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    Carmelics

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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
    Statements
    321,452
    Perspectives
    108,905
    Topics
    42
    Home/Original/inverse
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    Inverse View

    It is not the case that Rousseau's claim that citizens obey only themselves when obeying the general will is difficult to reconcile with democratic reality.

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

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.Democratic states involve majorities and minorities.
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    • 2.Citizens who are outvoted are constrained by a decision with which they disagree.
      ?

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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Rousseau's general will refers to the common good as a structural feature of the polity, not the aggregated preferences of individual voters.
      ?

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    • 2.When outvoted citizens obey majority decisions, they are constrained by empirical error about the common good, not by alien wills imposing foreign values.
      ?

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    • 3.Isaiah Berlin and Benjamin Constant both noted that Rousseau's positive liberty framework redefines autonomy as rational self-governance toward collective ends, making dissent a form of self-contradiction.
      ?

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    Reason against 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Deliberative democrats like Habermas argue legitimate outcomes require procedural conditions under which all voices are heard before decision, not unanimous agreement after.
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    • 2.A citizen who participates fully in Rousseau's legitimate legislative process has exercised self-governance regardless of whether their preferred outcome prevails.
      ?

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    • 3.The persistent minority problem in actual democracies reflects failures of legitimacy in real institutions, not a refutation of Rousseau's idealized normative framework.
      ?

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