Rousseau's General Will: A Condorcetian Perspective

1988 ◽  
Vol 82 (2) ◽  
pp. 567-576 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernard Grofman ◽  
Scott L. Feld
Keyword(s):  
Common Good ◽  
General Will ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
The People ◽  
Collective Judgment ◽  
Jury Theorem ◽  
The Common

We identify three basic elements of Rousseau's theory of the general will: (1) there is a common good; (2) citizens are not always accurate in their judgments about what is in the common good; and (3) when citizens strive to identify the common good and vote in accordance with their perceptions of it, the vote of the Assembly of the People can be taken to be the most reliable means for ascertaining the common good. We then show that Condorcet's (1785) model of collective judgment shares these assumptions with Rousseau and that understanding the implications of Condorcet's (1785) “jury theorem” enables us to clarify many of the most obscure aspects of Rousseau's treatment of the general will, including his discussion of the debilitating effects of factions and his confidence in the ability of the Assembly of the People to discern the general will by means of voting.

The Spirit and the Subprime: Race, Risk, and Our Common Dispossession

2016 ◽  
Vol 98 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-69
Author(s):  
Amaryah Jones-Armstrong
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Common Good ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Alternative Conceptions ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
Racial Capitalism ◽  
The People ◽  
The Common

This essay argues that Sarah Coakley's understanding of contemplation and the Spirit's dispossessive work can provide timely interruption of contemporary economic crises when read beside Willie Jennings's indictment of Christianity's imagination as the production of race. Read together, contemplation and dispossession provide useful frames for analyzing and reimagining the common good. Here, I argue that theologians and church communities can understand Coakley's and Jennings's work as confrontations with racial capitalism. In particular, I take Coakley's attention to the need for dispossession by the Spirit to correspond with black theologians’ assertions that we must turn to the dispossessed in the United States—the black and brown poor—to find where God is at work. The racialized subprime debtors who are perpetually dispossessed, failing, and criminal are the people Christian theology must align with in order to confront its relation to white supremacy. By contemplating alternative conceptions of property and ownership foregrounded by the concept of dispossession, we can begin to imagine, perceive, and practice an otherwise common good.

The Possibility of Self-Government

2000 ◽  
Vol 94 (3) ◽  
pp. 563-577 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin Bird
Keyword(s):  
Social Choice ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Social Choice Theory ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
The People ◽  
The Social ◽  
Cast Doubt ◽  
Intuitive Concept ◽  
The Common

Many have suggested that the findings of social choice theory demonstrate that there can be no “will of the people.” This has subversive implications for our intuitive concept of self-government. I explore the relation between the notion of a “social will,” that of self-government, and the impossibility theorems of social choice theory. I conclude that although the concept of the social will is essential to that of self-government, the findings of social choice theory do not cast doubt upon the possibility of either. Unlike many attempts to respond to the threat posed by social choice theory, my argument does not require any appeal to the problematic notion of the common good.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Nicola Miller
Keyword(s):  
Common Good ◽  
Spanish America ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
The People ◽  
Modern Knowledge ◽  
The Common ◽  
Political Communities

This chapter introduces the term 'republic of knowledge', which conceives of knowledge as having a reality and an organisation along the lines of a republic or series of republics. It highlights sovereign states created in Spanish America that were founded on promises of enlightenment for all the people. It also illustrates the image of knowledge as a republic that alludes to a transnational ideal based on principles of openness, free exchange, absence of privilege, and a sense of the common good. The chapter traces how the republics of knowledge in this first sense of open exchange converged and overlapped with the second sense of knowledge, which is foundational to a modern republic during the wars of independence in Spanish America. It emphasizes the embrace of modern knowledge that was a founding justification for the new political communities emerging in the Americas and a necessary condition of an inspirational future.

Self-Interest and the Common Good in Elections and Referenda

2012 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 259-286
Author(s):  
Bernd J. Hartmann
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Common Good ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
The People ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
The Common ◽  
Personal Interests

This article examines the standard of decision-making that applies to voters. Are they free to follow their personal interests or are they bound to make decisions most beneficial to the common good? This question is answered not only for elections,i.e., for people choosing their representatives and for parliament itself appointing officials. Furthermore, the treatise extends to other votes as well, as it covers not only referenda as the paradigmatic means of lawmaking by the people, but also parliamentarian legislation.

How does Spinoza’s “Democracy” differ from that of Hobbes?

2021 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 227-240
Author(s):  
Jonathan Israel
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Common Good ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
The People ◽  
Close Analysis ◽  
The Common ◽  
Natural Power ◽  
Formal Arrangement ◽  
Popular Power ◽  
Great Mass

Abstract Field focuses on the role in political theory of the concept of potentia of the people—power understood as the informal, natural power of the people—as distinct from potestas understood as the formal arrangement of power under the constitution of a given state. In a close analysis of the arguments of Hobbes and Spinoza on popular power and sovereignty, the book critiques democratic interpretations of both theories. While correct about that, the book neglects fundamental dissimilarities in their views of popular power. Of profound importance is the meaning of the concept “multitude”: unlike Hobbes, Spinoza distinguishes between the great mass of individuals and “the wise,” seeing the “multitude” as encompassing most kings. Also, there is a great gulf between their understandings of the “common good.” For Spinoza, obedience to the sovereign, Hobbes’s desideratum, is only compatible with freedom in the context of a state directed to the common good.

scholarly journals Estudo comparativo das receitas das câmaras de Vila Rica e Vila de São João del Rei, 1719-1750 (Comparative study of the revenue of the council of Vila Rica and Vila de São João del Rei, 1719-1750)

2015 ◽  
Vol 16 (25) ◽  
pp. 208
Author(s):  
Fernanda Fioravante Kelmer Mathias
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Comparative Study ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Common Good ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
The People ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Relationship

<p>O presente artigo tem por objetivo a discussão acerca das receitas das câmaras mineiras de Vila Rica e Vila de São João del Rei entre os anos de 1719 e 1750. De modo geral, a historiografia sobre o tema, seja em Portugal, seja no Brasil, apesar de pouco sistemática, defende o senso comum de que as receitas das câmaras no período moderno eram bastante modestas. Dessa forma, para melhor compreender os números da receita camarária, especialmente no que concerne à atuação da câmara frente ao bem comum dos povos e ordenação da sociedade, busquei realizar uma análise pormenorizada e sistemática da receita anual de duas importantes câmaras mineiras na primeira metade do século XVIII, bem como inserir a discussão dentro do debate historiográfico atinente aos recursos da câmara. Para além, o artigo em questão assume uma perspectiva comparativa tanto no que concerne aos dados fornecidos pela historiografia, quanto em relação às duas câmaras em apreço.</p><p><strong><br /></strong></p><p><strong>Abstract</strong></p><p>In general, both in Portugal and in Brazil, the historiography on the subject, although unsystematic, defends the common sense that the revenue from the council in the modern period was rather modest. Thus, to better understand the revenue of the council, especially in relation to the performance of the council in the common good of the people and in the ordering of society, the article examines in detail the revenue of the two major councils of captaincy of Minas Gerais in the first half eighteenth century. The text also contextualizes the discussion within the historiographical debate on the subject. The article analyses the data provided by the historiography, and the relationship between the two councils, from a comparative perspective.</p><p><strong>Keywords</strong>: Colonial Minas; Council’s revenue; Council’s function.</p>

3. The theorist of liberty

2019 ◽  
pp. 57-89
Author(s):  
Quentin Skinner
Keyword(s):  
Common Good ◽  
Free State ◽  
Military Power ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
The People ◽  
The Common ◽  
Civic Religion ◽  
City State ◽  
The City

‘The theorist of liberty’ examines Machiavelli’s Discourses, which discuss the constitution of a free state, maintenance of military power, and good leadership. Examining Livy to find the roots of Rome’s success, Machiavelli argues that a city state must be self-governing and able to pursue the common good. The civic body must also possess virtù. Cities only grow quickly and manage to acquire greatness if the people are in control, so that the city and its citizens are living in liberty. But if liberty is the key to greatness, how can it be acquired and kept safe? Machiavelli admits that an element of luck is always involved, but he chiefly focuses on the role of civic religion and mixed forms of government.

scholarly journals Vontade geral, soberania e liberdade política em Rousseau: algumas problematizações

Problemata ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 255-271
Author(s):  
Eduarda Santos Silva
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Social Contract ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Political Freedom ◽  
The Political ◽  
General Will ◽  
Popular Participation ◽  
The People ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Common

Given the union of individuals by a convention, as idealized by Jean-Jacques Rousseau in The social contract, the political body that is formed will be directed by the general will, which gives unity to the people, considering the person of each associate, their assets and their freedom. Although the general will is the foundation for the maintenance of citizens' political freedom, it is possible to ask whether it will really prevail in all spheres of civil society, if the individuals who deliberate in the exercise of sovereignty are sufficiently informed about what is good common, or if they are led to accept what suits the Legislator, that is, if the general will is not manipulated, corrupted or deceived by this extraordinary figure, considered a guide endowed with superior intelligence to better lead citizens to pass good laws and preserving the common good. We are interested, then, in contrasting the very important issue of the popular participation of individuals in public subjects, highlighted by Rousseau, with the apparent limits that such participation would encounter in a republican state, and its consequences for political freedom.

Liberalism and Republicanism: Friends or Foes? A Reply to Richard Dagger

1999 ◽  
Vol 61 (2) ◽  
pp. 209-214 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J. Sandel
Keyword(s):  
Common Good ◽  
Civic Virtue ◽  
Fair Play ◽  
Individual Rights ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
Liberal Tradition ◽  
The People ◽  
The Common ◽  
Liberal Rights ◽  
Self Rule

I am grateful to Professor Dagger for his insightful critique. He brings out the continuities and differences between Democracy's Discontent and my earlier work with subtlety and care. He writes in defense of liberalism, but not without sympathy for many of the ideals I invoke in the name of republicanism—civic virtue, encumbered selves, obligations of membership, the formative project. In fact, his republican sympathies are so expansive that I found myself unsure at times whether I could identity a fundamental disagreement.Professor Dagger's basic objection, as I understand it, is this: I overstate the opposition between liberalism and republicanism, between autonomy and civic virtue; in drawing these distinctions too sharply, I fail to acknowledge the elements of liberalism I implicitly affirm. Professor Dagger accepts the importance of civic virtue and the formative project. But he considers it a mistake to oppose liberalism as vigorously as I do, and “particularly wrong to oppose republicanism to liberalism.” Instead, he favors a “hybrid” of liberalism and republicanism that combines autonomy and civic virtue. Any republicanism worth defending must include “a commitment to liberal principles, such as tolerance, fair play, and respect for the rights of others.”Whether liberalism and republicanism are compatible doctrines depends on how they are conceived. At a certain level of generality, there is no necessary conflict: the liberal tradition stands for toleration and individual rights, while the republican tradition stands for government by the people. Liberal rights support republican self rule by preventing the majority from oppressing the minority, while the republican emphasis on civic virtue restrains individuals from abusing their rights and ignoring the common good.

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