Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1712–1778)

Jean-Jacques Rousseau's legal and moral thought profoundly influenced leaders of the French Revolution. His account of consent as the basis of obligation inspired Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) and, more recently, John Rawls (1921–2002), both of whom acknowledged his decisive importance.

Rousseau, born in Geneva, ran away from his apprenticeship to an engraver when he was fifteen. For the next quarter century, he wandered through Europe without any settled occupation. In 1750, having settled in Paris, he wrote Discourse on the Sciences and the Arts, which brought him immediate fame. Over the next dozen years, he wrote numerous works, including an immensely popular opera and the best-selling novel of the century, Julie (1761). When Émile, or on Education was published in 1762, authorities issued a warrant for his arrest. Controversy over this work and the Social Contract (1762) followed him through several countries. In 1767, he returned to France, where he lived until his death, although the warrant against him remained in effect. His last years were spent writing three major autobiographical works and the important On the Government of Poland (1772).

The importance of law in Rousseau's thought followed from his view of the problem it is intended to [Page 1329]solve. His claim was that people become vicious, prejudiced, and foolish from dependence on the arbitrary will of others. Such dependence engenders not only lack of freedom but also characteristics such as slavishness, rebelliousness, and manipulativeness in the powerful and the weak alike. Law replaces corrupting personal dependence with dependence on nonarbitrary and impersonal standards. To do this, it must be made with the agreement of all members of the community and apply equally to them all. Law, then, cannot be understood as governmental decree reflecting the will of an individual or group, even if this group is the majority.

This account of law entailed a novel doctrine of the separation of powers. The legislative power resides only in an assembly of the community as a whole or in delegates acting on strict instructions from those who elect them. It should not consist of members of the government acting on their own judgment. The sovereign legislative power was distinguished from the executive power (or government), which is concerned exclusively with applying the law to particular cases. All governmental decisions are, properly speaking, administrative, rather than legal. Because every government potentially constitutes a separate community with its own interests diverging from those of the larger community, the fundamental political problem lies in its tendency to usurp the legislative function. While periodic assemblies and constant surveillance over the government can forestall this danger temporarily, Rousseau insisted that every community is vulnerable to despotism.