Positive Liberty - Various Thinkers

Various Thinkers

Rousseau's theory of freedom, according to which individual freedom is achieved through participation in the process whereby one's community exercises collective control over its own affairs in accordance with the 'general will'. Some interpret the Social Contract to suggest that Rousseau believed that liberty was the power of individual citizens to act in the government to bring about changes; this is essentially the power for self-governance and democracy. Rousseau himself said, "the mere impulse to appetite is slavery, while obedience to law we prescribe ourselves is liberty."

However, this is only one interpretation of Rousseau's work. This view is not really describing the General Will in terms of its more modern interpretations. Rather, it is describing more the 'Will of All' (in Rousseau's terminology). The Will of All contrasts to the General Will in that the prior comprises the composite desires and appetites of those who make up society and the latter the reasoned, objective opinions and beliefs of those who see themselves as part of a nation and of a group of men. A law cannot be said to be of the General Will unless it is general in its origins and applications. Particular wills cannot be homogeneous in the way which the General Will requires. However, this does not mean that Rousseau's liberty is incompatible with positive liberty. Rather, we have to remove the implication that positive liberty requires collective control over affairs which is derived from the conscious and expressed decisions of men. The task which Rousseau gives 'The Lawgiver' in the Social Contract is that of deciphering the General Will from the mass of particular wills. If The Lawgiver, whatever form this may take, is able to do so, then the individuals who comprise a society have truly participated (via their real, reasoned and tempered will) in the collective control of their own affairs. As the extract above says, government by the Will of All is slavery. Rousseau's usual solution to how the Lawgiver may be able to do this is cultural homogeneity on the one hand and physically small states on the other. These two themes recur within Rousseau's works often with the view to homogenising inharmonious particular wills.

According to Hegel, "Freedom is the fundamental character of the will, as weight is of matter... That which is free is the will. Will without freedom is an empty word."