How far is Berlin justified in criticizing Rousseau's conception of liberty? - Senior Scholarship 2014

How far is Berlin justified in
   criticizing Rousseau’s
   conception of liberty?
       Senior Scholarship 2014

            Miranda Shaw

Miranda Shaw

‘To renounce liberty is to renounce being a man… Such a renunciation is incompatible
with man’s character’. 1 Thus Rousseau, writing in 1762, declares his stance towards
liberty as an absolute value and an essential part of what it means to be human. He
believes that individual liberty is obtained by obedience to the general will, a set of
fundamental laws that the state has complete power to enforce. Writing 300 years later
in the era of Communist totalitarianism, Berlin criticizes this conception of liberty, as he
believes that if the state has total control over individuals, despotism2 is inevitable.
Moreover, Berlin’s interprets the general will as identical to reason. Berlin believes that
this does not exist and so liberty cannot be gained by pursuing it.

Rousseau’s aim in the Social Contract is ‘to find a form of association’ where man
‘remains as free as before’3. He refuses to sacrifice freedom4 in pursuit of another ideal
and thus is not interested in debating with earlier thinkers such as Locke and Hobbes
over the boundary between authority of the state and the individual’s sphere of rights.
He solves the problem by equating state power with an individual’s freedom. This would
appear to eradicate entirely Berlin’s notion of negative freedom: ‘the area within which
the subject… is or should be left to do or be what he is able to do or be, without
interference by other persons’5. If the state encompasses the entire human being then
no such ‘area’ exists. However, Rousseau decrees that if every member contracts to
surrender their entire being to the body politic, each thereby assimilates his own will
with the general will and ‘since each man gives himself to all, he gives himself to no
one’6. Berlin makes several arguments against Rousseau. When Rousseau writes that
man in this society ‘obeys no one but himself’7 he is drawing from a Platonic tradition of
drawing a distinction between man’s higher ‘rational’ self and inferior, desiring self;
defining liberty as the obedience of the latter to the former. This is what Berlin describes
as positive freedom, but he insists it can lead to a sinister paradox: If we can force a man
to obey his ‘rational’ self then he can justifiably be ‘forced to be free’ 8. Rousseau agrees
but explains that ‘to be governed by appetite alone is slavery, while obedience to a law

1 (The Social Contract Book 1)
2 Many critics accuse Rousseau of supporting totalitarianism, however Rousseau did want authority to wield
total power- provided that it enacted the general will and the ‘magistrates’ were not corrupted by their
individual wills. Despotism is defined as ‘the exercise of absolute power, especially in a cruel and repressive
way’ (Oxford Dictionaries). If this is taken to mean that the ruling body has overstepped its mandate in
enacting the general will then it is an appropriate term to use for Berlin’s criticism.
3 (Rousseau, 1968, pp 60)
4 On the whole, both Rousseau and Berlin use the words ‘freedom’, ‘liberty’ and their variants

interchangeably; this essay follows suit.
5 (Berlin, Two Concepts of Liberty, 2002, pp 169)
6 (Rousseau, 1968, pp 61)
7 (Rousseau, 1968, pp 60)
8 (Rousseau, 1968, pp 64)

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Miranda Shaw

one prescribes to oneself is freedom’ 9. Therefore an individual who is ‘forced to be free’
is in fact being saved from the irrational desires of his lower self. He is forced by the will
of the entire collective body, which is identical to his own rational will. This solves the
‘free rider’ problem and allows man to obtain moral liberty. Berlin views this distinction
between parts of the self as artificial and emphasizes the importance of maintaining a
sphere of private rights for the individual that leaves space for Mill’s ‘experiments in
living’10. As a result, Berlin views would-be citizens under Rousseau’s state as slaves to
the general will. Rousseau does indeed acknowledge that civil liberty is ‘limited by the
general will’,11 but it is the corrupt desires of the self that are enslaved and this is the
only way for moral liberty to flourish and other citizens to be protected. This provides a
justification for the state to compel its subjects to obey the law i.e. dictates of the general
will, and provides an incentive for subjects to obedience. Therefore, whilst for Rousseau
‘total alienation’12 of the self is the only way to achieve perfect liberty, for Berlin this
would be to sacrifice all other values to find that the promised positive liberty was just a
sham.

Berlin accuses Rousseau of justifying the despotic state and its ‘monstrous
impersonation’13 of a guarantor of liberty. Berlin rails against that idea that someone’s
negative liberty should be curtailed in the name of some higher goal, and most
formidably, that this should be done in the name of liberty itself. For Rousseau, having
identified reason innate in each member as the source of moral laws of society, it follows
that ‘it is possible, and at times justifiable, to coerce men in the name of some goal…
which they would if they were more enlightened, themselves pursue, but do not,
because they are blind or ignorant or corrupt’.14 Berlin traces how this view can be used
to manipulate people to serve the ends that an authority has proclaimed rational.
Rousseau would charge that in this case the social contract has broken down and
therefore liberty is no longer guaranteed. Rousseau is alive to the danger of corrupted
factions taking power and as a safeguard, orders regular assemblies to take place where
everyone votes on whether the general will is being followed. There are several
problems with this defense that Berlin finds particularly troubling. What if a majority of
society is deluded about the state of affairs, perhaps even having been persuaded by the
rulers of the necessity of following their plan? Berlin satirizes the dictator who,

9 (Rousseau, 1968, pp 65)
10 (Hardy & Cherniss, Isaiah Berlin, 2014)
11 (Rousseau, 1968, pp 65)
12 (Rousseau, 1968, pp 60)
13 (Berlin, Two Concepts of Liberty, 2002 pp180)
14 (Berlin, 2002, pp179)

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‘abandoning the concept of reason altogether’ conceives of himself as an ‘inspired artist,
who moulds men into patterns in the light of his unique vision… even though men suffer
and die in the process, they are lifted by it to a height to which they could never have
risen without my coercive- but creative- violation of their lives’15.

For Berlin this wasn’t just a possibility. Writing in the Cold War era, he witnessed the
growth of totalitarian regimes promising liberty for the people. It became apparent that
this slogan was a cover for oppression. Arguably however, Berlin was unjustified in
reading Rousseau through a prism of contemporary events. Rousseau had insisted that
his project was anti-utopian in character, ‘taking men as they are and laws as they might
be’.16 It is debatable how far we can believe Rousseau achieved this given the extent to
which man’s character is changed on entering the contract to obey the general will. On
the realization of obedience to ‘reason’, ‘duty’ and ‘justice’, Rousseau says man
undergoes a ‘remarkable change’17. In Emile, Rousseau explores the power of education
to transform man’s character. In the final pages Emile says, ‘I have decided to be what
you made me’. The idea of a state attempting to alter its citizens minds to follow the
party line and love their servitude is eerily reminiscent of pseudo-scientific Stasi and
Stalinist projects and Mao’s obsession with a correct ‘way of thinking’. In addition, the
possibility of manipulation of the citizens’ mind is problematic for a theory that aims to
establish legitimacy of the state as dependent on a ‘contract’ freely agreed to by the
people. As Bertram puts it: ‘it is at least arguable that the contractors will no longer
recognise themselves in the person who agreed (or would have agreed) to the social
pact’18. This is important because Berlin requires that positive liberty is only possible
where an individual has himself made the decision to renounce his negative liberty. If he
has been unfairly induced into this choice then it is not his own and thus Rousseau’s
state affords him no liberty.

However, Rousseau would claim that desire to exclude oneself from the perfect state is a
symptom of irrationality and thus irrelevant. He uses the same type of argument against
Berlin’s accusation of the possibility of a tyranny of rationality, stating that the nature of
the general will as emanating from and applying to all, precludes discriminatory laws.
Comparing the collective to a human ‘body’, he says that it would not rationally harm
part of itself. It is plausible that I might cut off my hand if this would save my leg but this

15 (Berlin, 2002, pp 197)
16 (Rousseau, 1968, pp 49)
17 (Rousseau, 1968, pp 64)
18 (Bertram, 2004, pp 82)

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Miranda Shaw

option is beneficial for my self as whole. As a result, my hand has no rights of appeal and
moreover, this action is consistent with the ‘will’ of my hand. Berlin argues that this is a
monistic way of determining rationality and that renunciation of all rights against the
general will is a ‘doctrine which leads to genuine servitude’19.

Berlin shows how an ideal ‘easily becomes transformed’20 into something recognizably
bad, but Rousseau would argue that this is a leap in logic and not inevitable. He would
charge that to do this is a gross misuse of his thought. While one may argue that
dictators have taken inspiration from Rousseau’s thought, this is not to say that they
have fulfilled his mandate. The society run by a dictator who has set up a hoax general
will in order to manipulate its citizens is not run by reason. This example of corruption
is due to a failure of society to determine and act in accordance with the general will,
falling flat as an attack on the concept itself. However, Rousseau himself decrees that as
an empirical fact, the executive power always prevails over the legislative, betraying his
deep pessimism about the likelihood of his plan coming to fruition.21 Perhaps
Rousseau’s stipulations make his plan impractical and his contract too precarious.
Berlin may well have been right to say that Rousseau’s plan is very vulnerable to misuse
and this may be viewed as a weakness. However this is not to say that Rousseau
advocates the consequences of such manipulation or that his plan can be used to justify
it. Therefore, Berlin’s accusation of Rousseau as defender of despotism is unjustified.

Berlin criticizes Rousseau’s conception of liberty as rational self-direction. Berlin
decrees that accepting the possibility of Newtonian ethics from which, he says,
Rousseau’s thought is derived, makes a series of assumptions: the laws of moral life
exist and are discoverable by adhering to reason alone, which is innate in every human
being. There must exist one and only one true solution to any problem such that the
ends of everyone’s life can fit into a ‘single universal harmonious pattern’. 22 The general
will is read by some commentators as a democratic construction i.e. the best
compromise between members in a state. Others place Rousseau within the Romanticist
tradition, explaining the general will on the basis of compassion. In this case, as with
Berlin’s reading of the general will as a rationalist project, it is singular and thus
incompatible with pluralism. In Rousseau’s words there exists ‘the law of nature, the

19 (Berlin, Rousseau, 2003, pp 47)
20 (Miller, 2006, pp12)
21 (Rousseau, 1968, pp31)
22 (Berlin, 2002, pp 200)

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Miranda Shaw

sacred imprescriptible law which speaks to the heart of man and his reason’23 24. This
suggests that Berlin’s reading is plausible as is the assumption that Rousseau’s
conception of ‘moral liberty’ is the control of the desires by reason. Berlin believes that
the premises of this position are false because values are distinct and irreducible. They
cannot be redefined as manifestations of one super-value, thereby discounting the
possibility of the existence of a Rousseauian general will. If Berlin is correct then
Rousseau’s citizens have sacrificed every value in the pursuit of a fictitious abstraction
that gives them no positive or moral liberty in return. Berlin decrees that even if
Rousseau’s thought is accepted then, ‘freedom is not freedom to do what is irrational,
stupid or wrong’25. He condemns this idea, stating that there is ‘no single ideal life’26 to
which people should attempt or be brought to conform as far as possible. Although
Berlin’s commitment to pluralism leads him to accept that conflicts can exist between
values that require man to forfeit a portion of negative liberty, he insists on the
importance of a minimum as it allows man to develop and choose between other values.

However, it is arguable that Berlin’s conception of negative liberty implies a human
nature and makes assumptions of moral individualism. He appeals to ‘an empiricist
version of a natural law argument, writing of the existence of ‘natural rights’ based on
the way that human beings are constituted’27. Berlin is criticized for distinguishing
negative liberty and pluralism as objectively better than alternatives. Thus, Berlin’s
criticism of Rousseau is within this objectivist claim of the ‘truth’ of liberalism. An
extension of the argument is that both Berlin’s value pluralism and what he perceives as
Rousseau’s monism rely on different presuppositions between which it is impossible to
choose without appealing to objectivity.

A possible way of solving this is to argue that pluralism is comparatively better than
monism because it allows the possibility of discovering an objective truth, different to its
own, whereas monism does not grant this. This position does not assume the existence
of objective truth, however it does assume the value of possibility of discovery.

23 (Berlin, Rousseau, 2003 pp35) Berlin cites J-J Rousseau’s Considerations on the Government of Poland
24 (Rousseau, 1968, pp 39) Rousseau says that the ‘natural law’ must not be violated, but this raises the
question of who is to be the arbiter. Some commentators therefore think that when the social contract is in
place, natural law is succeeded by moral law and is therefore adjudicated by the general will. However
discrepancies between The Social Contract and Rousseau’s other writings leave open the interpretation that
individual conscience is the judge. Berlin adheres to the former tradition.
25 (Berlin, Two Concepts of Liberty, 2002, pp 194)
26 (Hardy & Cherniss, Isaiah Berlin, 2014, ch. 5.4)
27 (Hardy & Cherniss, 2014, ch. 5.5) The work cited here is Berlin, I. (1996). The Sense of Reality: Studies in

Ideas and their History. (H. Hardy, Ed.) London: Chatto. 73-4

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Miranda Shaw

Nevertheless, if this is permitted as a very small appeal to objectivity and Rousseau’s
general will is understood in such a way that it does not give its members the potential
to test its own assumptions and Berlin’s value pluralism in such a way that it does, then
there is some basis for criticizing Rousseau’s general will tradition. In this case, the
reason for opposing Rousseau’s thought is not because it is contrary to Berlin’s version
of true reality, but because it precludes the revelation of this reality if it exists. Due to
Berlin’s own claim of objectivity, he has not been proven justified in criticizing Rousseau
for holding certain beliefs as objective. Therefore, it is not proven that Rousseau’s state
is inimical to liberty. However, if the argument above is accepted, then Berlin is justified
in championing pluralism against the singularity of the general will. Berlin’s pluralism
permits both his own, Rousseau’s and other systems to be tested so that it is possible for
a true version of reality to be discovered. It is also possible for the value of liberty to be
questioned. Rousseau’s system does not have the potential for recognition of a different
system and should reality err from his conception of it, then there is no possible way for
this to be discovered. As a result, Berlin’s system can be described as better than
Rousseau’s because it permits the discovery of a version of reality outside its own
parameters, should such a reality exist.

Berlin’s main objections to Rousseau’s thought are that it violates negative liberty and
misconceives the human constitution, leading to a perverse and dangerous version of
positive liberty. This criticism assumes the value of negative liberty and the
nonexistence of a metaphysical or collective conception of the self to compensate for the
loss in negative liberty.28 Rousseau’s state is ideal and thus not vulnerable to the
philosophical attack from Berlin that it must lead to despotism. However, even if the
existence of a reason superior to the empirical self is taken as a possibility, Berlin may
well be correct to highlight the ease with which Rousseau’s plan could give way to a
society with very little freedom. By simply defending pluralism due to its instrumental
value it is not possible to prove that Berlin is justified because his grounds for attack are
based on its intrinsic value. However, using this argument it is possible to sympathize
with his conclusion and to believe that there are grounds for criticizing Rousseau.

2500 words

28   (Hardy & Cherniss, Isaiah Berlin, 2014)

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Miranda Shaw

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