Why, according to Rousseau, is the general will always upright and tending to the public advantage? The central political concept in Jean--Jacques Rousseau's writings was his 'general will' theory; it dominates his work 'The Social Contract'. The general will in society may be coarsely defined as the existence of an objective common good; furthermore the state will express the general will through policies that pursue this common good. In The Social Contract Rousseau wrote 'The …showed first 75 words of 1440 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1440 total…nd thus our own well-being. However, it seems unlikely that in a modern state citizens will automatically obey laws without any coercion or force even if the law is entirely in society's interest (e.g. wearing seatbelts). It is a vast oversimplification to assume that all conflicting political issues can be wholly resolved through compromise; where there are significant social cleavages it is not always possible to choose between two interests without oppressing one faction.