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Passage: Rousseau’s 'The Social Contract' famously begins with the declaration that 'Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.' While his Enlightenment peers focused on individual rights against the state, Rousseau introduced the 'General Will'—a collective moral intelligence that transcends the sum of individual interests. For Rousseau, true freedom is not the absence of restraint but the obedience to a law one has prescribed for oneself through the collective. Critics argue this concept is dangerously nebulous, potentially providing a democratic veneer for totalizing state power. If the General Will is always right, then the individual dissenter is not merely a minority voice, but someone who is 'mistaken' about their own freedom.
Which of the following, if true, would most seriously weaken Rousseau’s argument regarding the General Will as a source of freedom?
- Historical data showing that collective decisions frequently result in the marginalization of vulnerable sub-groups.
- Evidence that most ordinary individuals struggle to fully understand complex legislative and legal documents.
- A sociological study finding that individuals often feel considerably more free when part of a larger collective purpose.
- The biographical observation that Rousseau himself struggled to live consistently according to his own social theories.
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