Jean-Jacques Rousseau · Complete work
Book II, Chapter 4
Book II, Chapter 4 of 49. Read it here for reference, or continue through the entire work without leaving the reader.
Open the complete readerOriginal French
Des bornes du pouvoir Souverain.
Si l’Etat ou la Cité n’est qu’une personne morale dont la vie consiste dans l’union de ses membres, & si le plus important de ses soins est celui de sa propre conservation, il lui faut une force universelle & compulsive pour mouvoir & disposer chaque partie de la maniere la plus convenable au tout. Comme la nature donne à chaque homme un pouvoir absolu sur tous ses membres, le pacte social donne au corps politique un pouvoir absolu sur tous les siens, & c’est ce même pouvoir, qui, dirigé par la volonté générale porte, comme j’ai dit, le nom de souveraineté.
Mais outre la personne publique, nous avons à considérer les personnes privées qui la composent, & dont la vie & la liberté sont naturellement indépendantes d’elle. Il s’agit donc de bien distinguer les droits respectifs des Citoyens & du Souverain, & les devoirs qu’ont à remplir les premiers en qualité de sujets, du droit naturel dont ils doivent jouir en qualité d’hommes.
On convient que tout ce que chacun aliéne par le pacte social de sa puissance de ses biens de sa liberté, c’est seulement la partie de tout cela dont l’usage importe à la communauté, mais il faut convenir aussi que le Souverain seul est juge de cette importance.
Tous les services qu’un citoyen peut rendre à l’Etat, il les lui doit sitôt que le Souverain les demande; mais le Souverain de son côté ne peut charger les sujets d’aucune chaine inutile à la communauté; il ne peut pas même le vouloir: car sous la loi de raison rien ne se fait sans cause, non plus que sous la loi de nature.
Les engagemens qui nous lient au corps social ne sont obligatoires que parce qu’ils sont mutuels, & leur nature est telle qu’en les remplissant on ne peut travailler pour autrui sans travailler aussi pour soi. Pourquoi la volonté générale est elle toujours droite, & pourquoi tous veulent-ils constamment le bonheur de chacun d’eux, si ce n’est parce qu’il n’y a personne qui ne s’approprie ce mot chacun, & qui ne songe à lui-même en votant pour tous? Ce qui prouve que l’égalité de droit & la notion de justice qu’elle produit dérivent de la préférence que chacun se donne & par conséquent de la nature de l’homme, que la volonté générale pour être vraîment telle doit l’être dans son objet ainsi que dans son essence, qu’elle doit partir de tous pour s’appliquer à tous, & qu’elle perd sa rectitude naturelle lorsqu’elle tend à quelque objet individuel & déterminé; parce qu’alors jugeant de ce qui nous est étranger nous n’avons aucun vrai principe d’équité qui nous guide.
En effet, sitôt qu’il s’agit d’un fait ou d’un droit particulier sur un point qui n’a pas été réglé par une convention générale & antérieure, l’affaire devient contentieuse. C’est un procès où les particuliers intéressés sont une des parties & le public l’autre, mais où je ne vois ni la loi qu’il faut suivre, ni le juge qui doit prononcer. Il seroit ridicule de vouloir alors s’en rapporter à une expresse décision de la volonté générale, qui ne peut être que la conclusion de l’une des parties, & qui par conséquent n’est pour l’autre qu’une volonté étrangere, particuliere, portée en cette occasion à l’injustice & sujette à l’erreur. Ainsi de même qu’une volonté particuliere ne peut représenter la volonté générale, la volonté générale à son tour change de nature ayant un objet particulier, & ne peut comme générale prononcer ni sur un homme ni sur un fait. Quand le peuple d’Athenes, par exemple, nommoit ou cassoit ses chefs, décernoit des honneurs à l’un, imposoit des peines à l’autre, & par des multitudes de décrets particuliers exerçoit indistinctement tous les actes du Gouvernement, le peuple alors n’avoit plus de volonté générale proprement dite; il n’agissoit plus comme Souverain mais comme magistrat. Ceci paroitra contraire aux idées communes, mais il faut me laisser le tems d’exposer les miennes.
On doit concevoir par là, que ce qui généralise la volonté est moins le nombre des voix, que l’intérêt commun qui les unit: car dans cette institution chacun se soumet nécessairement aux conditions qu’il impose aux autres; accord admirable de l’intérêt & de la justice qui donne aux délibérations communes un caractere d’équité qu’on voit évanouir dans la discussion de toute affaire particuliere, faute d’un intérêt commun qui unisse & identifie la regle du juge avec celle de la partie.
Par quelque côté qu’on remonte au principe, on arrive toujours à la même conclusion; savoir, que le pacte social établit entre les citoyens une telle égalité qu’ils s’engagent tous sous les mêmes conditions, & doivent jouir tous des mêmes droits. Ainsi par la nature du pacte, tout acte de souveraineté, c’est-à-dire tout acte authentique de la volonté générale oblige ou favorise également tous les Citoyens, en sorte que le Souverain connoit seulement le corps de la nation & ne distingue aucun de ceux qui la composent. Qu’est-ce donc proprement qu’un acte de souveraineté? Ce n’est pas une convention du supérieur avec l’inférieur, mais une convention du corps avec chacun de ses membres: Convention légitime, parce qu’elle a pour base le contract social, équitable, parce qu’elle est commune à tous, utile, parce qu’elle ne peut avoir d’autre objet que le bien général, & solide, parce qu’elle a pour garant la force publique & le pouvoir suprême. Tant que les sujets ne sont soumis qu’à de telles conventions, ils n’obéissent à personne, mais seulement à leur propre volonté; & demander jusqu’où s’étendent les droits respectifs du Souverain & des Citoyens, c’est demander jusqu’à quel point ceux-ci peuvent s’engager avec eux-mêmes, chacun envers tous & tous envers chacun d’eux.
On voit par-là que le pouvoir Souverain, tout absolu, tout sacré, tout inviolable qu’il est, ne passe ni ne peut passer les bornes des conventions générales, & que tout homme peut disposer pleinement de ce qui lui a été laissé de ses biens & de sa liberté par ces conventions; de sorte que le Souverain n’est jamais en droit de charger un sujet plus qu’un autre, parce qu’alors, l’affaire devenant particuliere, son pouvoir n’est plus compétent.
Ces distinctions une fois admises, il est si faux que dans le contract social il y ait de la part des particuliers aucune renonciation véritable, que leur situation, par l’effet de ce contract se trouve réellement préférable à ce qu’elle étoit auparavant, & qu’au lieu d’une aliénation, ils n’ont fait qu’un échange avantageux d’une maniere d’être incertaine & précaire contre une autre meilleure & plus sûre, de l’indépendance naturelle contre la liberté, du pouvoir de nuire à autrui contre leur propre sureté, & de leur force que d’autres pouvoient surmonter contre un droit que l’union sociale rend invincible. Leur vie même qu’ils ont dévouée à l’Etat en est continuellement protégée, & lorsqu’ils l’exposent pour sa défense que font-ils alors que lui rendre ce qu’ils ont reçu de lui? Que font-ils qu’ils ne fissent plus fréquemment & avec plus de danger dans l’état de nature, lorsque livrant des combats inévitables, ils défendroient au péril de leur vie ce qui leur sert à la conserver? Tous ont à combattre au besoin pour la patrie, il est vrai; mais aussi nul n’a jamais à combattre pour soi. Ne gagne-t-on pas encore à courir pour ce qui fait notre sureté une partie des risques qu’il faudroit courir pour nous-mêmes sitôt qu’elle nous seroit ôtée?
Musean translation
Mouseia’s complete machine-assisted Musean translation, made directly from the complete French text of the 1762 edition, all four books and the appendix for fidelity, the author’s force and cadence, and modern clarity.
Of the Limits of Sovereign Power.
If the State, or City, is only a moral person whose life consists in the union of its members, and if its most important concern is its own preservation, it needs a universal, compelling force to move and dispose each part in the way best suited to the whole. Just as nature gives each man absolute power over all his limbs, the social pact gives the body politic absolute power over all its members; and it is this same power which, directed by the general will, bears the name of sovereignty, as I have said.
But besides the public person, we must consider the private persons who compose it, whose lives and freedom are naturally independent of it. We must therefore carefully distinguish the respective rights of Citizens and of the Sovereign, the duties the former must discharge as subjects, and the natural right they should enjoy as men.
It is agreed that all a person alienates through the social pact of his power, his goods, and his freedom is only that part of them whose use matters to the community. But we must also agree that the Sovereign alone judges what matters to it.
Every service a citizen can render the State he owes it as soon as the Sovereign asks for it. Yet the Sovereign, on its side, cannot burden subjects with any chain useless to the community; it cannot even wish to do so. For under the law of reason, as under the law of nature, nothing happens without cause.
The commitments that bind us to the social body are obligatory only because they are mutual, and their nature is such that in fulfilling them we cannot work for others without working for ourselves as well. Why is the general will always right, and why does everyone consistently will the happiness of each person, if not because there is no one who does not include himself in the word each, and think of himself when voting for all? This proves that equality of right and the notion of justice it produces arise from the preference each person gives himself and thus from human nature; that for the general will to be truly general, it must be so in its object as well as in its essence; that it must come from all and apply to all; and that it loses its natural rectitude when directed toward some particular, determinate object, because when judging a matter foreign to ourselves we have no true principle of equity to guide us.
Indeed, as soon as the issue is a particular fact or right on a point not regulated by a prior, general convention, the matter becomes contentious. It is a lawsuit in which the individuals concerned are one party and the public the other, but in which I see neither the law to be followed nor the judge who ought to decide. It would be absurd then to wish to rely on an express decision of the general will, which could only be the conclusion of one of the parties and which, to the other, would consequently be a foreign, private will, inclined on this occasion toward injustice and liable to error. Thus, just as a private will cannot represent the general will, the general will in turn changes its nature when its object is particular, and cannot, as a general will, pronounce judgment either on a man or on a fact. When the people of Athens, for example, appointed or dismissed their leaders, awarded honors to one, imposed penalties on another, and by a multitude of particular decrees exercised all acts of Government without distinction, the people then no longer had a general will in the proper sense. They no longer acted as Sovereign but as magistrate. This will appear contrary to common ideas, but I must be allowed time to set out my own.
From this we should understand that what makes the will general is not so much the number of votes as the common interest uniting them. For in this arrangement each necessarily submits to the conditions he imposes on others: a remarkable accord between interest and justice that gives common deliberations a character of equity which disappears whenever any particular matter is debated, for want of a common interest to unite and identify the rule of the judge with that of the party.
Whichever way we trace our steps back to the principle, we always reach the same conclusion: the social pact establishes such equality among citizens that they all undertake commitments on the same conditions and must all enjoy the same rights. Thus, by the nature of the pact, every act of sovereignty—that is, every authentic act of the general will—binds or benefits all Citizens equally, so that the Sovereign knows only the body of the nation and distinguishes none of those who compose it. What, then, is an act of sovereignty properly speaking? It is not a convention between superior and inferior, but a convention between the body and each of its members: a legitimate convention, because it rests on the social pact; equitable, because it is common to all; useful, because it can have no object but the general good; and secure, because it is guaranteed by the public force and supreme power. So long as subjects are bound only by such conventions, they obey no one but their own will. To ask how far the respective rights of the Sovereign and Citizens extend is to ask how far the latter can commit themselves to themselves, each toward all and all toward each.
We see from this that Sovereign power, however absolute, sacred, and inviolable it may be, neither does nor can exceed the limits of general conventions, and that every man may dispose fully of whatever goods and freedom these conventions have left him. The Sovereign is therefore never entitled to burden one subject more than another, for the matter then becomes particular, and its power no longer has authority over it.
Once these distinctions are admitted, it is so far from true that individuals genuinely renounce anything in the social pact that the effect of the pact makes their condition actually preferable to their former one. Instead of alienating their possessions, they have made an advantageous exchange: an uncertain, precarious way of life for a better and more secure one; natural independence for freedom; the power to harm others for their own safety; and their strength, which others could overcome, for a right made invincible by social union. Even their lives, which they have devoted to the State, are continually protected by it; and when they risk those lives in its defense, what are they doing but giving back what they received from it? What are they doing that they would not do more often, and at greater peril, in the state of nature, when, in unavoidable conflicts, they would defend at the risk of their lives what enables them to preserve those lives? All must fight for their country when needed, it is true; but neither must anyone ever fight for himself. Do we not still gain by running, for the sake of what makes us safe, some of the risks we would have to run for ourselves as soon as that safety was taken away?
Plain English translation
Mouseia’s complete Plain English edition, made independently and directly from the complete French text of the 1762 edition, all four books and the appendix.
On the Limits of Sovereign Power.
If the State, or City, is only a moral person whose life depends on the union of its members, and if its most important concern is its own survival, it needs a power that applies to everyone and can compel them. It needs this power to move and direct each part in whatever way best serves the whole. Just as nature gives each person absolute power over all the parts of his body, the social pact gives the political body absolute power over all its members. This power, when directed by the general will, is called sovereignty, as I have said.
But besides the public person, we must consider the private persons who make it up. Their lives and freedom are naturally independent of it. We must therefore make a clear distinction between the rights of citizens and those of the sovereign. We must also distinguish the duties citizens have as subjects from the natural rights they should enjoy as human beings.
Everyone agrees that each person gives up through the social pact only that part of his power, goods, and freedom whose use matters to the community. But we must also agree that the sovereign alone decides what matters to it.
A citizen owes the State every service he can provide as soon as the sovereign asks for it. On the other hand, the sovereign cannot burden subjects with any restrictions that serve no purpose for the community. It cannot even want to do so. Under the law of reason, as under the law of nature, nothing happens without a cause.
Our commitments to the social body bind us only because they are mutual. They are such that when we fulfill them, we cannot work for others without also working for ourselves. Why is the general will always right? Why does everyone always want each person's happiness? It is because each voter counts himself among those meant by “each person” and thinks of himself while voting for everyone. This shows that equal rights, and the idea of justice that follows from them, come from the concern each person has for himself and so from human nature. It shows that, to be truly general, the general will must be general in what it aims at as well as in where it comes from. It must come from everyone and apply to everyone. It loses its natural soundness when it is directed at a particular, identifiable person or thing. In that case we are judging something outside ourselves and have no true principle of fairness to guide us.
Indeed, as soon as the question involves a particular fact or right that has not been settled by a prior general agreement, it becomes a dispute. The individuals concerned are one party to the case, and the public is the other. But I see neither a law to follow nor a judge to give a ruling. It would be absurd then to rely on an express decision of the general will. Such a decision could only be the conclusion reached by one of the parties. For the other party it would be an outside, private will, open to injustice and error in this case. So just as a private will cannot stand for the general will, the general will in turn changes its nature when it takes up a particular matter. As a general will it cannot rule on a person or an event. For example, when the people of Athens appointed or dismissed their leaders, awarded honors to one person, imposed punishments on another, and used many individual decrees to perform all the acts of government without distinction, they no longer had a general will in the proper sense. They acted not as sovereign but as magistrate. This may seem to go against common ideas, but I need time to explain my own.
We can see from this that what makes a will general is not so much the number of votes as the common interest that unites them. Under this arrangement, each person must accept the conditions he imposes on others. This is a remarkable agreement between interest and justice. It gives decisions made together a quality of fairness that disappears when people discuss any individual case, because there is no common interest to bring the rule used by the judge together with the rule used by the person involved.
Whichever way we trace the matter back to its source, we always reach the same conclusion: the social pact creates such equality among citizens that they all commit themselves on the same terms and must all enjoy the same rights. By the nature of the pact, then, every act of sovereignty—that is, every genuine act of the general will—binds or benefits all citizens equally. The sovereign knows only the nation as a whole and does not single out any of its members. What, exactly, is an act of sovereignty? It is not an agreement between a superior and an inferior, but an agreement between the body and each of its members. It is legitimate because it rests on the social pact; fair because it applies to everyone; useful because it can aim only at the general good; and secure because public strength and supreme power guarantee it. As long as subjects are bound only by agreements of this kind, they obey no one but their own will. To ask how far the rights of the sovereign and citizens extend in relation to each other is to ask how far citizens can commit themselves to themselves, each to all and all to each.
We can see that sovereign power, however absolute, sacred, and inviolable it may be, does not and cannot go beyond the limits of general agreements. Each person is free to decide what to do with the property and freedom that these agreements have left him. The sovereign therefore never has a right to burden one subject more than another. Once it does, the matter becomes particular, and its power no longer applies.
Once we accept these distinctions, it is plainly false that individuals truly give anything up in the social pact. Through this pact their condition actually becomes better than it was before. Instead of simply surrendering something, they make a beneficial exchange. They trade an uncertain, insecure way of life for a better, safer one; natural independence for freedom; the power to harm others for their own safety; and strength that others could overcome for a right made unbeatable by social union. The State constantly protects even the lives they have committed to it. When they risk their lives to defend it, what are they doing but returning what they received from it? In the state of nature, would they not do the same thing more often and with greater danger? In unavoidable fights they would risk their lives to defend what keeps them alive. It is true that everyone must fight for the country when needed. But then no one ever has to fight for himself. Do we not still come out ahead by running some risks for our safety, when we would have to face those risks alone as soon as that safety was taken away?