Compare And Contrast Burke And Rousseau's View Of Government
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Both Rousseau and Burke strongly believe in institutions as the best way to maintain government. Rousseau believes that civil society causes dependencies that can interfere with man’s liberty. Burke, on the other hand believes that institutions, being designed for the betterment of man, help to promote and enhance man’s liberty. For Rousseau, liberty is a freedom from dependencies. Burke however, is highly critical of liberty, which he finds can conflict with the design of government. Rousseau believes that citizens must take a direct part in government. He refutes a government led by a single individual, however he is also afraid of the tyranny of the majority. He believes that the solution to this problem is a social contract, or constitution that will unify the…show more content… Burke believes that government as a whole should depend more heavily on the judgment of its representatives than on the will of the people, due to the fact that its representatives were elected by the nation as they believed that said representatives possessed the required qualities necessary to make judgements in favour of the good of the people.
Even though Rousseau and Burke arrive at very similar conclusions about government, their views still differ drastically. Due to differing ideals however, the approach they take to answer the question of how government should be maintained varies. They have conflicting ideas on how institutions affect the people as a whole and what institutions should be put in place. Rousseau talks about how the development of civil society, and with that, the development of institutions creates dependencies and takes away from an individuals independence, which he calls negative freedom. Burke believes it is simply a matter of how liberty is