The concept of general will , conceived by Jean-Jacques Rousseau in Of the social contract , indicates the will emanating of a group of individuals and being exerted in return on all these individuals, without social distinction.

In this, this will is distinguished from the particular will, by which each individual seeks his personal good. It is on the general will which the social Contract rests.

General will in Emile or Of education

“At the moment that the people consider in particular one or more his members, the people divide. It is formed between the whole and its part a relation which makes of them two separated beings, of which the part is one, and the whole minus this part is the different one. But the whole minus a part is not the whole; as long as this report/ratio remains it thus does not have there more whole, but two unequal parts.

On the contrary when all the people rule on all the people, he considers only itself, and if it is formed a ratio, it is whole object under a point of view with the whole object under another point of view, without any division of the whole. Then the object on which one statue is general, and the will which statue is also general. ” (Emile or Of education, delivers V, Pléiade, p. 842.)

General will in Of the social contract

The “general will” (or will of the people) founds the Légitimité political power.

The forces of the State can only be directed by the general will (the agreement of the private interests) for tending towards the Community property. The popular Souveraineté can be deputy, in accordart temporarily with the will of a man, but could not subject itself in the duration to the will of only one man.

Influence

This concept had a great influence on the large speakers of the French revolution; it is explicitly mentioned, for example, in the Déclaration of the women's rights and of the citizen of Olympe de Gouges.

This concept influenced also much John Rawls for the construction of its concept of Voile of ignorance.