"To Persuade without Convincing": The Language of Rousseau's Legislator

Abstract

Critics have long noted the paradoxical nature of Rousseau's appeal to a solitary lawgiver within a social contract theory based on equality and consent. However, far from representing a compromise of the principles of equality and consent, the appeal to the legislator is an illustration of the basis upon which consent can be obtained. Rousseau denies that a rational calculation can inspire a whole people to comply with justice. Therefore, he argues that the legislator must persuade without convincing. This nonrational persuasion can be understood as giving citizens a desire to imitate the public-spirited legislator. Persuasion does this by inducing shared feelings in the citizens. Thus, legislating is, in Rousseau's terms, an imitative rather than a philosophic art. Rousseau claims that the modem attempt to make politics more rational makes political thinkers and politicians inattentive to persuasion and, therefore, leaves modern politics open to an exclusive reliance on naked force.