Book contents
- The Cambridge Companion to Rousseau’s Social Contract
- Series page
- The Cambridge Companion to Rousseau’s Social Contract
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction
- 2 “Every Legitimate Government Is Republican”
- 3 What If There Is No Legislator?
- 4 Rousseau’s Republican Citizenship
- 5 Rousseau’s Negative Liberty
- 6 Rousseau’s Ancient Ends of Legislation
- 7 Property and Possession in Rousseau’s Social Contract
- 8 Political Equality among Unequals
- 9 On the Primacy of Peoplehood
- 10 Rousseau on Voting and Electoral Laws
- 11 On the Possibility of a Modern Republic
- 12 Rousseau’s Case against Democracy
- 13 Rousseau’s Dilemma, or “Of Civil Religion”
- 14 Entreating the Political
- 15 Civil Religion and Political Unity
- Bibliography
- Index
- Series page
4 - Rousseau’s Republican Citizenship
The Moral Psychology of The Social Contract
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2024
- The Cambridge Companion to Rousseau’s Social Contract
- Series page
- The Cambridge Companion to Rousseau’s Social Contract
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction
- 2 “Every Legitimate Government Is Republican”
- 3 What If There Is No Legislator?
- 4 Rousseau’s Republican Citizenship
- 5 Rousseau’s Negative Liberty
- 6 Rousseau’s Ancient Ends of Legislation
- 7 Property and Possession in Rousseau’s Social Contract
- 8 Political Equality among Unequals
- 9 On the Primacy of Peoplehood
- 10 Rousseau on Voting and Electoral Laws
- 11 On the Possibility of a Modern Republic
- 12 Rousseau’s Case against Democracy
- 13 Rousseau’s Dilemma, or “Of Civil Religion”
- 14 Entreating the Political
- 15 Civil Religion and Political Unity
- Bibliography
- Index
- Series page
Summary
The success of Rousseau’s political vision depends on citizens placing the common interest above their private interest whenever the two conflict. Rousseau says very little about how citizens could be motivated to do so in the Social Contract, however, which gives rise to questions about how the text relates to his other works. This chapter challenges liberal-egalitarian interpretations of Rousseau that draw on Emile to extract a model of modern citizenship for the Social Contract and instead argues that the Discourse on Political Economy is the most informative text for understanding the theory of republican citizenship required to make the Social Contract project viable. In doing so, it elucidates the moral psychology underpinning Rousseau’s proposals for cultivating political virtue, before responding to the objection that this cannot have been what he had in mind for his native Geneva, which he claimed to have taken as the model for the Social Contract.
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- The Cambridge Companion to Rousseau's Social Contract , pp. 64 - 87Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2024