Rawls et Rousseau: Liberté, citoyenneté et stabilité

This article reconstructs Rawls’s reading of Rousseau’s Second discourse and Social contract by focusing on the topics of self-esteem, autonomy, the general will, and stability. The aim is to better understand the Rousseauian legacy in Rawls’ political thought. When Rawls develops the notions of liberty and the sense of justice in A Theory of Justice, of public reason and citizenship in Political Liberalism, and of realistic utopia in The Law of Peoples, he relies to a large extent on his reading of Rousseau’s social and political philosophy. The idea is therefore to read Rawls through his reappropriation of Rousseau’s theses and concepts, and to show that this reappropriation led to something original and profoundly rich.