What is Rousseau's social contract and how does it justify political authority?

• A. A contract between rulers and the ruled to maintain order.
• B. A social pact that guarantees wealth redistribution.
• C. An arrangement among citizens to submit to a ruler.
• D. An agreement among citizens to form a collective will; political authority derives from the general will.

Answer: (C)

The central idea is that legitimacy for political authority comes from a free agreement among the people to form a political community and to live under laws that express the general will. In Rousseau’s view, sovereignty belongs to the people as a whole, not to a ruler or a governing class. The social contract creates a body politic in which each person submits to the collective decision because that decision reflects the common good. The government is then a representative instrument chosen to carry out that general will. True freedom, for Rousseau, means obeying laws one has helped to make, since those laws express the general will and bind individuals to the same political order. If a government acts contrary to the general will, its authority is not legitimate, because it no longer reflects the people’s collective decision.