Editing General will (section)

== Debates ==

=== Criticisms ===
Early critics of Rousseau included [[Benjamin Constant]] and [[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel]].  Hegel argued that, because it lacked any grounding in an objective ideal of reason, Rousseau's account of the general will inevitably led to the [[Reign of Terror]].  Constant also blamed Rousseau for the excesses of the French Revolution and rejected the total subordination of the citizen-subjects to the determinations of the general will.<ref>{{cite book |title=Encyclopedia of Political Theory |contribution=General Will |author=Joseph Reisert |editor-first=Mark |editor-last=Bevir |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gryvMfjg-zEC&pg=PA553 |pages=551–553 |year=2010 |publisher=SAGE Publications |isbn=978-1412958653 }}</ref>

In 1952 [[Jacob Talmon]] characterized Rousseau's "general will" as leading to a [[totalitarian democracy]], because, Talmon argued, the state subjected its citizens to the supposedly infallible will of the [[tyranny of the majority|majority]]. Another writer of the period, liberal theorist [[Karl Popper]], also interpreted Rousseau in this way, while [[Bertrand Russell]] warned that "the doctrine of general will ... made possible the mystic identification of a leader with its people, which has no need of confirmation by so mundane an apparatus as the ballot box."<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1_tGAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA2 |title=Rousseau's Social Contract: An Introduction |author= David Lay Williams |publisher= Cambridge University Press |year= 2014 |isbn=978-0521124447 |pages=1–2 }}</ref>  Other prominent critics include [[Isaiah Berlin]] who argued that Rousseau's association of freedom with obedience to the General Will allowed totalitarian leaders to defend oppression in the name of freedom, and made Rousseau "one of the most sinister and formidable enemies of liberty in the whole history of human thought."<ref>{{cite book |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=dj-bMlq0V5QC&pg=PA61 |title=Isaiah Berlin: Liberty, Pluralism and Liberalism |author= George Crowder |page=61 |publisher=Polity |year= 2004 |isbn=978-0745624778 }}</ref>

=== Defense of Rousseau ===
Some Rousseau scholars, however, such as his biographer and editor Maurice Cranston, and Ralph Leigh, editor of Rousseau's correspondence, do not consider Talmon's 1950s "totalitarian thesis" as sustainable.<ref>For a rejoinder to Talmon see R. A. Leigh, "Liberté et autorité dans le Contrat Social" in ''Jean-Jacques Rousseau et son oeuvre'', (Paris, 1963).</ref>

Prior to Rousseau, the phrase "general will" referred explicitly to the general (as opposed to the particular) will or ''volition'' (as it is sometimes translated) of the Deity. It occurs in the theological writings of [[Nicolas Malebranche|Malebranche]],<ref>[http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/malebranche/ See the "Nicolas Malebranche" entry in the ''Stanford History of Philosophy'' (revised 2009).]</ref> who had picked it up from [[Blaise Pascal|Pascal]], and in the writings of Malebranche's pupil, [[Montesquieu]],<ref>Patrick Riley, "The General Will Before Rousseau", ''Political Theory'' 6: 4: Special Issue: ''Jean-Jacques Rousseau'' (Nov., 1978): 485-516</ref> who contrasted ''volonté particulière'' and ''volonté générale'' in a secular sense in his most celebrated chapter (Chapter XI) of [[The Spirit of the Laws|''De L'Esprit des Lois'']] (1748).<ref>Rousseau at one point, states that the most profound metaphysics are to be found in "Plato, Locke, or Malebranche" P [IV: III], quoted in Charles William Hendel, ''Rousseau Moralist'' [Oxford University Press, 1934], p. 169. See also [https://books.google.com/books?id=ybYLfAw_084C&q=general+volition&pg=PA742  Nicolas Malebranche,  ''Malebranche: The Search After Truth: With Elucidations of The Search After Truth'', Thomas M. Lennon and Paul J. Olscamp, editors (Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 742.]</ref>