Rousseau and Revolution

Arbitrariness and Freedom 73
general object and, Rousseau insists, ‘it alters its nature when it has a particular
object’ or ‘it loses its natural rectitude when it tends toward any
individual determinate object’ (Rousseau, 1997e, Book II, chapter 4).
Although Willkür is universal and negatively free because of its capacity of
making abstraction from everything (from all particular content that determines
it as individual) in order to actually will it must will a determinate
content. But since the will is independent of all material, any content whatsoever
can be made to fi t its volition. No constraint can restrict the choice of
the content because the will is the source of all constraint. Herein lies the
arbitrariness of Willkür. Rousseau’s general will, far from being the sanction
and the basis of right, can be dangerously used as justifi cation for any content.
The Terror draws the extreme consequences out of this claim. The
will’s freedom is only negative and abstract freedom – ‘absolute’ indeed in
the sense of sheer arbitrariness.
Thus, while Rousseau intends to use the concept of the will to remove
contingency from the social political realm, the general will, precisely
because of its (abstract) universality remains fundamentally arbitrary thereby
undermining the necessity of the political unity. On this basis (or, with
Hegel, if Willkür is assumed as the ‘foundation’ of right), the results brought
to light by the revolution are indeed unavoidable (Hegel, 1968, R §29; see
Ripstein, 1994, 456).
Rousseau: Differing from the General Will
Discussing the concept of sovereignty that results from the social compact,
Rousseau presents the asymmetrical relationship between ‘the sovereign’
and ‘the private individuals who make it up’. The asymmetry is due to the
arbitrariness of the will on which the relation is based. Since the sovereign
power is constituted by the individuals that endorse the common perspective
of the general will, ‘it has no need to offer a guarantee to its subjects,
since it is impossible for a body to want to harm all of its members’. The
point, however, is ‘that the same thing cannot be said of the subjects in relation
to the sovereign’. In this case the sovereign needs additional guarantees
of ‘their fi delity’ besides the ‘common interest’. It is here that the
element of arbitrariness that menaces the general will comes to the fore so
that the resurging threat of the subjects’ individuality needs to be put under
control. ‘Each individual can, as a man, have a private will contrary to and
different from the general will that he has as a citizen. His private interest can
speak to him in an entirely different manner than the common interest’. This is