Philosophy of the Philosophers: “EXAMINATION OF THE PURPOSE OF GOVERNMENT ACCORDING TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU AND THOMAS HOBBES AND THE REALITIES OF THE PHILIPPINE GOVERNMENT”: A Personal Reflection.

WENDELL G. WISCO

Abstract

This paper delves into the purpose of government through the philosophies of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Thomas Hobbes and the realities of the Philippine Government. Rousseau espouses that by joining together into civil society through the social contract and abandoning their claims of natural rights, individuals can both preserve themselves and remain free. This is because submission to the authority of the general will of the people as a whole guarantees individuals against being subordinated to the wills of others and also ensures that they obey themselves because they are, collectively, the authors of the law. On the other hand, Hobbes believes that the best we can hope for is peaceful life under an authoritarian-sounding sovereign. A “sovereign” authority that is totally unaccountable to its subjects.

These two philosophies are in unison to some degree because Rousseau promotes socialism and communism while Hobbes advocates an authoritarian sovereign. On the contrary, the Philippine government embraces democracy.

Keywords: government, society, sovereign, authority

Introduction

Rousseau claimed that the state of nature was a primitive condition without law or morality, which human beings left for the benefits and necessity of cooperation. As society developed, division of labour and private property required the human race to adopt institutions of law. In the degenerate phase of society, man is prone to be in frequent competition with his fellow men while also becoming increasingly dependent on them. This double pressure threatens both his survival and his freedom

By joining together into civil society through the social contract and abandoning their claims of natural rights, individuals can both preserve themselves and remain free. This is because submission to the authority of the general will of the people as a whole guarantees individuals against being subordinated to the wills of others and also ensures that they obey themselves because they are, collectively, the authors of the law. Although Rousseau argues that sovereignty (or the power to make the laws) should be in the hands of the people, he also makes a sharp distinction between the sovereign and the government (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Jacques_Rousseau).

Hobbes characterized men as equal; in the faculties of mind and body; in achieving goals; and in the exercise of man’s natural right to self-preservation (http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/hobbes/themes)

Societies according to Hobbes are created by men from their conscious desire to become part of a society. For Hobbes, Man is not naturally sociable; otherwise, men will not enter into an agreement to get out of the so-called “state of nature” which was explained by Hobbes in “Social Contract Theory”. Reason is distinctive to men in general as pointed out by Hobbes. Further, he opposed man being God seekers as envisioned by Christian philosophers. Man according to Hobbes is a power seeker that supports the Machiavellian theory that man is a creature ruled by self-interest.

The political theory of Hobbes can be viewed on a theory of human nature. Hobbes stressed that the equality of men in capacities, desires and goals and in the exercise of his natural right to self-preservation can lead to conflict. Since man by nature is in endless pursuit of power to protect himself, man is bound to dominate other man. As a consequence, this may lead to a condition of war because man as a rational being could reason that the only way to dominate other man is when he ceases to desire power. However, the same reason would create the realization that man to preserve his life should get out in the condition of war (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_nature).

The Government of the Philippines, also known as the Philippine National Government is the national government of the unitary state of the Republic of the Philippines. It is a presidential, representative, and democratic republic where the President of the Philippines is both the head of state and the head of government within a pluriform multi-party system. The government has three interdependent branches: the legislative branch, the executive branch, and the judicial branch. The powers of the branches are vested by the Constitution of the Philippines in the following: Legislative power is vested in the two-chamber Congress of the Philippines—the Senate is the upper chamber and the House of Representatives is the lower chamber. Executive power is exercised by the government under the leadership of the President. Judicial power is vested in the courts with the Supreme Court of the Philippines as the highest judicial body (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_thePhilippines).

The Life and Works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau

“No man has any natural authority over his fellow men.”

- Rousseau

Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a political philosopher and Freemason who was born in the independent Calvinist city-state of Geneva on June 28, 1712, the son of Isaac Rousseau, a watchmaker, and Suzanne Bernard. When Rousseau was 10 his father fled from Geneva to avoid imprisonment for a minor offence, leaving young Jean-Jacques to be raised by an aunt and uncle. Rousseau left Geneva at 16, wandering from place to place, before finally moving to Paris in 1742 (http://www.lucidcafe.com/library/96jun/rousseau.html).

Rousseau's profound insight can be found in almost every trace of modern philosophy today. Somewhat complicated and ambiguous, Rousseau's general philosophy tried to grasp an emotional and passionate side of man which he felt was left out of most previous philosophical thinking.

In his early writing, Rousseau contended that man is essentially good when in the "state of nature" (the state of all the other animals and the condition man was in before the creation of civilization and society), and that good people are made unhappy and corrupted by their experiences in society. He viewed society as "artificial" and "corrupt" and that the furthering of society results in the continuing unhappiness of man (http://www.lucidcafe.com/library/96jun/rousseau.html).

As a brilliant, undisciplined, and unconventional thinker, Jean-Jacques Rousseau spent most of his life being driven by controversy back and forth between Paris and his native Geneva. Rousseau sired but refused to support several illegitimate children and frequently initiated bitter quarrels with even the most supportive of his colleagues. Rousseau first attracted widespread attention in 1750 with his prize-winning essay Discourssur les Sciences et les Arts (Discourse on the Sciences and the Arts), in which he decried the harmful effects of modern civilization (http://www.philosophypages.com/ph/rous.htm).

Rousseau argued the pursuit of the arts and sciences had not been beneficial to mankind, it merely promoted idleness, and the resulting political inequality encouraged alienation. He concluded that material progress had actually undermined the possibility of sincere friendship, replacing it with jealousy, fear and suspicion. He proposed that the progress of knowledge had made governments more powerful, and crushed individual liberty (http://www.lucidcafe.com/library/96jun/rousseau.html).

When he moved back to Geneva in 1754 he reconverted to Calvinism from his previous conversion to Catholicism and began his work on Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, and later in 1762 began work on The Social Contract. The Discourse on the Origin of Inequality was written in 1754 by Rousseau in response to the question, “What is the origin of inequality among men, and is it authorized by natural law?” Rousseau responds by claiming that the two main inequalities are natural inequality, differences in physical being, and the much more harmful moral inequality which creates differences in power and wealth. He claims that civil society is based upon moral inequalities. He also claims that the natural man’s only care is self-preservation, there is no fear, anxiety, or jealousy as opposed to Hobbes’ opinion on the natural man. When a natural man is introduced into a society, emotions such as competition, self-comparison, hatred, and urge for power emerge. “Property is the beginning of evil,” claims Rousseau, yet at the same time he realizes that property is going to stay and as a result it needs to be protected. This is where civil society becomes necessary.

The Social Contract became one of Rousseau's most famous works. In this book, Rousseau states the idea that everyone is born free into a state of nature which is very primitive. This state is better left for the benefits of morality, necessity, and cooperation. For matters of private property and competition, a law must be made. These benefits can be given by joining a social contract and giving up natural rights for the greater good of the general will. Rousseau stresses direct democracy in an assembly similar to a city-state in which only the people can control legislation. The main idea of his Social Contract is to give up personal natural rights to living in a state of nature for civil society with rights for the greater good specifically the right of private property (http://apgovernmentchs.wikispaces.com/Locke,%20Hobbes,%20and%20Rosseau).

The Social Contract describes the relationship of man with society. Contrary to his earlier work, Rousseau claimed that the state of nature is a brutish condition without law or morality and that there are good men only as a result of society's presence. In the state of nature, man is prone to be in frequent competition with his fellow men. Because he can be more successful in facing threats by joining with other men, he has the impetus to do so. He joins together with his fellow men to form the collective human presence known as "society." The Social Contract is the "compact" agreed to among men that sets the conditions for membership in society (http://www.lucidcafe.com/library/96jun/rousseau.html)

Up to this day, Jean-Jacques Rousseau remains an important figure in the history of philosophy, both because of his contributions to political philosophy and moral psychology and because of his influence on later thinkers. Rousseau's own view of philosophy and philosophers was firmly negative, seeing philosophers as the post-hoc rationalizers of self-interest, as apologists for various forms of tyranny, and as playing a role in the alienation of the modern individual from humanity's natural impulse to compassion. The concern that dominates Rousseau's work is to find a way of preserving human freedom in a world where human beings are increasingly dependent on one another for the satisfaction of their needs. This concern has two dimensions: material and psychological, of which the latter has greater importance. In the modern world, human beings come to derive their very sense of self from the opinion of others, a fact which Rousseau sees as corrosive of freedom and destructive of individual authenticity. He principally explores two routes to achieving and protecting freedom: the first is a political one aimed at constructing political institutions that allow for the co-existence of free and equal citizens in a community where they themselves are sovereign; the second is a project for child development and education that fosters autonomy and avoids the development of the most destructive forms of self-interest. However, though Rousseau believes the co-existence of human beings in relations of equality and freedom is possible, he is consistently and overwhelmingly pessimistic that humanity will escape from a dystopia of alienation, oppression, and unfreedom (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rousseau/)

Rousseau’s final years were largely spent in deliberate withdrawal. He suffered a haemorrhage and died at age 66 while taking a morning walk on the estate of the Marquis René Louis de Girardin at Ermenonville, 28 miles northeast of Paris (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Jacques_Rousseau).

The Life and Works of Thomas Hobbes

“It is not wisdom but Authority that makes a law.”

- Hobbes

Thomas Hobbes was born on 5 April 1588 on his hometown of Malmesbury, which is in Wiltshire, England. Hobbes left Malmesbury (in 1602 or 1603), in order to study at Magdalen Hall, Oxford. After graduating from Oxford in February 1608, Hobbes went to work for the Cavendish family, initially as a tutor to William Cavendish, who later became the second earl of Devonshire. Hobbes would work for the same family for most of the rest of his life. His work for the Cavendish family is part of what allowed Hobbes to think and write as he did: it gave him access to books and connections to other philosophers and scientists (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hobbes/).

Hobbes's current reputation rests largely on his political philosophy, was a thinker with wide-ranging interests. In philosophy, he defended a range of materialist, nominalist, and empiricist views against Cartesian and Aristotelian alternatives. In physics, his work was influential on Leibniz, and led him into disputes with Boyle and the experimentalists of the early Royal Society. In history, he translated Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War into English, and later wrote his own history of the Long Parliament. In mathematics, he was less successful and is best remembered for his repeated unsuccessful attempts to square the circle. But despite that, Hobbes was a serious and prominent participant in the intellectual life of his time (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hobbes/)

Hobbes first made a notable impact with philosophical writings in the early 1640s. These included his Elements of Law and De Cive. The Elements of Law, which Hobbes circulated in 1640, is the first work in which Hobbes follows his typical systematic pattern of starting with the workings of the mind and language and developing the discussion towards political matters. De Cive (1642) was Hobbes's first published book of political philosophy. This work focuses more narrowly on the political: its three main sections are titled “Liberty”, “Empire” and “Religion”. However, De Cive was conceived as part of a larger work, the Elements of Philosophy. That work eventually had three parts: De Corpore (1655), De Homine (1658), and De Cive itself. De Corporecovers issues of logic, language, method, metaphysics, mathematics, and physics. De Homine, meanwhile, focuses on matters of physiology and optics.

Late in his time in France, Hobbes wrote Leviathan, which was published in 1651.The Leviathan is the most complete expression of Hobbes' philosophy. It begins with a clearly materialistic account of human nature and knowledge, a rigidly deterministic account of human volition, and a pessimistic vision of the consequently natural state of human beings in perpetual struggle against each other. It is to escape this grim fate, Hobbes argued, that we form the commonwealth, surrendering our individual powers to the authority of an absolute sovereign. For Hobbes, then, individual obedience to even an arbitrary government is necessary in order to forestall the greater evil of an endless state of war (http://www.philosophypages.com/ph/hobb.htm).

In the introduction to the book Leviathan, Hobbes describes the state as an organism, showing how each part of the state functions similarly to parts of a human body. As the state is created by human beings, he first sets out to describe human nature. He advises that we may look into ourselves to see a picture of general humanity. He believes that all acts are ultimately self-serving, even when they seem benevolent, and that in a state of nature, prior to any formation of government, humans would behave completely selfish. He remarks that all humans are essentially mentally and physically equal, and because of this, we are naturally prone to fight each other. He cites three natural reasons that humans fight: competition over material good, general distrust, and the glory of powerful positions. Hobbes comes to the conclusion that humanity's natural condition is a state of perpetual war, constant fear, and lack of morality. He stated that morality consists of Laws of Nature. These Laws, arrived at through social contract, are found out by reason and are aimed to preserve human life (http://www.studymode.com/essays/Thomas-Hobbes-125659.html?topic).

Hobbes called for an all-powerful sovereign (the "Leviathan") who would serve the interests of the larger political community (i.e. England) by holding it tightly together under his sovereign authority—to curb the kind of human wantonness experienced in the Wars of Religion. For Hobbes, such powerful rule was not to be founded on the ancient rule of "divine rights" of monarchs—but based on the needs, even rights of the community to be served by such an all-powerful ruler. In justifying this utilitarian approach to state-building, he used "natural" theory or logic rather than scripture or tradition, putting forth the first efforts to establish a modern "political science" (http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/hobbes/

hobbes_life.html).

After his return to England in 1651, Hobbes continued to publish philosophical works for several years. De Corpore was published in 1655, and provides Hobbes's main statements on several topics, such as method and the workings of language. De Homine was published in 1658, completing the plan of the Elements of Philosophy (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hobbes/).

Hobbes is also famous for his elaborate development of what has come to be known as “social contract theory”, the method of justifying political principles or arrangements by appeal to the agreement that would be made among suitably situated rational, free, and equal persons. He is infamous for having used the social contract method to arrive at the astonishing conclusion that we ought to submit to the authority of an absolute—undivided and unlimited—sovereign power. While his methodological innovation had a profound constructive impact on subsequent work in political philosophy, his substantive conclusions have served mostly as a foil for the development of more palatable philosophical positions. Hobbes's moral philosophy has been less influential than his political philosophy, in part because that theory is too ambiguous to have garnered any general consensus as to its content. Most scholars have taken Hobbes to have affirmed some sort of personal relativism or subjectivism; but views that Hobbes espoused divine command theory, virtue ethics, rule egoism, or a form of projectivism also find support in Hobbes's texts and among scholars. Because Hobbes held that “the true doctrine of the Laws of Nature is the true Moral Philosophy”, differences in interpretation of Hobbes's moral philosophy can be traced to differing understandings of the status and operation of Hobbes' “laws of nature”. The formerly dominant view that Hobbes espoused psychological egoism as the foundation of his moral theory is currently widely rejected, and there has been to date no fully systematic study of Hobbes's moral psychology (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hobbes-moral/)

His attack in Leviathan on the academic credentials at Oxford brought a sharp rebuttal from several mathematics professors there, which then Hobbes answered in an appendix to a published English translation of De Corpore. This debate degenerated into an attack by Hobbes on Robert Boyle and the group then in the process of forming the Royal Society—an institution dedicated to promoting empirical research, a stepping away from the deductive methods employed by Hobbes and the continental Rationalists. This debate got personal and public—in several publications that carried the argument back and forth, especially with his nemesis John Wallis. Wallis at one point even accused Hobbes of disloyalty to the king but King Charles was still well-disposed to his former tutor—though many in the royalist ranks were not, especially over Hobbes' "atheism", demonstrated by his attacks on the church in his Leviathan. By the mid-1660 both the Great Fire of London and outbreaks of the plague in England stirred the superstitions of the day—and led the government to be vigilant in ferreting out heresies that might be responsible for bringing the wrath of God on English society. Hobbes thus came under scrutiny for heresy

Though the heresy furore eventually abated, Hobbes was barred from printing any more of his writings on social issues. Though Hobbes had promised his protector Charles II to not stir up further controversy, the publication in 1679 of Behemoth: The History of the Causes of the Civil Wars of England, put Hobbes in jeopardy. His death that same year at age 90 spared him from the wrath of the royalist party (http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/hobbes/hobbesbio.htm)

In October 1679, Hobbes suffered a bladder disorder, which was followed by a paralytic stroke from which he died on 4 December 1679. He is said to have uttered the last words "A great leap in the dark" in his final moments of life. He was interred within St. John the Baptist Church in Ault Hucknall in Derbyshire, England.

Views on Government by Rousseau and Hobbes

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Rousseau was one of the first modern writers to seriously attack the institution of private property, and therefore is considered a forebear of modern socialism and communism Rousseau also questioned the assumption that the will of the majority is always correct. He argued that the goal of government should be to secure freedom, equality, and justice for all within the state, regardless of the will of the majority (http://www.lucidcafe.com/library/96jun/rousseau.html)

In The Social Contract, Rousseau outlines the basis for a legitimate political order within a framework of classical republicanism. Published in 1762, it became one of the most influential works of political philosophy in the Western tradition (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Jacques_Rousseau).

Every free action has two causes which concur to produce it; one of them is the will that determines the act, and the other is the power that performs it. In the political body, one must distinguish between these two - the legislative power and the executive power. The executive power cannot belong to the sovereign, since executive acts are particular acts, aimed at individuals, and therefore, as already explained, outside the sovereign's sphere. Public force, then, requires an agent to apply it according to the direction of the general will.

This is the government, erroneously confounded with the sovereign, of which it is only the minister. It is an intermediary body established between subjects and sovereigns for their mutual correspondence, for the execution of the laws and the maintenance of civil and political liberty.

The magistrates who form the government may be numerous, or may be few; and, generally speaking, the fewer the magistrates the stronger the government. A magistrate has three wills--his personal will, his will as one of the governors and his will as a member of the sovereign. The last-named is the weakest, the first-named the most powerful.

If there is only one governor, the two stronger wills are concentrated in one man; with a few governors, they are concentrated in few men; when the government is in the hands of all the citizens, the second will be obliterated and the first widely distributed, and the government is consequently weak.

On the other hand, where there are many governors the government will be more readily kept in correspondence with the general will. The legislator has to hit the happy medium at which the government, while not failing in strength, is yet properly submissive to the sovereign.

The sovereign may, in the first place, entrust the government to the whole people or the greater part of them; this form is called democracy. Or it may be placed in the hands of a minority, in which case it is called aristocracy. Or it may be concentrated in the hands of a single magistrate from whom all the others derive their power; this is called monarchy.

It may be urged, on behalf of democracy, that those who make the laws know better than anybody how they should be interpreted and administered. But it is not right that the makers of the laws should execute them, nor that the main body of the people should turn its attention from general views to particular objects. Nothing is more dangerous than the influence of private interests on public affairs. A true democracy, in the vigorous sense of the term, never has existed, and never will. It is against nature that the many should govern and the few be governed. A people composed of gods would govern itself democratically (http://www.publicbookshelf.com/public_html/Outline_of_Great_Books_Volume_I/socialconbhc.html).

According to Rousseau, by joining together into civil society through the social contract and abandoning their claims of natural rights, individuals can both preserve themselves and remain free. This is because submission to the authority of the general will of the people as a whole guarantees individuals against being subordinated to the wills of others and also ensures that they obey themselves because they are, collectively, the authors of the law.

Although Rousseau argues that sovereignty (or the power to make the laws) should be in the hands of the people, he also makes a sharp distinction between the sovereign and the government. The government is composed of magistrates, charged with implementing and enforcing the general will. The "sovereign" is the rule of law, ideally decided on by direct democracy in an assembly.

Rousseau opposed the idea that the people should exercise sovereignty via a representative assembly. He approved the kind of republican government of the city-state, for which Geneva provided a model - or would have done if renewed on Rousseau's principles. Much subsequent controversy about Rousseau's work has hinged on disagreements concerning his claims that citizens constrained to obey the general will are thereby rendered free (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Jacques_Rousseau).

The notion of the general will is wholly central to Rousseau's theory of political legitimacy. It is, however, an unfortunately obscure and controversial notion. Some commentators see it as no more than the dictatorship of the proletariat or the tyranny of the urban poor (such as may perhaps be seen in the French Revolution). Such was not Rousseau's meaning. This is clear from the Discourse on Political Economy, where Rousseau emphasizes that the general will exists to protect individuals against the masses, not to require them to be sacrificed to it. He is, of course, sharply aware that men have selfish and sectional interests which will lead them to try to oppress others. It is for this reason that loyalty to the good of all must be a supreme (although not exclusive) commitment by everyone, not only if a truly general will is to be heeded but also if it is to be formulated successfully in the first place (Edward Craig, Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Volume Eight, p. 371).

Thomas Hobbes

Hobbes is the founding father of modern political philosophy. Directly or indirectly, he has set the terms of debate about the fundamentals of political life right into our own times. The problems of political life mean that a society should accept an unaccountable sovereign as its sole political authority. Nonetheless, we still live in the world that Hobbes addressed head-on: a world where human authority is something that requires justification and is automatically accepted by few; a world where social and political inequality also appears questionable; and a world where religious authority faces significant dispute (http://www.iep.utm.edu/hobmoral/).

Thomas Hobbes sees humans from a mechanistic view that life is simply the motions of the organism and believes that a state of nature in humankind will eventually become a state of war of all against all. He attempted to justify the absolute power of the sovereign based on a hypothetical social contract in which individuals seek to protect themselves from one another by agreeing to obey the sovereign in all matters. The key element in Hobbes’s view on human nature was the importance of desires. He believes Law is the regulation over humankind’s essential selfishness. In Thomas Hobbes’s perspective, positive law is the idea that law and humankind`s natural rights come from the state. Human action can be explained in purely mechanical terms, and human beings are governed by passion (http://www.studymode.com/essays/Thomas-Hobbes-Biography-And-View-On-175796.html).

Hobbes asserted that a man in a state of nature, without government, has self-preservation as their primary objective and will do anything to further their own survival, no matter the cost to others.

Hobbes felt that the role of the state was very limited. He advocated for a government, run at the consent of the governed, whose only responsibilities were the protection of the people, protection from foreign enemies, and to provide police to ensure domestic tranquillity. He believed in the power or a single sovereign who had unlimited power in order to maintain the peace, but who offered the most independence for individuals possible. The people, according to Hobbes, do not have a right to rebel against the government, because without the government, men will go back into a state of nature, ensuring their destruction
(http://apgovernmentchs.wikispaces.com/Locke,%20Hobbes,%20and%20Rosseau).

Hobbes sought to discover rational principles for the construction of a civil polity that would not be subject to destruction from within. He came to the view that the burdens of even the most oppressive government are “scarcely sensible, in respect of the miseries, and horrible calamity that accompany a civil war. Because virtually any government would be better than a civil war, and, according to Hobbes's analysis, all but absolute governments are systematically prone to dissolution into civil war, people ought to submit themselves to absolute political authority. Continued stability will require that they also refrain from the sorts of actions that might undermine such a regime. For example, subjects should not dispute the sovereign power and under no circumstances should they rebel. In general, Hobbes aimed to demonstrate the reciprocal relationship between political obedience and peace.

To establish these conclusions, Hobbes summons us to consider what life would be like in a state of nature, that is, a condition without government. Perhaps we would imagine that people might fare best in such a state, where each decides for herself how to act, and is judge, jury and executioner in her own case whenever disputes arise—and that at any rate, this state is the appropriate baseline against which to judge the justifiability of political arrangements. Hobbes terms this situation “the condition of mere nature”, a state of perfectly private judgment, in which there is no agency with recognized authority to arbitrate disputes and effective power to enforce its decisions.

When people mutually covenant with each to other to obey a common authority, they have established what Hobbes calls “sovereignty by institution”. When threatened by a conqueror, they covenant for protection by promising obedience, they have established “sovereignty by acquisition”. These are equally legitimate ways of establishing sovereignty, according to Hobbes, and their underlying motivation is the same—namely fear—whether of one's fellows or of a conqueror. The social covenant involves both the renunciation or transfer of rights and the authorization of the sovereign power. Political legitimacy depends not on how a government came to power but only on whether it can effectively protect those who have consented to obey it; political obligation ends when protection ceases.

Although Hobbes offered some mild pragmatic grounds for preferring monarchy to other forms of government, his main concern was to argue that effective government—whatever its form—must have absolute authority. Its powers must be neither divided nor limited. The powers of legislation, adjudication, enforcement, taxation, war-making (and the less familiar right of control of normative doctrine) are connected in such a way that a loss of one may thwart the effective exercise of the rest; for example, legislation without interpretation and enforcement will not serve to regulate conduct. Only a government that possesses all of what Hobbes terms the “essential rights of sovereignty” can be reliably effective, since partial sets of these rights are held by different bodies that disagree in their judgments as to what is to be done, paralysis of effective government, or degeneration into a civil war to settle their dispute, may occur.

While Hobbes insists that we should regard our governments as having absolute authority, he reserves to subjects the liberty of disobeying some of their government's commands. He argues that subjects retain a right of self-defence against the sovereign power, giving them the right to disobey or resist when their lives are in danger. He also gives them seemingly broad resistance rights in cases in which their families or even their honour are at stake. Moreover, if the sovereign's failure to provide adequate protection to subjects extinguishes their obligation to obey, and if it is left to each subject to judge for herself the adequacy of that protection, it seems that people have never really exited the fearsome state of nature (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hobbes-moral/).

Philippine Government’s Reality

Constitutional Framework

The Philippines has a long history of democratic constitutional development. The Malolos Constitution of 1898-99 reflected the aspirations of educated Filipinos to create a polity as enlightened as any in the world. That first constitution was modelled on those of France, Belgium, and some of the South American republics. Powers were divided, but the legislature was supreme. A bill of rights guaranteed individual liberties. The church was separated from the state, but this provision was included only after a long debate and passed only by a single vote. The Malolos Constitution was in effect only briefly; United States troops soon installed a colonial government, which remained in effect until the establishment of the Philippine Commonwealth in 1935.

The 1935 constitution, drawn up under the terms of the Tydings-McDuffie Act, which created the Philippine Commonwealth, also served as a basis for an independent Philippine government from 1946 until 1973. The framers of the Commonwealth Constitution were not completely free to choose any type of government they wanted, since their work had to be approved by United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt, but as many were legal scholars familiar with American constitutional law, they produced a document strongly modelled on the United States Constitution. The 1935 constitution differed from the United States document in only two important respects: Government was unitary rather than federal, local governments were subject to general supervision by the president, and the president could declare an emergency and temporarily exercise near-dictatorial power. This latter provision was used by Marcos after September 1972, when he declared martial law.

The 1935 constitution seemed to serve the nation well. It gave the Philippines twenty-six years of stable, constitutional government during a period when a number of other Asian states were succumbing to military dictatorship or communist revolution. By the late 1960s, however, many Filipinos came to believe that the constitution only provided a democratic political cloak for a profoundly oligarchic society. A constitutional convention was called to rewrite the basic law of the land.

The delegates selected to rewrite the constitution hoped to retain its democratic essence while deleting parts deemed to be unsuitable relics of the colonial past. They hoped to produce a genuinely Filipino document. But before their work could be completed, Marcos declared martial law and manipulated the constitutional convention to serve his purposes. The 1973 constitution was a deviation from the Philippines' commitment to democratic ideals. Marcos abolished Congress and ruled by presidential decree from September 1972 until 1978, when a parliamentary government with a legislature called the National Assembly replaced the presidential system. But Marcos exercised all the powers of the president under the old system plus the powers of the prime minister under the new system. When Marcos was driven from office in 1986, the 1973 constitution also was jettisoned.

After Aquino came to power, on March 25, 1986, she issued Presidential Proclamation No. 3, which promulgated an interim "Freedom Constitution" that gave Aquino sweeping powers theoretically even greater than those Marcos had enjoyed, although she promised to use her emergency powers only to restore democracy, not to perpetuate herself in power. She claimed that she needed a free hand to restore democracy, revive the economy, gain control of the military, and repatriate some of the national wealth that Marcos and his partners had purloined. Minister of Justice Neptali Gonzales described the Freedom Constitution as "civilian in character, revolutionary in origin, democratic in essence, and transitory in character." The Freedom Constitution was to remain in effect until a new legislature was convened and a constitutional convention could write a new, democratic constitution to be ratified by national plebiscite.

Although many Filipinos thought delegates to the Constitutional Commission should be elected, Aquino appointed them, saying that the Philippines could not afford the time or expense of an election. On May 25, 1986, she selected forty-four names from hundreds suggested by her cabinet and the public. She appointed respected, prominent citizens and, to be on the safe side, prohibited them from running for office for one year after the constitution's ratification. Delegates had the same profile as those who had drawn up the constitutions of 1898 and 1935: they were wealthy and well educated. They represented a range of political stances: some were leftists and some were ardent nationalists, but moderate conservatives held a majority.

The constitution, one of the longest in the world, establishes three separate branches of government called departments: executive, legislative, and judicial. A number of independent commissions are mandated: the Commission on Elections and the Commission on Audit are continued from the old constitution, and two others, the Commission on Human Rights and the Commission on Good Government, were formed in reaction to Marcos's abuses. The Commission on Good Government is charged with the task of repossessing ill-gotten wealth acquired during the Marcos regime.

The church and state are separated, but Catholic influence can be seen in parts of the Constitution. An article on the family downplays birth control; another clause directs the state to protect the life of the unborn beginning with conception; and still another clause abolishes the death penalty. Church-owned land also is tax-exempt.

The explosive issue of agrarian reform is treated gingerly. The state is explicitly directed to undertake the redistribution of land to those who till it, but "just compensation" must be paid to present owners, and Congress (expected to be dominated by landowners) is given the power to prescribe limits on the amount of land that can be retained. To resolve the controversial issue of United States military bases, the Constitution requires that any future agreement must be in the form of a treaty that is ratified by two-thirds of the Senate and, if the Congress requires, ratified by a majority of the votes cast in a national referendum.

Many provisions lend a progressive spirit to the Constitution, but these provisions are symbolic declarations of the framers' hopes and are unenforceable. For example, the state is to make decent housing available to underprivileged citizens. Priority is to be given to the sick, elderly, disabled, women, and children. Wealth and political power are to be diffused for the common good. The state shall maintain honesty and integrity in the public service. To be implemented, all of these declarations of intent required legislation

Aquino scheduled a plebiscite on the new constitution for February 2, 1987. The plebiscite was fairly conducted and orderly. An overwhelming three-to-one vote approved of the Constitution, confirmed Aquino in office until 1992, and dealt a stunning defeat to her critics. Above all else the victory indicated a vote for stability in the midst of turmoil. There was only one ominous note--a majority of the military voted against the referendum. Aquino proclaimed the new Constitution in effect on February 11, 1987, and made all members of the military swear loyalty to it (http://countrystudies.us/philippines/79.htm).

Politics

In 1991 Philippine politics resembled nothing so much as the "good old days" of the pre-martial law period--wide-open, sometimes irresponsible, but undeniably free. Pre-martial law politics, however, essentially were a distraction from the nation's serious problems. The parties were completely non-ideological. Therefore, politicians and officeholders switched parties whenever it seemed advantageous to do so. Almost all politicians were wealthy, and many were landlords with large holdings. They blocked moves for social reform; indeed, they seemed not to have even imagined that society required serious reform. Congress acquired a reputation for corruption that made the few honest members stand out. When Marcos closed down Congress in 1972, hardly anyone was disappointed except the members themselves.

The February 1986 People's Power Revolution, also called the EDSA Revolution had restored all the prerequisites of democratic politics: freedom of speech and press, civil liberties, regularly scheduled elections for genuine legislatures, plebiscites, and ways to ensure honest ballot counting. But by 1991 the return to irrelevant politics had caused a sense of hopelessness to creep back into the nation; where five years before had been riding the euphoric crest of a non-violent democratic revolution. In 1986 it seemed that democracy would have one last chance to solve the Philippines' deep-rooted social and economic problems. Within five years, it seems to many observers that the net result of democracy was to put the country back where it had been before Marcos: a democratic political system disguising an oligarchic society (http://countrystudies.us/philippines/82.htm).

Conclusion

The Social Contract, arguably Rousseau's most important work, outlines the basis for a legitimate political order within a framework of classical republicanism. The government is composed of magistrates, charged with implementing and enforcing the general will. The "sovereign" is the rule of law, ideally decided on by direct democracy in an assembly.

The notion of the general will is wholly central to Rousseau's theory of political legitimacy.It is, however, an unfortunately obscure and controversial notion. Some commentators see it as no more than the dictatorship of the proletariat or the tyranny of the urban poor. Such was not Rousseau's meaning. This is clear from the Discourse on Political Economy, where Rousseau emphasizes that the general will exists to protect individuals against the masses, not to require them to be sacrificed to it. He is, of course, sharply aware that men have selfish and sectional interests which will lead them to try to oppress others. It is for this reason that loyalty to the good of all alike must be a supreme (although not exclusive) commitment by everyone, not only if a truly general will is to be heeded but also if it is to be formulated successfully in the first place

Hobbes believes that the government can guarantee that people will not harm one another, instead, they would be able to rely on one another to keep their agreements. In establishing a government, people give up some of their personal freedom and give the government the authority to enforce laws and agreements. According to Social Contract Theory, “the state exists to enforce the rules necessary for social living, while morality consists in the whole set of rules that facilitate social living”. Thus, the government is needed to enforce the basic rules of social living

The aim of the social contract is to create social order, ending the state of nature and making it possible for people to cooperate and produce social goods. For the contract to best achieve its aims, everyone must become part of the contract. Looking at it in the present dimension, Hobbes's explanation of the contract is best seen in the way we live our lives. The basics that most of us are enjoying under the contract are prohibitions against murder, assault, theft, etc. which are being imposed by the police force. The army on the other hand protects society from outside threats. Our civil rights are also protected through the criminal justice system. Freedom of Speech, freedom of religion freedom from arbitrary discrimination and the protection of the environment are among the basic things necessary for the survival of the society that are being protected under the social contract.

Hobbes believes that the best state is one led by a single sovereign whose power must be unrestricted with all three branches of government devolving to him, a single sovereign who has absolute power and cannot be replaced by the people.

The Philippine government is still beset with a myriad of problems because it is still a relatively young democracy. Criticism of the government from all parts of the political spectrum is very prevalent. Filipino communists refused to participate in a government they saw as a thin cover for oligarchy. The sweeping reforms that the current administration is conducting are a welcome respite to the anarchy that the previous governments have seemed to tolerate. Hopefully, the Aquino administration will be able to resolve the Philippines’ deeply rooted structural and cultural problems which would be enough to direct our political democracy and government as a whole to stability and progress.

References:

Edward Craig, Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Volume Eight, p. 371

http://apgovernmentchs.wikispaces.com/Locke,%20Hobbes,%20and%20Rosseau

http://countrystudies.us/philippines/79.htm

http://countrystudies.us/philippines/82.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Jacques_Rousseau

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_the Philippines

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_nature

http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/hobbes/ hobbes_life.html

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hobbes/

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hobbes-moral/

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rousseau/