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State of Nature
A subject is someone who has to obey the state’s laws (or who is subjected to those laws). For Rousseau’s purposes, this means anyone who is a member of a nation and it is similar to the word “citizen”—in a legitimate republic, all citizens are also subjects, but the difference between these two words is one of perspective. Whereas someone is a citizen insofar as they take an active role in making up the nation and deciding its laws, the same person is a subject in the passive sense that they must follow the laws and answer to the state. For instance, citizens create laws, and these laws apply to subjects—even though the citizens who make the laws and the subjects who must follow them are the same people.
Subject Quotes in The Social Contract
The The Social Contract quotes below are all either spoken by Subject or refer to Subject. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Book 1, Chapter 7
Quotes
The act of association consists of a reciprocal commitment between society and the individual, so that each person, in making a contract, as it were, with himself, finds himself doubly committed, first, as a member of the sovereign body in relation to individuals, and secondly as a member of the state in relation to the sovereign. Here there can be no invoking the principle of civil law which says that no man is bound by a contract with himself, for there is a great difference between having an obligation to oneself and having an obligation to something of which one is a member.
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Book 2, Chapter 6
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We can no longer ask who is to make laws, because laws are acts of the general will; no longer ask if the prince is above the law, because he is a part of the state; no longer ask if the law can be unjust, because no one is unjust to himself; and no longer ask how we can be both free and subject to laws, for the laws are but registers of what we ourselves desire.
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Subject Term Timeline in The Social Contract
The timeline below shows where the term Subject appears in The Social Contract. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Book 1, Chapter 6: The Social Pact
...with other nations). Its members are “a people” made of individual “citizens” who are also “subjects” to their collective sovereign power.
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Book 1, Chapter 7: The Sovereign
...is partially responsible for making laws and “a member of the state” who is a subject to the sovereign’s laws. Because the sovereign only makes laws, it is not fundamentally subject...
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...and “seek to enjoy the rights of a citizen without doing the duties of a subject.” This is why laws can force individuals to hold up their side of the bargain...
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Book 2, Chapter 6: On Law
...“the people as a whole […] without any division whatsoever.” Therefore, “the law considers all subjects collectively and all actions in the abstract,” rather than naming particular people. It can create...
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Book 3, Chapter 1: Of Government in General
...sovereign’s job of making laws. Rather, the sovereign needs a government, which (first) communicates between subjects and the sovereign and (second) implements laws and actively preserves people’s freedom. The sovereign gives...
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The government communicates between the sovereign and the subjects (which are different perspectives on the people). To function well, the sovereign, government, and subjects...
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Book 3, Chapter 2: The Constitutive Principle of the Different Forms of Government
...by personal will and therefore less “active” (or powerful, relative to the sovereign and the subjects).
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...is possible to change the role of the government relative to the sovereign and the subjects by changing its number of magistrates. In the previous chapter, he argued that government needs...
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Book 3, Chapter 9: The Signs of a Good Government
...citizens prioritize security while others cherish their rights; some government officials want power and some subjects want the government out of their lives. So there is “no precise standard of measurement”...
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Book 4, Chapter 8: The Civil Religion
Since the social contract can only obligate subjects to act when it is necessary for the public interest, the sovereign cannot control citizens’...
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