A Comparative Study Of Rousseau And Mill’s View Of Social Freedom

Rousseau and mill’s views on social freedom are two peaks in the history of western liberalism.Rousseau’s theory of social contract based on natural law and mill’s theory of group’s own right based on utilitarianism set up the banner of European liberalism and British American liberalism respectively.At present,there are some deficiencies in the comparison of the two social freedom views in the academic circle.Under the background of no great change in a century,it is of great theoretical and practical significance to compare the two social freedom views.Rousseau’s and mill’s views of social freedom are the result of the comprehensive effect of subjective and objective conditions.Different times and personal circumstances are the important reasons for different ideas,and their sources of free thought are also different.After all,Rousseau mainly integrated the tradition of natural law,social contract and freedom since the 17 th century,while mill mainly combined the freedom and utilitarianism that continued to the 19 th century,and then closed the gap between classical liberalism and modern liberalism.Through comparative analysis,it is found that Rousseau and mill have the same views on social freedom.They all think that equality is the basis of freedom,and the first thing of social freedom is egalitarian freedom;they think that power is the power to protect freedom,but social power can not be unlimited,which requires the restriction of social power applicable to individuals;among all kinds of powers,Rousseau and mill attach great importance to the important role of property rights in the maintenance of civil liberties;and they also think that self It is often accompanied by individuality and advocates to cultivate the individuality of social members through education.In terms of the ultimate guarantee of freedom,they all choose to use legal weapons.However,it should be noted that they are all against the phenomenon of "class legislation" within society.The differences of their views on social freedom are mainly shown in the following five aspects.First,the sources of the legitimacy of freedom rights are different.Rousseau gave the right of freedom legitimacy on the basis of natural law and mill’s utilitarianism.Second,there are different ways of social legislation to protect freedom.That is,Rousseau’s people’s direct legislation and mill’s people’s indirect legislation.Third,in the relationship between freedom and women,they have different views on women’s family status and social status,suggesting that women have different degrees of freedom.Fourth,there are different social positions to safeguard freedom.Rousseau based on the principle of majority "forced freedom",but mill "opposed the tyranny of the majority" to protect the interests of the minority.Fifth,there aredifferent views on social history of cognitive freedom.That is to say,Rousseau advocated the theory of social degradation,and thought that the freedom of human beings showed a downward trend from the natural state to the social state,while mill advocated the theory of social progress,which had a positive attitude towards the realization of social freedom in a real sense.Rousseau and mill’s concept of social freedom has made great contributions to people’s understanding and understanding of society and social governance,including the construction of social community and the regulation of new political and social relations,the legalization of social governance and the moralization of individual words and deeds.Moreover,Rousseau’s and mill’s views on social freedom are of great political significance.But there is no doubt that there are still some problems in their social freedom view,such as contradictions in the system,limitations of history and class.From the perspective of historical development,the transition from Rousseau’s view of social freedom to mill’s view of social freedom is a process of gradual division and decentralization within the society.The state(in the sense of government)and society are divided,from the sovereignty of the people to the checks and balances of power,from the rule of the people to the elite democracy.But their view of social freedom is always seeking a real manifestation of "public opinion".