Emile the citizen? A reassessment of the relationship between private education and citizenship in Rousseau’s political thought

Abstract

It is often said that the claims of man and citizen are irreconcilable in the philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. This view, most famously articulated by Judith Shklar, holds that the making of a man and the making of a citizen are to be understood as rival enterprises or competing alternatives. This reading has recently been challenged by Frederick Neuhouser. He argues that one can make a man and a citizen, but only if the education of each is performed in the absence of the other. In his view, Emile is raised to be a man first (Books I–IV) before his subsequent instruction in citizenship (Book V). This paper challenges both views. I argue that the making of man and citizen are, in principle, neither rival enterprises nor competing alternatives, and that although Neuhouser is indeed correct to argue for a successive system of education, the making of a citizen is not completed in Emile, but extends into the Social Contract. His account diminishes the crucial role the Lawgiver plays in the fashioning of citizens capable of discerning the general will. I show that although raising individuals under a system of private instruction does not preclude their transformation into citizens but makes such a transformation possible, it is on its own incapable of making citizens.