The Social Contract · Characters
Character guide
Key figures in The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
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Jean-Jacques Rousseau
major
Also known as Rousseau, himself
Rousseau speaks in the first person throughout, not as a distant theorist but as a citizen of Geneva reasoning aloud about why any person should obey any state. His central tension is that he wants humans to be both free and governed, and he insists the two are compatible only when each person submits to a will they helped author. The early chapters dismantle the divine right of kings and the right of the strongest, clearing ground for the social pact that will occupy the rest of the book.
Thomas Hobbes
supporting
Also known as Hobbes
Hobbes looms over the opening books as the thinker who reduced political society to a herd of cattle guarded by a ruler who devours them. Rousseau treats this as the logical endpoint of any theory that grounds obedience in force or natural inequality, and he sets out to prove the opposite. Hobbes matters because he sharpens the stakes: if the social contract is not real, his version of sovereignty is what remains.
Hugo Grotius
supporting
Also known as Grotius
Grotius appears early as the respectable legal authority who argued that individuals may alienate their liberty, and therefore whole peoples may too. Rousseau seizes on the verb: to alienate is to sell, and no people would sell itself to a king who lives off their labor. The exchange is one of the book's sharpest passages, and it establishes the principle that liberty cannot be traded away without ceasing to be human.
John Locke
supporting
Also known as Locke
Locke's presence is felt in the careful accounting Rousseau performs when he asks what the contracting parties actually exchange: natural independence for civil liberty, the power to harm for security, precarious strength for an invincible right. Where Locke grounds political society in the protection of property, Rousseau pushes further, insisting each person gives themselves wholly to the community and receives an equivalent in return. The tension between these two visions of consent runs through the middle books.
Niccolò Machiavelli
minor
Also known as Macchiavelli
Political thinker referenced regarding government and princely rule.
Montesquieu
minor
Also known as Montesquieu
Philosopher cited on laws, government forms, and climate theory.
Aristotle
minor
Also known as Aristotle
Ancient philosopher referenced on slavery and natural hierarchy.
Plato
minor
Also known as Plato
Greek philosopher mentioned in context of the Republic and ideal state.
Cicero
minor
Also known as Cicero
Roman statesman and orator cited on law and natural right.
Servius Tullius
minor
Also known as Servius
Roman king who reformed the comitia and census.
Cato the Elder
minor
Also known as Cato, the elder Cato
Roman censor and moralist cited on virtue and censorship.
Romulus
minor
Also known as Romulus
Legendary founder of Rome, referenced in political founding myths.
Lycurgus
minor
Also known as the great Lycurgus, Lycurgus
Legendary lawgiver of Sparta, cited for his constitution.
Caligula
minor
Also known as the Emperor Caligula, Caligula
Roman emperor cited as example of tyranny and absurd power.
Samuel
minor
Also known as Samuel
Biblical prophet who anointed kings, cited on monarchy.
Tacitus
minor
Also known as Tacitus
Roman historian cited on Germanic tribes and ancient customs.
Peter the Great
minor
Also known as Peter
Russian tsar cited as example of a legislator reforming a nation.
Emile
minor
Also known as Emile, the Emile, The Emile
Title character of Rousseau's earlier work on education, cited here.
John Calvin
minor
Also known as Calvin
Reformer referenced in discussion of civil religion and Geneva.
Immanuel Kant
minor
Also known as Kant
Philosopher cited on moral law and the categorical imperative.
Muhammad
minor
Also known as Muhammad
Prophet of Islam, referenced in discussion of civil religion.
John Austin
minor
Also known as Austin
Legal positivist cited on sovereignty and command theory.
James I and James II
minor
Also known as James I, James II
English monarchs referenced in context of divine right and absolutism.
M. Dreyfus-Brisac
minor
Also known as M. Dreyfus - Brisac, M. d’Alembert, M. d’Argenson
Editor or commentator referenced in endnotes or preface.
