The General Will

Abstract

The concept of the general will enters modern philosophy for the first time in Rousseau’s discussion about the “Volonté de tous.”¹ It is true that Hobbes and Locke had already presented similar ideas. Hobbes, for example, argued that the state was a “real entity” and should be viewed as a person; but “real” in this sense can only mean that the state is the bearer of the unified power of those individuals united within it, for the state is based upon an agreement, it is an “artificial person.”² “Person” should likewise be understood as a legal construct, the bearer of the rights given up by the individuals.³ For Hobbes there is no “moral person” recognizing in its own consciousness the power of a higher law; the general will is so unlike the “real” will of individuals, that the state comes into existence only after individual wills subordinate themselves to the will of the ruler and accept his commands unconditionally.⁴

Reprinted from Robert E. Park, The Crowd and the Public and Other Essays (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1972), pp. 63-81.