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ng as the habits and eventual character of political virtue are exemplified in the people. In the republic, there is no one-to-one correspondence with what exists in despotism or a monarchy: a strong central authority. Therefore, the people must, by loving egalitarianism and the laws, arrange a situation for themselves wherein the needs of the good are served, even if at the expense of the needs of the many. This is exactly what Greece did, he argues, and it is incumbent upon any subsequent attempts at a republic to do the same. “L’amour de la liberté, la haine des rois, conserva longtemps la Grèce dans l’indépendance, et étendit au loin le gouvernement républicain.”
 
Rousseau and the Fragility of Egalitarianism
 
One could hardly resist beginning the discussion on Rousseau with his famous opening to chapter one of the Contrat Social. “L'homme est né libre, et partout il est dans les fers.” How this particular situation came to be, Rousseau does not attempt to answer. Rather, he focuses his attention on how it is that man can get back to his original (or perhaps “primal”) state of freedom. If man in a state of servitude obeys his masters, he does well. However, if he can break free from that state, he does better still because to be free is man’s natural and original state, seen most evidently within the rites of passage intrinsic to family life.
 
Although it could not be rightly said that Rousseau takes no points of departure from the thought of Montesquieu, there are nevertheless significant points of agreement between them on the idea of the republic. Rousseah offers as his main contribution to the discussion over the republic that a return to the ancient (i.e., Greek) polis is the most advisable course of action. Yet, an intrinsic tension to this suggestion is that Rousseau simultaneously advocates the idea of the “natural law” quite strongly. According to Helena Rosenblatt, for Rousseau the natural law is a very self-interested concept, which is at least prima facie at odds with the republican ideal of each person being grounded in virtue and community as that which adheres the republic together and maintains it. The more refined concept of the “general will” complicates the matter further and makes egalitarianism a la republicanism an even more fragile thing.
 
Rousseau’s “General Will”
 
In his writings prior to the Social Contract, Rousseau had explicitly indicated that he denied that man was naturally and easily a sociable creature. No, man’s first inclinations are not toward the public good, but in the direction of particular self-interests and this is evident by the historical facts that “les longs débats, les dissensions, le tumulte, annoncent l'ascendant des intérêts particuliers et le déclin de l'Etat.” So, what takes place amidst the social contract is the necessity of all citizens when laying down public policy to not act in merely self-interested ways. The good of the many, the common good, was to be the overriding concern of all citizens in this regard, and this is the “general will” of Roussea, which he explores and elaborates in great throughout the Social Contract. But, what makes this concept of the “general will” even more tense and lending to the creation of a fragile situation for egalitarianism is the paradoxical idea related to literally enforcing that citizens act in accord with t本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。