Does Rousseau's conception of the General Will safeguard against Essay

Does Rousseau's conception of the General Will safeguard against tyranny or promote it - Essay Example 5). Rousseau has tried to make conciliation between the individual freedom and the authority of the state. Every man is born free and himself is his own master. No man can make any other man his subordinate without the free consent of the later (Rousseau, Book IV, 1923). The paper attempts to address the question whether the General Will can safeguard against tyranny or promote it. The social contract Man is born independent and enters into the society â€Å"by an act of free will† (Rousseau, 1917, p.28). The term ‘social contract’ directs towards an arrangement in which the common mass submit the sovereignty to the government or an authority for the maintenance of social order in the country. Through this they become â€Å"an indivisible part of the whole† (Ramgotra, 1994, p. 820). Through the social contract a polity is created, that acts as per its general interest (Trachtenberg, 2002, p.4). Thus, a law is proposed in the popular assembly and all the cit izens give consent to the laws. The right of voting cannot be separated from any individual citizen in any act of sovereignty (Rousseau, Book IV, 1923). Rather, one becomes a citizen through his co-authorship in the law-making (Parra, 2010 p. 15) Each individual has the inherent right to state his own views and make proposals. It is argued that, if he has a particular interest which is different from the common interest, the individual is actually made to become free on being forced to follow the interest of the majority. This is on the basis of a supposition that the vote of the majority binds the rest of the mass and all the qualities of the majority are reflected in the General Will. â€Å"The constant will of all the members of the State is the general will; by virtue of it they are citizens and free† (Rousseau Book IV, 1923). The society so formed has been termed by Rousseau as â€Å"people† (Rousseau, 1997) The General Will and common good In this context the que stion arises, that how, the people who do not agree to the law are considered free as well as subject it at the same time. The existence of opponents does not invalidate the law; rather, they prevent themselves from being integrated into it. From Rousseau’s point of view, the General Will always tends to support the cause of public advantage and by making the citizens to follow the law that looks after the good of the community, they are actually made free. When a new law is needed to be issued, the necessity is seen as universal. The man who proposes it merely says what the others have already felt. Hence the situation of questioning the law is not expected to arise at all. He rests assured that the others will support him in his action (Rousseau, Book IV, 1923). The civil association is mostly a voluntary act. When the law is proposed, it is not asked of the citizens whether they reject or approve of it, but it is checked whether the law conforms to the general will, assumi ng that the general will is the will of the people at large. So when the individual citizen holds a view that is different from the common will or is unwilling to give consent to the new law, it proves that the person is mistaken. Any true man would opine in the similar lines as the general will that leads towards common good. Either his opinion is guided by a selfish interest or what he thinks to be the general will is not so. No individual rights can be defiant of the general good. Had his

Dissertation Module Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Dissertation Module - Essay Example The most innovative work since the early 1990s, however, has been the development of understanding and elaboration of cognitive therapy approaches to the treatment of psychoses in urban and rural geographical regions. Thus, the interdisciplinary research occurs in the minds of the authors as well as in their interaction with each other. In this instance, the research, theory-building and clinical applications are a synthesis of individual and group effort. It is often difficult to know which comes first: theory, therapy or research. Theory serves as a roadmap for the clinician and informs the researcher regarding the important areas for investigation. On the other hand, the clinical works provides the data that generate the formulation of the theory and the ideas for research. Finally, research not only validates (or invalidates) the clinical and theoretical propositions but also provides new guidelines for therapy and ideas for theory building. The research will draw on the blend of theory, research and practice in developing the corpus of knowledge, formulating the basic assumptions, and adapting and refining appropriate strategies for the treatment of psychoses in urban and rural geographical regions. ... the corpus of knowledge, formulating the basic assumptions, and adapting and refining appropriate strategies for the treatment of psychoses in urban and rural geographical regions. The result will be a landmark in the evolution of cognitive therapy for psychoses. 8. Provide a brief outline of the research problem For centuries, it has been debated that the inordinateness of psychoses found in geographically urban areas (including city centres) is the consequence of social drift. Social drift is described as the resettlement of the populace suffering from various psychoses to the urban areas from outlying or rural geographical regions. The term psychosis includes disorders such as schizophrenia, schizoaffective and schizophreniform disorders, affective disorders where psychosis is present (e.g. in depression, mania, bipolar affective disorder) and delusional disorders. More recent research has shown, however, that there is an increased risk of psychosis within individuals born into an urban than rural areas (Warner, date, Jablensky, 1992). What is the causal agency for the increased risk of psychosis Is this due to increased rates of difficult births or obstetric complications, sunlight deprivation, environmental disturbances, ozone depletion or excesses of toxins Or, is there some other facto r yet to be studied An explanation of this phenomenon would contribute to our understanding of the causes of psychoses. 9. Provide a brief outline of the selected methodology and/or methods Here approach of this research is based on content analysis of previously conducted researches and studies. The data of our research will be based on previously conducted researches as mentioned above. In the data-gathering phase, the researcher will go through reading many studies of