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The General Will
Although it originated in theological debates, the general will ultimately
became one of the most celebrated and denigrated concepts emerging
from early modern political thought. Jean-Jacques Rousseau made it the
central element of his political theory, and it took on a life of its own
during the French Revolution, before being subjected to generations of
embrace or opprobrium. James Farr and David Lay Williams have
collected for the first time a set of essays that track the evolving history
of the general will from its origins to recent times. The General Will: The
Evolution of a Concept discusses the general will’s theological, political,
formal, and substantive dimensions with a careful eye toward the con-
cept’s virtues and limitations as understood by its expositors and critics,
among them Arnauld, Pascal, Malebranche, Leibniz, Locke, Spinoza,
Montesquieu, Kant, Constant, Tocqueville, Adam Smith, and John
Rawls.
James Farr is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Chicago
Field Studies Program at Northwestern University. He is the author of
numerous essays on Locke and on the history of political thought. He is
also the editor of, among other volumes, Political Innovation and
Conceptual Change (Cambridge, 1989) and Political Science in
History (Cambridge, 1995).
David Lay Williams is Associate Professor of Political Science at DePaul
University and the author of several essays on the history of political
thought, as well as of Rousseau’s Platonic Enlightenment (2007) and
Rousseau’s Social Contract: An Introduction (Cambridge, 2014).
The General Will
The Evolution of a Concept
Edited by
JAMES FARR
Northwestern University
DAVID LAY WILLIAMS
DePaul University
32 Avenue of the Americas, New York, ny 10013-2473, usa
Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge.
It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of
education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence.
www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781107057012
© Cambridge University Press 2015
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without the written
permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 2015
Printed in the United States of America
A catalog record for this publication is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
The general will : the evolution of a concept / edited by James Farr,
David Lay Williams.
pages cm
isbn 978-1-107-05701-2
1. General will. 2. Legitimacy of governments. 3. Political science –
Philosophy – History. I. Farr, James, 1950– editor of compilation.
II. Williams, David Lay, 1969– editor of compilation.
jc328.2.g46 2014
320.0101–dc23 2014034127
isbn 978-1-107-05701-2 Hardback
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of
urls for external or third-party Internet Web sites referred to in this publication
and does not guarantee that any content on such Web sites is, or will remain,
accurate or appropriate.
Contents
List of Contributors page vii
Acknowledgments xi
Editors’ Introduction xv
part i: the general will before rousseau
1 The General Will before Rousseau: The Contributions of
Arnauld, Pascal, Malebranche, Bayle, and Bossuet 3
Patrick Riley
2 Malebranche’s Shadow: Divine Providence andGeneralWill in
the Leibniz-Arnauld Correspondence 72
Steven Nadler
3 Locke’s Ideas, Rousseau’s Principles, and the
General Will 88
James Farr
4 Spinoza and the General Will 115
David Lay Williams
5 Freedom, Sovereignty, and the General Will in Montesquieu 147
Sharon R. Krause
part ii: the prehistory of the general will
6 Rethinking Rousseau’s Tyranny of Orators: Cicero’sOn
Duties and the Beauty of True Glory 175
Daniel J. Kapust
7 AnAmerican GeneralWill? “The Bond of Brotherly Affection”
in New England 197
Andrew R. Murphy
v
part iii: the general will in rousseau
8 The Substantive Elements of Rousseau’s General Will 219
David Lay Williams
9 Justice, Beneficence, and Boundaries: Rousseau and the
Paradox of Generality 247
Richard Boyd
10 On the General Will of Humanity: Global Connections in
Rousseau’s Political Thought 270
Sankar Muthu
11 The General Will in Rousseau and after Rousseau 307
Tracy B. Strong
part iv: the general will after rousseau
12 Kant on the General Will 333
Patrick Riley
13 The General Will after Rousseau: Smith and Rousseau on
Sociability and Inequality 350
Shannon C. Stimson
14 Benjamin Constant’s Liberalism and the Political Theology of
the General Will 382
Bryan Garsten
15 The General Will after Rousseau: The Case of Tocqueville 402
Michael Locke McLendon
16 Rawls on Rousseau and the General Will 429
Christopher Brooke
Bibliography 447
Index 477
vi Contents
Contributors
Richard Boyd is Associate Professor of Government at Georgetown
University and has written numerous essays on early-modern and late-
modern political thought. He is also author of Uncivil Society: The Perils
of Pluralism and the Making of Modern Liberalism (2005) and co-editor
of Tocqueville and the Frontiers of Democracy (2013).
Christopher Brooke is Lecturer of Politics and International Studies at
Homerton College, University of Cambridge. He is the author of
Philosophic Pride: Stoicism and Political Thought from Lipsius to
Rousseau (2012), editor of Philosophical and Political Perspectives on
Education (2013), and has written widely on modern political thought.
James Farr is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Chicago
Field Studies Program at Northwestern University. He is the author of
numerous essays on Locke and the history of political thought. He is also
the editor of, among others, Political Innovation and Conceptual Change
(1989) and Political Science in History (1995).
Bryan Garsten is Professor of Political Science at Yale University. He is the
author of Saving Persuasion: A Defense of Rhetoric and Judgment (2006),
editor of Rousseau, the Age of Enlightenment, and Their Legacy (2012),
and author of many essays on Constant and early-modern political
thought.
Daniel J. Kapust is Associate Professor of Political Science at the
University of Wisconsin–Madison. He has written many essays on
Roman and early-modern political thought, as well as Republicanism,
Rhetoric, and Roman Political Thought: Sallust, Livy, and Tacitus (2011).
vii
Sharon R. Krause is Professor of Political Science at Brown University and
has written widely on Montesquieu and early-modern political thought.
She is the author of Liberalism with Honor (2002) and Civil Passions:
Moral Sentiment and Democratic Deliberation (2008), as well as editor of
The Arts of Rule (2009).
Michael Locke McLendon is Professor of Political Science at California
State University–Los Angeles. He is the author of several essays on early-
modern and late-modern political thought appearing in journals such as
the American Journal of Political Science, European Journal of Political
Theory, Journal of Politics, Review of Politics, and Polity.
AndrewR.Murphy is Associate Professor of Political Science andDirector
of the Walt Whitman Center for the Culture and Politics of Democracy,
Rutgers University. He has authored and edited multiple books, including
Conscience and Community: Revisiting Toleration and Religious Dissent
in Early Modern England and America (2001), Prodigal Nation: Moral
Decline and Divine Punishment from New England to 9/11 (2009), and A
Companion to Religion and Violence (2011).
Sankar Muthu is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University
of Chicago. He has written numerous essayson cosmopolitanism and
commerce in early-modern political thought. He is the author of
Enlightenment against Empire (2003) and editor of Empire and Modern
Political Thought (2012).
Steven Nadler is William H. Hay II Professor of Philosophy at the
University of Wisconsin–Madison and the author of numerous books
and articles on the history of early-modern philosophy, including
Malebranche and Ideas (1992); Spinoza: A Life (1999); and The Best of
All Possible Worlds: A Story of Philosophers, God, and Evil (2008).
Patrick Riley is Professor Emeritus of Political Science and former
Michael Oakeshott Professor in Political Philosophy at the
University of Wisconsin–Madison. He has published extensively on
early-modern political thought, including Will and Political
Legitimacy (1982), Kant’s Political Philosophy (1982), and The
General Will before Rousseau: The Transformation of the Divine
into the Civic (1986).
Shannon C. Stimson is Professor of Political Science and Chair of
Political Economy of Industrial Societies at the University of
California–Berkeley. She is the author or editor of several works,
viii List of Contributors
including Ricardian Politics (1991), Modern Political Science (2007),
and After Adam Smith: A Century of Transformation in Politics and
Political Economy (2009).
Tracy B. Strong is Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the
University of California–San Diego. He is the author of numerous essays
and books, including, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the Politics of the
Ordinary (1994) and, most recently, Politics without Vision: “Thinking
without a Banister” in Twentieth Century Political Thought (2012).
David Lay Williams is Associate Professor of Political Science at DePaul
University and the author of several essays on the history of political
thought, as well as Rousseau’s Platonic Enlightenment (2007) and
Rousseau’s “Social Contract”: An Introduction (2014).
List of Contributors ix
Acknowledgments
Early modernity is often understood as the age that gave rise to the concept
of the sovereign individual – inspired by Doctor Faustus in literature,
Newton in science, and homo economicus in politics and society. To be
sure, the sovereign individual has been a force for stunning change in all
these domains, not least in politics and society. These changes have, how-
ever, an ambiguous legacy. Although scientific and technological advance-
ments have exceeded the imagination and the global economy has
expanded exponentially, there has been a lingering sense among some
that these achievements come at a cost – that in blind pursuit of self-
interest, the broader communal interest has been threatened. This volume
is dedicated to tracing the development of an alternative concept that
evolved in large part as a response to such concerns – that of citizens
who understand their will as part of a larger communal whole: the general
will. Before Rousseau appropriated it for expressly civic purposes, this
concept emerged initially in theological debates over salvation and God’s
will. Contentious from the beginning and certainly in Rousseau’s wake, it
has had a vibrant life and remains part of political discourse to this day.
This volume seeks to reinforce or reinvigorate analysis of the general will
with attention to a broader spectrum of the concept’s history than has been
previously available.
Several essays in this volume emerged from a symposium on the general
will held at the University of Wisconsin–Madison on October 4, 2008, to
honor the pioneering work of Patrick Riley. This symposium benefited
xi
from the selfless general wills of several individuals, including Richard
Avramenko, Debbie Bakke, Michael Dubin, Robert Booth Fowler, Susan
Friedman, Ryan Patrick Hanley, Christopher Harwood, Alan J. Kellner,
Jimmy Casas Klausen, Simanti Lahiri, Katherine Loeber, Steven Nadler,
Sean Smalley, and John Zumbrunnen. It also required financial assistance
from multiple academic units, including several at the University of
Wisconsin–Madison: the Institute for Research in the Humanities, as
well as the departments of history, philosophy, and political science. The
political science department at the University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point
especially deserves commendation for its foundational support.
The editors have subsequently acquired many other debts. At
Cambridge University Press, Robert Dreesen’s enthusiasm for this project
has been especially crucial, while his staff, particularly Liz Janetschek, has
been most helpful. Terence Ball and three anonymous reviewers read the
manuscript and offered many useful suggestions for improving the essays
and the volume as a whole. J. Rixey Ruffin also read a portion of the
manuscript, offering invaluable suggestions for its improvement. Jeni
Forestal did an excellent job rekeying the long first chapter. Closer to
home and for countless good reasons, Jim would like to thank Mary
G. Dietz, and David would like to thank Jennifer Weiser and Benjamin
Williams. Jim and David would also like to thank one another. We could
not have predicted at the outset that we would have become Evanston
neighbors, but this happy development has seen our relationship grow
from mutual professional respect to a warm friendship.
We would like to thank the contributors to this volume, who have
constructed thoughtful and engaging essays. They have patiently endured
this process with the good faith that their work would ultimately see the
light of day. One contributor, Patrick Riley, deserves special mention. His
work on the general will returned scholars to this crucial concept – and
reminded everyone that while Rousseau was certainly the central character
in its story, its life extends far beyond him. Most contributors to this
volume have been either Patrick’s students or his colleagues, and they
can all attest to his ready willingness to set aside his particular will for
the general will.
Some chapters have appeared in previously published works, and
the editors would like to acknowledge them here. Patrick Riley’s “The
General Will before Rousseau: The Contributions of Arnauld, Pascal,
Malebranche, Bayle, and Bossuet” was previously published in Studi
Filosofici (1982–83). Also, parts of his “Kant on the General Will”
appeared in The Cambridge Companion to Rousseau (Cambridge
xii Acknowledgments
University Press, 2001) and inATreatise of Legal Philosophy and General
Jurisprudence, volume 10: The Philosophers’ Philosophy of Law from the
Seventeenth Century to Our Days (Springer, 2009). Portions of Tracy B.
Strong’s “The General Will in Rousseau and after Rousseau” appeared in
his Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Politics of the Ordinary (Rowman &
Littlefield, 2002). David Lay Williams’s “Spinoza and the General Will”
appeared in the Journal of Politics (2010), and significant portions of “The
Substantive Elements of Rousseau’s General Will” appeared as Appendix
A in his Rousseau’s “Social Contract”: An Introduction (Cambridge
University Press, 2014).
Finally, the editors note here that the contributors have had the liberty
to employ their own preferred editions and translations of Rousseau and
other classic works. All of these editions can be found in the comprehensive
bibliography at the end of this book.
Acknowledgments xiii
Editors’ Introduction
The “general will” is a defining concept of modern political thought. For a
time – in matters theological, philosophical, and political – it ranked
alongside the concepts of liberty, sovereignty, and law, among others.
Though defining, all were contested; and all were associated with para-
mount thinkers whom we still remember and debate today. Who can
imagine discoursing about sovereignty or law in any sort of historical
register without raising Bodin, Hobbes, or Bentham? And while liberty
seems to be the legacy of alleged liberals such as Mill, there was libertybefore liberalism1 – as Machiavelli, Locke, and the Levelers remind us.
Even then, there were precursors and successors – some famous, some
obscure – indicating long lines of genealogy, evolution, and change in the
conceptual configurations of modern thought.
It would be impossible to imagine modern political thought without
Rousseau, who ranks with these other paramount thinkers. And it would
be impossible to imagine Rousseau without the general will. In Rousseau,
the general will intimates and animates so much of the range of modern
political conceptualization. Besides liberty, sovereignty, and law, it invokes
order, equality, virtue, citizenship, individuality, and the social contract.
“The general will is Rousseau’s most successful metaphor,” Judith Shklar
once judged. “It conveys everything he most wanted to say.”2 Alas, what
he most wanted to say was not entirely new or unprecedented. Neither was
it perfectly clear or invariably well received. But the concept of the general
will did succeed in becoming central to the contentious imagination of
modernity after – and largely because of – Rousseau.
By turns celebrated and condemned, the general will in its history after
Rousseau stirred passions as few ideas, concepts, words, or metaphors
xv
have. Some figures found great inspiration in the general will as they
imagined Rousseau envisioned it. The most immediate inspiration came
in the opening days of the French Revolution when the Abbé Sieyès
appropriated the term to elevate the Third Estate from “nothing” to
sovereign.3 The same year, the Tennis Court Oath depicted on the cover
of this volume would ultimately result in the Declaration of the Rights of
Man, which proclaimed, “The law is an expression of the general will.”4
Not only revolutionaries but the ill-fated Louis XVI gave testimony to the
power of Rousseau’s central concept when, at the National Assembly, he
promised to “defend and maintain constitutional liberty, whose
principles the general will, in accord with my own, has sanctioned.”5
Robespierre – who would have none of Louis’s will but thought
Rousseau “divine” – found the general will at work in the Committee of
Public Safety as it doled out the Terror.6 The most storied philosophers
following Rousseau fell sway to the general will, as well. Kant celebrated
Rousseau as the “Newton of the moral world” and appealed to the general
will throughout his long career.7 Fichte’s ambition for his philosophy of
right was “to find a will that cannot possibly be other than the common
will.”8 Hegel insisted that “the general will is supposed to supervise the
supreme power in general.”9 Admiration for Rousseau continued into the
twentieth century. The liberal contractarian John Rawls identified himself
as a Kantian insofar as Kant “sought to give a philosophical foundation to
Rousseau’s idea of the general will.”10
Others have recoiled at what they thought were the dangers and dark-
ness of the general will. In 1815, looking back on the results of the French
Revolution, Benjamin Constant wrote of “this despotism of the so-called
general will, in a word, this popular power without limits, dogmas which
are the pretext for all our upheavals.”11 In the aftermath of the FirstWorld
War, John Dewey came to a similar conclusion. Rousseau had created
“an overruling ‘general will’” which “under the influence of German
metaphysics was erected into a dogma of a mystic and transcendent
absolute will.”12 In a world again at war, Bertrand Russell warned in
1945 that the “doctrine of the general will [has] made possible the
mystic identification of a leader with his people, which has no need of
confirmation by so mundane an apparatus as the ballot-box.”13 Likewise,
Karl Popper complained that, having unleashed the concept of the general
will, Rousseau was “one of the most pernicious influences in the history of
social philosophy.”14 “In marrying [the general will] with the concept of
the principle of popular sovereignty, and popular self-expression,”
J. L. Talmon added shortly thereafter, “Rousseau gave rise to totalitarian
xvi Editors’ Introduction
democracy.”15 And, quite recently, Jeffrey Abramson has remarked that
Rousseau’s general will projects a “spooky character.”16
The range of these historical judgments on Rousseau and the general
will reflects, in part, the political, ideological, and philosophical options in
the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. But it also reflects the “inherent
indeterminacy” of Rousseau’s principles, as well as widely divergent
conceptions of what, precisely, he meant by the volonté générale.17
Rousseau was himself aware of his ambiguity and notoriety. He warned:
“Attentive readers, do not, I pray, be in a hurry to charge me with
contradicting myself. The terminology made it unavoidable, considering
the poverty of the language; but wait and see.”18 To judge by the
subsequent history of the general will after Rousseau, it would be a long
wait indeed.
But there is even more to the invention, reception, and contention
of the general will in modernity than either Rousseau or the history
after him. Indeed, one must consider the history of the general will
before Rousseau, as well. Shklar brooked no doubts that “The phrase
‘general will’ is ineluctably the property of one man, Jean-Jacques
Rousseau.” She added, however: “He did not invent it, but he made
its history.”19 No, he did not invent it. Immediately before his first
discussion of the general will in an Encyclopédie contribution on
political economy, Denis Diderot proclaimed, “the general will is
always good” in his own 1755 contribution to the Encyclopédie on
natural right.20 Rousseau would also have been able to identify
Montesquieu preceding Diderot in using the general will politically,
given his close attention to Spirit of the Laws.21 However, he did not
do so, though Diderot himself did.22 Much later – and much after
Rousseau – so would scholars like Shklar, C. E. Vaughn, and Charles
Hendel. By that later time, it did rather appear that Montesquieu,
briefly, and Diderot, passingly, exhausted what could be said about
the history of the general will before Rousseau.
Our understanding of the provenance and intellectual dynamics of the
concept of the general will and its post-Rousseauian reception – and thus
Rousseau himself – advanced considerably with the publication in 1978 of
Patrick Riley’s essay, “The General Will before Rousseau.” Evolving into
his The General Will before Rousseau: The Transformation of the
Divine into the Civic (1986), Riley discovered many others beyond
Montesquieu and Diderot who, before Rousseau, had promoted their
views or criticized others explicitly using the terminology of “the general
Editors’ Introduction xvii
will.” There was Antoine Arnauld who coined the term in 1644 in reaction
to the theology of Nicolas Malebranche. There were also Pascal, Bayle,
Bossuet, and Fénelon as well as – to a lesser degree – their contemporaries,
Hobbes, Spinoza, Descartes, Leibniz, Locke, Barbeyrac, Fontenelle,
Voltaire, and Hume, among others. In subtitling his book, The
Transformation of the Divine into the Civic, moreover, Riley offered a
sweeping sketch of conceptual change of the first order. The general will
had originated as a theological notion – about nature, grace, and the extent
of “God’s general will to save all men” – but was “politicized” or “civi-
cized” over the course of its history, culminating in Rousseau. In regard to
the prospects of “a more general theory of the genesis and metamorphosis
of ideas,” Riley summarized his own preference “to say simply that
between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries there was a rising con-
sciousness that ideas once imputed or ascribed to God, such as justice,
goodness, wisdom, generality, and constancy, are merely moral ideas
made yet more attractive by being transplanted to heaven.” At the peak
of thisrising consciousness, Rousseau wrote in such a way as to make
possible Kant’s subsequent efforts to bring these moral ideas “back to
earth” as the demands of reason. For it was “Rousseau who completed
Montesquieu’s conversion of the general will of God into the general will
of the citizen.”23
As a result, Rousseau was to be understood in a distinctly French
discourse of political theology in which he inherited and transformed the
terminology of the “general will.” Given its centrality in Rousseau’s
political thought, this interpretation made greater sense than citing
Rousseau in an English contractarian discourse or a German critical dis-
course. He could obviously be cited in these latter discourses, as well,
indeed as he standardly had been. But Riley’s interpretation opened a
new scene, one glimpsed but undeveloped by Shklar and Hendel.
Moreover, Bayle, in particular, but the others, as well, became much
more civicized and of greater note in the history of political thought.
Moreover, the conceptual history of the general will – and genealogical
inquiry, more generally – proved an essential historiographical method for
understanding French, English, and German discourses, before and after
Rousseau.
This volume – The General Will: The Evolution of a Concept – furthers
the conceptual and interpretative work begun by Riley. An expanded
version of the initial 1978 article – “The General Will before
Rousseau: The Contributions of Arnauld, Pascal, Malebranche, Bayle
xviii Editors’ Introduction
and Bossuet” – serves as chapter 1 of this volume.24 The subsequent
chapters take up the general will, not always in agreement, as well as
endorsing, amending or criticizing Riley’s account. Not only Rousseau,
then, but Arnauld, Pascal, Malebranche, Bayle, Montesquieu, and Kant
appear at length in various chapters that follow. Somewhowere dealt with
en passant by Riley – like Leibniz, Spinoza, and Locke – are treated at
greater length, and new figures are represented here, too, like Benjamin
Constant, Adam Smith, Alexis de Tocqueville, and John Rawls, with
passing glances at Marx and Nietzsche, as well. Even Cicero and the
Puritans emerge in this volume as having conceptual equivalents to the
general will informing their religion and politics.
As broad as the coverage is here, however, the general will’s scope
extends well beyond what could be found even in a volume such as this.
While Andrew Murphy draws attention in this volume to a prototype of
the general will in John Winthrop’s promotion of fraternal bonds among
citizens, for example, this was merely the beginning of the general will in
the American tradition. Alexander Hamilton in Federalist No. 32
acknowledges a domain for a sovereign national “general will,” while
conceding to the Anti-Federalists that each state would retain a particular
will and the associated rights of sovereignty for elements not “exclusively
delegated to the United States.”25 Two years later, James Wilson would
offer his own formulation of the general will: “In order to constitute a
state, it is indispensably necessary, that the wills and the power of all
members be united in such a manner, that they shall never act nor desire
but one and the same thing in whatever relates to the end for which the
society is established.”26 Thomas Paine commented that the best way to
promote civic harmony in Britain is “that the general WILL should have
the full and free opportunity of being publicly ascertained and known.”27
In his fourth State of the Union address, President John Adams praised
the early years of the American experiment for operating “under the
protection of laws emanating only from the general will.”28 In the majority
opinion of Cohen v. Commonwealth of Virginia, Chief Justice John
Marshall insisted on the right of the federal government “to preserve itself
against a section of the nation acting in opposition to the general will.”29
Later in the same century Woodrow Wilson asserted in Rousseauean
fashion that “the will of majorities is not the same as the general will.”30
And in the twentieth century the general will lingered in American political
discourse by working its way into the 1970 edition Robert’s Rules of
Order, which insisted, “The application of parliamentary law is the best
method yet devised . . . to arrive at the general will.”31
Editors’ Introduction xix
Meanwhile, Prussian interest in the general will begins with Immanuel
Kant, who first acknowledges in 1766 the moral sway of a “general will”
in his Dreams of a Spirit-Seer32 and goes on to develop it in his mature
works. This tradition continues with Kant’s student, J. G. Fichte, who
makes the general will central to his political philosophy, describing the
fundamental problem of politics to “find a will that cannot be other than
the common will [gemeinsame Wille].”33 Along these lines, Fichte is
especially concerned to contain powerful particular wills. This requires
that “Each person must be convinced that the oppression and unrightful
treatment of one citizen will result with certainty in the same
oppression and treatment of himself.”34 In his Addresses to the German
Nation, he describes the severe limitations of particularism – “selfishness
has annihilated itself by its complete development”35 – where that partic-
ularism culminates in a thoroughly selfish and corrupt government that
cannot rule for the general will.36 Indeed, this selfishness extends
beyond governance and even infects individual citizens such that “the
individual no longer retain[s] any interest in the whole.”37 To solve this
problem, Fichte proposes replacing the “natural love” that is Hobbesian
egoism with “another kind of love, one that aims directly at the good,”38
largely through an ambitious educational program emphasizing love of
the fatherland.
Hegel would further develop the tradition of the general will by
explaining its development in the course of human history. While
Hegel occasionally employs Rousseau’s terminology of “general”
and “particular” wills, these terms evolve into “objective” and “sub-
jective” wills. He characterizes the “general” or “objective” will as
“the will of all individuals as such,” and he distinguishes it from
particular wills, “factions,” or “atomic point[s] of consciousness.”39
While the general will is morally superior to the subjective or partic-
ular will, it lacks the motivational force of particular, selfish wills. The
aim, then, for Hegel is to channel the energies of particular wills into
the cause of the objective will. As he writes in the Introduction to the
Philosophy of History, “a state is well constituted and internally
strong if the private interest of the citizens is united with the universal
goal of the state, so that each finds its fulfillment and realization in
the other.”40 This merger itself, however, is only attainable in its
fullest form at the end of history, where individual private wills are
not merely channeled into the cause of the objective or general will.
Rather citizens will the general will because it is the general will,
which for him represents highest manifestation of human freedom.
xx Editors’ Introduction
Hegel’s conception of the general will found sympathy among the late
nineteenth-century British Idealists, particularly Bernard Bosanquet. In the
context of an emerging triumph of liberalism and utilitarianism,
the Idealists sought to develop a political philosophy less reliant on the
individual rights and wills that they associated with Locke and more
oriented to teleology and the common good. Bosanquet, in particular,
refers to the theories of Bentham, Mill, and Spencer as “theories of the
first look,” which are guided by an assumption of “the natural separation
of the human unit.”41 Bosanquet rejects this approach as validating the
“actual will,”which is egoistic, and advocates replacing it with a “real” or
“generalwill,” which may not be manifested in every individual
articulation of interest, but is coherent and determined by its fidelity to
the “common good.”42
Although no idealist, another self-described “pupil” of Hegel who
inherited and deepened consciousness of the general will was Karl Marx.
He used the concept both as a detached theorist of history and as an
impassioned conduit of communist ideals. On the one hand, that is, he
could look down on the modern state and declare that “in civil law
the existing property relations are declared to be the general will” while
harboring “the illusion that private property is based solely on the
private will.”43 On the other hand, he could quote Rousseau admiringly
on the “volonté générale”44 and be read as connecting it to the ideals
of communal life.45 Later Marxists – like Louis Althusser – would
follow Rousseau’s and Marx’s lead, keeping the general will alive as
both explanation and ideal.46
The above-mentioned thinkers and byways of the conceptual history of
the general will – not otherwise covered in this volume – suggest that
more such thinkers and byways may yet be discovered or revived. And
they suggest where they might be found. Discoveries or revivals are
possible, for example, in the popular pamphlets in the wake of the
French Revolution or in the constitutional commentaries of late
eighteenth-century Americans or in the lesser writings of nineteenth-
century British Idealists or in the precincts of French Marxism or in the
neocolonial discourses of Francophone revolutionaries. They are also
possible nearer to the known beginning of the conceptual history, as
Patrick Riley dates it, that is, in seventeenth-century theological debates
about “God’s will to save all men.” Indeed, we think we have made a few
such discoveries in religious writings and sermons from that period. They
invite deeper inquiry than we can provide here, but they are very
Editors’ Introduction xxi
suggestive without detailed commentary. One or another might suggest
an older source, a different referent, or an alternative pathway in the
evolution of the general will.
These early uses were often merely acknowledgments of the adjecti-
vally “general” character of divine volition. A few brief examples suffice.
When dealing with the medical dimensions of “enthusiasm,” for exam-
ple, the classical scholar Meric Casaubon lectured in 1655: “When in
matters of diseases, we oppose natural causes to supernatural, whether
divine or diabolical; as we do not exclude the general will of God, with-
out which nothing can be.”47 Similarly, in The Divine Right of Church-
government and Excommunication (1646), the Presbyterian pastor
Samuel Rutherford gestured to “the general will and command of
God” when distinguishing between “essential” and “arbitrary” wor-
ship.48 And in a posthumous commentary on “the light of Christ” at
the earlier date of 1623, Nicholas Byfield deemed “the instrument of
receiving it, in respect of the general will of God, is the understanding.”49
These references did not introduce or occasion spirited debate about
what, precisely, was “general” about God’s will. His will could be any-
thing, of course, not least of all general. The references often vied for
place alongside other adjectives: God’s will was absolute, eternal, pure,
simple, rigorous, severe, commanding, forbidding, gentle, permissive,
adorable, and on and on. Hobbes thought these adjectives told us
about ourselves, not God. “The attributes we give him are not to tell
one another what he is, nor to signify our opinion of his nature, but our
desire to honour him with such names as we conceive most honourable
amongst ourselves.”50
Other references in this early period carried greater theological import
when divining the different ways in which God could will men’s salva-
tion. In The True Catholicks Tenure (1662), for example, Edward Hyde
the clergyman referred to instances of God’s judgments that “derogate
from his general will by his special will.”51 In 1635, when commenting
on Paul’s epistle to the Hebrews, William Jones proclaimed, “CHRIST
came not only to doe the general will of God: but to do his particular will
also as the Mediatour of mankinde.”52 The nephew and namesake of Sir
Walter Raleigh made the same distinction from the pulpit before the
outbreak of civil war in 1642.53 In these cases, “special” or “particular”
contrasted with “general” in ways that Riley found in the French
debates between Arnauld, Malebranche, and others. Indeed, one
English reference provides a striking and sustained parallel to the
French debates. In the first article, “Of God’s Predestination” in his
xxii Editors’ Introduction
“Via Media: The Way of Peace” – collected later in The Shaking of the
Olive Tree (1660) – Joseph Hall, the Calvinist-leaning Anglican bishop
of Norwich and Exeter, theologized about God’s volitions regarding
man’s salvation. Hall allowed both a “general” and a “special” will at
work in God’s predestination.
Besides the general will of God, he hath eternally willed, and decreed to give a
special, and effectuall grace to those, that are predestinate according to the good
pleasure of his will, whereby they do actually believe, obey, and persevere, that they
may be saved: so as the same God, that would have all Men to be saved, if they
believe, and be not wanting to his Spirit, hath decreed to work powerfully in some,
whom he hath particularly chosen, that they shall believe, and not be wanting to his
Spirit in whatsoever shall be necessary for their salvation.54
This passage was posthumous, Hall having died in 1656. Who read or
listened to the original? Could this be an independent development? Were
their discursive connections between the bishop and the French authors?
Are there perhaps yet earlier uses of the term – including those noted above
by Byfield, Raleigh, or Jones that precede Arnauld’s reference in 1644 –
that might throw new and different light on the origin and evolution of the
general will?
The referent of these early uses was invariably the general will of God,
as it had been in the French debates between Arnauld and Malebranche.
However, at least one striking and suggestive usage points not to God, but
to “our selves.” In A Spiritual Treasure containing our Obligations to
God, and the Vertues Necessary to a Perfect Christian, as translated into
English in 1660 and reissued in 1664, the Oratorian Jean-Hugues Quarré
(1580–1656) wrote that “it is good for the soul to present her self often
before God, exciting in her self an efficacious desire to do the pure will of
God.” Then he continued:
Moreover it is very profitable to offer our selves to God, and to form a generall will
to practice all sorts of good, though we have no light nor feeling, contenting our
selves with a resignation to God, and taking care to follow him, and to co-operate
faithfully with the graces and motions we receive from him.55
Well beforeMontesquieu, Diderot, and Rousseau, then, we seem to have a
“general will” or “volonté générale” that is the will of humans, individu-
ally or collectively. Furthermore, the French original by Quarré – Thrésor
spirituel contentant les obligations que nous avons d’estre à Dieu, et les
vertus qui nous sont necessaires pour vivre en chrestien parfait – was first
published in 1632, pushing back the known date of origin and inviting us
to speculate on the lively discussions at the Oratory under Cardinal Pierre
Editors’ Introduction xxiii
de Bérulle, even before Malebranche’s birth! This, too, raises further
questions about origins and underscores the complexity – covered in this
volume, otherwise known, or yet to-be-discovered – in the conceptual
history of the general will.
Four sections divide up the volume: the general will before Rousseau, the
general will in Rousseau, the general will after Rousseau, and pre-history
of the general willtradition. As noted, Riley’s sweeping chapter covers
much of what is now known of the general will before Rousseau. It
emphasizes the dramatic change that the concept underwent – from a
divine concept, as found in Arnauld, Leibniz, and Malebranche, to a
civic one in Montesquieu and especially Rousseau. Of special interest is
the central importance of Bayle in the unfolding of the general will. In
particular, Riley underscores how and the ways in which Bayle civicized
the general will. Before he was the editor of the monumental Dictionary,
Bayle took up the themes of the debate that preceded him. Whereas Pascal
had hinted at the general will of “bodies politic” like churches, Bayle
secularized and rendered more evidently civic the ways in which human
associations in their collective actions exhibit a “general will.” It remained
for Montesquieu to follow this train of thought in anticipation of
Rousseau.
Following this overview, Steven Nadler, then, returns to the early
salvos of the French debate. His “Malebranche’s Shadow: General Will
in the Leibniz-Arnauld Correspondence” explores theological dimen-
sions of the general will in the important works of the Oratorian
Nicolas Malebranche. Upon reading Malebranche’s Treatise on Nature
and Grace – which introduced an account of God acting according to
general laws that were expressions of His will and consistent with God’s
constancy and perfection – Arnaud offered the first known assessment of
the general will: he thought it completely undermined God’s capacity for
miracles, which he understood to be central to the very meaning of God
himself. That is, Godmust be allowed to exercise a particularwill. Armed
with a new dedication to God as an agent of particular wills, Arnauld
read Leibniz’s Discourse on Metaphysics as being in league with
Malebranche in its unacceptable insistence that God can only legislate
generally, even if this is supposedly consistent with the best of all possible
worlds. Nadler reveals how Leibniz, in turn, artfully responded to
Arnauld’s objections in order to pacify Arnauld while still publicly
maintaining a version of Malebranchian generality in divine will or
providence.
xxiv Editors’ Introduction
The gap between the theological and political accounts of the general
will was bridged indirectly by another figure of the greatest importance
to early-modern political thought and Rousseau in particular – John
Locke. Alas, this is not appreciated as much as it should be, so argues
James Farr. As Farr notes, Rousseau not only respected Locke on matters
of education and toleration, he credited him “in particular” as holding
“the same principles” of politics and law. Upon inspection, these
Lockean principles – which Rousseau glossed as matters of the “general
will” – proclaimed the law to be “the Will of society” and necessary for
liberty, for “where there is no Law, there is no Freedom.” These princi-
ples were adaptations of his theological views. So it is notable that Locke
had read extensively those thinkers most responsible for debating the
general will –Malebranche, Pascal, and Bayle – as well as speculating on
the Pauline doctrine that most concerned them, namely, that “God wills
all men to be saved.” Drawing yet closer to the “general will,” Locke
found it necessary to refute the theory of ideas he found in Malebranche
and his English followers. ByHis laws, God governed an orderly universe
that He willed into existence, to be sure, Farr argues, but there was no
coherent reason, Locke thought, to embrace Malebranche’s view that
it was God’s “general will” that human beings have the ideas they
do because they “see all things” in Him. For Locke, the (human) will –
whether general or particular – has no role in the formation of ideas,
which exist merely as a consequence of sense perception. At any rate,
these competing accounts of ideas were “hypotheses” to which believers
should submit humbly, not presupposing, as Malebranche, to “dictate”
what God can do or how. In confronting Malebranche, Locke was
among the first in English to quote (in translation) Malebranche’s use
of “general will.” In light of this fact – and Rousseau’s later invocation of
Locke as embracing “the same principles” – Locke deserves to be more
fully incorporated into the conceptual history of the general will than has
been the case hitherto.
The next two chapters take up the politicized general will implied in
Locke, Bayle, and other early modern thinkers. In doing so, each chal-
lenges Riley’s narrative, though in different ways, that the general will
takes this secular turn specifically with Montesquieu. David Lay Williams
argues that the general will had been secularized generations before
Montesquieu in the political writings of Benedict de Spinoza. Williams
identifies Spinoza’s “common mind” as possessing many of the same
qualities that later come to be associated with Rousseau’s secular general
will. What is unique in Spinoza, he reasons, is that he offers three different
Editors’ Introduction xxv
ways to achieve that union of wills: fear, love, and reason. Further, Spinoza
stands outside of the rest of the general will tradition insofar as he resists
the dominant tendency of general will theorists to appeal to Platonic
metaphysics, instead resting on a modern naturalism. The leaves Spinoza
with a compatabilistic conception of the will significantly different from
the autonomous will found in Rousseau and Kant.
In “Freedom, Sovereignty, and the General Will in Montesquieu,”
Sharon Krause asks whether or not Montesquieu actually embraces a
secular, politicized general will in his Spirit of the Laws, as Riley claims.
With careful attention to the text, she reveals that Montesquieu
infrequently employs the term; and, when he does, it is not as his own
normative principle. He rather speaks of a legislature, yes, legislating
for all – but not for the common interest, as has been frequently supposed.
In Montesquieu, Krause finds a liberal political theorist who is more
concerned to effectively channel particular wills than to privilege a general
will. As such, she describes a Montesquieu who is less a predecessor to
Rousseau’s general will than an alternative.
The essays in the second section of this volume explore how the concept of
the general will inaugurated in early modern French theology and political
thought might nonetheless be found to have analogues or conceptual
equivalents beyond and before its nascent roots. We think of this as the
prehistory of the general will. These essays, then, suggest ways we might
conceptualize an extension of the general will tradition. Daniel J. Kapust
explores how, centuries earlier, Cicero’s On Duties bears on matters that
became relevant to the general will. He notes the dangers that Rousseau
associated with rhetoric as a particularizing force, hence subversive to the
general will. By contrast, he finds that Cicero comes down on the opposite
side of this question, suggesting that rhetoric has the capacity for both
generalizing and effecting consent. That Cicero might have differed from
Rousseau on such matters may not be surprising, since Rousseau was
quick to say of Cicero in the Social Contract that he “loved his glory
more than his fatherland.”56 Yet Cicero’s defense of rhetoric suggests
alternative means by which to achieve the common good and hence the
general will.
Finally, Andrew R. Murphy explores the fraternal dimension of the
general will by examining the colonial Puritan, John Winthrop. For
Winthrop, fraternity was a religious and specifically Christian duty – but
with important political implications. Murphy observes Winthrop insist-
ing, “That every man might have need of others, and from hence they
xxvi Editors’ Introduction
might all be knit more nearly together in the bond of brotherly affec-
tion.”57 Murphy’s attention to Winthrop’s Calvinism provides an oppor-tunity to consider Rousseau’s own possible debts to Calvinism, as
suggested in a footnote to the Social Contract, where Rousseau notes of
his fellow Genevan,
Those who know Calvin only as a theologian much underestimate the extent of his
genius. The codification of our wise edicts, in which he played a large part, does him
no less honor than his Institutes. Whatever revolution time may bring in our
religion, so long as the spirit of patriotism and liberty still lives among us, the
memory of this great man will be forever blessed.
This offers a potentially fruitful source for reexamining the source material
for Rousseau’s unique formulation of the general will.
The third section turns its attention to the most famed proponent of the
general will: Jean-Jacques Rousseau. We offer four strikingly different
accounts of Rousseau’s general will. David Lay Williams grounds
Rousseau’s general will in Platonism, arguing that the general will involves
consent on the part of the people to a pre-existing eternal idea of justice. As
such, Rousseau represents a curious blend of an ancient commitment to
immaterial substance and a modern commitment to consent for assuring
legitimacy. In order to maintain this will, Williams emphasizes the impor-
tance of fraternal love in Rousseau’s republic. By contrast, Richard Boyd
finds a more ambiguous Rousseau with greater liberal sympathies than are
typically assumed. While there is an element in Rousseau emphasizing
benevolent feelings or sentiment, there is another casting aside those very
sentiments in favor of procedural justice. And even when Rousseau culti-
vates civic feeling, this is where he is potentially most dangerous – insofar
as sentiments of nationalism emanating from fraternity work against all
external communities. Implicit in this is a challenge to any sort of cosmo-
politanism. So Rousseau’s general will is a kind of particular will in the
end – the will of one particular society among many in the world.
Sankar Muthu acknowledges and develops the problem identified by
Boyd, namely, the problem that Rousseau’s general will presents for
cosmopolitanism of any sort. Despite some derisive remarks by
Rousseau about the “cosmopolites,” Muthu shows that Rousseau was
nonetheless open to the idea of a general society of humankind and thus
a “general will of humanity.” He did not believe, however, that it could
play any feasible role in the political affairs of the world of his day, or in the
future. In a complex investigation, Muthu reveals that the citizen of
Editors’ Introduction xxvii
Geneva expressed a longing for the fellowship that a universal society
could provide, endorsing the conceptual validity of a general will that
pertained to all humanity. Ultimately, though, what could be defended in
theory was tragically inapplicable in practice in a world dominated by
predatory states and commercial societies. Thus, a general society of all
peoples was impossible. This followed because of features of the human
condition itself; the curious mix of sovereign legal power and natural
liberty that characterized that condition; the pathologies endemic to com-
mercial relations; and the requirements necessary for the realization of the
general will of particular societies. Ultimately, as Muthu concludes,
Rousseau’s critical analysis of the general will of humanity illustrates –
from an all-encompassing, global perspective – the profoundly tragic
sensibility of his social and political thought.
Finally in this array of overlapping or competing readings, Tracy
B. Strong offers a reading of Rousseau’s general will that emphasizes
commonness. Even more cosmopolitanism than either Boyd or Muthu,
Strong’s Rousseau sketches out in his general will “what it means to live as
a human being . . . capable of living with other human beings as human
beings and as a human being.” In order to achieve this, Strong emphasizes
the role of law inRousseau’s political theory. For it “requires a people to be
able to see itself as a people, to stand outside itself and, as itself, constitute
itself.” This conception of humanity and law, however, must not be con-
fused with a simply moral concept. Rather, the general will embodies at
least as muchwhat is aswhat should be, if not more so. Rousseau’s general
will is adamantly a will of and in the present. Strong concludes by sugges-
tively tracing the evolution of the general will through the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries in the very different figures ofMarx, Nietzsche, Weber,
and Rawls.
The general will after Rousseau – our fourth and final section – includes
essays on Smith, Kant, Constant, Tocqueville, and Rawls. This set of
thinkers is hardly of one mind about the value of Rousseau’s general
will. Kant and Rawls view the general will as a valuable contribution,
needing some (rather important) refinement in order to achieve its
purposes, while Smith, Constant, and Tocqueville, by contrast, view the
general will as inadequate or even a genuine threat to the public good.
Rousseau’s philosophical influence was immediately felt in Königsberg
when Immanuel Kant turned his attention from the critiques of reason to
politics and political theory. At least Kant felt this way when, shortly after
the publication of the Social Contract, he spoke of “this compulsionwe feel
xxviii Editors’ Introduction
in us to harmonize our will with the General Will.”58 Yet the connection
between Kant and Rousseau – so strong in many ways – is less strong than
at first it might seem when it comes to the general will. So argues Patrick
Riley. While he is quick to acknowledge the influence of Rousseau and the
general will in Kant’s moral philosophy, he is less inclined to do so with
regard to his political philosophy. Riley’s Kant is crucially grounded in the
maxim that a good will is the only unqualified good. And while this good
will is the proper standard for moral judgment, it is entirely impractical for
establishing a republic, where “public legal justice” assumes the work that
a good will cannot fulfill. As such, Riley argues, the “will” of the “general
will” plays much less of a role in Kant’s political philosophy than it does
for Rousseau.59 Riley pushes further to argue that Rousseau’s “general” is
in its own way more “particular” than Kant’s “universal.” Specifically,
Rousseau denies that the aspiration to “universal” norms, such as found in
Kant – and Diderot – are unrealistic in their own respect. For this reason,
whereas Kant is eager to consider questions of international right,
Rousseau is pessimistic about the possibility. For Riley’s Rousseau, the
“general” represents the outer limits of justice and is always somewhat
provincial.
Other contemporaries of Rousseau – or those just after him – had
similarly guarded reactions to the general will, however much else they
shared with the “Citoyen de Genève.” Thus, Shannon C. Stimson notes
that Adam Smith was by no means unfriendly to Rousseau. For example,
Smith translated into English the Second Discourse and accepted as true
many of Rousseau’s critiques of commercial society. Further, Smith
embraced Rousseau’s demand for greater social unity. Yet he ultimately
found an “invisible hand” to be a more effective tool for the purposes of
social unification than the “general will.” For Smith, the problems of
poverty and inequality in sowing disunity, in particular, do not require
the radicalism of the general will so much as simply granting more space
to the particular will than Rousseau and his closest followers would
permit. Although the particular will has its warts, in Smith it has more
virtues than the general will tradition – and Rousseau, in particular –
allows.
Though influenced by and sympathetic to Smith, Bryan Garsten’s
essay reveals that Benjamin Constant went much further than Smith in
critiquing Rousseau’s general will, identifying what he considered its
fatal flaw: theseparation of government and sovereignty. Remember, it
was this that Rousseau shared with Locke as one “the same principles”
bonding them. For Constant – who was more forgiving of Locke as a
Editors’ Introduction xxix
forerunning liberal and associated, favorably, with the Glorious
Revolution – the complete submission of subjects to the general will
results not in equality, as Rousseau envisioned, but rather in an asym-
metrical distribution of power. The people surrender their private wills
to the government, which then holds all of the power. An all-powerful
government, consequently, wields its power arbitrarily and despotically.
Furthermore, its power is enhanced by the pretense of the general will’s
sovereignty. By laying claim to “seemingly disinterested principles,”
factious interests remove public opinion as an obstacle to their machi-
nations.60 Garsten concludes, at some distance from Constant’s partic-
ular critique of Rousseau, by exploring how a government might
genuinely arise from the sovereign general will.
Another major figure in the French liberal tradition, Alexis de
Tocqueville, is often cited as embracing Rousseau’s political philosophy.
Yet while Michael Locke McLendon demonstrates that Tocqueville had
genuine affection for elements of Rousseau’s thought, this cannot be said
of the general will. If anything, Tocqueville takes Rousseau’s dictum that
we must “take men as they are” far more seriously than Rousseau himself
did, which, in fact, renders him an entirely different thinker, more com-
fortable with giving free reign to the particular will than Rousseau possibly
could. Departing quite dramatically from Rousseau, Tocqueville accepts
selfishness as an accurate assessment of “men as they are” and builds a
nineteenth-century American doux commerce, where this selfishness ulti-
mately softens society and brings civic harmony. That is, Tocqueville finds
the public good in private wills rather than in the quixotic attempt to forge
a general one.
A later American liberal in our time, John Rawls, took a more sympa-
thetic view of Rousseau’s and, then, Kant’s use of the “general will” for
establishing social and political unity. As a historical matter and as a self-
identified Kantian, Rawls remarked in A Theory of Justice that “Kant
sought to give a philosophical foundation to Rousseau’s idea of the general
will.”61 Furthermore, Rawls himself is said to have confessed that his “two
principles of justice could be understood as an effort to spell out the
content of the general will.”62 Christopher Brooke in the final chapter
follows these clues to see just how Rousseau’s concept of the general will –
along with its substantive commitments to liberty and equality – animated
Rawls’s theory of justice. In examining Rawls’s Lectures on the History of
Political Philosophy, he notes that not only are the lectures on Rousseau
more polished than those on any other historical figure, but also that
Rousseau is also the only canonical figure in his History to escape serious
xxx Editors’ Introduction
criticism. Brooke paints a portrait of Rawls deeply inspired by what he
found in Rousseau, just as was the case in Kant. He also sketches the ways
in which Rawls departs from Rousseau – especially with regard to the
prospects for long-term success in politics. Whereas Rousseau laments in
his Social Contract that every republic is ultimately doomed to decay, one
finds a more optimistic – or, at least, less anxiety-ridden – assessment of
our contemporary prospects in Rawls. In making these informed observa-
tions, Brooke not only appeals to Rawls’ published texts, but to some
hand-written notes toward a future, unrealized project.
The “general will” has clearly had the most remarkable evolution. While
there is no reason to expect a theory of conceptual change to explain it or
any other conceptual evolution in political thought – as we might imagine
in natural science63 – there are some dynamics and features of conceptual
change evident in the general will’s evolution. Perhaps the most dramatic
development happened within its first half-century when the referent to
God’s will changed dramatically to be that of human will, either in indi-
viduals or a community or humankind, more generally.64The change from
Arnauld andMalebranche toMontesquieu andRousseau, as Riley argued,
was the change from “the divine to the civic.” Even when civic, the changes
were notable, for example, from Robespierre’s revolution to Napoleon’s
rule. For some witnesses, then and later, neither of these civic or political
transformations were good – as the general will had been for Diderot and
Rousseau – and so the general will earned its bad name, to date things at
least from Constant. All along the changes were driven by contradiction
within or contestation between different conceptions of the general will.65
Some changes were intentional, others unintentional or at least until
noticed amid debate. Perhaps the most dramatic change of all has been
the marked decline in the use of “general will” at all, at least among
politicians and publicists, unlike historians and scholars as evident in
this volume.
The most obvious reason for this decline has to do with the French
Revolution itself. Even as Hegel refashioned the general will, for exam-
ple, he condemned Rousseau’s formulation as the inspiration for “the
most terrible and drastic event,” namely, the Terror.66 This assessment
was, of course, widely shared, including by Benjamin Constant, who
read Rousseau’s general will as “inspir[ing] our Revolution and those
horrors for which liberty for all was at once the pretext and the victim.”67
The stain of this association of the general will with nightmarish political
violence subsequently proved difficult to wash out. Indeed, amid another
Editors’ Introduction xxxi
European crisis a century and a half later, Rousseau and the general will
returned for another round of opprobrium. As intellectuals struggled to
comprehend the rise and enormities of fascism, they found its inspiration
in Rousseau and the general will. Toward the end of the war, Russell
wrote, “At the present time, Hitler is an outcome of Rousseau; Roosevelt
and Churchill, of Locke.”68 Alexander Passerin d’Entrèves labeled
Rousseau’s general will “the prototype of the modern tyrant.”69 And
Isaiah Berlin found Rousseau and his general will to be “one of the most
formidable enemies of liberty in the whole history of political thought,”
specifically linking the general will to the Jacobins, Robespierre,
Hitler, Mussolini, and the Communists, all of whom “use this very
same method of argument.”70 Thus, it became increasingly difficult to
evoke its name in the service of more noble causes. Indeed, the
association of the general will with modern tyranny lingers even in
contemporary American legislative debate, such as when Senator
Chuck Grassley recently cited the application of Rousseau’s philosophy
resulting in “power centralized in a ruling elite that claims a unique
ability to interpret the ‘general will.’”71
Another reason for the decline of the general will (especially in the
circles of faith) stems from its very generality. In his account of William
Bentley, the early nineteenth-century American theologian, J. Rixey
Ruffin argues that generalist theologies “failed to provide what the
faithful seek from their faith.”72 Among other things, the faithful desired
that God take a special and personal interest in their wellbeing, and be
responsive to their specific prayers. In arguing that God’s providence was
general rather than particular, Bentley had placed his congregants in the
position of confronting “the prospect of a universe governed by a god
unable or unwilling to help them.”73 That Bentley’s theological views
were doomed to failure is apparent in the absence of such theological
views in the public sphere today. A general will, froma certain point of
view, is cold and abstract – these traits being especially unsuited for
dominant public philosophies.
Much the same logic applies to everyday (not just revolutionary)
politics. Just as appeals to a divine general will began to fall on deaf ears,
so too did appeals to a political or civil general will. The same subjects who
wanted to believe that God took a special interest in their personal affairs
wanted to believe that their own particular wills were worthy of some kind
of priority over a general will. Rousseau’s general will shares the same
failure to resonate with modern Western societies one finds in its theolog-
ical predecessor. Its abstraction offers few, if any, assurances of individual
xxxii Editors’ Introduction
salvation or preference. A new appeal to particularism in the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries – whether through Smith, Constant, Tocqueville,
Mill, or others – offered a philosophical alternative to the general will. It
honored even celebrated personal preferences in contrast to Rousseau’s
republican calls for personal sacrifice to a greater good. Or put slightly
differently, whereas Rousseau regarded each individual or particular will
with deep suspicion, the new tradition took each individual to be special.
While it is difficult to measure the psychic consequences of such appeals, it
is not difficult to imagine the obstacles confronting the defenders of the
general will tradition – either theologically or politically.
As a consequence of this history, one rarely finds prominent contempo-
rary political thinkers, much less actors, couching their arguments in the
terms of the general will.74 Despite this, it would be mistaken to assume
that a bad name is all that remains of the general will. As some recent
scholars have suggested, the values associated with the general will retain a
vibrant life, though perhaps detached from express use of the term itself.
Jane Anna Gordon, for example, has sketched multiple links between
Rousseau’s general will and Franz Fanon’s conception of national con-
sciousness. For Gordon’s Fanon, the general will informs both critical and
constructive elements of his political philosophy. Critically, in the same
way that Rousseau warned against legislating in ignorance of local con-
ditions, Fanon appropriates the general will to scrutinize the “arrogant
ventures” of imperial powers into foreign territories with robust traditions
of their own. Constructively, just as Rousseau insists that the general will
must include all citizens for both derivation and substantive application,
Fanon demands “radically democratic participation.”75 Along similar
lines, Kevin Inston has recently argued for the Rousseauean foundations
of contemporary radical democratic theory, especially as found inMouffe,
Laclau, and Lefort. In this spirit, he emphasizes that Rousseau’s general
will demands far more from citizens than mere obedience of the laws.
It requires vigorous civic participation in “actively (re)producing” the
general will.76 Mouffe, Laclau, and Lefort, Inston argues, learn from
Rousseau’s conception of the general will that voting is perhaps the
least of a citizen’s duties, in comparison with contributing to a vigorous
democratic discourse.77As with Gordon’s Fanon, they all stress the impor-
tance of democratic inclusion emanating from Rousseau’s conception of
the general will.
The essays in this volume, taken collectively, paint a complex portrait of
Rousseau – as well as his forebears and descendants – who grappled with
Editors’ Introduction xxxiii
the very idea of a general will, whether of God, the citizen, a body politic,
or humanity at large. From the theological anxieties of Malebranche and
Arnauld to the political-theoretic complexities of John Rawls – entangling
Leibniz, Spinoza, Locke, Bayle, Montesquieu, Diderot, Kant, Smith,
Hume, Tocqueville, and Rousseau, not least – the general will has been a
conceptual instrument to answer or attempt to answer some of the most
pressing and timely questions of theology and politics. How doesGod will
that all men be saved? Are ideas divine or sensate? What makes whole the
members of a body? How much unity need a body politic have? What
commonality do citizens share? How can individuals be both free and obey
the law? What makes common the common interest or public the public
good? How do governments threaten states or the sovereignty of their
peoples? Can humanity be as one?
In the course of answering or attempting to answer questions like
these – our essays also show – the “general will” invited or had brought
down on it questions, in their turn, about the adequacy, coherence, or
dangers of this concept. Can God act by anything but a particular will, in
the end? Can a person, a citizen, a city, or a state? Are things as diverse as
ideas, actions, and practices matters of will, much less a general will? Can
particular volitions actually be aggregated into collective or universal
ones? Are humans so selfless as to embrace a good others deem common?
Are actual people capable of such public-minded deliberation? Doesn’t the
“general will” express an unattainable ideal, noble perhaps but unrealis-
tic? Isn’t it really propaganda for suppressing dissidents, a verbal prelude
to tyranny and terror?
These are questions not only about a concept but about the realities of
human politics or God’s universe which call forth or call out that which is
named by the term “general will.” Besides the intellectual depth and
diversity on display in the chapters to follow, they collectively remind us
of the political and theological issues that have been at stake – sometimes
persisting and sometimes changing – since the seventeenth century. They –
or others rather like them – are certainly at stake still, in one form or
another. It does not appear that human affairs or the prospects of
salvation will anytime soon be stable enough or sufficiently understand-
able to render final judgment on the value of thinking about politics or
religion – about citizens or God – in terms of a general will. The palpable
lack of unity or commonality in almost every quarter one looks – in a
person, a soul, a citizen, a congregation, a body politic –makes it virtually
inconceivable to think that there is a general will somewhere at work in the
world. At the same time – and for the very same reasons – it makes
xxxiv Editors’ Introduction
understandable the temptation to think or, rather, hope in such terms. We
could do much worse, then, than to reconsider, as we have tried, the
multifaceted debates over the general will that inform our history in
order to try better to understand our own problems and predicaments.
Notes
1. Quentin Skinner, Liberty before Liberalism (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1998).
2. Judith Shklar, Men and Citizens: A Study of Rousseau’s Political Theory
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), p. 184.
3. Emanuel Joseph Sieyès, What is the Third Estate? in Political Writings, ed.
Michael Sonenscher (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing, [1789] 2003),
p. 111.
4. National Assembly of France, Decree upon the National Assembly, in The
Communist Manifesto and Other Revolutionary Writings, ed. Bob Blaisdell
(Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, [1789] 2003), p. 76.
5. Louis XVI, quoted in Simon Schama, Citizens: A Chronicle of the French
Revolution (New York: Vintage Books, 1989), p. 323.
6. Maximilien Robespierre, “Dedication to Jean-Jacques Rousseau,” quoted in
Carol Blum,Rousseau and the Republic of Virtue: The Language of Politics in
the French Revolution (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1986), p. 156.
7. Quoted in Ernst Cassirer, The Question of Jean-Jacques Rousseau
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1963), p. 43.
8. J. G. Fichte, The Foundations of Natural Right according to the Principles of
the Wissenschaftslehre, ed. Frederick Neuhouser(Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, [1795–1796] 2000), p. 134.
9. G.W. F. Hegel,On the Scientific Ways of Treating Natural Law, on its Place
in Practical Philosophy, and its Relation to the Positive Sciences of Right, in
Hegel: Political Writings, eds. Laurence Dickey and H. B. Nisbet (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, [1802–1803] 1999), p. 134.
10. John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1971), pp. 252, 264.
11. Benjamin Constant, Principles of Politics Applicable to All Governments, ed.
Etienne Hofmann (Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, [1815] 2003), p. 386.
12. John Dewey, The Public and its Problems, in The Later Works, vol. 2
(Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, [1927] 1988), p. 269.
Earlier, in “Austin’s Theory of Sovereignty,” Dewey declared: “The great
weakness in Rousseau’s theory that the general will is sovereign, is that he
makes its generality exclude all special modes of operation.” The Early
Works, vol. 4 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, [1894]
1971), p. 90.
13. Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy (New York: Simon and
Schuster, [1945] 1972), p. 700.
14. Karl R. Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, vol. 1: The Spell of Plato
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, [1945] 1971), p. 257 n20.
Editors’ Introduction xxxv
15. J. L. Talmon, The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy (New York: W.
W. Norton, 1970), p. 43.
16. Jeffrey Abramson, Minerva’s Owl: The Tradition of Western Political
Thought (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009), p. 256.
17. See FrederickNeuhouser,Rousseau’s Theodicy of Self-Love: Evil, Rationality,
and the Drive for Recognition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008),
p. 211.
18. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Social Contract, in The Social Contract and Other
Later Political Writings, ed. Victor Gourevitch (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, [1762] 1997), p. 61n.
19. Judith Shklar, “General Will,” in The Dictionary of the History of Ideas, ed.
Philip Wiener (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1973), p. 275.
20. Denis Diderot, “Droit Naturel,” in Diderot: Political Writings, eds. John
Hope Mason and Robert Wokler (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
[1780] 1992), p. 19. Diderot does mention the general will cursorily in sub-
sequent essays, though without development of the concept. See his
“Observations on the Instruction of the Empress of Russia to the Deputies
for theMaking of the Laws” andHistoire des Deux Indes, inDiderot: Political
Writings, pp. 93, 208.
21. Montesquieu, Spirit of the Laws, eds. Anne Cohler, Basia Miller, and
Harold Stone (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, [1748] 1989),
2.11.4, p. 157. Maurice Cranston provides an accounting of Rousseau’s
study of Montesquieu’s texts in Jean-Jacques: The Early Life and Work of
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1712–1754 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1982), pp. 213–215.
22. “Had it not been for Montesquieu’s previous adoption of this doctrine of the
general will . . . it might never have gained Diderot’s adherence.” See Charles
W. Hendel, Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Moralist (Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-
Merrill, 1934), vol. 1, p. 104.
23. Riley 1986, pp. 250, 259.
24. Patrick Riley, “The General Will before Rousseau: The Contributions of
Arnauld, Pascal, Malebranche, Bayle and Bossuet,” in Studi Filosofici
(1982–1983): 131–203.
25. Alexander Hamilton, “Federalist No. 32,” in The Federalist with Letters of
“Brutus,” ed. Terence Ball (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, [1788]
2003), pp. 145–146. According to Cecelia M. Kenyon, Hamilton’s term
“national interest” is the “Hamiltonian counterpart of the Rousseauean
general will.” See “Alexander Hamilton: Rousseau of the Right,” Political
Science Quarterly 73 (1958): 166.
26. James Wilson, Lectures on Law in Collected Works of James Wilson, vol. 1,
eds. Hermit L Hall and Mark David Hall (Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund,
[1790] 2007), p. 635. For an argument outliningWilson’s interest in Rousseau
and fidelity to the general will as the proper foundation of public policy, see
Garry Wills, “James Wilson’s New Meaning for Sovereignty,” in Conceptual
Change and the Constitution, eds. Terence Ball and J.G.A. Pocock (Lawrence:
University Press of Kansas, 1988), pp. 99–106. It is worth noting that Paul
Merrill Spurlin once argued that Rousseau’s influence in American political
xxxvi Editors’ Introduction
thought has been negligible. See Rousseau in America, 1760–1809
(Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1969).
27. Thomas Paine, Letter Addressed to the Addressers on the Late Proclamation,
in Rights of Man, Common Sense, and Other Political Writings, ed.
Mark Philp (Oxford: Oxford University Press, [1792] 1995), p. 370; see also
p. 376. In the same spirit in his Rights of Man, Paine notes, “The Nation is the
paymaster of every thing, and every thing must conform to its general will”
(Rights of Man, in Paine 1995), p. 171.
28. John Adams, “Speech to Both Houses of Congress,” November 22, 1800, in
The Works of John Adams, vol. 9, ed. Charles Francis Adams (Boston: Little,
Brown, and Company, 1854), p. 146.
29. 19 U.S. 264 (1821).
30. Woodrow Wilson, “A Lecture on Democracy,” in The Papers of Woodrow
Wilson, vol. 7, ed. Arthur J. Link (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
[1891] 1969), p. 355.
31. Henry M. Robert, Robert’s Rules of Order, newly revised, ed. Sarah
Corbin Robert (Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman, and Company, 1970), p. xlii.
Oddly enough, the general will is absent in earlier editions, but since its
inclusion in 1970, it has expanded modestly. The most recent edition now
includes three references to the “general will” in its introductory passage,
“Principles Underlying Parliamentary Law” (Henry M. Robert, Daniel
H. Honemann, and Thomas J. Balch with the assistance of Daniel E. Sebold
and Shmuel Gerber, Robert’s Rules of Order, 11th ed. (Philadelphia: Da Capo
Press, 2011), pp. li–lii).
32. For an account of Kant’s early formulation of the general will in Dreams, see
T.K. Seung, Kant’s Platonic Revolution in Moral and Political Philosophy
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994), pp. 19–27.
33. Fichte [1795–1796] 2000, p. 134.
34. Ibid., p. 138.
35. J. G. Fichte, Addresses to the German Nation, ed. Gregory Moore
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, [1807] 2008), p. 9.
36. Fichte [1807] 2008, p. 14.
37. Ibid., p. 16.
38. Ibid., pp. 24–25.
39. For example, G.W. F. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. A.V. Miller
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, [1807] 1977), p. 357; cf. p. 363. See also
Hegel’s On the Scientific Ways of Treating Natural Law, on Its Place in
Practical Philosophy, and Its Relation to the Positive Sciences of Right, in
Hegel: Political Writings, eds. Laurence Dickey and H. B. Nisbet (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, [1802–1803] 1999), pp. 132–135.
40. G.W. F. Hegel, Introduction to the Philosophy of History, trans. Leo Rauch
(Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing [1840] 1988), p. 27.
41. Bernard Bosanquet, The Philosophical Theory of the State (London:
MacMillan, 1923), p. 75.
42. Bosanquet 1923, p. 114. See Igor Primoratz, “The Word ‘Liberty’ on the
Chains of Galley-Slaves: Bosanquet’s Theory of the General Will,” History
of Political Thought 15 (1994): 249–267; also see Janusz Grygienc, General
Editors’ Introduction xxxvii
Will in Political Philosophy, trans. Dominika Gajewska (Exeter, UK: Imprint
Academic, 2013), pp. 77–80.
43. This is from a fragment in what became known as The German Ideology, in
Marx Engels Collected Works (New York: International Publishers, [1847]
1976) vol. 5, p. 91. Even more sardonic was Marx’s observation in the
Eighteenth Brumaire about Louis Bonaparte’s victory over parliament, “of
force without phrases over the force of phrases.” “In parliament the nation
made its general will the law; that is, it made the law of the

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