ABSTRACT
Before Rousseau can set out his own views on political legitimacy and authority, he has to deal with what were regarded in his own time as competing theories to the view that political authority is derived from the consent of the governed. Rousseau’s argument here is partly an argument by elimination. He believes that if he succeeds in demolishing theories that either accord some the right to rule by nature or assert the right of the stronger, then something like his own view will be vindicated by default: ‘Since no man has a natural authority over his fellow-man, and since force produces no right, conventions remain as the basis of all legitimate authority among men’ (1.4.1) (see also 1.1.2).
