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    Made withinDC&Austin
    There is a tension in Rousseau's Social Contract between ... — Carmelics
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    Home/Social Contract
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    There is a tension in Rousseau's Social Contract between two accounts of how the general will emerges.

    Social Contract
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    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.One account holds that the general will emerges procedurally from individuals contemplating self-interest under constraints of generality, universality, and propitious sociological conditions.
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    • 2.Another account holds that mere contemplation of self-interest is inadequate to generate a general will and that citizen virtue is necessary.
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Rousseau's two accounts are complementary stages in a single developmental theory, not rival explanations of the same phenomenon.
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    • 2.In Émile and the Discourse on Political Economy, Rousseau treats civic virtue as the cultivated precondition that makes procedural deliberation reliably track the common good.
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    • 3.A theory that identifies necessary preconditions alongside structural procedures is architecturally coherent, not tensioned.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Cohen (1986) and Estlund argue that Rousseau's proceduralism is itself virtue-dependent, making the two accounts analytically inseparable rather than competing.
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    • 2.If the constraints of generality already presuppose citizens abstracting from particular interests, then virtue just is the internalized disposition to satisfy those procedural constraints.
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    • 3.What appears as tension dissolves once we recognize that Rousseau distinguishes the genetic origin of the general will from its ongoing epistemic reliability conditions.
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    Topics

    Social Contract

    Connections

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    Virtue Ethics1 linked

    Related

    A theory that identifies necessary preconditions alongside structural procedures...Another account holds that mere contemplation of self-interest is inadequate to ...Cohen (1986) and Estlund argue that Rousseau's proceduralism is itself virtue-de...If the constraints of generality already presuppose citizens abstracting from pa...
    +4 moreShow less
    In Émile and the Discourse on Political Economy, Rousseau treats civic virtue as...One account holds that the general will emerges procedurally from individuals co...Rousseau's two accounts are complementary stages in a single developmental theor...What appears as tension dissolves once we recognize that Rousseau distinguishes ...

    Similar

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    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: rousseau
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    The Social Contract harbors a further tension between two accounts of how the general will emerges and its relation to the private wills of citizens. Sometimes Rousseau favors a procedural story according to which the individual contemplation of self interest (subject to the constraints of generality and universality and under propitious sociological background conditions such as rough equality and cultural similarity) will result in the emergence of the general will from the assembly of citizen
    Extraction notes

    Validity: Extracted via Max plan + API grounding/validity checks

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit