Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) and its social, political and legal views are presented in such works as “Discourse on the origin and cause of inequality between men” (1754 ), “On the Political Economy” (1755), “The judgment of eternal peace” (1782), “The Social Contract, or Principles of Political Rights” (1762) and others. The problems of society, the state and the rights covered in the teaching of Rousseau, from the standpoint of study and protection of the principle of popular sovereignty and ideas.
In its natural state, according to Rousseau, there is no private ownership, all are free and equal. Inequality here first only natural due to natural differences in people. However, with the advent of private property and social inequality, contrary to the natural equality, the fight begins between the rich and the poor. Following the destruction of equality was followed, according to Rousseau, “terrible confusion”. The output of such a provision inspired by the arguments of the rich and at the same time due to the vital interests of all, was the agreement on the establishment of the government and laws that will be obeyed by all. However, losing the natural liberty, the poor have not found political freedom. Created by contract and state laws “imposed new fetters on the poor, and gave new powers to the rich, irretrievably destroyed natural liberty, established forever the law of property and inequality, and for the benefit of a few chestolyubivtsev doomed since the entire human race to labor, servitude and misery” (The Political writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau)
The inequality of private property, supplemented political inequalities have resulted, according to Rousseau, in the end, to absolute inequality under despotism, when in relation to the despot all equal in slavery and injustice.
In contrast to such a vicious society Rousseau develops the concept of “creating a political body as a genuine contract between the people and the ruler” (Rousseau). In this case, the main task of genuine social contract, putting the beginning of society and the state and marks the transformation of the cluster of people in the sovereign people, and each person into a citizen, he sees in this “association which defends and protects with all the general power of the person and property of each of the members of the association and whereby each connecting with everyone obeys, but only himself and remains as free as before” (Rousseau)
Anyone passing the commons and placing under a single supreme direction of the general will, becomes a personality all their strength turns into an inseparable part of the whole. The consequences of the social contract, according to Rousseau, as follows: “Immediately, instead of individual persons entering into a contractual relationship, this act of association creates a conditional collective whole, consisting of as many members as vote totals General Meeting. This whole receives as a result of the act its unity, the total I am, my life and will. This person is a legal, forming, therefore, as a result of the unification of all the other once was called the civil community, but now is called a republic, or the body politic: its members call this political body by the State when it is passive, Sovereign when he active powers – by comparing it with the likes of him. As for the members of the association, they collectively receive the name of the people, and individually referred to as citizens, as participants in the sovereign power, and subjects, as obeying the laws of the State” (The Political writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau)
Rousseau is based concept of the social contract as a whole expresses the ideal of his views on the state and law. The basic idea is that only the establishment of the state of political relations and laws appropriate to the concept of the social contract, can justify, from the point of view of reason, justice and the law – the transition from a state of nature into civil.
In the modern interpretation of Rousseau him the feudal system, critically correlated with the bourgeois-democratic principles of the social contract, loses its legitimacy, fair and lawful nature – in short, the right to exist: it rests not on law but on force. Rousseau justifies violent, revolutionary path of the overthrow of the feudal system. But the power, according to Rousseau, does not create rights – neither in natural nor in a civil state. Moral generally can not be the result of physical power. The foundation of any legitimate authority among the people can only be agreement.
Conditions of the transition to the state Rousseau treats as follows: what is alienated from each isolated individual in favor of the social contract formed on the whole (the people, the sovereign state) in the form of natural equality and freedom, he shall be compensated (but as an inseparable part of the whole, a member of the people – sovereign citizen) as established by the treaty (positive) rights and freedoms. Occurs, in the words of Rousseau, as if an equivalent exchange a natural way of life of people in civilian life.
In general, social convention, according to Rousseau, gives political body (the state) unlimited power over all its members. This power, guided by common will, and he calls sovereignty. Within the meaning of the concept of Rousseau, sovereignty, unity, and we all can and should go on one sole sovereignty – the sovereignty of the people.
With the understanding of sovereignty as the general will of the people connected and Rousseau’s assertion that sovereignty is inalienable and indivisible. How to alienate the sovereignty of the people in favor of certain persons or entities, and its division between different sections of the people, by the logic of Rousseau, would mean a denial of the sovereignty of the general will of the people. The legislature as a true sovereign, the government can, and should, according to Rousseau, carried out only by the people, the sovereign itself. As for the executive branch, it is “on the contrary, can not belong to the whole mass of the people as a trendsetter or sovereign, as this power is expressed only in the acts of a private nature, which do not relate to the field of law nor, therefore, the responsibility of the sovereign, all acts which alone may be that the laws” (The Political writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau)
In Rousseau’s sovereign is an individual who enters into a contract with yourself and expresses the general will. The act of associations of people that make up society, includes a mutual commitment of the people and individuals. Each individual who enters into a contract with yourself, n is accepted dual obligation, he is a member of the sovereign to private individuals and is a member state in respect of the sovereign. But we can not apply the provision of civil law, that no one is obliged to fulfill the commitments made to himself, for the large difference between the commitments made to himself, and the commitments made in relation to the whole, of which you make up. It is also very important for Rousseau are the boundaries of the supreme authority of the sovereign. Representing the state and the civil community as a conventional person, whose life is in the union of its members, Rousseau says that an important concern of this personality is its self-preservation. Because, to protect themselves, that person needs a general motive force that can manage every part of this conditional personality. Just as nature provides each person with unlimited power over all members of his body, the social agreement gives the body politic absolute power over all its members, and that this power is directed common will, is, as I said, the name of sovereignty. But apart from society as a legal entity, we have to take into consideration and its constituent individuals, whose life and liberty, of course, independent of him. So, the point is to clearly distinguish between the respective rights of citizens and the sovereign, as well as the responsibilities that must be held first as subjects, and the natural law, which they must as a people.
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The performing authority is not created on the basis of the social contract, and by the decision of the sovereign as in the middle of the body for communication between citizens and sovereign. In explaining the relationship of the legislative and executive authorities, Rousseau says that any free action has two causes that produce it together, one of them – the moral, the other – the physical. First – this is the will which determines the act, the second – the power of his performing.
The executive branch is authorized to enforce the sovereign laws and to maintain political and civil liberty. The apparatus of executive power in general should be such that “it has always been ready to sacrifice the government for the people and not the people for the government” (The Political writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau)
In order to maintain the provisions of the social contract and the control of the executive branch, according to Rousseau, from time to time shall be convened public meetings, which should be put to a vote in two separate questions: “First, you want to keep the sovereign present form of government. Secondly, if you want people to leave control in the hands of those to whom it is being assigned” (Rousseau)
The people, according to Rousseau, is entitled not only to change the form of government, but also the general public to terminate the agreement itself and again to regain their natural freedom.
Rousseau distinguishes four kinds of laws: the political, civil, and criminal laws of the fourth generation, “the most important of all” – “manners, customs, and especially public opinion” (The Political writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau). However, he emphasizes that his theme of the social contract are only political laws. For these policy (basic) laws Rousseau notes that in general they will, combined with the nature of the universality of the subject, so this law treats citizens as a whole, not as individuals, and acts as a distraction (but not as individual acts). A goal of any system of law – freedom and equality. Liberty, emphasizes Rousseau, can not exist without equality.
One of the main problems that explores Rousseau, is the problem of man, his true identity. Rousseau sees the start of two natural person prior to the mind (intellect): “… one of them interest the hotly us in our own well-being and self-preservation, and the other expresses our natural revulsion at the sight of death and suffering of all sentient beings, and mostly we like” (Riley 224). By nature, people, according to Rousseau, gentleness, rather the kind, he becomes virtuous when, loving kindness, and even carries it through the fight and overcome a conflicting tendencies. Implementation of the external debt is a form of virtue compared to actions arising out of the natural desire for the good, on the basis of which is formed by a sense of duty and assigned as the habits of virtue, habits, delivering customer satisfaction and delight. In civilized man Rousseau captures two different principles, one of which leads to love, justice and moral welfare, and the other pulls down the government under the rule of the senses and the passions they generate.
Outstanding purchase of civil status – moral freedom. She alone makes man master of himself. While a man driven by a desire, he is in bondage. On the contrary, in obedience to the law, which he prescribed to himself, he finds freedom.
It is in the framework of civil society are created opportunities for moral freedom, thanks to which man is the real master of himself.
To properly assess the significance of the transition “state of nature” in civilian necessary, according to Rousseau, a clear distinction between natural freedom from civil. Within the natural forces of freedom are the only individual limit civilian – the general will. In other words, it is necessary to distinguish ownership, which is only due to the force of the property, which can be based only on the positive law.
By Rousseau, outstanding purchase of civil status is moral freedom. It alone makes man master of himself. While a man driven by a desire, he is in bondage.
Rousseau’s concept of the social contract is defined and the concept of the supreme power in the state. According to the teachings of Rousseau, this power can only consist in the united will of all.
Building on the methodology of the school of natural law, Rousseau has reinvented questions of the natural state and the social contract, developing a theory of popular sovereignty. In its natural state, according to Rousseau, there is no private ownership, all are free and equal. Inequality exists here in the beginning only the physical due to natural differences in people. However, with the advent of private property and social inequality, contrary to the natural equality, the fight begins between the rich and the poor.
Rousseau introduces a set of concepts: State, Sovereign Power and – for the state of the country (passive, active, and in relation to another country, respectively), and others. But it is important to note the following: The whole is the will, its me – it’s the most important thing.
Rousseau criticizes the theory of separation of powers and representative democracy. The legislature can only belong to the people as a whole. In this case, the sovereign is not bound by domestic law. People may terminate the social contract, can change the form of government.
In order to maintain the provisions of the social contract and control over the executive should periodically convene public meetings, which should be put to a vote in two separate questions:
1. Do we want to keep the sovereign present form of government?
Do we want people to leave the management in the hands of those to whom it is being charged with?
2. Characteristic that Rousseau gives to moral freedom, would later become the basis of Kant’s categorical imperative: “To act only under the influence of his desire is slavery, and to obey the law which you yourself have set for ourselves, there is freedom” (Kant) because the act only under the influence of his desire is slavery, and to obey the law which you yourself have set for ourselves, there is freedom.
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Kant’s attention to the issue of freedom to determine its social and theoretical relevance. In a letter to Garve of 1798 (September 21), Kant writes that the study is not the existence of God, immortality, etc., was his starting point: “A man is inherent in freedom, he has no freedom, but everything in it is natural necessity” (Kant).
Kant calls the concept of freedom is “the key to the explanation of the autonomy of the will (Kant). Free will is a property will be the law for themselves. Position it can have only one meaning: it is the principle act only according to that maxim which can be the subject itself also as a universal law. But, as Kant explains, this is the formula of the categorical imperative, as well as the principle of morality. Thus, the free will and the will subordinated to moral laws – are one and the same.
Immanuel Kant’s moral theory does not allow for exceptions to the implementation of the law, which would result from adverse circumstances. Perjury should not be heard. But the moral law does not force to ensure that the heroic deeds carried out, despite the adverse effects or failure to implement them. When Kant was intended to ensure that the stop engaging in criticism of religion, because it is required by the moral law, he obeyed, and pledged not to read lectures on religion.
Thesis on the ethics of Kant’s idea of responsible intent that moral behavior as its basis should not have a “propensity” and that it is all the more deserved, the more we have to overcome their selfishness. This idea is based on a strict dualism of sensuality and the law. Sensuality should not be aimed at making people gravitated to the behavior on the basis of the law.
On the contrary, if the behavior is based on sensuality (eg, sympathy, friendship, love) coincides with the action on the basis of law, it has no moral worth, because it is not motivated by the law. According to Kant, only one sense does not violate the moral values of behavior – it’s a sense of respect for the law, for it refers to a common moral values.
Ethics of Kant contains discussion of human freedom. Freedom is also reflected in the ability of the nature.
In nature, everything happens according to the law of causality, and therefore our behavior should be subject to this law, as it impacts on the environment. At the same time, Kant’s moral theory is based on human freedom. In the conclusion to the “bottom of the metaphysics of morals” Kant resolves this antinomy so that it applies to the difference between the “things in themselves” and phenomena, which he introduces in the “Critique of Pure Reason”. On the one hand, our self as a “thing in itself” belongs to the “intelligible” to the world, which is revealed to us the moral behavior (Kant).
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On the other hand, we as “representatives of the world of sense”, belong to the world of phenomena. From this example we can say that Kant solves the problems of his ethical philosophy with the achievements of theoretical philosophy. In reality, both of Kant’s ethics are based on the premise that, by reflection of moral behavior we come to conclusions to which it is impossible to come with only one theory.
This applies to the freedom that is unprovable for the “Critique of Pure Reason” (possible “causality through freedom” is unproven, because this statement is one of the members of the antinomy), whereas in the ethical treatises of Kant proves freedom as a condition of the moral law that we are aware of.
To ascribe freedom essentially being is determined by the conditions of time, according to Kant, is impossible. Output from the power of our acts of physical necessity is unacceptable. The law of causality is inevitably necessary for any causality of things, the existence of which is determined at the time. If, therefore, the existence of “things in themselves” as determined by their existence in time, the concept of freedom “should be discarded as useless and impossible notion” (Uleman)
On the question of freedom of the solution depends, according to Kant, does not matter whether the cause lies within the subject or outside of it, and if it lies within it, it is determined whether the need to act by instinct or reason. If the defining representations have a basis of existence in time – in some previous state, and this state is in turn – in the preceding him, the necessary definitions can be both internal. Their reasons may be mental, not just mechanical. However, in this case, the basis of causality is defined in time, hence the need for the existing conditions of the past. This means that when the subject has to act, determine the reason for his actions are no longer in his power. By entering what might be called psychological freedom, with her enter and natural necessity. Thereby remains longer any room for freedom in Kant “transcendental” sense and therefore the independence of the nature generally. If the freedom of our will was only a psychological and a relative, not absolute and transcendent, then, according to Kant, “in reality it would not be better than freedom device spits that, once instituted, by itself makes their movements” (Kant).
Breaking the tenets of religion, Kant nevertheless remains sincere Christian – he believes in a God who would not restrict the freedom of man. Immanuel Kant considers man as a moral subject, and ethical issues in the teaching of philosophy becomes central.
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In order to “save” the freedom, that is, to show how it is possible, is, according to Kant, is only one way. The existence of things in time and, therefore, causality and the law of natural necessity should refer only to the phenomenon. On the contrary, freedom must ascribe to the same substance, but not as a “phenomenon”, but as “things in themselves”.
Thus, to study the possibility of freedom Kant found it necessary to the very distinction between “events” and “things in themselves”, which is the central thesis of his theoretical philosophy, and which was set out in the “Critique of Pure Reason.” Along with this distinction, or, more precisely, as one of the supporting his thesis, Kant acknowledged the inevitable doctrine of the ideality of time.
In Kant’s doctrine of freedom reveals a deep connection between his theory of knowledge and ethics, between his teaching about the mind theoretical and practical teaching about the mind. Kantian ethics as one of its pillars is “transcendental aesthetics” – the doctrine of the ideality of space and time. On the idealism of the theory of space and time are based in Kant and mathematics (in his epistemology), and the doctrine of freedom (in its ethics). Kant himself emphasized the vital role his doctrine of time to build their ethics. Although chronologically the development of the doctrine of the ideality of space and time was preceded by the development of ethics with its teaching about freedom, the connection between them is clear already appears in the “Critique of Pure Reason”. Already under the antinomies of pure reason Kant has in mind is the doctrine of freedom and necessity, he will develop and set out a few years later in the “Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals” and “Critique of Practical Reason”. Already in the “transcendental dialectic” – in “Permit cosmological ideas about the totality of breeding events in the world of their causes” – Kant developed the position that “if phenomena are things in themselves, that freedom can not be saved”. Here Kant tried to prove that the subject acting freely (not comprehended in the sensual contemplation, but only conceivable), “would not be subject to any temporary conditions, as time is a condition only phenomena, not things in themselves” (Kant). Here Kant concludes that “freedom can be related to a completely different kind of conditions than natural necessity, and therefore … both may exist independently from each other and without impeding each other” (Kant).
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His interest in social issues Kant also argues that, in the spirit of the tradition of Rousseau believes the main manifestation of freedom of self-restraint of its own arbitrariness, respect for the freedom of others. As is well known, Rousseau, which was equal to Kant resolved the issue of freedom of opportunity in a society that included the autonomous motivation of individual behavior in respect to the other equal to the creatures. This entity is a “general will” of Rousseau goes to Kant’s moral law – the categorical imperatives and a certainty in terms of content.
Probably, the concept of free will, in maxims of morality may be other justification. This, for example, language expresses the maxims of morality, but in its genesis and meaning they are socio-empirical: there are only of social practice, reflect objectively the process of folding patterns of interaction, people communicate. However, in practical-political terms, the concept of Kant had certain advantages. For example, it could be employed to dissociate from the extremes of individualism, to condemn the trend of total absorption of the individual and society, etc. Kant himself was eager to use it in exactly the same vein. In his view, the autonomy of the will equally protects the identity of both the arbitrariness of its own, and from the total domination over her social whole, providing her the exercise of freedom.
Rousseau, according to Hesse, was unable to find a balance between the personal and the general will, because their unity was looking in the wrong direction, overly trusting of the government (Riley, 322).
For Kant, the will is not determined by anything but itself, as the ability to act or not to act on your own, or outrage comes from the will, and the “will of itself, in fact, does not have a defining reason, since it is able to determine the outrage it myself practical reason” (Kant). Autonomous will belongs to each person and, therefore, all the people present an a priori idea of the law in itself. That’s why the person is a source of morality. Thus, Kant argues indisputable value of any person, kind of implying priority of the individual to the state.
In the “Critique of Pure Reason” Kant philosophical quest by looking for evidence and reasonable justification for trying to prove that the man – a free being that freedom – what is laid in a man with free will, with the ability to think creatively and is a “natural” state of man . On this basis: “The political system is based on the greatest human freedom according to laws, by which individual freedom is compatible with the freedom of everyone else (I’m not talking about the greatest happiness, as it must appear by itself), there is at least a necessary idea, which should be taken as the basis for drafting the constitution is not only the state but also of any particular law, thus it is necessary first of all to distract from the existing obstacles which perhaps do not necessarily arise from human nature, and there are likely due to neglect of true ideas in the preparation of laws” (Kant).
Thus, if a person acquires Rousseau moral freedom in the country, in Kant man himself is the source of morality.
Morality, according to Kant, can not be attributed to any calculation, nor profits, nor the pursuit of happiness or pleasure. Moral behavior, he says, do not have external motives. And as the only internal motive for such behavior, he only recognizes the debt. The moral man does then emphasizes Kant when he acts contrary inclinations, calculation, etc. And this is called ethics ethics rigor.
Like other human abilities, sense of duty, according to Kant, is unknowable in its origins. But we can not deny the reasonable nature of the moral ought. Is it not reasonable that the moral duty commanded to love one another? Is not it reasonable to demand respect for their own kind? On this basis, Kant concludes that the moral obligation – it is a manifestation of practical reason, which has an unconditional priority over the theoretical reason.
So, to be a free man, according to Kant, should be guided in their conduct of such authority as a moral duty. However, contrary to Spinoza, who to be free – it means to follow this recognition of natural necessity, be free, according to Kant – is to consciously follow the need expressed in the concept of duty. But the notion of duty expresses the relationship between people, or, as we say today, public relations.
Kant distinguishes between laws of nature and freedom. Although individual he belongs to both worlds, the man he becomes just when starts to follow a special duty to the moral law. However, the ultimate authority of the moral act, according to Kant, is God. And here we have characterized his attitude to religion as the moral law in Kant internally connected with faith in God.
In his most important work – “The Social Contract” – Rousseau brief and strictly logical way to prove that a just state, and morality itself arise effort of our rational faculties.
The question that has put Rousseau in politics, can be compared to a question that has put in the philosophy of Kant. How are synthetic judgments a priori, that is: how can a firm knowledge – asked Kant in the “Critique of Pure Reason”. And just as Kant he answers the basic question of the theory of knowledge the information required by the formal conditions under which a firm knowledge of the cash is possible because Rousseau allowed fundamental political question indicating those formal conditions that are necessary for the implementation of a just state. Many political thinkers to Rousseau asked this question and answered it is usually the mark of a particular image of the perfect government. Indicated a normal number of citizens and the details of their life, as did Plato, demanded particularly favorable geographical location and special economic organizations such as Thomas More, or to insist on the implementation of certain forms of government, as did the writers, which gave crucial political institutions.
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To become a law of life, justice must penetrate the consciousness of the people, and the general consciousness, in order to lead to a lasting relationship is to feel the justice. . Greatest idea in the teachings of Rousseau was precisely in the fact that it points to the need for harmonious relationships of justice and the common will for a just ordering of the State. Thus, he found what he sought, and the question of just state resolved to his assumption, which can be expressed as: fair state will be carried out if the common will and justice will find in it a harmonious reconciliation. But after all, this formula expressed in the end only the big dream, hiding in depth of many of the great political movements. Rousseau gave it a clear expression of radicalism and drew hiding in her demands. He knew her not as a distant ideal, but as a slogan for immediate implementation. The consciousness of infinity aspirations, the drop from the height of this ideal, we replace it hopefully close and lasting achievements.
The source and the reinforcement of that hope were the two basic assumptions on which the theory was Rousseau, one of them referred to the possibility of its immediate implementation, while others provide her moral value and the perfect excuse. These two assumptions can be expressed as follows:
1) That the general will, as a definite and permanent element inherent in the will of individuals, it is easy to find and to express to the laws;
2) That the rule of the general will, is the triumph of justice, because the general will is justice itself and is always what it should be.
3) Of these two provisions and practical conclusion emerged: the state to approve the general will, and everything else will follow you. This was the practical meaning of the theory of popular sovereignty.
In this it has been approved by the belief in the rule of law, designed to implement a common will in the institutions and laws.
Practical life could not confirm Rousseau’s offers about relatively easy finding common will or relatively static harmony existing between this will and justice. But the idea of the general will, with all its uncertainties and ambiguities had a huge transformative value in the sense of change in the relations between the government and the people, and in this sense it was the line between the old order and the new.
And no doubt that here it has received its strongest confirmation later theory of the rule of law. Contact this view with the theory of popular sovereignty is indisputable, but nowadays the idea of the necessary power and solidarity of the people finds its justification not in the doctrine of the infallibility of the general will, and in particular the notion of the state as a legal entity in which the people are the main element that has value is not only the object of power, but also its subject.