The Social Contract

Character Guide

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The Sovereign (The Body Politic / The People (collectively))

The collective moral person formed when individuals unite under the social compact; described in Book I as holding all legislative authority and being 'formed wholly of the individuals who compose it.'

The Citizen

Each individual considered as a sharer in sovereign power; bound by a double capacity, giving consent to the general will while also being subject to it.

The Subject

Each individual considered as bound by the laws of the State; the same person as the Citizen but viewed in the capacity of one who obeys rather than legislates.

The General Will

The constant, unified will of the political body aimed always at the common good; introduced in Book I as the foundation that makes association legitimate and citizens free.

The Legislator (The Lawgiver)

An extraordinary figure Rousseau envisions as needed to draft a people's foundational laws, requiring near-superhuman insight into human nature and society.

The Prince / Government (The Executive Power)

The body charged with executing the laws that the Sovereign (the people) has willed; Rousseau stresses it is not itself sovereign and is instituted by the people, not a contracting party with them.

Man in the State of Nature (Natural Man)

The pre-social individual Rousseau describes (drawing on his earlier Discourse material) as free, self-sufficient, and guided by simple instinct before property and dependence arose.

Glossary

General Will

The unified, common will of the political body directed at the common good, as opposed to the sum of private wills; the central concept underpinning legitimate sovereignty.

Social Compact / Contract

The foundational agreement by which individuals unite, each surrendering personal power to the collective, forming the State and the Sovereign.

Particular Will

An individual's private, self-interested will, which may conflict with the general will even though the same person also shares in willing the common good.

Sovereign

Rousseau's term for the collective body of citizens acting in its legislative capacity, distinct from 'government' or 'the prince,' which merely executes the Sovereign's will.

Body Politic

The State conceived as a unified moral and collective person, formed by the act of social union, with its own life, will, and identity.

Legislator (Lawgiver)

An ideal founding figure tasked with drafting a people's fundamental laws, requiring extraordinary wisdom and standing outside ordinary political power.

Tribunate

A Roman republican office Rousseau analyzes as a check that defended the people's interests against encroachment by magistrates or the Senate.

Dictatorship (Roman sense)

A temporary, extraordinary concentration of power granted during emergencies to preserve the State, distinct from modern authoritarian usage of the word.

Censor / Censorship

A Roman magistracy Rousseau discusses as guardian of public morals (mores), shaping opinion and custom rather than making law directly.

Civil Religion

Rousseau's proposed set of minimal, state-sanctioned social-moral dogmas meant to bind citizens to duty and the sanctity of the social contract, distinct from private religious belief.

Persona Ficta

Latin for 'fictitious person'; used by Rousseau to describe how an individual might wrongly regard the State as an unreal, impersonal entity to which duties need not be seriously owed.

Comitia

The popular assemblies of ancient Rome where citizens voted on laws and magistrates, examined by Rousseau as a model of direct popular sovereignty.

First Occupier, Right of

The principle that labor and cultivation, not mere claim, legitimately establish a person's property right over previously unowned land.

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