The esoteric cornerstones of Rousseau's philosophy: the 'private will', the 'general will and the 'will of all'

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What are Rousseau’s distinctions between “private will”, “general will” and the “will of all”?


1. Introduction

The Social Contract was written at a time when ideas of freedom and democracy were only just beginning to achieve the central place they have come to occupy in political thinking. As such Rousseau tends to describe and justify these concepts in a way that is very unfamiliar and difficult to fully grasp. Therefore, before we can even begin to form opinions about the validity of his ideas, it is vital to be sure we fully understand the terms he uses and how they relate to one another.

This is problematic in the case of the three different kinds of “will” used in the book since unlike many other important terms which Rousseau uses, they are rarely explicitly defined and are used mainly as a way of supporting and defining other concepts. Nevertheless it is still possible to take the various times they are mentioned and put them together to try and form a coherent single definition. Since the term “general will” is by far the most complex and broad-reaching of the three terms, the majority of this essay will be concerned with defining that term. This is the approach I shall use to define the three “wills”, after which I will summarise the definitions I have arrived at and show how they can be distinguished from each other. I will argue that the “general will” is to be distinguished from the “private will” and the “will of all” in that it concerns not desire, but interest and in that concerns a group of people as a single entity rather than as individuals.


2. The nature of the “private will”

The “private will” seems to me be the easiest of the three terms to comprehend since it consists solely of the opinion of any specific individual. Since Rousseau states that “it is a contradiction in terms of to say that any human being should wish to consent to something that is the reverse of his own good” (p. 70) we can assume that these opinions are going to be made up of what the individual in question considers to be in his own best interests. This is confirmed when he states that “the private will inclines by its very nature towards partiality, and the general will towards equality” (p. 69). In other words, the “private will” tends to be selfish, in that it places the interests of the individual above that of the group (though that does mean the two cannot coincide).


3. The nature of the “will of all

The “will of all” is simply the sum total of all the individuals in the “body politic’s” own private wills:

“…the will of all studies private interest, and is indeed no more than the sum of individual desires.” (p. 72)

This does mean that it can be seen as the collective desire of the “people”. The democratic consensus of a “people” would not be the “will of all”. It is more correctly seen as a multitude of different private wills with, in all probability, many conflicting directions.


4.1. The “general will” as the best interests of the “body politic”

The “general will” is neither of these things. It is created only by the creation of a “people” or “body politic” via the “social contract”. Like the “body politic” itself, the “general will” is essentially an artificial product of the “social contract”. It consists of whatever is in the best interests of the “body politic” considered as a whole and it is important to remember that no member of the “body politic” need desire what is the “general will” for the “general will” to remain the “general will” – there is a crucial distinction between the “general will” of the “body politic” – i.e., its best interests - and the collective desire of the “people”:

“the general will always be rightful and always tends to the public good; but it does not follow that the deliberations of the people are always equally right.” (p. 72)

4.2. The “general will” as the outcome of democratic debate

On the other hand, Rousseau does seem to suggest that the general will should be discerned, at least partially, only from the collective desire of the “body politic” as a result of discussions in some form of democratic assembly. He appears to contradict himself by describing how the “general will” emerges directly from the “will of all”:

“…if we take away from these same wills [those composing the “will of all”], the pluses and minuses which cancel each other out, the balance which remains is the general will.”

The idea of the “general will” being a collective opinion rather than a collective interest is reinforced when he says that “for the will to be general, it does not always have to be unanimous; but all the votes must be counted” (p. 70) – i.e. the general will is discerned through voting.

So here we apparently have two separate concepts of the “general will” – one in which it is the best interests of the “body politic” and one in which it is the collective decisions of the “people”. Rousseau resolves this conflict to some extent by introducing certain qualifications which must be imposed upon the decisions of the “people” before they can be considered to be reflective of the “general will”

Firstly, they must come “from the deliberations of a people properly informed” (p. 73). Secondly, there must be “no sectional associations in the state… every citizen should make up his own mind for himself” (p. 73), the reasoning being that the opinions formed within an association represent only the “general will” of that association. Only then will a “people” be able to discern their true best interests as a group – the “general will”.

Whether these conditions can ever be completely met is highly debateable. “Properly informed” is a very subjective term since no one individual, let alone every individual in a political entity, can ever have access to all the facts that could be relevant to a given issue, and who is to decide when the available facts are sufficient to make a person “properly informed”? Likewise, while it is possible to formally ban parties and other associations, it would be impossible to completely stop a “people” from having “any communication among themselves” (p. 73). A family or a workplace is all that is necessary for some form of alternative “general will” and sectional interest to develop.


4.3. The “general will” as the theoretical best interests of the “body politic” to be worked towards through democratic debate

From this perspective, we can see how the apparent conflict between Rousseau’s two descriptions of the “general will” is not so great. The “general will” remains the theoretical best interests of the “people” and these interests can only be discerned by a theoretical “people” because of their perfect access to information and perfectly un-fractured group identity.

Given the apparent contradictions between the two presentations of the “general will” and the lack of an explicit clear-cut definition, it is very difficult to be entirely sure of what Rousseau meant by the “general will”. I find that the most accurate definition to use is that the “general will” is a perfect position which invariably exists only in theory. This does not make it meaningless however, since some decisions will be closer to the “general will” than others. For example, “the more… that public opinion approaches unanimity, the more the general will is dominant” (p. 151). What Rousseau is concerned with is identifying the conditions in which the decisions of the “body politic” are most likely to be aligned with the “general will”.


5. Conclusion: distinguishing between the terms

Having thus defined the terms “private will”, “will of all” and “general will” it is not hard to distinguish between the three. The “private will” is the desire of the individual. The “will of all” is the sum total of all the different individual desires of the members of a “people”. The “general will” is the best interests of the “people” taken as a whole. It can be clearly distinguished from the “private will” and the “will of all” in a number of ways. Firstly, it is not a desire or opinion, but an ideal course of action. Secondly, while the “private will” and the “will of all” relate solely to individuals, the “general will” relates solely to the “people” take as an interconnected whole. Thirdly, while the “will of all” considers the “body politic” as the sum total of the individuals which compose it, the “general will” considers the “body politic” as a single entity. In summary, while the “private will” and the “will of all” are concerned with maximising the interests of each particular citizen, the “general will” is concerned with maximising the interests of the “people” as a whole, presumably the ideal course of action being one whereby individual interests which benefit or do not harm the whole are maximised, but where individual interests which harm other individuals’ interests are curtailed.