Enlightened Nation Building: The “Science of the Legislator” in Adam Smith and Rousseau

Abstract

Rousseau is famous as an advocate of the politics of “denaturing.” But attention to his conception of the “science of the legislator,” as developed in the Geneva Manuscript and his writings on Poland and Corsica, reveals a more moderate approach to statecraft. Here Rousseau claims that legislative science requires tempering commitment to principles of political right with sensitivity to actual political conditions—a claim that importantly and unexpectedly parallels the better known account of the science of the legislator developed by Adam Smith. In comparing these conceptions, this article draws three conclusions: first, Smith's and Rousseau's shared moderation reveals their common commitment to accommodating the passions and prejudices of modernity; second, their fundamental difference concerns not practical legislative methods but rather differing conceptions of natural justice and political right; and finally, their prudential approach to legislation helps clarify the specific types of “moderation” and “intelligence” required of contemporary nation builders.