Essay on Rousseau’s Theory of General Will
By making the General Will sovereign and individuals as participants in the General Will, Rousseau reconciled authority with freedom as none before him had done. In order to understand how Rousseau achieved this end, we need to appreciate the nature of the General Will.In the Discourse on Political Economy, where he had first stated the concept of General Will, Rousseau says that âGeneral will tends always to the preservation and welfare of the whole and of every part, and is the source of the laws, constitutes for all the members of the state, in relation to one another and to it, the rule of what is just and unjust.âIt aims always at the public good and is different from the will of all, for while the former aims at the…