Page 17 - GALIET ILLUSION: Rousseau IV

discourse, and votes, and legislates mass deception or a perverse ideological propaganda to discriminate and exterminate the other, or what is ill conceived as the “common bad?” What occurs when the General Will acts in self-interest, endorsing Thrasymachus’ posture that justice serves the interest of the strongest?47 What occurs when it tramples over Socrates’ notorious defence that Justice ought never be measured by the interest of the strongest, but by its consequences and its intrinsic good?48 What occurs when the General Will cannot genuinely universalize its maxim in the ways Kant’s three categorical imperatives demand?49 History shows how quickly a General Will and its servants, magistrates or prosecutors, tempted by power and a perverse ideology, can err and violate citizen rights. The Sovereign, once virtue-less and corrupted, fails to fulfil Rousseau’s mandate to favour all citizens equally and to endow citizens with more liberties.50 Instead, the Sovereign can turn irrational, partial and fascist. Citizens, having pledged their life to the state, expect their life to be protected by the State.51 However, life is also a gift received from the
47 Plato. Complete Works. Republic. Ed. John M. Cooper. Indianapolis, Hackett Publishing, 1997. Book I.
48 Plato. Complete Works. Republic. Ed. John M. Cooper. Indianapolis, Hackett Publishing, 1997. Book IV.
49 Kant’s three imperatives are the Formula of Universal and Natural Law, the Formula of Humanity, and the Formula of the Kingdom of Ends. Pursuant to the Universal and Natural Law Formula, “act as if the maim of your action were to become through your will a universal of nature” (421). Pursuant to the Formula of Humanity, “act in such a way that he [you] treats [treat] humanity whether in his [your] person or in the person of another, always at the same time, as an end, and never as a means” (429). Pursuant to the Formula of Kingdom of Ends, “a rational being must always regard himself as legislator in a Kingdom of Ends rendered possible by freedom of the will, whether as a member or sovereign.” (434). Kant’s third categorical imperative, whereby is based on Kant’s a-priori morality. To Kant, moral duty arises only from the human capacity for autonomous self-direction. Kant. Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals. Trans. by Mary Gregor. UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998. 421-434
50 Ibid., Book II. Chapter 4. 51 Ibid., Book II. Chapter 5.
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