ABSTRACT
Rousseau's Social Contract defends "principles of political right" and explores the operations of institutions in light of those principles. In his discussion of Rousseau in Will and Political Legitimacy, Patrick Riley criticizes the defense of principles. Rousseau's defense of principles of right in the Social Contract assumes conditions of social interdependence. Abstracting from certain matters of detail, he supposes in particular that: individuals each have basic needs and interests that they aim to satisfy; the satisfaction of these needs and interests depends on the actions of others. Rousseauean contractors do have interests in person and goods, and those interests are advanced by a society directed by a general will. But the protection of those interests is not the only or the primary aim of the participants in the social contract, and in particular not the sole source of the "common good morality" that issues from that contract.
