The general will and the will of all. Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

# Rousseau uses two terms to define two different wills: Generalwill and the will of all. According to Rousseau, in a society people can simultaneously have different, contradictory wills. A selfish, private will and a general, public will. The selfish private will should thus be called the will of all, and the general, public will should be called the Generalwill. I would now like to explain both of them in detail.<br><br><br><br>## The Will of All<br><br># The will of all is the sum of the selfish private wills of all people in a society. It is therefore called the "will of all", because it consists of the sum of each individual wills. A person's private will can be thought of as one's own interest in a particular thing. Looking at the example of a car, one can say that everyone wants to drive a car. The private will of the people seeks to satisfy their own selfish needs. But here comes the problem: If everyone wants to drive a car, then the costs of car production are too high and the road network would need to be expanded to meet demand. Because of this, a deficit will arise, as one person's selfish private will contradicts another person's selfish private will. From this it can be concluded: The selfish private will is the will of all, because every person has one. The selfish private will is therefore universal, but it is selfish. This means that selfish, private wills cannot be general, but universal.<br><br><br><br>## The Generalwill<br><br># The Generalwill, on the other hand, is the general, general interest that takes into account the interests of all people in a society. It is therefore called the "Generalwill", because it is general. The Generalwill is general because it takes into account the common good and the universal interest of all people. As already mentioned above, one person's selfish, private will can contradict another person's selfish, private will. So it can be said that the selfish private will is not necessary in the interests of all people. In contrast to the selfish private will, the Generalwill is in the public interest of all people. So it is naturally general and public. Because of this it is also general. The Generalwill is therefore universal and general.<br><br><br># I hope that both definitions have become clear to you and that you can now better understand Jean-Jacques Rousseau's philosophy in this regard.