The General Will and the Public Interest

2020 ◽  
pp. 25-46
Author(s):  
W J Stankiewicz
Keyword(s):  
Public Interest ◽  
General Will ◽  
The Public

Public interest

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Albert Weale
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Public Policy ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Utility Maximization ◽  
Indivisible Goods ◽  
General Will ◽  
The Public ◽  
Civic Republicanism ◽  
Clean Air ◽  
Social Goods

The concept of the public interest can be used in a wide variety of ways, and this has led many to say that it is devoid of meaning. However, the concept enables us to evaluate the tendency of policies and institutions to promote the interests of the members of a society considered in their broadest relations, for example in connection with policies to promote public health. In this sense it has significance. Historically, the concept of the public interest has drawn upon three main traditions of thought: the utilitarian idea of utility maximization; the tradition of civic republicanism; and Rousseau’s idea of the general will. Nowadays, three main ways of meeting the public interest are distinguishable: the supply of certain indivisible goods like clean air; the preservation of identity-conferring social goods like a distinctive language; and the balancing of competing considerations in the making of public policy. Although the provision of goods in the public interest may be associated with injustice, there is no reason in general to think that justice and the public interest must conflict.

Democratic Theory and the Public Interest: Condorcet and Rousseau Revisited

1989 ◽  
Vol 83 (4) ◽  
pp. 1317-1340 ◽  
Author(s):  
David M. Estlund ◽  
Jeremy Waldron ◽  
Bernard Grofman ◽  
Scott L. Feld
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Democratic Theory ◽  
Collective Consciousness ◽  
General Will ◽  
The Public ◽  
Condorcet’S Jury Theorem ◽  
Marquis De Condorcet ◽  
Jury Theorem

Bernard Grofman and Scott Feld argued in the June 1988 issue of this Review that Jean-Jacques Rousseau's contributions to democratic political theory could be illuminated by invoking the theorizing of one of his eighteenth-century contemporaries, the Marquis de Condorcet, about individual and collective preferences or judgments. Grofman and Feld's claims about collective consciousness and the efficacy of the public interest provoke debate. One focus of discourse lies in the application of Condorcet's jury theorem to Rousseau's theory of the general will. In this controversy David M. Estlund and Jeremy Waldron in turn raise a variety of issues of theory and interpretation; Grofman and Feld then extend their argument, and propose clarifications.

General will

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter P. Nicholson
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Political Community ◽  
General Interest ◽  
General Will ◽  
The Public ◽  
Private Interests ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Individual

The fundamental claim for general will is that the members of a political community, as members, share a public or general interest or good which is for the benefit of them all and which should be put before private interests. When the members put the general good first, they are willing the general will of their community. The claim was given special and influential shape by Rousseau. He produced a comprehensive theory of the legitimacy of the state and of government, revolving around the general will. Some contend this solves the central problem of political philosophy – how the individual can both be obliged to obey the state’s laws, and be free. If laws are made by the general will, aimed at the common good and expressed by all the citizens, the laws must be in accordance with the public interest and therefore in the interest of each, and each is obliged by the law yet free because they are its author. Rousseau’s formulation has been much criticized. But others have found it essentially true and have variously adapted it.

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