"Only by obeying the general will are we truly free".
Do you agree?

Consider the following. In the state of nature, I find myself within a walled city. I have no intention of leaving the walled city, as there are dangerous wild animals outside. There are other people within the city and we form a society in which the people are sovereign - i.e. a society modelled on the ideas of Rousseau. One of the laws we pass is that no-one may leave the city. We all agree that this is a good law, and in the best interests of everyone. It is the general will. I obey it, but then again I was never going to leave anyway. Thus in that respect my freedom has not been curtailed, as I am not prevented from doing anything that I wanted to do. I am, in effect, only obeying myself. This is what Rousseau's ideas are trying to achieve.

Suppose now that rather than the populace being sovereign, a benign dictator arose and took control. The populace has no say in the laws he imposes. He decrees that no-one may leave.

In the first scenario I am obeying the general will. In the second, I am obeying the dictator. Yet the law is the same. Is Rousseau correct to claim that I am truly free only in the first case?

If we view freedom in the negative sense, we need only to consider the restrictions that I am placed under. The more actions I can take without outside interference, the more free I am. Two different people subject to precisely the same restrictions have precisely the same degree of freedom.

In both scenarios I may not leave. Whether I wish to leave or not is irrelevant. Who prevented me and why is irrelevant. Whether I am even capable of leaving is irrelevant. All that matters is that in both cases the same possible action has been interfered with. Therefore in both scenarios my freedom is equal.

If we consider only negative freedom, it is only the laws that are important, and there may be any number of ways of arriving at the same laws. Therefore it is not only by obeying the general will that I may be truly free.

Of course, Rousseau is not considering freedom in this sense. While he declines to define the word or justify his reasoning, it is clear that he is considering a more positive freedom stressing the importance of being master of oneself and master of one's choices. In the state of nature we have natural liberty, which is essentially total negative freedom, but it is driven by desire and maintained by force. To be driven by desire is to be enslaved. In society, we exchange the independence of nature for civil and moral liberty in which freedom is "to obey a law that we have imposed on ourselves" [I, viii; also Matravers p195].

This is a reasonable definition in the context of the formation of a society from the state of nature. If freedom is being master of our own choices, then laws we choose to impose on ourselves do not reduce our freedom. Therefore, assuming we are free in the state of nature, we remain free in society provided all laws are of our own choosing. Laws imposed on ourselves do not make us free, but they do keep us as free as we were.

So in the walled city, while the law is the same no matter how it came about, if we consider freedom in Rousseau's positive sense then I am only free if I am master of my own choices, and I impose the law upon myself. I am free only if I obey the general will.

Am I though? By obeying the general will, am I really master of my own choices? Put another way, is the general will my choice? Is it the same as my personal will?

The general will is the will of the people as a whole, of which I am a part, but it is not my will. In fact it is entirely possible that my personal will directly contradicts the general will [I, vii]. So, I am certainly not obeying myself alone as Rousseau claims when he says each person "uniting himself to all, will obey himself alone, and remain as free as before" [I, vi].

If the general will is not the same as my personal will, can I obey it and yet still be free?

Rousseau addresses this problem by re-phrasing the question. In a public assembly, where the people get to discuss proposed laws, the question is not "do you agree with this law?" but "do you believe this law is in accordance with the general will?" [IV, ii]. The fact that it is contrary to my personal will should not influence me. If I say one thing but the majority says another, it just means I am mistaken about what the general will is.

This does not resolve the problem. I chose to obey the general will, but was mistaken as to what that would involve. Even if I voted in good faith, setting aside my personal will for what I thought was the good of all, I may still be faced with a law that is not of my choosing.

In the walled city, a minority of people may point out that unless we leave the city walls, our capacity to grow crops will be seriously limited. After the law is passed, they are forced to remain in the city. This choice was made not by them, but by the majority.

In society there will always be disagreements. While there are disagreements our choices will be determined at least in part by the process used to resolve them (e.g. the vote). Thus we will not be masters of our own choices. Rousseau attempts to resolve this by ensuring there are never disagreements, but this merely exacerbates the problem.

In an effort to ensure a unified society, Rousseau advocates comprehensive education in citizenship. The people are educated in seeking the general will rather than their personal will. Not so much 'forced to be free' as 'taught to be free'.

However, this education is not controlled by the sovereign. It is an application of law, rather than the formation of law, so is under the control of the government. There is therefore the possibility that the government may manipulate information in order to bring about a certain decision. Indeed, much of what Rousseau says implies he would approve of this.

Add to this Rousseau's idea of the civil religion, in which civic duty is taught as religious doctrine [IV, viii], and the official censor, who's role is to strengthen and guide public moral standards and opinions [VI, vii]. We now have an environment in which our ability to make independent decisions is severely hampered. Some critics have gone so far as to describe it as brainwashing [AC].

It is an extension of the idea of positive freedom that to be truly free we need not only master our own choices, but we must make the right choices. To acquire moral liberty, people must be educated such that they choose correctly [Wolff, p145; also Matravers p195]. However, this necessarily implies that someone has to decide what the right choices are. Our choices are thus not our own, but theirs.

If the people decide that a law is in accordance with the general will, but they base their decision on controlled information, the decision cannot be considered free. I am not master of my own choices, as I am not master of the information required to make those choices. As we established earlier, while we are considering only positive freedom it is the way the law comes about that makes us free or otherwise. Even if the law is right and correct and in the best interests of all, if it was not freely chosen then we are not free.

In the walled city a hundred years have passed. Children are brought up to believe that the walls are good, the walls are necessary and that outside of the walls are Bad Things. As they are not allowed to leave, they cannot verify this, and must take it on faith. They may choose to obey the law, but only because they have been taught to. To be told to choose something is not a true choice.

This example illustrates another problem. If the law is older than I am, then I am obeying a law not of my choosing. Rousseau maintains that a law remains valid until it is specifically revoked by the sovereign [III, xi]. If the law remains, it is assumed still to be the general will. If a law has remained in place for a long time, its validity is strengthened, as successive generations of people have tacitly approved of it. Rousseau also puts strong emphasis on the importance of tradition and custom [II, xii]. Together this makes it increasingly difficult to change a law the older it gets.

The general will can only exist in a homogeneous society. Everything that is done to encourage a homogeneous society also serves to prevent change. Dissent is suppressed. Adherence to custom is encouraged. Discussion amongst voters is strongly disapproved of. The only way the walled city would ever revoke its law is for the entire populace to suddenly and spontaneously change its mind.

Any law passed by a sovereign people is therefore almost guaranteed to last forever. The general will thus remains unchanged and unchangeable. When there is no possibility of changing it, we cannot claim to be masters of it. Our choices were all made for us by our ancestors, and while we may be happy in our prison of ignorance, we are not truly free.

I do not agree that by obeying the general will we are truly free. From a personal point of view, I subscribe to the negative idea of freedom in which liberty is determined by the extent of available choices. This is a more useful model as it provides an objective way to determine if one person is more free than another person. Mastery of choices is a question of capability, not liberty. If I am a slave to my passions, it means only that I am too passionate.

From this standpoint freedom is measured by laws. As there are many ways to create laws, there are many ways to maintain freedom, not only by obeying the general will. Additionally, the restrictions on information and religion, the discouraging of diversity and dissent, the idea that we can be forced to comply, all strongly suggest that obeying the general will requires drastically curtailing our negative freedom.

Even when restricted to the positive view of freedom that Rousseau holds, by obeying the general will we are not masters of our own choices, and are thus not truly free.

Bibliography

• Rousseau 1994ed. The Social Contract; Oxford University Press
• Matravers et al, 2000. Reading Political Philosophy; Routledge
• Berlin, Two Concepts of Liberty; in Matravers 2000
• Wolff 1996. An Introduction to Political Philosophy; Oxford University Press
• Audio Cassette 4 : Derek Matravers interviews Quentin Skinner.