(Apex) Answer each question

1. According to Rousseau, why must human beings work together to survive?

2. How does Rousseau believe people can overcome the obstacles to survival that everyone faces?

3. According to Rousseau, how do people know about the "clauses" (parts) of the social contract?

4 Explain what Rousseau means by "the general will." Use evidence from the passage to back up your answer.

5. What is the main idea of this passage: "Each of us puts his person and all his power in common under the supreme direction of the general will, and, in our corporate capacity, we receive each member as an indivisible part of the whole"?

6. What three points does Rousseau make to support his belief that the social contract will work? Cite evidence from the passage to support your answer.

1, Rousseau believes that people must work together because there are too many problems in their way if they remain alone. No one person has all the resources necessary to overcome all of these problems, so people have to find ways to survive as a group.

2. The belief that man, by nature, is good was espoused by the French philosopher, Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778). He believed that people in the state of nature were innocent and at their best and that they were corrupted by the unnaturalness of civilization.

3.“Man was born free, and everywhere he is in chains” (Rousseau, 20072: 28). This conspicuous paradox between liberty and human oppression is reflected in Rousseau’s entire politico-moral philosophy and so it is no surprise that he has been much criticized for seeming ambiguities within his works (Brown, Nardin, Rengger, 2002: 397). This essay focuses on the apparent contradiction that Rousseau strongly criticizes the social contract tradition and at the same time defends a social contract theory as the only solution to save mankind from corruption and degeneration.

4, Jean-Jacques Rousseau remains an important figure in the history of philosophy, both because of his contributions to political philosophy and moral psychology and because of his influence on later thinkers. Rousseau’s own view of philosophy and philosophers was firmly negative, seeing philosophers as the post-hoc rationalizers of self-interest, as apologists for various forms of tyranny, and as playing a role in the alienation of the modern individual from humanity’s natural impulse to compassion. The concern that dominates Rousseau’s work is to find a way of preserving human freedom in a world where human beings are increasingly dependent on one another for the satisfaction of their needs. This concern has two dimensions: material and psychological, of which the latter has greater importance.

5.Rousseau's Du contrat social was epoch-making in its argument that law legitimately comes only from the sovereign people legislating for itself: from the general will. Rousseau followed in the social contract tradition of Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679), John Locke (1632–1704), and others, but sought to find a form of political association in which naturally free individuals can join with others and yet remain as free as before. His solution was direct democratic self-legislation in which each citizen, as a member of the sovereign, makes laws that apply equally to all. "Each of us puts his person and all his power in common under the supreme direction of the general will; and in a body we receive each member as an indivisible part of the whole" (Contrat social, I.6). Rousseau pressed a radically voluntarist principle into service as the binding force of the political community. Although he recognized a "universal justice emanating from reason alone," he argued that this justice is ineffective for want of a natural sanction (Contrat social, II.6). Rousseau's general will was confined to the limits of the state.

6. Rousseau begins The Social Contract with the most famous words he ever wrote: “Men are born free, yet everywhere are in chains.” From this provocative opening, Rousseau goes on to describe the myriad ways in which the “chains” of civil society suppress the natural birthright of man to physical freedom. He states that the civil society does nothing to enforce the equality and individual liberty that were promised to man when he entered into that society. For Rousseau, the only legitimate political authority is the authority consented to by all the people, who have agreed to such government by entering into a social contract for the sake of their mutual preservation.

a more perfect union: the creation of the u.s. constitution. the vote was unanimous. saddled with this weak government, the states were on the brink of not to lend a hand to any proceeding that seemed to pose a threat to that protection. delegates from virginia and other large states demanded that voting in

it affected it because the kingdoms (with trade) slowly got richer and richer.