1 These concerns are grounded most particularly in Heideggerian insights regarding the givenness of the world from which being takes its possibilities “in accordance with the way things have been interpreted by the ‘they’” (Heidegger, Martin, Being and Time, trans. Macquarrie, John and Robinson, Edward [New York: Harper & Row, 1962], p. 239).Google Scholar

2 Mouffe, Chantal, “Democratic Politics and the Question of identity” in The Identity in Question, ed. Rachman, John (New York: Routledge, 1995), p. 43Google Scholar. “Perhaps the most well-known short description of postmodernism is that provided by Jean-Francois Lyotard: ‘incredulity towards metanarratives.’ By ‘metanarratives’… Lyotard means those foundational interpretive schemes that have constituted the ultimate and unquestioned sources for the justification of scientific-technological and political projects in the modern world” (White, Stephen K., Political Theory and Postmodernism [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991], pp. 4–5).Google Scholar

3 Connolly, William E., Political Theory and Modernity (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993), p. 371.Google Scholar

4 White, , Political Theory and Postmodernism, p. 20.Google Scholar

5 “The observable social bond is composed of language ‘moves’” (Lyotard, Jean-Francois, The Post-Modern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, trans. Bennington, Geoff and Massumi, Brian [Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984], p. 11).Google Scholar

6 Pippin, Robert B., Modernism as a Philosophical Problem (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1991), p. 159.Google Scholar

7 White, , Political Theory and Postmodernism, p. 40, emphasis added.Google Scholar

8 Ibid., p. 18.

9 Ibid., p. 140.

10 “The test is whether or not a proposed norm is acceptable in an actual argumentation to all who are potentially affected by that norm” (White, Stephen K., The Recent Work of Jürgen Habermas [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988], p. 49).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11 Habermas, thus, manifests attentiveness both to postmodern skepticism, and to the requirements of practical theory, in arguing that his account of communicative reason “makes an orientation to validity claims possible” (Habermas, Jürgen, Between Facts and Norms, trans. Rehg, William [Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996”, p. 5, emphasis added).Google Scholar

12 Gibbard, Allan, Wise Choices, Apt Feelings: A Theory of Normative Judgment (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990), p. 10.Google Scholar

13 Gibbard, , Wise Choices, Apt Feelings, p. 10.Google Scholar

14 “Instrumental rationality is all of rationality” (Ibid., p. 10). “The theory of rational choice…treats practical reason as strictly instrumental” (Gauthier, David, Morals By Agreement [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987], p. 25)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. “Unlike moral theory, rational choice theory offers conditional imperatives, pertaining to means rather than ends” (Elster, Jon, “Introduction,” in Rational Choice, ed. Elster, Jon [New York: New York University Press, 1986], p. 1).Google Scholar

15 Gibbard, , Wise Choices, Apt Feelings, p. 11.Google Scholar

16 The Pareto criterion defines as optimal a state in which the subjective preferences of individuals are satisfied such that no transfer increasing the satisfaction of any one person can be made without a corresponding transfer decreasing the satisfaction of another.

17 “‘Utility information’ can and should be seen to include information about why individuals want what they want” (Goodin, Robert E., “Laundering Preferences,” in Foundations of Social Choice Theory, ed. Elster, Jon and Hylland, Aanund [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989], p. 76).Google Scholar

18 Rawls, John, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971), p. 85Google Scholar. Rawls's precise definition of pure procedural justice indicates clearly why indeterminacy is not a concern for such an account of justice.

19 See Taylor's helpful discussion of the ontological presuppositions necessary to ground a plausible account of willing identification with an ethical tradition. Taylor, Charles, Sources of the Self (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989), p. 165ff.Google Scholar

20 See, for example, Rawls, A Theory of Justice; Dworkin, Ronald, “What is Equality? Part 2: equality of resources,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 10 (1981): 283–345Google Scholar; Scanlon, T. M., “Contractualism and Utilitarianism” in Utilitarianism and Beyond, ed. Sen, Amartya and Williams, Bernard (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), pp. 103–128.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21 Shklar, Judith, Men and Citizens. A Study of Rousseau's Social Contract Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969).Google Scholar

22 Riley, Patrick, Will and Political legitimacy: A Critical Exposition of Social Contract Theory in Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Kant and Hegel (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982), pp. 105–109.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

23 Dent, N. J. H., Rousseau (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988).Google Scholar

24 Shklar, , Men and Citizens; Riley, Will and Political Legitimacy, pp. 112–21Google Scholar; Miller, James, Rousseau, Dreamer of Democracy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984), pp. 185–210Google Scholar; Velkley, Richard L., Freedom and the End of Reason (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), pp. 38–39,99Google Scholar. See Starobinski, Jean, Transparency and Obstruction (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971)Google Scholar; Dent Rousseau; and Melzer, Arthur M., The Natural Goodness of Man (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990)Google Scholar for more sympathetic readings of Rousseau's account of political institutions.

25 Riley, , Will and Political Legitimacy, p. 107.Google Scholar

26 Works by Rousseau are cited in the text. I have used the following translations: Bloom, Allan, Entile or On Education (New York: Basic Books, 1979)Google Scholar. Cress, Donald A., Discourse on the Origins of Inequality (DOI) in jean-Jacques Rousseau: The Basic Political Writings, ed. Cress, Donald A. (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1987).Google ScholarMasters, Judith R., Geneva Manuscript (GM), and On the Social Contract (SC) (New York: St. Martins, 1978).Google ScholarWatkins, Frederick,Considerations on the Government of Poland in Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Political Writings, ed. Watkins, Frederick (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1986).Google Scholar Other citations from Rousseau refer to the French text in the following editions: Lettre a C. Beaumont (1762), de la Pleiade, Edition, vol.4 (LB) (Paris: Gallimard, 1959);Google ScholarLettres Ecrite de la Montague, de la Pleiade, Edition, vol. 3 (LEM) (Paris: Gallimard, 1959);Google Scholar “Political Fragments” (PF), de la Seuil, Edition, vol. 3 (Paris, 1959).Google Scholar

27 Works by Kant are cited in the text, with the Academy page number followed by that of the English translation used. I have used the following translations: Beck, Lewis White, Critique of Practical Reason (CPr) (New York: Macmillan, 1956).Google ScholarEllington, James W., Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals (G) (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1983).Google Scholar Theodore Greene, M. and Hudson, Hoyt H., Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone (R) (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1934/1960).Google ScholarGregor, Mary J., The Metaphysics of Morals, including The Doctrine of Virtue (DV), and The Metaphysical Elements of Justice (MJ), (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).Google ScholarPluhar, Werner S., Critique of Judgment (CJ) (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1987).Google ScholarSmith, Norman Kemp, Critique of Pure Reason (CPR) (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1965).Google ScholarCitations from On the Common Saying: ‘This May he True in Theory, But It Does Not Apply in Practice’ (TP) and Towards Perpetual Peace (TPP) are from the Nisbet, H. B.translation inWritings, Kant's Political, ed. Reiss, Hans (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970).Google Scholar

28 “Our passions are the principal instruments of our preservation. …Their source is natural. … But countless alien streams have swollen it. … Our natural passions are very limited. They are the source of our freedom; they are the instruments of our freedom; they tend to preserve us. All those which subject us and destroy us come from elsewhere.… We appropriate them to the detriment of nature” (Emile 212).

29 “Practical reason. ‥ [is] a causality of reason in the determination of the will” (CPR A803/B831/634).

30 Cassirer, Ernst, The Question of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, trans. Gay, Peter (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1954/1989), p. 55.Google Scholar

31 Ibid., p. 57.

32 Necessary because the individual wills rationally, and thus universally. See Cassirer, , The Question of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, pp. 55,124.Google Scholar

33 Ibid., p. 124.

34 Ibid., p. 63.

35 “If it is at least possible that a people could agree to [a law], it is our duty to consider the law as just” (TP 79).

36 In addition, the Formula of Humanity requires that the individual treat all rational agents as ends. Since an individual cannot be compelled to adopt ends, the compulsion must be supplied by the free will of the individual.

37 Note Velkley's persuasive argument that, for Rousseau, “reason never loses its instrumental character” (Velkley, , Freedom and the End of Reason, p. 37).Google Scholar

38 “What makes man essentially wicked is to have many needs and to depend very much on opinion.‥ the dangers of society make art and care all the more indispensable for us to forestall in the human heart the depravity born of their new needs” (Emile 214). Thus, the best form of education delays exposure to society and opinion. “The child raised according to his age is alone” (Emile 219). The individual should be exposed to “high society” only once he is “in a condition to evaluate it himself” (Emile 222).

39 “Our passions are the principal instruments of our preservation” (Emile 212).

40 Beck, Lewis White, A Commentary on Kant's Critique of Practical Reason (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960), p. 23.Google Scholar

41 Kant defines reason as “the faculty which secures the unity of the rules of the understanding under principles” (CPR A302/B359/303).

42 Beck, , Commentary on Kant's Critique of Practical Reason, p. 50.Google Scholar

43 “Pure reason establishes the goals of action through the formulation of an intrinsically practical and unconditional law. This is its real use” (Ibid., p. 41).

44 See the helpful discussion in Allison, Henry E., Kant's Theory of Freedom (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), pp. 136–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

45 Korsgaard, Christine, “Morality as Freedom” in Kant's Practical Philosophy, ed. Yovel, Yirmiahu (Kluwer, 1989), pp. 23–48.Google Scholar

46 The principle of autonomy directs that the will “seek the law that is to determine it.‥ in the fitness of its maxims for its own legislation of universal laws” (G 441/45). Since the imperative that self-legislation take the form of universal law is not based on any interest, “it alone of all possible imperatives can be unconditional” (G 432/39). Thus, the determination of the autonomous will is distinguished by “the renunciation of all interest” (G 431/38).

47 If the agent fails to prescribe laws for herself, relying on hypothetical maxims grounded in material objects, “the will does not give itself the law, but a foreign impulse gives the law to the will” (G 444/48).

48 SeeAllison, , Kant's Theory of Freedom, pp. 136–45.Google Scholar

49 A material (rather than formal) principle “can indeed remain” as a factor affecting the content of free self-legislation. (CPr 34/35) “Kant clearly allows for the possibility that morally worthy [i.e., free] actions might be prompted by nonmoral motives” (Ibid., p. 119).

50 “Our natural passions are very limited. They are the instruments of our freedom. … All those which subject us and destroy us come from elsewhere. Nature does not give them to us. We appropriate them to the detriment of nature” (Emile 212). Note Velkley's claim that Rousseau's “ideal” of freedom “corresponds to the unobstructed pursuit of prepassionate desire” (Velkley, , Freedom and the End of Reason, p. 38).Google Scholar

51 That is, humans are constrained to act on maxims grounded in the categorical imperative.

52 In Of The Social Contract, Rousseau introduces a second criterion of justice, which holds that all individuals in a certain category will be treated similarly (SC 66). I will not discuss this criterion in this article.

53 In addition, Rousseau's discontinuous conception of time led him to reject notions of representation. I will not develop this point in this article.

54 Sovereign power refers to the legislative power, as distinguished from the executive power, which Rousseau calls the government.

55 The weak quality of rationality creates additional complications in Rousseau's theory of government, since it requires the introduction of the Legislator to compensate for the flawed rationality of the general will, itself. I will not develop the issue in this article.

56 As Rawls has famously argued.