Key Arguments

• Rousseau emphatically elevates the normativity of social order: "the social order is a sacred right which is the basis of all other rights," indicating that legitimate social organization underpins every other claim to right.
• He immediately denies that this foundational right is given by nature: "Nevertheless, this right does not come from nature," thereby distinguishing political right from natural fact or natural hierarchy.
• From the denial of a natural basis he infers that the basis must be artificial: the right "must therefore be founded on conventions," implying that legitimacy arises from agreed arrangements (conventions, compacts, or contracts) rather than natural superiority or force.

Source Quotes

If I took into account only force, and the effects derived from it, I should say: “As long as a people is compelled to obey, and obeys, it does well; as soon as it can shake off the yoke, and shakes it off, it does still better; for, regaining its liberty by the same right as took it away, either it is justified in resuming it, or there was no justification for those who took it away.” But the social order is a sacred right which is the basis of all other rights. Nevertheless, this right does not come from nature, and must therefore be founded on conventions.

But the social order is a sacred right which is the basis of all other rights. Nevertheless, this right does not come from nature, and must therefore be founded on conventions.

Key Concepts

• But the social order is a sacred right which is the basis of all other rights.
• Nevertheless, this right does not come from nature, and must therefore be founded on conventions.

Context

Closing sentences of Chapter I, where Rousseau transitions from criticizing force to announcing that he will seek the foundations of legitimate authority in human conventions, paving the way for the social contract doctrine.