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内容简介

发表于1762年的《社会契约论》是卢梭最重要的政治著作，书中提出的“主权在民”思想具有划时代的意义，是现代民主政治的基石。其核心思想“合法的国家必须根据普遍意志来进行管理”代表了人民专制对旧有制度的替代，象征了主权和自由。

作者简介

让-雅克·卢梭（1712—1778）　法国伟大的启蒙思想家、哲学家、教育家、文学家，十八世纪法国大革命的思想先驱，启蒙运动最卓越的代表人物之一。主要著作有《论人类不平等的起源和基础》、《社会契约论》、《忏悔录》等。《社会契约论》的主权在民思想，是现代民主制度的基石。

目　　录

Introduction A Note on the Text and TranslationSelect BibliographyA Chronology of Jean-Jacques RousseauPOLITICAL ECONOMYTHE SOCIAL CONTRACTAppendix: The General Society of the Human RaceExplanatory NotesIndex

前　　言

In 1755, the publication of Rousseau’s Discourse on Inequality brought him considerable success, but also created obligations. The Discourse, in tracing the moral decay of man in society, drew a large-scale contrast between the state of nature, in which man had at least the potential for good, and the social state, which as Rousseau described it had led to misery and tyranny . The contrast between nature and society made it possible to denounce many political and social evils, but left fundamental questions unanswered; the author owed it to himself and to his public to develop his ideas further. One question was how the individual’s potential for good could be preserved in the social milieu of the mid-eighteenth century, and to this answer came with ?mile, or Education (1762); another was whether coexistence in society necessarily made all the citizens hostile to each other, seeking their own interests at the expense of everyone else. The historical approach of the Discourse, together with the discreet omission of direct political reference, left it unclear whether the evils depicted by Rousseau were those only of his own time and place, or were inevitable in all societies at every period. The Social Contract, expanding some hints in an enigmatic paragraph of the Discourse, denies this inevitability and offers a more optimistic evaluation. However, the optimism is fragile; Rousseau shows that politically organized society, ‘the state’ as he usually calls it, can be beneficial and just, but also that the threats to a well-ordered state are persistent and ubiquitous.   During the years that it took for his thought to mature, he contributed his article Political Economy to Diderot and d’Alembert’s Encyclopédie and discussed the social and moral aspects of culture in the long Letter to d’Alembert on theatre (1758). He also wrote one of the century’s most popular and influential novels, Julie, but abandoned an ambitious project he had started, a work on political institutions generally. He says at the beginning of the Social Contract, which appeared in 1762, the same year as ?mile, that it is all that remains of this larger work. The paragraph in the Discourse on Inequality (towards the end of Part II) had sketched the main theory in outline: ‘The people having, as regards their social relations, concentrated all their wills into one, the several articles in respect of which this will is expressed become so many fundamental laws. . . and one of articles regulates the choice and power of the magistrates [officers of state] appointed to watch over the execution of the rest’,. Rousseau introduces the passage with a guarded remark that he is here adopting the ‘common opinion’ that society is based on a contract, or blinding agreement; he thus acknowledges that he was working within a particular conceptual tradition, the contract theory of the state. This dated back to ancient times, and had been of fundamental importance in European thought since the sixteenth century.  As regards Rousseau’s contribution to the tradition, two preliminary observations should be made: that for most educated Europeans the standard view, even as late as 1762, was probably not the contract theory, despite its influence, but the belief that kings had a divine right to rule, a right that was seen as the origin and basis of social organization; and secondly, that among those who preferred the contract theory, the usual view again favoured monarchy, interpreting the contract as some kind of agreement between ruler and subjects (a ‘contract of submission’) by which the subjects consent to be ruled. Rousseau made a great change. It lies in the words ‘having concentrated all their wills into one’. The notion thus expressed was later, in the article Political Economy, to become the ‘volonté générale’, or general will. It is this concept, rather than his view of the contract, which is Rousseau’s lasting contribution to political theory. Its appearance in the Contract is a clear sign that monarchist theories of the state were beginning to give way to democratic ideas, ‘the people’ having (in Rousseau’s formulation of the contract) an active rather than a passive role. In an even wider context, the concept of the general will is of importance to anyone reflecting on the relationship of the individual to the social group or groups of which he is a member, since it seeks to define the nature of the bond by which the group is created.  The Political Economy article, though published like the second Discourse in 1755, seems likely (the point is debatable) to have been written after it, the Discourse dating back to an essay competition announced in 1753. Rousseau wrote the article when he and Diderot were close friends; they quarreled a few years later. Diderot commissioned the article, and he and Rousseau seem to have cooperated in working out their political ideas, since Diderot wrote, for the same volume, an article on Nature Law (Droit naturel) to which Rousseau’s article refers, and on which he must have reflected deeply. A chapter discarded from the Contract, given here in the Appendix, refutes some of its arguments. ‘La volonté générale’, however is a phrase used also by Diderot, and Rousseau’s reference to him in the Encyclopédie concerns the general will; it appears in a passage which compares society, the ‘the body politic’, to a human body. This is part of an argument that a social group, while it consists of separate individuals, possesses a single will, which like the will of a particular person ‘tends always to the conservation and well-being of the whole’. What part Diderot played in the genesis of the idea now always connected with Rousseau is unclear, but the passage in the Political Economy article testifies to an important stage in its development.  In various other respects also Rousseau’s article, commonly known as his Discourse on Political Economy, is transitional between the Discourse on Inequality and the Social Contract. It retains the high moral tone and some of the indignant rhetoric of the earlier discourse, for instance in the third section when contrasting the situations of rich and poor, and displays already the later work’s anxiety about the maintenance of the social bond, constantly at risk because of the selfishness and partiality of particular elements of society, whether individuals or groups. Less methodical and abstract than the Contract, and superficially more modern in that there are fewer illustrations taken from the ancient world, it tackles one major subject barely mentioned in the Contract, that of taxation, and has much to say on patriotism, which the Contract does not discuss explicitly; the link between patriotism and the maintenance of social feeling, however, will be clear. The feel of the two works is different, too. Perhaps in adapting himself to the authoritative style expected from an encyclopaedia, Rousseau tends in article to treat society from the administrative angle, a manner that seems not to have suited him, because he did not return to it. He was prepared to play the loftier role of legislator, as in his A Projected Constitution for Corsica (written in about 1764-5) or his Considerations on the Government of Poland (1771-2), but not that of public official. In the Social Contract, the voice is that of the theorist, but one who is more on the side of the individual than of government. The essential vision is that of the member of society, the figure Rousseau usually calls the citizen, a man (it has to be accepted that, whether out of obedience to convention or deliberate choice, Rousseau’s terminology is consistently masculine) who is not isolated as he conceivably would be in the ‘state of nature’, but one among many others of the same kind forming a society.  The precise date at which Rousseau began working towards his treatise is not known. In the Confessions, Book X, he explains that it was on moving house late in 1757 that he abandoned most of the larger project on political institutions in general. Of the Contract, a partial first version has survived in what is called ‘the Geneva manuscript’. It contains roughly the same material, differently arranged, as the first two books of the published work, breaking off  soon after the beginning of the third; there is also a draft of the last main chapter, on civil religion.  The manuscript also shows that Rousseau hesitated over his title. Apparently not fully satisfied with the word Contract, he at one time preferred ‘On civil society’. In the text, he often uses synonyms such as pact, notably in the title of the sixth chapter of Book I, a basic chapter which follows some preliminary arguments rebutting earlier theories of society. The essential idea is that of a voluntary agreement among a group. Initially, the agreement is seen as the answer to the problem of ensuring joint protection for a number of people living in unsafe conditions; later it becomes something more like a consensus on the value of living in society. Even in the formulation of the problem in I. vi, the concept of the general will is hinted at, and the definition of the pact, when it comes, in effect defines the general will also. Beginning in terms of self-interest—each future associate seeks to remain free, while receiving benefits from the cooperation of all the others—the argument leads towards the mutual surrender of individualism; after agreement is reached the association transforms itself into a corporate entity with a single will.

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没有卢梭，就不会有法国大革命。　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 ——拿破仑? 　　卢梭是另一个牛顿。牛顿完成了外界自然的科学，卢梭完成了人的内在宇宙的科学，正如牛顿揭示了外在世界秩序和规律一样，卢梭则发现了人的内在本性　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 ——康德?　　在《社会契约论》中康德找到了自己的道德启蒙，即“自由是人所特有的”这一原则。所有狂飙突进时期的德国天才人物，从先驱者莱辛和赫尔德开始，直到歌德和席勒……都是卢梭的崇拜者。　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 ——罗曼·罗兰

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BOOK II INTEND to examine whether, in the ordering of society, there can be any reliable and legitimate rule of administration, taking men as they are, and laws as they can be. I shall try, throughout my enquiry, to combine what is allowed by right* with what is prescribed by self-interest, in order that justice and utility should not be separated. I begin my discussion without proving the importance of my subject. People will ask me whether I write on politics because I am a ruler or legislator. I answer that I am not; and that is the reason why I write on politics. If I were a ruler or a legislator, I should not waste my time saying what ought to be done; I should do it, or hold my peace.  I was born a citizen of a free state and a member of its sovereign body,* and however weak may be the influence of my voice in public affairs, my right to vote on them suffices to impose on me the duty of studying them. How happy I am, each time that I reflect on governments, always to find new reasons, in my researches, to cherish the government of my country!Chapter iThe Subject of the First BookMan was born free,* and everywhere he is in chains. There are some who may believe themselves masters of others, and are no less enslaved than they. How has this change come about? I do not know. How can it be made legitimate That is a question which I believe I can resolve.  If I were to consider force alone, and the effects that it produces, I should say: for so long as a nation is constrained to obey, and does so, it does well; as soon as it is able to throw off its servitude, and does so, it does better; for since it regains freedom by the same right that was exercised when its freedom was seized, either the nation was justified in taking freedom back, or else those who took it away were unjustified in doing so. Whereas the social order is sacred right, and provides a foundation for all other rights. Yet it is a right that does not come from nature; therefore it is based on agreed conventions. Our business is to find out what those conventions are. Before we come to that, I must make good the assertion that I have just put forward.Chapter iiThe First SocietiesTHE most ancient of all societies, and the only one that is natural, is the family. Even in this case, the bond between children and father persists only so long as they have need of him for their conservation. As soon as this need ceases, the natural bond is dissolved. The children are released from the obedience they owe to their father, the father is released from the duty of care to the children, and all become equally independent. If they continue to remain living together, it is not by nature but voluntarily, and the family itself is maintained only through convention. *  Tis shared freedom is result of man’s nature. His first law is his won conservation, his first cares are owed to himself; as soon as he reaches the age of reason, he alone is the judge of how best to look after himself, and thus he becomes his own master.If we wish, then, the family may be regarded as the first model of political society: the leader corresponds to the father, the people to the children, and all being born free and equal, none alienates his freedom except for reasons of utility. The sole difference is that, in the family, the father is paid for the care he takes of his children by the love he bears them, while in the state this love is replaced by the pleasure of being in command, the chief having no love for his people.  Grotius denies that all human power is instituted for the benefit of the governed. * He cites slavery as an example; his commonest mode of reasoning is to base a right on a fact. A more logical method could be employed, but not one that is more favourable to tyrants.  It is therefore doubtful, following Grotius, whether the human race belongs to a hundred or so men, or whether these hundred men belong to the human race, and he seems inclined, throughout his book, towards the former opinion. This is Hobbes’s view also.* Behold then the human race divided into herds of cattle, each with its chief, who preserves it in order to devour it.  ‘As a shepherd is of a nature superior to that of his flock, so too the shepherds of men, their chiefs, are of a nature superior to their peoples’—this argument, according to Philo, was used by the Emperor Caligula;* who would conclude (correctly enough, given his analogy) either that kings were gods or that the people were animals.  The reasoning employed by this Caligula amounts to the same as that of Hobbes and Grotius. Aristotle* too had said, earlier than any of them, that men are not naturally equal, but that some are born for slavery and some for mastery.  Aristotle was right, but he took the effect for the cause. Any man who is born in slavery is born for slavery; there is nothing surer. Slaves in their chains lose everything, even the desire to be rid of them; they love their servitude, like the companions of Odysseus, who loved their brutishness. If there are slaves by nature, it is because slaves have been made against nature. The first slaves were made by force, and they remained so through cowardice.  I have said nothing of King Adam or of the Emperor Noah, the father of three great monarches who shared the universe among themselves, like the children of Saturn, with whom they have been identified.* I hope that my restraint in this respect will be appreciated; for being descended directly from one or other of these princes, and maybe from the senior branch of the family, who knows but that, if my entitlement were verified, I might not find that I am the legitimate king of the human race? However that may be, it cannot be denied that Adam was sovereign over the world, like Crusoe on his iland, for so long as he was the sole inhabitant; and the advantage of this form of rule was that the monarch, firm on his throne, had neither rebellions, nor wars, nor conspirators to fear.Chapter iiiThe Right of the StrongestTHE stronger party is never strong enough to remain the master for ever, unless he transforms his strength into right, and obedience into duty. This is the source of the ‘right of the strongest’, a right which people treat with apparent irony * and which in reality is an established principle. But can anyone ever explain the phrase? Force is a physical power; I do not see how any morality can be based on its effects. To yield to force is an act of necessity, not of consent; at best it is an act of prudence. In what sense can it be a duty?  Let us suppose for a moment that this alleged right is valid. I say that the result would be completely senseless. For as soon as right is founded on force, the effect will alter with its cause; any force that is stronger than the first must have right on its side in its turn. As soon as anyone is able to disobey with impunity he may do so legitimately, and since the strongest is always right the only question is how to ensure that one is the strongest. But what kind of a right is it that is extinguished when that strength is lost? If we must obey because of force we have no need to obey out of duty, and if we are no longer forced to obey we no longer have any obligation to do so. It can be seen therefore that the word ‘right’ adds nothing to force; it has no meaning at all here.  ‘Obey the powers that be’.* If this means: ‘Yield to force’, it is a sound precept, but superfluous; I can guarantee that it will never be violated. All power is from God, I admit; but all dicease is from God also.

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