National morality and what a people esteems are inseparable because human pleasures are determined by opinion rather than nature; since opinions derive from a people’s constitution and legislation, laws can give birth to morality but, once legislation has grown weak and morals have degenerated, censorship can at most preserve remaining morality and can never restore it.

By Jean-Jacques Rousseau, from Du contrat social

Key Arguments

  • Rousseau collapses the distinction between morals and objects of esteem: 'It is useless to distinguish the morality of a nation from the objects of its esteem; both depend on the same principle and are necessarily indistinguishable.'
  • He claims that opinion, not natural inclination, determines pleasures: 'There is no people on earth the choice of whose pleasures is not decided by opinion rather than nature.'
  • Correcting opinion automatically purifies morals: 'Right men’s opinions, and their morality will purge itself. Men always love what is good or what they find good; it is in judging what is good that they go wrong. This judgment, therefore, is what must be regulated.'
  • He connects moral judgment to honour and honour to opinion: 'He who judges of morality judges of honour; and he who judges of honour finds his law in opinion.'
  • Public opinions themselves are structurally grounded in a polity’s basic order: 'The opinions of a people are derived from its constitution; although the law does not regulate morality, it is legislation that gives it birth.'
  • When legislation becomes weak, morality decays beyond the reach of censorship: 'When legislation grows weak, morality degenerates; but in such cases the judgment of the censors will not do what the force of the laws has failed to effect.'
  • He therefore delimitates the scope of censorship in temporal terms: 'From this it follows that the censorship may be useful for the preservation of morality, but can never be so for its restoration.'
  • Censorship only works while the laws retain vigour; once that vigour is lost, all legitimate power loses effective force: 'Set up censors while the laws are vigorous; as soon as they have lost their vigour, all hope is gone; no legitimate power can retain force when the laws have lost it.'

Source Quotes

The censorial tribunal, so far from being the arbiter of the people’s opinion, only declares it, and, as soon as the two part company, its decisions are null and void. It is useless to distinguish the morality of a nation from the objects of its esteem; both depend on the same principle and are necessarily indistinguishable. There is no people on earth the choice of whose pleasures is not decided by opinion rather than nature.
It is useless to distinguish the morality of a nation from the objects of its esteem; both depend on the same principle and are necessarily indistinguishable. There is no people on earth the choice of whose pleasures is not decided by opinion rather than nature. Right men’s opinions, and their morality will purge itself.
There is no people on earth the choice of whose pleasures is not decided by opinion rather than nature. Right men’s opinions, and their morality will purge itself. Men always love what is good or what they find good; it is in judging what is good that they go wrong. This judgment, therefore, is what must be regulated. He who judges of morality judges of honour; and he who judges of honour finds his law in opinion.
He who judges of morality judges of honour; and he who judges of honour finds his law in opinion. The opinions of a people are derived from its constitution; although the law does not regulate morality, it is legislation that gives it birth. When legislation grows weak, morality degenerates; but in such cases the judgment of the censors will not do what the force of the laws has failed to effect.
When legislation grows weak, morality degenerates; but in such cases the judgment of the censors will not do what the force of the laws has failed to effect. From this it follows that the censorship may be useful for the preservation of morality, but can never be so for its restoration. Set up censors while the laws are vigorous; as soon as they have lost their vigour, all hope is gone; no legitimate power can retain force when the laws have lost it.

Key Concepts

  • It is useless to distinguish the morality of a nation from the objects of its esteem; both depend on the same principle and are necessarily indistinguishable.
  • There is no people on earth the choice of whose pleasures is not decided by opinion rather than nature.
  • Right men’s opinions, and their morality will purge itself. Men always love what is good or what they find good; it is in judging what is good that they go wrong. This judgment, therefore, is what must be regulated.
  • The opinions of a people are derived from its constitution; although the law does not regulate morality, it is legislation that gives it birth.
  • From this it follows that the censorship may be useful for the preservation of morality, but can never be so for its restoration.

Context

Early–middle part of Book IV, Chapter VII, where Rousseau grounds censorship in a theory of opinion, honour, constitution, and law, and sharply limits its role to conserving, not regenerating, public morals.