The Social Contract Theory of Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Abstract

The paper presents Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s social contract theory within the context of the period in which it was created, and also in relation to the previous, modern contract theories. The authors indicate the complexity and interconnection between the general will and sovereignty, which Rousseau saw as the basis of the contract which caused the exit from the natural state and the foundation of the political body based on civil liberty. Unlike his predecessors, Rousseau viewed the contract, as well as the republic, in a rather ethical context than a legal one, so he understood the political community as the creation which was founded on the morale of its citizens and integrated due to the civic virtue. Such an idea further led the author towards the consideration of education within the spirit of civil religion, which he saw as the moral base of a unique and undivided nation, in which all the individual and particular interests were declared as hostile and destructive elements of the social body. The collectivistic energy of Rousseau’s theory would soon become the main source of inspiration to the Jacobins and the revolutionary terror in France after the Revolution.