# Rousseau's Law

## September 28th, 2020

-   It's week 7, meaning we're almost at the halfway point of the term - which is crazy!
    -   "I've completed most of the exegesis grades, but I was slower than I've wanted to be and intend to finish them all by the end of today"
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-   Today, we'll be talking about the rest of Book II, and then on Wednesday we'll start Book III
    -   "Even though today's reading wasn't terribly long, I thought it was quite dense; Rousseau has a lot of blink-and-you'll-miss-it comments that end up being important qualifications for his arguments"
        -   At the end of Chapter 10, there's a great irony in Rousseau praising Corsica for its democracy - and, of course, a century later Napoleon would come from Corsica and become one of the world's most notorious tyrants

-   Let's go back to the beginning of Chapter 6
    -   One thing I saw VERY frequently in the exegesis assignments was a misunderstanding of philosophical terminology: people would give me examples or synonyms for the terms they were defining, but not actually tell me WHAT the term itself meant
        -   So, for instance, people would say that "by 'end', Locke is referring to a goal or purpose" - that's technically correct, but it doesn't tell me much about what Locke REALLY means by the "end" of government. What IS that purpose? WHY does it matter? For philosophical definitions, that's important!
    -   Here, in Chapter 6, Rousseau gives us an important, philosophical-style definition: what he thinks LAW is
        -   Rousseau says this here:

            ```
            - II.VI, 5
            ```

        -   Rousseau is saying here that laws are ONLY really laws when the "general will" as a whole makes regulations for the WHOLE people, not a single individual - it must be general in its origins and apply to the people in general
            -   What this comes down to for Rousseau is how you distinguish between what's a "lawful action" of the government and what's a tyrannical action
            -   Locke presupposed something like this general law, but was hand-wavy about his definitions; Rousseau wanted to define this explicitly so it was clear when the state was acting fairly or not
                -   In particular, Rousseau gives the example that singling out a single family or individual or named group is NOT a law; he's okay with certain professions/general groups/etc. having certain laws specific to them SO LONG AS they are not explicitly named and the requirements for entering that class are open to all
                    -   So, Rousseau is okay with saying "you must meet these requirements to be a doctor, and doctors must follow these special rules when working in a hospital," so long as anyone can become a doctor and no one is arbitrarily excluded
                    -   If some of these requirements to enter that profession/class are NOT open to the whole people, however (e.g. "male-only profession," "Irish need not apply," "You are now an enemy of the state, Bob"), Rousseau would consider that unlawful and unjust
                -   Rousseau doesn't see tax brackets as unlawful, for instance, because ANYONE who reaches X amount of income has to pay that much
        -   "Remember, Rousseau is making a distinction between the act of making laws in a republic and the near-mythical LAWGIVER who lays down the procedures/framework for how the law-making process takes place (e.g. how the assembly meets, etc.), which are both different from the government that handles enforcing these laws"
            -   Rousseau gives John Calvin as an example of a lawgiver, as the founder of Geneva as a state - but importantly, he believes a legitimate lawgiver is acting on behalf of the people, not capriciously on their own, and will suit these processes to the people and their culture
                -   For the U.S. Constitution, this'd be the constitutional convention

-   Bringing this back to Rousseau's ideas of freedom and equality, Rousseau believes that freedom means being subject to laws you decide for yourself
    -   Rousseau sees arbitrary power as the worst possible thing in a state, and so his definition of law is MEANT to keep people from being singled out; no one is ever making a law that they themselves would never have to follow under any circumstances

-   *Important side discussion about if this whole thing is "just Rousseau's opinion," which the professor is arguing isn't the case - that Rousseau isn't just giving his opinion, but is giving an argument that is based on reasons and considered judgement, and while you might disagree with Rousseau's reasoning, it isn't just his arbitrary wack-o opinions that you can't argue with*
    -   "I do NOT want to say Rousseau is perfect or correct about everything, but I do think he's presenting a model of politics that's worth considering and taking seriously, and engaging with in reasoned argument instead of just dismissing it as Rousseau's opinion"

-   As a heads-up, next week Rousseau will start talking about "censorship," but he means it in a different sense than we're used to, so be sure to pay attention to that