by hearing what can be said about it by persons of every variety progress
of opinion and studying all the modes by which it can be looked at)
 - “The steady habit of correcting and completing his own opinion by Discussions and failed
collating it with those of others…is the only stable foundation for a just refutes are the only
reliance on it.” rational way we can be
sure we are right
● Defense against Tyranny of majority custom
- The beliefs which we have th emost warrant for have no safeguard to rest
on but a standing invitation to the whole world to prove them unfounded
- “..if there is a better truth, it will be found when the human mind is
capable of receiving it.” majority customary
- challenge: The claims of an opinion to be protected rest not so much on practice and beliefs can
its truth but on its importance to society; restraints on discussion is be obsolete and irrelevant
justified by teh usefulness of the doctrines as times and context
- “..no belief which is contrary to truth can be useful” change

- A party of stability and a part of progress are both necessary elements of a

healthy state of political life
- Progress is obtained from clishing of opinions because “if either of the two
tyranny of majority
opinions has a better claim than the other…it is the one which happens to be custom may also deny the
in a minority… the opinion which represents the neglected interests (side of continuous development of
human well-being which is in danger)....it is probable that they have human reason as people
something worth to say and that truth would lose something by their silence” become comfortable of
keeping tradition, no
matter how outdated and
irrational, ultimately
Why allow absolute freedom with civil liberty? unquestioned.
1. Silenced opinion may be closer to the truth
2. Silenced opinion may contain a portion of the truth. General opinion is rarely
or never the whole truth, it is only by collision of adverse opinions that the
remainder of the truth is supplied
3. Unless received opinion is suffered to be vigorously and earnestly contested,
it will be held in a manner of prejudice no matter if it actually does contain
the whole truth
4. the promotion of a variety of opinions encourages innovative geniuses to be
more active members of society. Doctrine has a vital effect on character and
conduct

● Region of actions for Other’s Liberty

○ Improvement of Societal Standards actions done in the purpose
- every individual should be expected to tolerate the diverse functions of pursuing another’s
that other members of society can freely pursue themselves. interest or helping someone
else in their time of need.
○ Reconsideration of Social and Moral Codes
 - Society should embrace different social and moral codes that inform
various people’s way of life. Since no one doctrine
- “I belive that other ethics than any which can be evolved from contains the whole truth it
only makes sense to seek
exclusively Christian sources must exists side by side with Christian ethics
knowledge in other doctrines
to produce moral regeneration of mankind.”

On Utilitarianism
MISCONCEPTION 1: UTILITY ≠ PLEASURE
- Utility should not be distinguished from pleasure for it is pleasure itself (acc. to
Philosophical premise of
Epicurus, Bentham); useful = agreeable or ornamental
utilitarianism: people seek
- Utility or Greatest Happiness Principle (theory of morality)* pleasure and avoid pain!
= “actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong actions are judged based on
as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness” their outcomes, NOT on
- good actions = lead to general happiness ethics or religious morals
- bad actions = lead to unhappiness
- Happiness = pleasure and freedom from pain; related to gratification

*grounded on the theory of life = pleasure and freedom from pain are the only things
desirable as ends; desirable either for their inherent pleasure or as a means to
promote pleasure and prevent pain
** human pleasure ≠ animalistic pleasure

MISCONCEPTION 2: HAPPINESS IS JUST SETTLING

QUALITY OF PLEASURE
- “...recognize the fact that some kinds of pleasure are more desirable and more
valuable than others” Quality of pleasure is based
*ex. pleasures of intellect, of feelings and imagination, and of moral on how many it affected
beneficially and adversely
sentiments VS pleasures of sensation
- “Of two pleasures, if there be one to which all or almost all who have
experience of both give a decided preference…that is the more desirable
pleasure”
- Judges of quality are those who are have knowledge/are familiar with both
People prefer pleasure
- Note: “no intelligent human being would consent to be a fool…even though they that employs their higher
should be persuaded that the fool is better satisfied…they would not resign faculties; a being of
higher faculties requires
what they possess for the most complete satisfaction of all the
more to make him happy
desires…only in cases of unhappiness…that to escape from it they would
(although he knows the
exchange their lot”
happiness to be imperfect,
Why would they not resign?
he can bear it rather
→ pride than being completely
 → love of liberty and personal independence happy as a foo l)
→ love of power/excitement
→ sense of dignity People who employ higher
faculties are often less
content, because they have
- Men are sometimes tempted to the lower pleasure; choose the nearer good a deeper sense of the
though knowing it is of lesser value limitations of the world.
Why?
- Capacity for that nobler feeling [associated with higher pleasure] easily dies
(sometimes by mere want of sustenance)
- Loss of intellectual taste = loss of higher aspirations
- Lower pleasures are easier to access
.
.
UTILITARIANISM https://www.sparknotes.com
- Can be attained [paraphrased] “by the general cultivation of nobleness of /philosophy/utilitarianism/se
ction2/
character, even if each individual were only benefited by the nobleness of
____________________
others while his own nobleness is a minor deduction.”

MISCONCEPTION 3: HAPPINESS CAN’T BE THE GOAL

GREATEST HAPPINESS PRINCIPLE
- Existence exempt from pain and rich with pleasure (quantity and quality)
- Morality are the rules and precepts for human conduct; observance of which
leads to life with pleasure and no pain
- OBJECTION: happiness couldn’t be the purpose of human life (or even single
action) because it is unattainable and men can do without it
- IN SUPPORT:
- utility also aims for both happiness and the mitigation of unhappiness;
so if happiness cannot be achieved then there is a higher imperative Don’t expect from life
more than it is capable of
for the latter
bestowing
- If happiness = highly pleasurable excitement, then is it impossible
because state of exalted pleasure lasts only moments. What is
actually meant is existence filled with lots of moments of happiness
and only few and transitory pains

- Main constituents of a satisfied life: tranquility and excitement

- Tranquility - allows us to be content with little pleasure
- Excitement - allows us to reconcile ourselves with a considerable
quantity of pain
- Easy to achieve because they are naturally aligned and prolonging of
one is in preparation of the other
 - Sources of Unhappiness
1. [paraphrased] “fortunate people who do not find in life sufficient
enjoyment to make to valuable generally care for nobody but
themselves…the excitements of life dwindle in value as the time
approaches when all selfish interests must be terminated by death.”
2. Life is unsatisfactory for those in want of mental cultivation

- Happy life CAN be achieved

it is fully within most
1. [paraphrased] “those who leave objects of personal affection and
people's capabilities to be
cultivated fellow-feeling with collective interest retain as lively an
happy, if their education
interest in life on the eve of death as in the vigour of youth.
nurtures the appropriate
2. A cultivated mind (i.e. any mind open to knowledge and exercises its values.
faculties) finds sources of inexhaustible interest in all that surrounds
it
3. “...everyone who has moderate amount of moral and intellectual Attainment of happiness
requisites is capable of enviable existence…if he escapes the great based on educational and
evils of life, the great sources of physical and mental suffering - such social arrangements
as disease, unkindess…”
→ “most evils of the world are removal if human affairs continue to
improve”
“All the grand sources of human suffering are conquerable by human care and
effort…though their removal is grievously slow, every mind taking part will draw a
noble enjoyment from the contest itself”
sacrificing happiness is
for some greater
MISCONCEPTION 4: ALL VIRTUOUS PEOPLE HAVE BECOME VIRTUOUS BY RENOUNCING
end--and what else could
HAPPINESS
this be but the happiness
- Sacrifice is made only so others will not have to make the same sacrifice
of other people?
- “Self-sacrifice must be for some end…It is noble to be capable of resigning
entirely one’w own portion of happiness”
- He who renounces personal enjoyment to contribute worthily to happiness in
the world deserves honour; he who does it for any other purpose doesn’t
- In an imperfect state: Having the virtue will lead
- Readiness to sacrifice is the highest virtue in man a person to be tranquil
- “the conscious ability to do without happiness gives the best prospect about his life and
of realizing such happiness as is attainable” prospects
- Man is free from excess anxiety concerning the evils of life
- He only cultivates tranquility accessible to him w/o concern for
their duration Utilitarianism doesn;t
- “Utilitarianism does recognise the power of sacrificing…it only refuses to promote all sacrifice, only
admit that the sacrifice itself a good” ones that increase
- “Sacrifice which does not increase the sum total of happiness is considers as happiness
wasted”
UTILITARIAN HAPPINESS
- “happiness which forms the utilitarians standard of what is right in conduct is
NOT the agent’s own happiness but that of all concerned.”
- Utilitarianism requires strict impartiality when choosing between own and
collective happiness
- Ideal perfection of utilitarian morality: “do as you would be done by” &
“love your neighbor as yourself”
Making the impulse to
1. Laws and social arrangements should try to harmonize the happiness
promote the general
of the every individual with the interest of the whole
interest of society a
2. Education and opinion should use its power over human character to
habitual motivation of
establish in the mind of every individual an indissoluble association
actions of individuals
between his own happiness and the good of the whole

UTILITARIANISM AND MORALITY

- Utilitarianism is not concerned with the motives of an action Greatest happiness
“No system of ethics requires that the sole motive of all we do shall be a principle, morality =
feeling of duty, on the contrary our actions are done from other motives.” resulting
- Utilitarian moralists affirm that motive has nothing to do with the morality goodness/pleasure of the
of an action, only with the worth of the agent. action
- “...thoughts of the virtuous man need not travel beyond the particular
persons concerned…” & “to be a public benefactor…on these occasions alone
is he called on to consider public utility; in every other case, private utility,
the interest or happiness of some some few persons, is all he has to attend
to.”
- a person will not be affecting large numbers of other people, and thus
need not consider his or her actions in relation to the good of all, but
only in relation to the good of those involved. It is only the people
who work in the public sphere and affect many other people who must
think about public utility on a regular basis.

MISCONCEPTION 5: UTILITARIANISM BREEDS COLD AND UNSYMPATHIZING MEN

- In general, no ethical standard decides an action (as good or bad) based on
the moral quality of the doer
- Utilitarianism only looks at the consequences of man’s actions and not his
inherent goodness or badness. WHY? “Utilitarians are aware that there are
other desirable possessions and qualities besides virtue….they are also aware
that right action does not necessarily indicate a virtuous character”
- “...in the long run the best proof of a good character is good actions”

- There are some utilitarians who have cultivated their moral feelings but not
their sympathies nor their articstic perceptions (aka other beauties of
character which go towards making a human being lovable)
 - “...if there is to be any error, it is better that it should be on that side.”
→ that side = prioritizing moral thinking

MISCONCEPTION 6: UTILITARIANISM = GODLESS DOCTRINE

- If God’s purpose for creation was the happiness of his creatures, then utility
is almost a religious doctrine
- If their arguement is utilitarianism does not recognize the revealed will of A utilitarian believes that
God's revealed truths
God as the supreme law of morals, then “a utilitarian who believes in the
about morality will fit
perfect goodness and wisdom of God, necessarily believes that whatever God
with utilitarian principles.
has thought fit to revela on the subject of morals must fulfill the
requirements of utility in a supreme degree.”
many moralists, not
- Furthermore, counter that “we need a doctrine of ethics, carefully followed simply utilitarians: need
out, to interpret to us the will of God.” ethical doctrine, =
understand the will of
God in the first place.

MISCONCEPTION 7: UTILITARIANISM = EXPEDIENT = IMMORAL

- Not true because “Expedient generally means that which is expedient for the Expedient in this sense is
particular interest of the agent himself…for some immediate object, some hurtful > useful
temporary purpose, but which violates a rule whose observance is expedient
in a much higher degree”
- “Violation for a present advantage is not expedient…he, who for his own
convenience, deprives mankind of good acts the part of the enemy.”

MISCONCEPTION 8: NOT ENOUGH TIME TO WEIGH UTILITY OF ACTIONS

- As stupid as saying we can’t be good Christians because we don’t have enough
time to read the bible every time
- “There has been ample time, namely the whole past duration of human
species. During all that time , mankind have been learning by experience the
tendencies of actions…”
- Morality of life is dependent on those part experiences
- If mankind agreed to making utility the test of morality, then (by now) they
would’ve determined what is useful, take measures to teach this to the
young, and enforce this by law and opinion.
- Still room to improve: “...the received code of ethics is by no means of divine All rational people go
right; and that mankind have still much to learn as to the effects of actions through life with their
on the general happiness, I admit…” minds made up on certain
- No need to “test each individual action directly by the first principle” basic questions of right
because “...all rational creatures go out upon the sea of life with their minds and wrong.
made up on the common questions of right and wrong…”

MISCONCEPTION 9: UTILITARIANISM GIVES US EXCUSES FOR EVIL DOING

 - It was established that utilitarians will sometimes be tempted and see utility
in the breach of a rule, greater than the utility in its observance All creeds have exceptions
- JS Mill answers: Is only utility like this?
- All doctrines recognize the existence of conflicting considerations and the
complicated nature of human affairs need for exceptions is
- Therefore, “...rules of conduct cannot be so framed as required no part of the reality of
exceptions…there is no ethical creed which does not temper the rigidity of its human life.
laws”

- “..there will arise unequivocal cases of conflicting obligations…overcome

Having a standard is
according to intellect and virtue of individual…”
better than having no
- “...utility may be invoked to decide between them wher their demands are standard at all.
incompatible. Though the application of the standard may be difficult, it is
better than none at all.”

Principles of Political Economy

● Functions of Government in General

“doctrine: individuals are proper guardians of their own interests and governmen
owes nothing to them but to save them from being interfered with by others.”

1. Suppresion of force and fraud

2. Where public interest of the person concerned requires it, the

government undertakes the administration of property
*ex. Law of inheritance, incompetent successors, etc.

3. Regulation for the common enjoyment of the earth’s resources and

land (inheritance of the human race)

4. Contracts
“Every question which can possibly arise as to the policy of contracts
and relations they establish is a question for the legislator…”

4.1 Enforce contracts In order to ensure that

*not interference because enforcing contracts is simply giving effect to their people are able to
[contractor’s] own expressed desires experience their rights
and liberties, the state
4.2 Determine what contracts are fit to be enforced should also function as a
*there are people who, for the public good, should not be allowed to enter a contract
guarantor of societal
together
*there are engagements which law refuses to enforce (ex. Slave contract, prostitution,
security and social order.
unfair labour wages, marriage with one unconsenting party, etc.)

5. Decide disputes
 → Civil Tribunals
- for the suppression of fraud and force
- “while it is not necessary to appoint persons to clear up state provides the people a
means of effectively
uncertainties and terminated disputes…it is universally thought
communicating with each
right that the state should establish civil tribunals” other in standardized terms.
It would be chaotic if people
6. Take precautions so disputes may not arise used various measuring tools
*law prescribes forms of words for contracts within a society
*makes provisions so that, when disputes do arise, evidence shall be procurable
*law preserves authentic evidence of facts (registry of contracts)

7. Principle of General Expediency

- “There is a multitude of cases in which governments assume power
and execute functions for which no reason can be assigned except one
state intervenes in
of general expediency/convenience.”
economic issues that call
- ex. coining money, prescribing a set of standard weights, paving,
for general convenience
lighting, and cleaning streets, making or improving harbours, building
in efficient economic
lighthouses, etc.
transaction.