ABSTRACT
While The Social Contract is probably Rousseau’s most famous and influential work, it is also among his most enigmatic. Written in a terse and sometimes forbidding style different from his other major publications, it is full of startling and paradoxical formulations and bold arguments about the fundamental questions of political right. In its short compass, it provides theories of the state of nature, the social pact, justice, freedom, equality, and constitutional structures, as well as interpretations and refutations of significant figures in the history of political thought, and a survey of the political institutions of ancient Rome. Generations of captivated readers have found everything in The Social Contract from an enduring defence of human dignity and freedom, to the seeds of modern totalitarianism, to the ravings of a man tending towards madness. The Social Contract is hard to see clearly through the haze of its reputation. This chapter seeks to situate the work in the context of Rousseau’s abiding intellectual concerns and moral commitments.
