The Issues of Law and Democracy in the Framework of Social Contract - Annotated Bibliography Example

Mistery, Deepak. “The Gift of Law: Liberty, Legitimacy, and ity in The Social Contract.” South African Journal of Philosophy 27.2 (2008 130-140. Print.  In this study, Mistrey has examined the concept of free will as put forth by Rousseau and pointed out some logical pitfalls in them. He has concluded that it is not simply the ‘we’ or ‘I’ that make laws for ourselves/myself, as Rousseau has said. What Mistrey tries is to prove the commutability of free will and how an ‘other’ is always present in our presumed self-exercises of free will. He has shown that even when Rousseau tries to put so much importance on the will of the individual or a society in his work, The Social Contract, the identity of that will is unclear and contestable. It is in connection with the ideas of liberty and legitimacy, as delineated by Rousseau that Mistrey has investigated this aspect. A law is legitimate, according to Rousseau, if it is made by those who are subject to it. Mistrey goes on to interpret Rousseau to state that according to the logic of Rousseau, a law is legitimate also when it is made by someone deputed by those who are subject to it, who of course makes the law n agreement with their wish. Mistrey is drawing attention to the possibility that legitimacy can survive even with representatives while Rousseau has said that legitimacy will be “eroded by representatives.” Mistrey says that his argument draws from none other than Rousseau himself and supports his argument by stating that when a person commutes his will, the situation is like this: “It is my will …that my will… be the will of another.” Hence, this act also becomes an act of will and hence legitimate. Mistrey has also argued that though the social contract as supposed by Rousseau “replaces natural liberty with civil liberty”, civil liberty is less for the individual and more for the whole. He explains this by saying that “The persuasiveness of the structure depends on mistaking I as part of the whole for I myself.” By eliciting the logic that if I were making law to give myself, I would only be making laws that I want to receive, Mistrey concludes that “sovereign and subject” cannot coincide, to fulfill the act of giving, and hence there is always the presence of an ‘other’. Mistrey’s research paper is important to my paper in understanding Gilman’s ‘The Yellow Wallpaper.’ Arguments presented by Mistrey locates the slow transformation to madness of the protagonist of this story in the eternal presence of the ‘other’. It shows that even the decisions made by the protagonist (like to stay in the place selected for her by her husband) are not exercises of her free will but also partially decisions made by the ‘other’, which in this case is the existing social norms that culturally controls her decisions and emotions. This study is also relevant in making sense of the work, A Season of Madness. In A Season of Madness, the protagonist makes a choice to act mad to achieve her selfish ends, but she is ignorant of the fact that her will to make such a decision is not simply her own will, but also a will partially commuted to the society, unknowingly, which again is a proposition that is supported by Mistrey’s argument. This is why when Fatin, the protagonist decides to tell the truth finally, her voice goes unheard and neglected. So Mistrey’s work can give a coherent theoretical ground for correlating both the cases of insanity, of the unnamed narrator in The Yellow Wallpaper and, of Fatin, the protagonist, in A Season of Madness, and show that civil freedom is always pregnant with insanity and submission to general will. Mistrey’s arguments refute Rousseau’s claim on the non-separate status of individual and social will and substantiate the claim of Talmon that civil freedom can amount to subversion of natural freedom to totalitarianism. Deepak Mistrey is a lecturer of philosophy at the School of Philosophy and Ethics, University of Kwazulu- Natal, Durban. His academic qualifications include, BA (Hons) and MA (Natal). He belongs to the new generation philosophers of South Africa and has created a space of his own in the world of philosophy. Mistrey has extensively reviewed philosophers like Derrida, Rousseau, Austin and Husserl and added his own contributions to their scholarship. Mistrey has created a strong base for this study also by incorporating readings from all the major classical works on morals like the works of Derrida, Hume and Kant, following the tradition of metaphysical research. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. The Social Contract. Trans. G.D.H. Cole, ed. New York: Cosimo, Inc., 2008. Print. Jean-Jacques Rousseau begins his work with the famous proposition that “man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains,” but moves on to suggest that “the strongest (as is designed by nature) is never strong enough to be always the master, unless he transforms strength into right, and obedience into duty.” This leads Rousseau to propose a social theory of social contract in which the individual will finds its real freedom by submitting to the general will. After making a differentiation between the subject who I ruled by law and the sovereign who makes the law, Rousseau claims that there is no actual differentiation between the subject and the sovereign. Rousseau argues that the act of sacrifice of the natural will can be viewed as liberation for the individual from his/her own selfish interests, whereby his/her social rights are also protected. Rousseau thus equates legitimacy with liberty and says that the will of the people is un-transferable to a monarch or any other representative, thus making democracy possible. It is by addressing the contradiction between the individual freedom and the norms of the society that Rousseau begins his discussion. Then Rousseau has tried to draw attention to the dangers of viewing an individual’s natural rights as ultimate and ideal. As examples, he cites the instances of the strongest man not being able to always remain the strongest and that even if a people give in themselves to a king (their natural will to be free is given away by an exercise of that very same natural will), “the gift is itself a civil act, and implies public deliberation.” And, public deliberation means an act of general will. Thus after establishing the superiority of the general will, Rousseau moves ahead with the two elements of the exercise of this general will- the sovereign and the subject which are inseparable from each other. Further Rousseau argues that this general will is not transferable as transfer will erode its very essence. The natural question that arises next is then who makes the law and Rousseau answers that it is the subjects who are ruled by law that make the law (in the form of sovereign) as well. And this is how people give laws to themselves for themselves. Although Rousseau’s “Social Contract” does not directly handle the topic of insanity, it is implied that by resuming one’s natural will, that is, one’s will to be out of the system of sanity as defined by the general will, one is also letting go of the protection imparted by the general will. Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”, and Hanan Al-Shaykh’s “A Season of Madness,” which are examined in my paper for their treatment of insanity, are examples of the truth of Rousseau’s argument. In both these stories, the protagonists’ insanity is a product of the application of the norms of the society or the general will upon the individual will. But the situations in these stories also contrast Rousseau’s principles because the individual will is actually subverted in the end and no common good is achieved. In Charlotte Perkins Gilmans The Yellow Wallpaper, the madness of the protagonist is initiated by her family, the members of which thinks that by restricting her individual will, her conformity to sanity can be assured. On the other hand, in Hanan Al-Shaykhs “A Season of Madness”, the protagonist, Fatin, chooses her madness for personal liberation, which amounts to what Rousseau calls, the resuming of “natural liberty, while losing the conventional liberty”. This is why when Fatin decides to reveal that she was faking insanity, her family compels her to embrace madness. This is how an individual by surpassing the general will, stands to lose even the individual will. This is in agreement with Rousseau because even when ruled by the individual will, Fatin remains a slave, to herself, to her own free will, and this gets revealed only when she reverses her decision .But all the Rousseau’s ideas are supported by Fatin’s case in that people mess up their lives by remaining selfish and adhering to natural will as Fatin did, rather than following the general will. This work holds opposite views to the theories put forth by Talmon. While Rousseau believes that sacrifice of individual will in favor of the general will is the ultimate moment of freedom (freedom from one’s limitations as an individual, freedom from getting overpowered by the stronger individuals), Talmon believes that this will lead to totalitarianism and subversion of individual will by the stronger individuals. Jean-Jacques Rousseau is an 18th century philosopher who influenced the French revolution with his radical ideas. He has contributed to the development modern political theories and sociological understandings. Rousseau handled fiction and philosophy with the same ease and was also a music composer. He was instrumental in negating the then prevalent notion that humans are naturally selfish and anti-social. He canalized his talents into finding an innate reason for morality. Apart from his work being discussed here, he has also written classic works such as Discourse on the Art and Sciences, Discourse on Political Economy, Essay on the Origin of Languages, and so on. Talmon, Jacob. The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy. New York: Norton, 1970. Print. Talmon’s work is a criticism of the Roussaeu’s theory that submitting individual will to the general will is the ultimate freedom and that in such a situation, there is no separation between individual and the sovereign. Opposing Rousseau, Talmon has called such a society, “a totalitarian messianic democracy.” Talmon has questioned the presupposition by the proponents of classical republicanism that there are ultimate morals to which all reasonable humans are bound to in a innate manner. It is also argued by Talmon that a totalitarian democracy has two justification to impose its will on the people- one is the justification of general will and general good and the other is the approval of the majority. And he states that many a time, the individual will is subverted in the name of general will, but really to suit those who are exercising the power to implement the ‘so-called’ general will. Talmon starts his argument by saying that in 18th century, along with the emergence of liberal democracy, a separate stream of totalitarian democracy also was developed. It is based on the assertion and negation of liberty that Talmon differentiates these two kinds of democracies. Talmon calls Rousseau’s ‘general will,’ “an ambiguous concept” and says that it has “became the driving force of totalitarian democracy, and the source of all its contradictions and antinomies.” To explains this, Talmon questions the very notion of “presupposing mankind to be the sum total of individual reasoning beings.” Then Talmon observes that it is equally wrong to see humans as “weak and corrupt” and on the other hand as essentially good. The way in which Rousseau tries to preserve liberty and all the same tries to enforce discipline is a source of ambiguity in his theory, according to Talmon. And Talmon argues that the discipline thus enforced by Rousseau’s theory will become totalitarianism. Talmon also opposes Rousseau’s theory on the grounds that the submission of the individual will to the will of the general population, can even, in certain circumstances, deprive an individual of his/her fundamental rights such as freedom of life. This work is important to my paper in that it explains why the exercise of general will in these stories amounts to pushing people into insanity. The Yellow Wallpaper, and A Season of Madness, two short stories with the underlying theme of insanity, show that both the protagonists’ decision to submit to general will just completed their state of insanity. In Charlotte Perkins Gilmans The Yellow Wallpaper, the dilemma of the individual who is “urged to conform to some objective criterion” is picturized. This is one instance of democratic totalitarianism where any kind of difference is treated a insanity. In both the stories, it becomes evident that freedom cannot be equated with discipline. Talmon’s theorization also supports the conclusion that even the individual will of the two protagonists cannot be seen purely as individual. They are defined and determined by the general will, that is, the totalitarian general will regime. Talmon’s work, by refuting Rousseau’s social contract theory, has provided a platform to realize that individual will often happens to be the reflection of general will and general will is not always the reflection of the individual will. This is why, in A Season of Madness, the protagonist woman has always stand on the opposite side of the majority body politic. Jacob Talmon was professor of modern history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He was the one who coined the term, ‘totalitarian democracy.’ In 1957, Talmon was visiting faculty at St. Catherine’s Coll, Oxford, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton and MIT. He was member of the Israeli Academy of Science and Humanities. He has authored the books, The Nature of Jewish History-Its Universal Significance, 1957; Political Messianism - The Romantic Phase, 1960; The Unique and The Universal, 1965; and Romanticism and Revolt, 1967. He is also the recipient of Israel prize. His contribution have been to areas such as sociology, politics, and history. Read More