General will

In political philosophy, the general will (French: volonté générale) is the will of the people as a whole. The term was made famous by 18th-century French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

Basic ideas

The phrase "general will," as Rousseau used it, occurs in Article Six of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen (French: Déclaration des droits de l'Homme et du citoyen), composed in 1789 during the French Revolution:

James Swenson writes:

As used by Rousseau, the "general will" is considered by some identical to the rule of law, and to Spinoza's mens una.

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 ineluctably lead to the Reign of Terror. Constant also blamed Rousseau for the excesses of the French Revolution, and he rejected the total subordination of the citizen-subjects to the determinations of the general will.