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    Carmelics

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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
    Statements
    321,452
    Perspectives
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    42
    Home/Original/inverse
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    Inverse View

    It is not the case that Rousseau faces a problem about how a new state can come to have good laws.

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
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    • 1.Rousseau's own Legislator figure resolves the bootstrapping problem by operating outside the social contract as an external constitutional architect.
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    • 2.The Legislator does not will laws but merely proposes them, preserving popular sovereignty while providing the moral scaffolding citizens initially lack.
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    • 3.Historical examples like Lycurgus in Sparta and Calvin in Geneva demonstrate that foundational legislation can precede and cultivate civic virtue rather than require it.
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    Reason for 2 of 2
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    • 1.Kant's constructivist account shows that rational agents can legislate valid moral laws prior to any particular social formation, grounding legitimacy in reason alone.
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    • 2.If citizens possess the capacity for rational autonomy independent of prior institutions, the corruption argument in P3 does not preclude their ability to will genuinely good laws.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.Good laws can only be willed by good citizens.
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    • 2.To be legitimate, laws must be agreed upon by the assembly.
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    • 3.Citizens forming a new state are unlikely to possess the moral qualities required to will good laws, having been shaped by unjust institutions.
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