ROUSSEAU ***THE SOCIAL CONTRACT

"Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains." Rousseau's Social Contract had a primary goal of showing how although man apparently has to be governed and abide by laws, liberty can be regained and political institutions can be made legitimate. Rousseau believes that Natural Liberty is an impossibility at this point but that man can regain another type of liberty, Moral Liberty. Moral Liberty allows them to be "masters of themselves." Rousseau states …

…instincts. He has learned how to control them and to use his own reason and morals to make appropriate decisions. This is a much more advantageous state to be in. "We might, over and above all this, add, to what man acquires in the civil state, moral liberty, which alone makes him truly master of himself; for the mere impulse of appetite is slavery, while obedience to a law one prescribes to oneself is freedom." (363)